SWEAR BY APOLLO

BY 

SHIRLEY BARKER

R,l N D O M 1-1 0 U S E

(I) ('opyr,glit, TgsS7, by Silirlev Barker
AII riglZts reserved under Inter7Zatio7Znl a7?d
Pan-~177!e7-ican
(copyright ('onventions. I'ul7lislzed in Mew York
I7y T~ando7n
Tl07rse, Inc., and sirnulta77eo~fsly in Toronto,
(Canada, by
  Random House of C'anada, Limited.
 MANUFACTUlihD IN THE tlNITED STAThS
OF A~lElilCA
                  
         Fur
 El iota S I IANNON
IlOWLES
Froin her "second daughter!
          
C O N T E N T S

 I Past and Prologue                    3
 II A Kiss and a Drink of Water         T6
 III A Handsome B?~cko                  24
 IV A Good Evening                      36
 v A Man's Errand                       49
 Vl Ugly Goes to the Bonc               60
 Vll A Matter for Women                 70
 VIII It Was Not 1                      84
 IX MacNeill of Barra                   95
 x The Darker Mystery                   I08
 XI No Law of Nature                    12I
 XII Two and the l ire                  I30
 Xlll No Death in Scotland              I39
 XIV What's between Taischers           149
 xv If Ye Wait at the Ferrv             I58
 XVI A Fair-haired Man to a Dark-haired W01~ZailI63
 XVII Brittle Bail                      I 76
 XVIII The Strcmge Ways of (god         I 89
 XIX By Health and All-hea1             I99
 xx A Bitter Bad Judge o' lt01~len      2I2
 XXI War, Red War                       220
 XXII When tire Pot Boils               229
 XXIII This I Learned in Scotland       237

I sw7~ar2 b7:y ApoLlo, the ph)siciatz, and AesculapiZ's, anc
Health, am?? Illl-heal, and all thc gods an/l goddesses, that, ac
cording to 1ny a17i!ity a ?vZ jz/ag1r/cnt' I ZVi1i keep this
Oath and t1zis

stipalatiort.

 I will,follow tl7at systerr7 of r~'girilc?l whicil, accordi1?g to
7ny a77ility ar2d jud,~1nent, I consiacr for the l7enefit of 1ny
patie1?ts, and al7stain from u7h.atever is deleterioZ's anl7
1nisc77ievo~rs. I frill give no deadly medicine to a11y o17e
if a iked, nor s'~g~gest any such cou?tsel.... With pZ~rity
and with holiness 7 uill pass rny life arzd practice Vly Art....

 Into whatel7er houses I enter, 1 will g 7 into the?rz tor the
l7enefit of the sicle, and uill a7i7stai?? fro!/? every
vo1fir1tary act ot 1t1ischief and corruption; ar?d. fZ'rthe1,
f70r1t tl?c sedZ`ctio11 of fe1nates.... While I continZi:e to
1~cep tllis O`-~tl~l ?~/?vi›:;latcl, n~ay it 77e granted to
1ne to e/:ljoy life a1?d tile practi' e of the art, respected 77y
all 1r?en, in all ti1nes! l~ut stlofild I trespass an~i7 viahrtc
this oat7?' 1nay t1'e reverse 77e Mty lot!

'; W E A R B Y A P O L L O

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He?b~zi2~'an
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   Na~nes cl,2e ,yiven witJ~ (laelic mea,~in,qs
(.albun~ was fon sheep Lon~owan/culfil~ffe2~ Lan?>

 A~bmoR~fo-~caffle.Bal5/~hinn,~evilia~e

            Past and PnoLo,~ae

THE LAST green afternoon of his boyhood, Randall
Woodbury went out with his gun and his dog to walk the
bounds of his father's land, just where the salt marsh meets
the alder swamp below Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. A
man aged twenty-one and two years married would have
little claim to being a boy if he had to prove the case in
court, Randall was thinking, and yet, what else had he
been so far? For he was still a son in his father's house
and not uncontent to be so, working with his father to give
pills and purges and set broken bones, hoping in time to
know as much about the profession of medicine as his father
knew. Not even when he married Sally Anne Ingle, a
neighbor's daughter, had he set up for himself. Instead he
brought his wife home to the great square house his
grandfather had built, and his mother and sisters made her
welcome there, and it had been big enough for all of them.

 But as he strode through the sedge and juniper, close
followed by Rocky, the ancient black and white hound,
named for her habit of chewing small stones in a long
forgotten puppyhood, he knew that he was his own man and
would always be so after today. September I, 1773, it was,
his life's dividing line, and he vowed that he would always
mark the return of it. For they were certain now. All
through August they had wondered, and this morning they
had agreed that it must be so, he from a doctor's knowledge,
and she from a woman's. Sally Anne would bear him a child
in the spring. That meant that his place in the generations
was changing now; that some day he would have to show a
younger lad the blazed trees that marked these outlying
wood lots, just as his father had shown them to him, not too
many years ago. A man must know his property lines, just as
he knows his name or what town he was born in, and
perhaps the best thing he can do is to hold these lines intact,
or widen them if he can, and keep the old knowledge of
them alive always, from father to son.

It was this thought. too close to his heart for him to put into
words,

4 S W Lo A ret 13 Y A P O L L O

even to Sally Annc, that had drawn him out in the hot
sunshine of the late summer aftc~rnooll so that he could be
alone and exult in his new knowledge and think thereon. A
waste optima, probably, so for his C011science's sake he
wotlld Ice a sharp lookout to see that nobody had been
chopping his trees down, and maybe drum up a partridge or
two to bring home, as yesterday he had gone fishing in
Blackwater Brook and so tonight they would have frill d eels
for supper.

 He wandered loll", and it must have been near five
o'clock, he judged, by the way the shadows fell, when he
reached the dead ash tree at the corner of Ben Tilton's land,
turned sharp left, and headed out of the woods, uphill,
across the pasture. But he was not ready to go home vet, for
all the thinking he had done. And what thinking had he
done? Why none at all, really. He threw himself down on
the deep green moss under the spread of a blue-green cedar
tree shaped like a candle flame, enjoying the good feel of the
grouml, the warmth of the mild air. Rocky settled down
beside him, making a low sound of companionship in her
throat that was neither wheeze, nor bark, nor
whimper something like a cat's purr, only that it did not
repeat itself. He reached out and felt between the ears for
the curve of the neat black head. Off to the left a cricket
chirped at the roots of a mnllein stalk, and small busy wings
whirred in the tangle of goldenrod and blackberry vines
above him on the hill. He lay there and smiled happily tip at
the blue sky growing just a littl

shadowy with the lateness of the day, and he was pleased
with himself as never so.

 Ever since their wedding he had expected to have a child
with Sally Anne, had even been a little surprised that it had
not happened the first year. There had been no lack of love
between them all those winter nights in the great fourpostl
r bed in the east chamber, nor in the summer nights either.
She had always responded to him, close and eager and
warm. And it was she who had begun their first courting. He
himself had been riding over after the Portsmouth girls:
Mary Sheafe, and Beth Brackett and half a dozen more. I-le
had not thought so soon to settle on one. But Sally Anne
had settled on him, and she was close by, and laughing and
winsome, a somewhat spoiled only daughter. With him as
with everything else, she had h;ld her way. I-Ie wasn't really
sure he would have chosen Sally Anne, but she had chosen
him, and it had turned out well enough especially
now and he could not complain.'He had not thought for a
long time of Mary Sheafe and Beth Brackett and the rest.

 Bells rangr, in the white steeple a dozen fields away, and
he did not count them. Rolling over, he turned his head to
the west where the sun still rode high, and yet, he could
almost see it move, like a wagon going down a hill. He sat
tip and reached for his gun. Never a bird or a squirrel

I'astand Prologue 5

to carry home with him! TilC twirls would mock and call him
"Nimrod, the Mighty llunter," he supposed. Never mind. He
had a word that would keep them stir] tonight. For tonight
he and Sally Anne would tell the family how they were going
to be lucky at last. "How would you like to be 'Aunt Betty'
and 'Aunt Sue?"' he would ask his sisters. And then they
would walk over to tell Sally Anne's mother and come home
together in the starlight and the warm dark.

  He sprang to his feet, ran a hand backward through his
blond hair neatly clubbed above the collar of his rough
woolen shirt, and whistled to Rocky, though she was already
astir, only waiting to learn their direction. John Woodbury,
he thought Dr. John Woodbury. And his son, Dr. Randall
Woodbury. And his son another Randall? Another John?
Oh, the child might well enough be a girl, he knew.
Unaccountably, they often were. He had seen it happen to
other men, and it could happen to him. But at least he knew
his wife was not barren now, and if this was a daughter,
there would be a son later on. He had much to hope for
from 'Sally Anne.

  He started up the rough slope of the cleared land with the
tops of the orchard trees lifting green beyond it, then turned
again for one last look at the swamp and woodland, already
a fiery leaf of autumn showing here and there. In the
foreground stood the cedar tree he had rested under. Maybe
he would cut down that cedar tree, he thought, and drag it
home, and hew and shape it in the long evenings when there
were apples and chestnuts roasting, and corn parching, and
snow Iying white on all the field, outside; hew and shape it
into a cradle for his son. Cradles of pine and oak and
hickory he had seen, but never a cedar cradle. And yet,
cedar was the wood women always chose for the chests they
kept their treasures in. Yes, he would come back and cut
down that cedar tree.

  When he came round the corner of the barn, his father
was washing his hands and face in a bucket by the well. He
had taken off the fullskirted coat of the claret suit that he
always wore for his afternoon visits and flung it own the
grass, and Randall noticed sweat and dust stains on his white
ruffled shirt. Dr. John was a tall man like his son, but leaner,
with the same wheat-sheaf-colored hair and steady grey eyes.
They looked very like. He had taken off his Boston wig, too,
and laid it carefully on his coat. He was rubbing soft soap on
his hands and scouring them with a rough bit of sandstone.
He grinned and nodded at the younger man.

  "Not a goocL afternoon for Latin, I take it," he said,
eyeing the flintlock and the deerskin Indian shoes on
Randall's feet, shoes that vrere no good at all save to prowl
the woodlands in.

6 SW ~ An BY AP OL LO

  Randall grinned back. '1 would say it vitas a damned bad
afternoon lor Latin, sir," }1C answered. "I never read a word
of it."

  His father's grin faded. "Well, if you have not the
taste but you will need it if you go---as we hoped as we
always talked of to the medical school in Philadelphia or
t!le new one in New York. To Edinburgh even. I've been
selfish to keep you here with me this long. But it's about
time. You're not getting any younger. None of us are."

  Randall looked down anti kicked a large pebble, glad that
it was there for the diversion.

  "I can't go to school now, sir. I got Sally Anne. Where I go
I have to talkie her too. You want to pay for all that?"

  I Ie lifted his head, and the two men looked straight into
each other's eyes.

  "Yes," said Dr. John, his jaw thrust slightly upward, "I'm
willing tO pay for all that. I want you to go, since I never
went myself. You're a good doctor. I taught you all I know.
But you can learn more, lad."

  In his mind Randall say himself and Sally Anne walking
down the streets of a strange city, l~iggcr shall Boston, with
tall houses on both sides of the street. In his mind Sally
Anne svas carrying the baby on her back, like a squaw with
a papoose which of course she would never do. I Ie
thought of the fields sloping down to the salt marsh and Ben
Tilton's pine lot. This was Woodburyst lantl and had been,
ever since they came tip here from Massacllusctts in his
grandfather's time. This was where they belonged, not in
Ncw York or Philadelphia. But then, his father did not know
what he and Sally Anne knew. If he had gone when he was
younger shell he had wanted to go. I\laybe he would want
to go still, if it hadn't been for this other thing. Sometimes
when he and his father looked at each other across a
deathbed in the night, knowing that their skill and
km~wletlge had not been enough, that another loved and
valuable tile was slipping out and there was nothing they
could do to save it, he had wondered with more hope than
bitterness if there were not some other, newer pram tices of
medicine known to more skillful men. He had thought there
must be such, and that he would go out into the world and
learn about thl m. But he had not gone. He had stayed here,
following his father in the old ways. He had married Sally
Anne.

He heard his father saying, "Well, think about it, son."

  I le mumbled an answer, filled a small stone trough with
drinking watcr for Rocky, and hurriedly washed himself. Dr.
John had put on his claret coat and tucked his wig under his
arm. Together they walked toward the house, but the ol,ler
man stopped just by the bed of tall, swaying golden glo~vv.

i'Oh, Randall, I was talking to Nehcmiall C:~,ram?'he said.

            Past and Prologue 7

 "That so?" asked Rantiall indifferently. "How was
Nehemiah? I hear he's bought a new chaise to travel in, now
he's a Selectman."

 Through the open kitchen windows came the murmur of
women's voices and the smell of eels frying.

 "He was afoot when I saw him," said Dr. John, "just this
side of the new meeting house. He'd been to Portsmouth."

 Randall looked up quickly. "I le bring home any tea with
him?" he asked.

 "Tea? Nehemiah? Why, he wouldn't buy tea no more'n we
w ould ourselves. He says some is on sale though."

"That was what I wondered about. Was it smuggled or East
India?"

 "Not East India! The company can sell it cheaper since the
new act, but we'd rather pay more money and be free to
trade where we please. Fact, it costs less here than in
London, but we don't like to be told we've got to buy from
them and no' from our own."

 Randall knew all this, of course, and his father knew that
he knew. But the older man was proud of these sentiments
and liked to voice them over.

"How did Nehemiah feel about it?" asked the son.

 Dr. John smiled. "He was so upset he wanted me to bleed
him. Said he felt an apoplexy coming on"

"You didn't, did you?"

 "No. I don't know why. IJe was that red in the face he
looked as though it would be a real kindness to him."

 "I know why." Randall smiled and slapped his father
between the shoulders. "It's a midwife's tale never bleed on
September Ist but I've watched you six years, and never
known you to do it."

 His father looked thoughtful. "Truth, I don't," he said
slowly. "As you say, it's only an old tale, but there may have
been wisdom in it when it was made. There's wisdom
sometimes in more places than a man is likely to go looking
for it. No, I didn't bleed Nehemiah, and I couldn't find it in
my heart to complain against the King the way he did. We're
a large family, we folk: with English blood in us, and in large
families there be always some quarreling. This Tea Act is a
family quarrel only that. Besides, as I told Nehemiah, I
have enough to do to earn my bread without trying to mind
the King's business for him, and sometimes I think the way
I earn mine is a damn discouraging one."

"Why? What's wrong?"

 They stood on the stone doorstep now. The door was open
and he could see the women moving about the table. His
young sisters had mugs and tankards, Sally Anne a w illow
basket of roasting ears, his mother a large pewter tray.

8 SWEAR BY APOLLO

"You knew the throat-ail was about?"

 Randall nodded. "Of course. I told you last night the
Philbrick children had it., and you said you'd stop by there
today. Did you?"

"Yes. The littlest one is gone."

 "That quick? I thought she seemed bad, but her mother
said she only sickened yesterday."

 "It's quick with the young. I hope we can save the others.
I haven't seen it so bad since '64. But the worst time was
when I was a boy. Come out of Kingston, some saicl, from
a sick hog that was butchered up there. Twenty families lost
all their children Joe Batchelder buried twelve or thirteen.
Mrs. B. couldn't. remember afterward just how many she did
have, but they all went. f\Iust have addled her wits
temporarily. You were two when you had it, and I swear
your mother divas so scared she was sicker than you were.
I only hope "

 "John," said his wife bt hind him, "will you stop tallying
and come in and eat your victuals!'

 Randall reached out awl cuffed his mother lightly on the
cheek as he passed her. Martha Woodl~ury, at forty-four,
had soft silver hair brushed back from a girl's smooth l ace,
and her decent wool dress covered a girl's slim figure. He
guessed tile had been good to his mother all her days so far,
and he was glad of il. He strode on, scarcely noticing his
sisters  sunburned, dimpled, roly-poly as puppies and
pulled out a chair beside Sally Anne, who had just sat down.
Her face looked rosy, he thought, but her brawn eyes were
dull and lifeless. He held her hand under the tablecloth
while his father said grace. Then everyone began talking and
passing food.

"What did you do all afternoon?" he asked. "You look like
it tired you."

 Sally Anne laughed nervously. "It did, a little. We were
plucking geese. I swallowed more leathers than I got in my
bag, and they beat their wings and raised so much dust, I'm
still half choked with it."

 "Are we going to tell them tonight? What's the matter?
Aren't you going to eat anything?"

 "You want milk or cider?" asked Betty at his elbow. "You
want milk or cider, Sally Anne?"

 "(hider," said Randall promptly, and held his mug while
Betty filled it and Susan poured milk for his wife. The food
was hot and good, and he savored every mouthful of it
before he let it melt away.

 "Randall," said his mother, filling his plate for the third
time, "a body'd think you were eating for wages. Sally Anne,
you're not drinking your milk! You haven't taken a morsel
of food either!"

Sally Anne played Fitly her napkin, creasing and uncreasing
it.

            Past and Prologue 9

 "I'm still choking on those goose feathers," she
complained, clearing her throat huskily.

 "Oh, is that it! Well, I don t wonder. Take a swallow of
Randall's cider, and that will clear your pipes out. Won't it,
John? Geese never like to be plucked I'm sure I shouldn't
if I were a goose but I never saw a flock more contrary. It
took the four of us all afternoon. How were all the sick
folks, John? The tin peddler came by right after dinner, and
he says everybody's got the flux in Salisbury."

 Randall missed his father's reply, for he was watching Sally
Anne. She did not seem able to swallow her milk. He
smiled, thinking he knew the reason and that it was a good
one. He looked over her head, past the black, old fireplace
hung with drying herbs and ironware, to the western window
sills where the setting sun shone through the thick crimson
jars of blackberry jam placed there in a careful row. His
father was talking about the flux in Salisbury. The girls were
teasing each other about the bound boy on the next farm.

 "I don't think, Randall we'd best tell them tonight,"
faltered Sally Anne.

"Why not?"

 The words leaped out before he had time to check them.
Under the tablecloth he clenched his hands in
disappointment. He had been waiting for this moment all
day all his life, really. Probably she did feel sick, but didn't
she realize sickness was natural to a breeding woman? He
did not intend to be thus thwarted by Sally Anne.

 But to his quick dismay she gave one stricken look about
her, pushed back her plate with both hands, and flung her
head down on the table.

 "My throat hurts," she wailed, so loudly that everyone
stopped eating and turned to stare at her.

 Though Randall was close at her side, it vvas her
father-in-law, fro the head of the table, who moved faster.
He was down on them like a sudden wind, and in his hand
he bore a lighted candle, though Randall never knew how he
came so quickly by it.

"Hold this!" he snapped, handing it to his son.

 Obediently, too startled to think for himself, Randall took
the green length of bayberry wax and held it up while Dr.
John lifted Sally Anne's head and gently forced her mouth
open.

"Tilt your head back, child," he ordered.

With a little rasping cough Sally Anne obeyed him.

 Randall had recovered himself, and he held the light deftly
now, for he knew what his father was looking for within the
slender gullet. He was looking for the deep crimson swelling,
the greyish white patches of the throat-ail. Terror was on the
young husband suddenly, and he could

10 S W r A l; B Y A P O L L O

feel his own throat stiffen md the fetid taste of disease in his
own mouth. The doctor drew back ITOm Sally Anne and
laid her head against the chair cushion. She rested limply
where he had placed her, her dull eves staring straight
before, not seeming to see.

"Your bones ache, daughter?"

 She nodded. "My throat hurts," she croaked, sounding
much worse to Randall now. He was still holding the candle,
he realized, and he pinched the wick and flung it down, and
stared at his wife. Was there a swelling at the angle of the
jaw? He could not see because of the shadows gathering,
and tbe high collar of her blue lawn dress. His father kept
on.

"Your tongue prickle underneath?''

 Again sue nodded. Martha Woodbury came over and put
her hand on the girl's shoulder. The young maids huddled
on their chairs, silent and apprehensive.

 "Take her pulse, Rand 11," said Dr. Jolm, turning away
and going tov`~ard the front of tile house where he had his
study.

 Randall pulled his heavy watch from its tortoise-shell case
and reached out for the slim hand that wore his ring.
Trembling and unnerved, he lost the count twice, and when
he finally completed it, he realized it was high but not
unduly so. Then suddenly his father was elbowing him aside,
and Randall did not need to look to see what he had
brought with him. He got up to bold Sally Anne's head
while her throat was painted, but Dr. John laid down the
vial of nitrate and the bit of sponge fastened to the long
wand tiff whalebone. Then he lighted the candle his son had
just put out.

 "You take a look flier yourself, Randall," he said gruffly.
"You better see."

 This time he held the light while Randall searched for the
signs of the throat-ail in Sally Anne. Together they bent
over the half-fainting girl, then straightened ul', saying no
word, careful not to meet each other's glance. Dr. John
lowered his arm and the shadows of twilight fell across the
rosy face and soft golden-brown hair.

 "Take her to bed," he ordered. "I'm going to ride up to
Jos' Bartlett's for Peruvian bark. I left the last of ours with
Jane Philbrick, and he'll have some by. It's a favorite dose
of his. I'll be as swift as I can."

 Randall followed him Into the yard. The summer day was
turning rapidly into an autumn night. Purple shadows
thickened overhead. A white mist gTathercd in the IOW sea
meadows, and the air had a sharpness that had not been
there an hour ago.

''lather,'' he cried, too h cabled no\. to keels the nc\vs for a
ceremonial

Past and Prologue l

time, "she's with child! We were going to tell you tonight.
Two months, I think."

 Dr. John uttered a harsh sound of dismay and quickened
his already hurrying footsteps.

 "That makes it harder. But she's a strong girl. Go back and
paint her throat. You know what to do if it starts to fill."

 As he carried his wife upstairs, his mother following them
with a lamp and warm blankets, Randall remembered the
first time he had carried her so, the night: of their wedding.
That had been late summer too, and the elm trees outside
the window on the landing had rustled just as they rustled
now. He had seen death often and fought against it, but it
had never come close to him, and he could not yet believe
that it might. It was a swift disease, the throat-ail, soon
done, one way or another. In a week she should be laughing
up at him, reaching for his hand. But whenever he touched
her bare flesh he could feel the fever rising in the veins, and
he was afraid. She was his, and he loved her, and she carried
his child, and she must not die. His skill might fail, and his
father's might fail, but he told himself that God would surely
raise a miracle up to save Sally Anne.

              ~ 1, )> << << a

The first night after Sally Anne's burying, Randall wandered
out alone in the misty, uncertain moonlight, wanting only to
be away from the house for a little while and free of the
sympathetic words and glances, free of the last terrible hours
he had watched beside his wife. He had seen people die of
the throat-ail often enough, and it was always hard to watch,
a cruel way for the soul's going, but it was different when
you saw it happen to one of your own.

 He did not turn toward the old cemetery on the plain
above the hill, where he had gone with the mourners and
the coffin that afternoon. Nor did he go down through the
sloping pasture where he had lain under the cedar tree only
four green afternoons ago. Never so long as he lived, he
thought, would he look again at that cedar tree. He went
instead where the scent of ripening fruit drifted along the
soft wind that stirred through the apple orchard, and he
walked among the trees to the stone wall at the end of
them, and sat down and gazed into the nowhere of the dark.
Rocky padded soberly behind, moving when he moved and
resting when he rested, huddling against his knee, there in
the crook of the wall.

 If they had a hive of bees he thought, someone would
have to tell the bees. You always had to tell the bees when
a person died. Not for

12 S W E A IT Y A P O I. L O

any good reason, only that it was custom. You did not hue
to tel] a dog. A dog knew.

 All around hint lay the shining fields where he and the
dead girl had walked together. Oflf to the left ran the path
through the hazels where he had kissed her first. IrfZt re
they had quarreled, and there made up again. It was hard to
make himself believe there vitas no more Sally Anne. But at
least he could think about his wife; the child that had lain
within her, he could not think about that.

 I le and she had both known it, ahllost from the moment
he carried her upstairs; that he would go on enjoying the
sunlight and all the homely, comfortable life they had grown
Llp in, while she was going away into the dark ground. She
had been angry at it, and resentful. She had fought like a
trapped animal, like a cornered thing. She could have gone
out easy, he thought, with a kind of unreasonable anger, if
she could have taken him too, if she had not had to
relinquish along with her life its dearest possession.

 Three times in that last hour, he and his father had
worked desperately to free her throat of the yellow mucous,
the choking false membrane that gathered in larynx and
trachea faster than they could clear it away. And all the time
he had watched her features sharpen and the hollow look of
death come round her cyl s, and held his arm under her
shoulders, and bent to hear any last WorcZ of Sally Anne's.

 "I'll never let you go," was what she had said to him. i'l
may die, but 111 never leave you never!" But Sally Anne
had gone.

 What did she mean by saying that, he wondered miserably,
running his fingers along the dog's sleek coat, staring into
the white mist now drawing close around, at the fog wreaths
beginning to curve about each apple tree. Did she mean that
she would stay in his thoughts so close that he could make
no second marriage or be pleased with any other 10\7e? She
coulrln~t think lo come back and haunt him. Few people
believed any longer in ghosts, except for children, frightened
of old dark houses on ]RIallov.-s' Eve. She was dead, and
maybe her soul was alive somewhere, but not in this world,
and so long as he was alive in the flesh he would meet no
more with Sally Anne. There was this world, and there was
the "Hereafter" they talked about in church there was no
strange half-world of spirits, wraiths, and demons existing in
between. That had been nothing but the superstition of
ignorant folk a long time ago. The preacher had said this
afternoon that her body would return to the earth and her
spirit unto God who gave it, and surely a spirit that Lad
gone to God would never come back to Randall Woodbury
in Hampton Falls, New, lampshire. Why would it want to
come? He was sick suddenly for the merry laughter and
eager love-mating of Sally Anne.

           Past and Prologne 13

 The night must be growing cooler, for he could feel the
chill of it working through his new black broadcloth coat. Or
maybe the cold was from inside him because all his fires
were banked and low. He must go back to the house in anv
case, or they would be looking for him, starting to search. It
was custom to allow a man to be alone with his grief, but
only for so long. ] le had visited other houses of mourning,
and he knew. He rose and walked back through the foggy
trees, making the unnecessary gesture of whistling
half-hcartedly to the dog.

 The kitchen was empty, awl he was grateful. He had
expected it would still be full of the neighbor women who
had been there helping his mother serve roast chicken and
ham to the funeral guests come by chaise and horseback a
long way. They must have withdrawn to her little sewing
room, he realised, for he could hear the babble of voices
there. He went toward the front of the house, past the wide
stair and the parlor door, into his father's study, where he
knew his father would be. His father was not alone. He was
sitting at his tall desk, a glass of brandy in his hand, and
near him sat his friends and fellow physicians, Josiah Bartlett
of Kingston and I fall Jackson of Portsmouth. They were
drinking brandy too, and both turned to Randall as he came
in.

 "It's hard, but you'll be the better doctor for it, lad,"
rumbled Bartlett, a gruff, kind man, near as old as his father
was. "When you see it happen to others;, you'll know how it
is yourself, now."

 "Yes, I know," said Randall, sitting down on a bench by
the empty fireplace and reaching over to take the full glass
his father poured for him.

 "A pity we couldn't save her," said Hall Jackson, a younger
man, his eyes dark with sympathy. "Times like this makes a
man wish he had been a shoemaker."

 "Don't know why," declared Dr. Bartlett. "'Twas sad, but
no fault of the doctoring in any way. You saw her, I-lall, and
I saw her, and John and Randall never left her side. Trouble
is with you younger dads, you forget that no matter how
good at our trade we be, there comes a time when every
man must die."

 "Shouldn't come to a woman nineteen," said Dr. John, his
chin resting on the silk of his wide black scarf, "a bearing
woman."

 Nobody said anything for a few moments, and all four men
drank. Then Dr. Bartlett looked sharply at Randall.

 "Your father tells me you're going away, sir. I'm not sure
it's needful, but if it is, why this be the time, while the grief
is on you."

 Randall lifted his eyebrows and looked at his father. Dr.
John Hushed; brandy or lamplight reflected from the
Turkev-red rug, it must be. I le

14 S N\7 E A R B Y A P O L L O

vitas never the no in to show cmb.lrrassnlellt. i Ie cleared his
throat and took another drink.

 "I been telling thclll, Rallclall,'' he explained mildly, "how
we'd often talked of your going away away to study. I told
them I thought maybe the time would be now.'

 "I went to London," said Hall Jackson thoughtfully. "There
wasn t a school of -physic in all A,nerica then. Now there be
two."

 "But ark they so good do you think?" Dr. John's tone
Noms scalpel sharp.

 Jackson shook his head. "I wouldn't go to them myself.
No, nor to London either, if it was to do again."

 "Where then?' It was Randall who asked, interested in
spite of himself, and then, v anting omehow to be the one to
give the answer, he finished, ''Edinbtlrgh?''

 He could tell by EIall Jackson s face that he was right, but
Dr. Bartlett intern~pted before h s younger colleague could
speak.

 "I got my schooling in lYmesbury, Massachusetts," he
announced, "and it's always served. l.dinburgh's far oft and
among the Scots. Had you thought what a ven ure like that
would cost you, John?"

 "Yes, I thought," said John Woodbury slowly. "And what
I thought was this. Some men have seven sons, or six, or
four; two, maybe. But I got only tl1e one lion to set forth in
the world. He can have not only his portion, but wl1at
refight have gone to IZalf a dozen other lads. From what I
hear when I ask ound Boston of the doctors there, it's to
Edinburgh that he should go '

 "You don't think," probed Dr. Bartlett, "this i ea Act, now,
and the troops in Boston mc.Zll ac~gllt? To me it means
tremors of wars, John, rumors of wars.'

"Why no, Jos' 1 dull's think there be aught to it."

 "Has anyone, Randail 'suggested Dr. Jackson smiling
faintly, "ever asked your opinion?"

 Randall looked over his glass and saw that his father's
eyes were watching him intently. I to could read thoughts in
those eyes as he had never been able to read thoughts
before that night he had watched so close to catch a last
message from Sally Anne. 1- le knew that his father wanted
him to go, want. d him to go out and be the man he himself
had never been, and do Ill the fine things he had never
done. And he felt that he ought to vow and declare in front
of these friends he would do it, but he didn't feel a: if he
was half the man his father was, or ever would be. And then
it came to him that if he went away he would not have to
look again at that blue-green cedar on the pasture hill, not
for a long time. Sudden as that his choice was made, and yet
in the back of

Past and Prolog 15

his mind he knew that it was not sudclen, only in the final
workings of it. He had always known that when the time
came he would do what his father wanted him to do.

  He caught his breath and took another swallow of brandy.
Then he felt his muscles relax and heard himself giving an
easy answer.

  "~tell, no one has, unless you're asking now, and if you
are, I'd say Edinburgh is the place I better go. Now
that now that I don't have to think about Sally Anne. Next
time there's a ship out of Portsmouth "

  "Randall," said Dr. John, turning his head away to hide his
feeling, exultation in his voice, 'go get tlS another bottle, lad,
and we'll drink to it. To the fiecst doctor in the province of
New Hampsllire twenty Years from now."

  Dr. Bartlett snorted a little, and that made Randall smile
as he strode back to the kitchen. Ilis mother was there
putting away a platter of cold fowl. She walked up to him
and laid her hand on his arm. It was the first time they had
been alone together since he lost his wife.

  "Randall," she murmured, her voice breaking, "it is hard,
I know. But you will have other sons."

  Nothing had ever startled him more. Flow could she know
that deep and honest and lar inside him, he was more bitter
about the dead child than about Sally Anne?

  He answered brokenly. "1 I suppose I will. But what
made you think  of that?"

  "I'm your mother," she answered, choking back a sob. "I've
known you a long time." She disappcarccl into the scullery,
and he went to the cupboard after the brandy bottle. Well,
he had promised now. He was going away, going away out
of his own country to learn his profession and please his
father, and alter all, nobody but him ever had to know that
he was running away from a cedar tree.

               11
- - -
     A Kiss Arid a D~,'21C Oil: Wate'2

-ILIAC the full moon of 'September should climb up Out of
the waters and shine down golden on the isle of Rona was
no uncommon thing and nothing that had never happened
before. Ellen Deveron had seen a good many moonrises
over the hut on the shieling in the summer nights when she
sat out to watch the cattle there, and she took no account of
this particular moon. Sitting crouched on the headland, her
shawl hanging loosely from her thin shoulders, she looked
across the narrow sea to the lights on Gallen I load and
dreamed of what it would be like to go there, further even,
to Stornaway, or east of that to Skye, and maybe into
Scotlancl. She could see herself walking down a fine street
with a fins dress on her, and all the lads turning their heads
to look.

 Behind her stretched the island, rough and craggy, shaped
like a bull's hide, sloping westward the uplands of heather
and bracken, belo\v them the harvest fields and the
white-sand beaches gleaming in the dark. All around strayed
the shaggy, soft-eyed cattle she vitas supposed to tend until
Lavan came to relieve her in less than an hour more. Would
Kcnneth come before Lavan did, she wondered impatiently.
Probably not. Probably he was down there in his fine room
in Rhinn House swilling whiskey like \vell water, as he
couldn't do when the laird was at home. Why s60uld he
bother with whiskey when she knew a better thing? She
smoothed her coarse plaid petticoat over the sleek flesh of
her sunburned l/ gs beneath. And what was Kenneth waiting
for, she thougllt. Maybe to wake up and find a duchess in
bed beside him or more likely, Mastery Rhinn. He was so
sure he was going to marry Margery. Ellen smiled to herself
in the dark, for she was not sure of it at all.

 The double drone of bagpipes sounded away below her in
the village streets that comprised the clachan, and she
wondered if it meant that the men had come back from the
Wick fishing. Six weeks they had been

A Kiss and a Drink of Water 17

gone, and Rona had been dull without them, all the lanes
and cottages empty, with the women down in the barley
fields harvesting; but to Ellen, the women did not matter.
She leaned back against the weathered walls of the hut,
shaped like a stone beehive, and smelled the reek of burning
kelp and dulse from the rocks below tile hill. The old men
kept the kilns going utile their betters were at sea, and Ellen
did not scruple at times to help them, though as a cattle
maid she was called on to do no other work. Kelp ash was
about the only crop you could get English money for.

 Twigs crackled below her, and a heavy mass of shadow
moved slowly up the hill. Kenneth. All the tenseness fell
away from the girl, and she posed herself expertly, arms
flung backward, leaning on them, her face held up to catch
the moonlight, and her eyes seeming to look at something
too beautiful and far-off for common folk to see. She had
expected he would throw himself down on the bracken
beside her, and he did, but she had not e xpected him to
catch at her loose tawny hair and draw her forward roughly.
She gave a little cry of displeasure and stared into his face,
handsome enough, but marked less with tenderness than with
passion.

 "So," he cried, his voice deep but unpleasantly mocking,
"what's on the wind out there for ye to be peering at? Did ye
think that perhaps, being your mother's daughter, I, e have
the sight? Maybe now ye'll soon be as able as she is, to see
a man come out of a tavern while he's still sitting inside, and
coffins passing, and a death's-head in every looking glass. Oh
never think it! Devil's not that fond of ye, Ellen!"

 "Devil wouldnat bother with me," she retorted, "so long as
ye're about. They say he himself once kept a school in
Scotland and ever since has an uncou' love for all
schoolmasters."

"Dinna' taunt me with being a schoolmaster. It willna' be for
long.'

"And what is it then? Laird of Rona ye're thinking to
become?"

 He smiled with his wide handsome Highland mouth and
dark blue eyes, and all the scorn went out of Ellen, and she
could feel herself stirring with a different fire.

"Need we travel over that again, lass?" he urged, bending
closer.

No, she thought, he had not been drinking the laird's
whiskey.

 "It's a grain that must be winnowed one day," she told him,
a firmness in her voice, but a provocative softness too. "I las
he writ lately  or she? Are they coming home?"

"Come here and I'll tell ye," he answered teasingly.

"No. I willna' do that till ye answer me."

"Ye say 'I willna" to Kenneth Crary?"

He was suddenly on her like a hail storm front the north
swooping

18 s w E A ri B Y A P O L L O

among the poor sea birds in l'ullin Town. Half fierce, halt
playful, he Hung her backwards, running his heavy hands
over her face, her skirt, her breast, as he laid it bare,
crushing his mouth on hers. They could never be many
momcnt$ alone together without the storm rising between
them.

 Finally, shaken and spa nt by it, he pulled away from her,
and sat up against the wall of the stone hut, clawing the silk
scarf knotted at his throat and wiping his forchcad. Ellen
drew away too, smoothing her skirts with all the daintiness
of a cat tidying itself after a feast of cream.

 "By God, Ellen," he muttered. "There s na' woman like ye.
I've thought of ye all day."

 "Your thoughts didna' put ye in any haste to get here,"
said Ellen sharply. "It's a wonder Lavan didna' come on us,
ye tarried that long."

 "If she had, she would he' gone away again. She has
before. And now I'll tell ye what ye asked me. We've the
winter ahead. I'd a letter today from Rona himself. TheN be
in Edinburgh, and mean to stay there till spring.

"And then home here for her wedding-is it?

 She tried to seem angry but it was hard to, her body felt
so sated and content.

 "What else?" he shrugged. "Will things be the worse for
us after that?"

 "Not for some. happen they won't. Ye'll be Iying up there
in Rhinn House, abed with your wile, the laird's daughter,
Miss Margery, the fine lady. Oh I know she can speak
French and sew flowers on satin and sing Italian songs to a
spinet! I've known her all my days, half brought up with her,
as 1 was, and I swear to ye I could make a better woman
out of a cabbage, did I try it. Ye'll be lonely in her bed, and
think of the shieling, and wish that ye was there. And where,
all the while, will be 1?"

 He was looking straight at her in the moonlight,
unhappiness in the set of his head, and a bitter twist in the
words he spoke.

 "And what's to happen else, my lady? We live on old
Rona's bounty, ye and yur mother as much as I, or any
other body in Ballyrhinn or the island here. Ye want silk
gowns and gold in your purse, for ye have told me so. Can
I give them to ye before I get them myself? Could vre live
on a kiss and a drink of water?"

 A quicl; smile lighted his dark face and then ebbed
wistfully away. Sometimes 1 think we might."

 Ellen stood up and shook her petticoat. "No," she said, "I'll
not live fin a kiss and a drink of water for Kenneth Crary
or any man."

They heard quick light footsteps beating upward through the
heather.

      A lKiss arid a Drink of Writer 19

 "Tomorrow night, Ellcn?" he asLcd, climbing to his feet,
half crouching above her.

"So soon again ," she taunted.

 With a curse he half struck at her, and then went crashing
oPi through a dwarf oak thicket. Ellen stood there, smiling
to herself. Between them was never love, only love and war
wherein all things are fair, and she could always defeat him
because she held his body bound, and she was in noways
bound at all. She turned to meet the slim, darkeyed girl
come for the night watch at the shieling.

 Lavan was breathless from her climb up Ardmory Mary's
Hill named in the old days of Popery before the coming of
the Kirk.

 "Ye better go home," she said in the soft speech of the
islands that was nothing like the English tongue Ellen and
Kcnneth had used. "Your mother she's seeing before her
again."

 Ellen's face sharpened and her gray-green eyes narrowed
and gazed slant-wise, not at the other girl, lust down the dark
moorland rutted with water courses to the scattering lights in
the village near the shore. She spoke now in the: island
tongue

"Did ye see her? Or did someone tell ye? Did she cry out?"

  "Oh no! I think she did not see a mighty tc~isc~ only
a little one. 1 stopped by your house to leave her the
buttermilk my mother sent, and she was sitting by the fire,
staring across it--so. Ye know how she looks Oven she sees
before her. She did not heal me call."

  "'Tis not much she's seeing then. Maybe someone of the
old is like to die, or the laird's best cow has broke her leg in
a bog hole. I'll go down to her. There's nowhere else to go.
The beasts are restless tonight, as they always be when the
moon's ftlll. Ye'11 get little sleep. Too bad all the lads are
away at the Wick fishing."

  'I can do without the lads," said Lavan, a faint scorn in her
voice and her pretty lip drawing back. "Did I just see
Schoolmaster going away?"

  "Well, now, ye might have, said Ellen airily. "Your big eyes
will make ye trouble yet, Lavan."

  Lavan's smile was cold and .o W.IS her oice. "Oh 1 have
big eyes. Ellen, but no mouth at all. I'll have naught to say.
I plan to dance at Schoolmaster's wedding when he marries
Miss N1argery."

  "Well dinna' fast yourself until he does," called Ellen,
starting to pick her way down the hill. The path lay clear in
the moonlight, but she would not have needed the moon, for
she had come down Ardmory many times in her eighteen
years, and no black midnight or sudden storm wrack could
confuse her on such familiar ground. Awav from the
Leathery upland, she entered a winding glen that let the
waters of the burn flow down to the sea. E Icr mind was not
quite empty as she walked

JO TV ~ A R B Y A P 01. L O

along, but nearly so. She noticed neither the beauty of misty
gold poured on the landscape nor the eery movement of
shadow among the crags and stunted trees. She had already
forgotten her encounter with the schoolmaster, the only man
on Rona who seemed to offer the possibility ol any escape
from it. There was no depth of feeling in the girl, and no
real wickedness, nothing but a relentless desire for the
furtherance of Ellen Deveron in the world.

 After she had come a half mile or so, the glen widened
out, and she turned away from the waterside and skirted the
tiny outlying fields between the clachan and the wild land.
Kale and turnips and potatoes were stripped from the poor
thin scraps of sod between the crooked dynes now, and the
women could reckon up whether there would be enough to
eat in Ballyrhinn this winter or no. Ellen had known hunger,
but she did not feat it, tor when any discomfort overtook
her, she would curl up like a cat and go to sleep. And
besides, whatever was going, her mother was sure to get a
share. Midwives were never allowed to starve. If only she
die, not have the sight the uncanny thing! It was lucky,
thought Lllen, th it it never overtook her when somebody's
bairn was coming into the world. And maybe some day it
might, you never could tell. She sighed, longing desperately
in her heart to be forever away front Ballvrhilln.

 She passed the first stone cottage on her right, and then
another. l hey were not set orderly along a street like the
houses in Stornaway on Lewis, the only town skit could
remember having seen. They were tumbled hit or miss about
the hill running sharply down to the stone quay and crooked
wooden wharves in the cove bclov.~. Few of them had any
windows, but here and there the light of a whale-oil lamp
streamed through an open door, and the murmur of voices
came from inside. Whoever had been playing the bagpipes
had left off now. One of the old men it must have
been Johllny Dweeney, maybe. He was always boasting low
when he was young he went to the bagpipe college in Skye
and piped in the old battles of tile Forty-fi\!e, when the
Stuarts lost their c laim to Scotland's crown.

 Her mother's house was near the water, away from the
slips where the boats tied up and n' ar to the cockle and
mussel beds half awash vith the incoming tide. i\ mat of
woven rushes hung across the slit between the stones that
served as a doorway, and Ellen snatched it aside and walked
in, letting it fall to behind her. The stone floor felt cool to
her bare feet. The laird had had that floor laid to pay her
mother once for dosing a fever out of his daughter Margery.
She looked around to see that all was in order not that she
cared much or expected to find it any other way. Sleepy
hens roosted high under the thatch at the far

A Kiss and a L)rink of Vl'ater 21

end, and she heard the breathing of the two small shorts her
mother was trying to strengthen before the autumn rains
began. She stepped forward to the peat fire burning in the
earth pit in the canter of the room.

 Andra l~everon crouched there on a three-legged stool,
her eyes wide open, gazing into the fire. Even Ellen s
unloving eye could recognize that her mother had once been
a beautiful woman, and this always filled her with
resentment, for she knew that she herself was not beautiful
and never would be. Nor had she her mother's healing gifts
and wisdom. For her advancement she would have to
depend on another thing. And that she had. She went over
and touched the dark red hair under the linen cap, let her
hand fall to the shoulder beneath. It was limp and not
tensed. That meant that the taisch, the vision, had gone.
That was one gift of her mother's she would not care
for the sight. I Ierself, she had rather have the leaping
ague.

She felt her mother start and shudder slightly.

 "Ellen," she whispered vaguely, and then in a brisker tone,
"Are you home early? Or did I sleep longer than I meant?"

 "Ye know ye were not sleeping," said Ellen, pulling up
another stool beside the low fire and sitting down. The place
smelled of peat smoke and herrings and the tufts of heather
piled on the roof. A whiff of Margery's Paris scent would be
sweet to the nostrils, would it not, but the last little gift vial
was used up and gone.

 Andra smiled, cluite herself flow, rose and went to a
bucket of water on the stone shelf near the doorway and
drank deeply. Rona had offered her whiskey once, Ellen
remembered, when she had had a bad taisch and he had
been there and seen. But her mother had pushed it away.
Taischers never drank whiskey, they were sober folk, but
they always wanted clear water whr n they came to
themselves again.

 "What did ye see this time?" asked Ellen, pretending to
yawn indifferently, but really curious. She could never
tell she always had hopes if only her mother would see
her setting off about some wondrous thing. "Is old Nanny
Dweeney going to die at last? Or Meg Munro's daftie?"

 Andra turned and fixed her sea-blue eyes on her daughter,
the cup still in her hand.

 "Why you know, Ellen, it was strange, what I saw. I doubt
that it was in Scotland at all."

"Why did ye think it was Dot? Where was it then?'

 "I do not know where it was. But I think it was in some far
country because of the trees. They were tall tall as the
church spires I saw

27 S w E A H B Y A P O L L O

when I was young, in Belfast and Aberdeen. And here and
there I saw a scarlet leaf on them."

 There were few trees in the Western islands, save for a
stunted copse here and there, and plantings, like the yews
and rowans in the garden at Rhinn E louse, tended HIS if
they had human souls to them. Ellen allowed her surprise to
show.

"Scarlet leaves on a tree?"

 "Yes. And the talk I heard was strange. I could understand
the words. They were English words, but spoken all awry."

 "What words were the!, and who spoke them? Did ye see
a funeral as ye always do?"

 "Yes. It was a funeral. Very much the same as here.
Mourners behind a coffin. I do not know whose. A woman,
I think, and young. But the lid was nailed. I could not see."

"Was it the mourners \vho made the strange talk?"

 "No. They wele silent. Some of them wept a little, but they
said no words. At their head was a young man."

 "A man?" Ellen's thin vixen face came alive in the firelight.
"Was he handsome? Did he have a fine coat on him?" Some
good might yet come to her of a taisch, you never could tell.

 "Yes. Handsome, but not so handsome as Schoolmaster.
His hair vitas the color of wheat, and he had a black coat.
He was the chief mourner, I think. Then the others laded
out, and I saw him all alone, but only the face of him."

"Was it then he spoke? What did he say?"

 "There seemed to be a light about him, a light shining
downward on something red. And he spoke in that twisted
tongue."

 Ellen waited, her eyes fixed on her mother's face. Again
Andra drank from the cup. Then she put it down on the
ledge and came back to the fire and stood there looking
down.

"I le said, 'Edinburgh is the place I better go.'"

 Ellen drew a peevish sigh. "Oh," she murmured. 'if wish he
had said he was coming here. Ye do see strangers coming
sometimes. Ye saw that shipful of flea-bit sailors who
brought us the bloody flux three years ago. Are ye sure it
was Edinburgh he said?"

"Yes. It vitas Edinburgh."

  Again Ellen sighed, went to a rude cupboard and took
down a bit of dried fish spine and began to comb her pale
hair. "If it was Edinburgh, ~c're not likely to see him here.
Ye might as well ha' spent your evening carding, flax. It
would ha' bettered us more."

  'Ellen," said Alldra soberly, "you know I cannot master the
sight. It comes and goes as it will."

      A Kiss arid a Drink of Water 23

 "I know ye say it does, but I should ha' thought ye might
ha' learned to put it to some use. And what did ye mean "
a sudden thought struck her and her eyes narrowed " by
saying he wasna' so handsome as Schoolmaster? What has
Schoolmaster to do with us, pray?"

 But her mother's face remained open and innocent. "Why
I only drew the likeness. I meant nothing. Is it hams to
rr.ention Schoolrr.aster?'

Ellen subsided. "No. I suppose not."

 She went on combing her h lit before the dim tire.
(Jutside a seal barked from the :rocks, and then the noise
of it died away, lost in the beat of the surf. Andre went to
the stone ledge and drank deeply once more, then she crept
into the straw pallet and drew the blanket over her head.
Her daughter lay down beside her after a little while, and
there was no more sound in the clachan of Ballyrhinn
except the old wind walking through.

Ill

             A Handsome Brleko

"WOULD cart no like a w/ e dram, Miss, to waken yersel'
wi'?"

 Margery Rhinn opened her wide hazel eyes slowly and
gazed at the angular face peering in through the striped
curtains of the box bed in the fifth flat of Tait's Land, high
up over Edinburgh though not half so high as many of the
Hats around. Then she drew down her mouth at the corners,
closed her eyes again and shook her head firmly. Scottish as
she was, by blood and birth and proud of it, she could never
get used to the horrible Scots custom of breakfasting on
whiskey. Maybe it was living so long in Paris, in the old
happy days when her mother had still been alive, that had
taught her to prefer a roll and a cup of chocolate. She
opened her eyes again, and Meg, the serving woman, still
stood there with the bottle in her hancl, well-meaning,
insistent.

"There's many ladies do," she urged with a touch of
petulance.

 "Let them," said Margery smiling gaily, now that she was
wide awake. "There's ladies in Edinburgh likes snuff, and
tobacco too, for that matter, and the less I take ol such
victuals, the more there'll be for them, and the same with
whiskey. Couldn't you get me a cup of tea now, Meggy?"

 Muttering about "fon ign airs," Meggy withdrew her head,
and Margery heard her bare feet thudding off across the
stone floor and into the passage. She yawned, shook up the
satin bolster and settled into it again. She did not want tea
really, only to lie under the covers in that warm, dreamy
state, and think about the dance at the Assembly Rooms the
night before. Now, which had been the pick of her partners?
she asked herself, resting lazily, and fastening her glance on
the foot of the bed, where the counterpane had fallen aside
allowing her a glimpse of one of her own slender great toes.
Margery considered the great toe, the left one, the one with
the scar on it from the stone bruise she got one summer on
the crags of Mona when she was a little girl. Andra had
bound some sort of leaf upon it, and the stinging pain had
gone. It

A l-landsc lne Bucl~o z5

would be good to see Andra, she thought, when the winter
broke and they could go home again. Bllt that would not be
soon. She looked through the window at the cold blue sky
and snow Iying like swan'sdown on the sill. She tucked the
great toe under the counterpane and went back to her
memories of the evening before.

 Supper, with green turtle stewed in spices and lime punch.
Then the dance. She gazed apprehensively at the floor. No,
it had not been a dream, it was true then. There lay her best
gold brocade slippers, kicked hastily off last night, the sole
of the left one quite worn through. Well, she would go to
the Luckenbooths this afternoon and order another pair of
slippers. And again, her partners. Who had been the choice
of them, and was there a choice? The young advocate whose
father was a Lord of the Sessions, who tripped so spry in the
galliard and swung her about as if she had been a little
thing? Margery stretched herself full length, knowing she was
not a little thing, and not minding that. Tall and slender she
was, supple rather than stately unless occasion called for
stateliness. "Like a rose swaying on its stem," the young
advocate had said. No, that had been the slightly drunken
poet from Johnny Downie's in Libbertonts Wynd. It had
been a pretty compliment, but she decided not to count the
drunken poet. Better the young man from Glasgow who was
said to have made a fortune in something soap or harness
leather she had forgotten which. Her father would have
liked her Glasgow partner, called him a "canny lad." And
then the medical students from the College, too many to
count, poor and unfashionable  not that she minded that,
but they were always apt to suspect you had a fever when it
was only a touch of the rouge pot, and given to the most
dismal conversation. Why only last night that hulking oaf
from Pittenweem had offered to name her bones for her! As
if she wanted her bones named! 'Twas enough to put an
ache in every one of them!

 Meggy came back and reported gruffly that the larder held
no tea. She still carried the whiskey bottle. She was not one
of their own people from the island, only hired for the
season as they had hired this flat, to serve them through an
Edinburgh winter. Perhaps she would learn their ways, and
if she did not it would not matter for long.

 But Margery had another thought now, and she sprang out
of bed and dashed to the window. Looking up across
Parliament Square to the north, she could see the clock on
St. Giles. Only the clock itself, its spread-eagle hands and
their horrid message. She wasted no time considering the
square stone tower with its bulbous top and frail spire, nor
the towering "la:ndsJJ or tenements about it in the High
Street. Far away across the Nor' Loch, the Firth of Forth ran
out in a long thread of blue the same color as the winter sky,
with the snow-clad hills of Fife

~ 6 s `~ E A R B Y A P O L L O

rising behind it. But Margery saw oIllythe clock. Each and
every one of those dancing partners had wanted to wait
upon her this morning, and she had told each and every one
of them to come at eleven, having no intention of being at
home when they came. Now it was half after ten. She began
to scramble into her clothes as fast as if the whole flat was
ablaze behind her.

 A few minutes later she was hurrying across the towered
square, past the law courts and into the High Street below
the grey massed buildings under the shadow of the great
church. Here she paused for a moment, smoothed the thin
wine-l-cd silk of her polonaise and drew her short furred
cape more closely about her to shut out the sting of the
weather. On her left stood the ugly weathered bulk of the
Tolbooth, the city prison, cleaving the street in two, and that
way also waited the Luckenbooths crowded under the
buttresses of St. Giles. Here were the shops of the milliners,
and hosiers, "lovers, and jewelers, and bauble-sellers.
Margery felt in her purse. As usual there were plenty of
coins in it. A moming's shopping misfit not come amiss.
There were the slippers to replace. She needed a fiche for
the new white taffeta.. Gold, she thought, or scarlet, or
peacock colon And besides, if she went to the Luckenbooths,
she might meet with company. But then, and she tilted her
head upward again to look at the fatal timepiece, she had
promised to meet her father at the Royal Infirmary at
eleven. Her father and his friend, Dr. Cullen. No, she would
have to wait till afternoon before she went shopping. She
started down the High Street, along the razor back of the
ridge that ran from the Castle to the Canongate, drawing her
slim shoulders together inside the velvet mantle, keeping her
face well sheltered within the rim of her quilted hood.

 But this was only for a little way. In a few moments she
was so used to the cold that it no longer existed for her, and
she shook the hood back impatiently on her dark silky hair
and walked along over the uneven cobblestones with her
head up, facing the world and smiling at it. She was happy
to be Margery Rhinn, walking down the High Street of
Edinburgh on a fair day with the sun shining. Maybe there
were luckier women somewhere, busy about finer things, but
this was enough for her.

 On both sides of the street towered the tall stone houses,
rising up twelve and fifteen stories on the blue air houses
with round turrets pointed on top, and pointed gables so far
up they might be looking down from heaven upon the
goings-on of mortals, and carved wooden balconies tapering
to the high flights of stone steps at every front door.
Margery hardly saw the [louses, for they were old and
well-known to her, and she could tell which family of the
fashionable set had wintered

A Handsome Bucko 27

in this one or that one, last year, two years ago, three years
ago. But the faces she met in the street vvere always
changing, and she kept her eyes fixed on the passers-by,
hoping to see a friend, seeing none. Probably still home
abed, the lazy wenches, and no reason, for many had taken
far more rest against the wall last night than she. In fact, not
even for one moment of one dice had she rested there. The
"Town rats" in their russet uniforms, with muskets and
Lochaber axes, ranged about in pairs, but there seemed little
need for constables on a morning like this one, when
everybody was frozen into bed apparently. Small, ragged,
ruddy-faced errand boys, the "caddies," ran to and fro,
darting out of the crooked wynds along the High
Street ill-smelling alleys, even in this clear clean
weather and the water carriers in their red coats toiled up
and down the turnpike stairs built outside the tall flats, or
stopped at the public wells to thaw their frozen cans and
buckets. Here and there a gentleman or a black-gowned
advocate hurried by, or once in a while, a knot of
high-colored, stuff-gowned old ladies, mouthing toothless
oaths among themselves in perfect good nature, waving their
muffs and reaching into their pendulous bosoms for their
snuff pouches.

 She had passed the Royal Exchange, and stepped into the
shadow of the dingy, Dutch-looking tower on the Tron Kirk,
before she met anybody she knew.

 Then gay voices hailed her, and she turned to look across
the street. TNVO pretty, dark-haired girls in red-heeled
slippers and fur capes were standing in the doorway of a
tavern, The Full Cup, hardly more than a slit in the beetling
stone walls that reached up for ten stories over their heads.
Her cousin, Helen MacNeill, and their bosom friend, Anne
Farquharson! With a little cry of pleasure, Margery caught
up her polo naise, showing her trim ankles to the nearest
town rat, since nobody else was by to see, and ran across the
cobblestones to join them. The three girls kissed, though
they had been apart only since the ending of the dance the
night before.

 "You caught us, cousin," smiled Helen, dimpling. Helen
was plump now and would probably be too plump later,
Margery reflected, as the other girl chattered on. "We know
'tis not to be thought on without an escort to go to a
public house. But we were on our way to the Luckenbooths
to match some silk, and we grew so cold! We were going in
for a cup of tea. There'll be no one to see us there at this
hour. Will you come ?"

 "Of course I vvill," nodded Margery. "All that wretched
Meggy had in the house was a black bottle, so I've not
breakfasted yet. It will make me late meeting Father, but
he's waited for me before."

They stepped into the dusty little taproom, tenanted only by
a dour

~8 s w E A R B Y A 1'0 L L O

faced leathery old man, Filipino whiskey at the bar, and a
faded woman in a clean apron? who bought the tea and
sweet cakes they asked for. Seated at a table near the wide
black hearth, they were soon amusing themselves with
inconsequential feminine chatter.

 Leggy Laclllan's just back from France," said Anne, "and
she tells me the Dauphin's wife is disgusted because
farthingales are out, and she says when she's queen she'll
bring them in again, so huge that every doorway in Paris will
have to be widened so she can go through."

 "I wouldn't widen my doorways for her," said Margery,
studying the tea leaves in her cup and trying to read
fortunes there, which she was never able to do. "I hate
farthingales. In truth, they're the worst curse can come on
a body for being born a woman. If farthingales come in,"
and she stared tragically across at her friends, the sun
through the diamond-shaped windowpanes making patterns
on her hair, "I shall retire me to Rona and live out of all
socicry and fashion there in nothing but a plaid petticoat."

 "I thought that was what you meant to do anyway," said
Anne, biting a honey-filled scone with small, even teeth. "I
thought you were going to marry a E-Iigllland laddie who
keeps a school there and "

 "I saw him once," said Helen, licking sugar paste from her
wide mouth. "Once when he ~md Uncle Rona were in
Glasgow together. I thought him sullen and ill-natured but
a handsome bucko!"

 Margery stood up suddenly, pulling on her gloves and
fastening her cape. Eler eyes looked like shuttered vvindo\vs
with the light gone out behind.

"I'm late," she murmmecl. "1 have to meet Father."

 But her Cousin had words to say. "Anne's right. You told
me you were going to marry him Kenneth Crary, the
schoolmaster. You said 1 could be first of all the maids in
your marriage procession. You'd best not put it off any
longer, Margery. You're none so young."

"I'm eighteen," retorted Margcry, "eighteen last Michaelmas."

"Nineteen!" shrieked I 1elen. "I remember "

 "That was what I said nineteen," replied Margery, smiling
guilelessly. "Do not urge me, COUsill. There is still time."

 "Ah, I ll;now, but he w.ts a brew lad," I-lelen babbled on.
"I'd an eye to him myself, did I know you meant to dangle
him and maybe let him get away. If Aunt (Gillian was alive,
you'd be none so coy. She would have you fast married to
him With a ring before he could change his fancy. She knew
a man when she saw one, Aunt Gillian did. He seemed like
a rare Stuart kind of lad, and that would ha' pleased her."

 Yes, thought l\iargery to herself, if her mother had been
alive, perhaps she would be married to Kenneth by now. But
then, with her

A Handsome Bucko 29

mother alive, so many things would have been different. In
her thoughts she was suddenly back ten years in the
high-ceiled room in Paris with the long windows overlooking
a little square, set with flowering chestnut trees. Here in the
bleak Scottish December, she could feel the soft Mav wind
blowing Otlt of that other time, stirring the white and gold
curtains of the carved bed where her mother had lain down
to die, feel again, with a shudder even now, the grief and
terror that had gripped her child's heart.

 You knew, when you were nine years old, that people died,
but you did not always l;now the wherefores of it. One time,
in the years between, she had asked her father. It had hurt
him to have her do so, and she had known that it would. It
hurt her, too, but she had to know.

"But Father, whys Was it some disease she had? She was
young."

 "Aye, lass," he had answered, twisting his piE>e nervously
in his square brown fingers, "she was young. And she had no
disease the doctors could find, or that anybody knew. But
she was weak from bearing, and it saddened her that none
of her bairns lived, after you. But I sometimes think it was
more that she missed the old way o' things. There's a whole
new world come about since she was the age ye are. There
was more died at Culloden than the men who fell."

"What do you mean?" she had asked him. "Was she one of
those?"

 "Aye, I think she may ha' been. If the Stuarts could ha'
fought their way down to London and climbed on the throne
that belonged to them, and set the country free o' the bloody
German thieves I think the old ways o' Scotland would ha'
lasted, and she would ha' been happy in them as she always
was, and not let herself go down to death. For a while she
hoped, as many did, that Charlie would come again with bet-
ter luck. Myself, I had no hope' for it at all. And God
forgive me, once I told her; which I shouldna' ha' done.
'Gillian,' I said, 'the Stuarts is past and done and put away.
We must live in the new time.' 'Twas the only sharp word
she ever spoke to me. 'No, Comyn,' she said, 'ye are wrong.
The Stuarts will come again. But I canna' wait.' 'Twas almost
the last she ever said."

 He had gripped the pipe stem in his two hands then and
snapped it apart. Margery had not asked him any more.

 Yes, she supposed, her mother would have favored
Kenneth, for from what she glad heard of the lads who were
out in the Forty-five, they looked and spoke and thought
very much as he. It was that knowledge that had first drawn
her to him, and their meeting had been at a time when she
was weary of the beaux she met at balls and concerts and
assembly rooms. They were like marionettes who bowed and
wigglewaggled when she crooked a finger. Kenneth had been
crude and surly

30 S VIE A n B Y A P O L L O

at times, but he was not a poppet. E le was a living man
moved by his own will. And E lelen was right. He was
handsome. And it had seemed to her a fine romantic thing
to turn from all the polished gentlemen of London and the
Continent to love a Highland lad of her own country, come
of the same race as she. It had given her a deep, blissful
satisfaction to feel that she was choosing as her
dearly-lo~1ed mother would have wanted her to do. But
she did not feel blissful now. She felt troubled and
uncertain. She had not seen him since early last summer,
having been abroad with her father all that time. Perhaps
when they met again in the spring, she would be as eager for
their wedding as he. For he was eager. E le kept writing her
so. Many lads had been eager to marry Margery Rhinn, but
so far she had not desired to marry any man at all.

 Far up the town she heard the bells of St. Giles playing
the foreign tunes as they did every clay a little before twelve.
She turned swiftly away from the other girls and started
toward the door.

 "Good-b,,7. I'll see you both at the Assembly Rooms
tonight. I really have to go."

Helen and Anne followed her.

 "If you're going to the College, we'll see you safe there,"
smiled Anne. "'Tits no telling what fine sights we might meet
on the way."

 "I think the fine sights will be all in their classes now,"
laughed Margery, her mood changing, "but I'll be glad of
your company there."

 Still chatting, they walked down College Wynd, past the
ugly halls weathered black as old iron, piled hit or miss
against each other. Ahead of them reared up the dingy
hospital, sunken between tall buildings as if set at the
bottom of a shallow well, an ornate central block with
scrolled pillars and cupola on top. Margery shuddered,
thinking of all the ailing, feckless people within. She usually
called at this place at least once whenever she visited
Edinburgh, because it was a haunt of Dr. Cullen, now
Professor of the Practice of Physic at the College. Years ago
when he had been a young doctor round Glasgow, he had
cured her father of a deadly fever there, and the two men
had kept up the acquaintance without ever seeing enough of
each other to become intimate. For Comyn Rhinn had spent
the last twenty years in the service of the East India
Company, traveling all over the world, and Dr. Cullen had
stayed in Scotland to become a leader in his profession. But
they liked to meet, and dine, and drink whiskey together,
and muse over how different their lives had been.

 As she stood now in front of the dismal structure taking
her leave of the girls, a young man came down the street
and walked past them, up the high, narrow steps,
disappearing inside. She noticed that his hair was sleek and
golden under his black three-cornered hat, his head bent

A Handsc~me Bucko 31

a little, so that she caught no idea of what his face was like.
He carried books in a strap like a grammar-school boy, and
his black cloth suit did not look to her like the work of any
tailor in any country under God. She would have laughed at
him, she thought, if there had not been a squareness and a
dignity about the set of his shoulders that kept her from
doing that. Instead she turned to the other girls, lifted her
eyebrows questioningly, and said in tones that she knew
would not carry after him, "What was that passed by;"

 Helen and Anne were still staring in his wake. Anne shook
her head. "I'm not sure," she said thoughtfully. "He wasna' at
the Assembly Rooms last night. If he had been, I would ha'
known."

 "A handsome bucko," said I lelen grinning. "1 think,
Madge, I shall go with you, after all. There's a sudden
yearning to see my Uncle Rona takes me."

 Margery laughed openly and shook her head. "And I'm
taken with a sudden yearning; to go alone," she answered.
"Good-by, Anne. Good-by, cousin. Many fine sights to both
of you on the way home."

She ran up the brown stone steps and into the Infirmary.

 She knew the way well enough, and she swung open the
heavy oak door, crossed the vestibule and stepped into a tiny
waiting room, with one dirty window high up and no
furniture except a bench built into the wall on three sides.
She was a little surprised not to find her father already
there, and Dr. Cullen, somewhat fretful over her lateness.
Perhaps they were away together in the gloomy interior of
the place. It had happened so before. But the little room was
not empty. It had an occupant she WEl5 not at all surprised
to see there. In the middle of the right-hand bench sat the
young man with the gold-colored hair and illcut clothes. He
looked up as she came in, and she saw that he had steady
grey eyes set wide apart, straight features and a firm mouth.
He had unstrapped his books and laid them on the bench
beside him, with a sheaf of papers on top. He had one book
open on his knee and appeared to be reading it. Flashing a
quick look at the page, Margery saw a drawing of a human
skull with fine lines and arrows leading to Latin phrases in
the margin. The young man smiled faintly at her, then
turned to his book again.

 Margery smiled back and sat down with a great rustling of
winecolored silk, and only the heap of books between the
two of them; smiled and sat down, and waited for him to
begin the conversation, which he did not do. The cold of the
stone floor bit through her thin slippers. The place smelled
like a charnel house, she thought. Somewhere down a
corridor off the vestibule she heard a harsh moan, then
quick footsteps, then a wail full of pain and terror. She
moved restlessly and gave

3z s w rl A R B Y A P o B ~ o

an audible sigh. The young man kept on reading his book.
She let her gaze rest idly on the sheaf of papers protruding
from the books between them. They were covered with
square, angular, very black writing, so plain it cried aloud
for you to read it.

 "Scrofula of the vital organs, palsy, malignant pleurisy,
extra-uterine foetus, angina suffocative, worms in the liver,
gout, natural decay," she read to herself. The words had a
sick sour taste to them. She wished her father and Dr.
Cullen would come. It wasn't that she especially wanted this
young man to talk to her. It was just that her feet were cold,
and she felt restless, and she wanted somebody to talk to,
just anybody at all. Well, he had won. I le wouldn't begin, so
she would have to. She smiled sweetly at him.

"You're a medical student, aren't you? Are you homesick in
Scotland?"

  He looked up, startled Iaid a finger across the line
drawing in his book.

  "Why should you think I am homesick in Scotland?" he
asked quickly. "How did you know I wasn't Scots myself>"

  She could not say it was because of the cut of his clothes
and the way he wore them, so she answered, still smiling at
him, "You did not talk like a Scotsman."

"But I hadn't said anything," he pointed out. "I hadn't talked
at all."

"I know," she answered demurely.

Then they were both laughing.

"It's right," he said. "I'm not from Scotland. I'm from
Hampton Falls."

  She widened her hazel eyes and questioned him. "Is that
near Hamp ton Court?''

"I doubt it. Where's Hampton Court?"

Then suddenly they were both laughing again.

  "I tell you," he said, "when I first came here two months
ago, a body'd ask me where I came from, and I'd hang my
head and say, why I came from the colonies from the town
of Hampton Falls in the Province of New Hampshire in
America. But I found that seemed to amuse them. So now
I say, all proud-like, 'I'm from I tampion Falls,' and if they
be so ignorant as not to know where that is, why then I have
the advantage, and I'll not be bothered to inform the m."

  She nodded, her laughter gone. "I know. I felt that way
when I was a little girl and my mother took me to Paris first.
I had always lived in the Western Islands in a little rocky
town at the edge of the world, and I did not know the ways
of the Paris folk. At first I was shy. But after a while, when
they would point to me and laugh and say 'Out, out,' 1
would tell them 'Wee' was what pigs said at home."

He had put his book quite aside and taken his finger off the
page,

A handsome F;~'cko 33

turned halfway toward her. But he was waiting . . . She did
not intend to let silence come between them. She said, "Do
you like Edinburgh?'!

 "I don't know. At first I thought it looked like the sort of
thing you see in dreams when you've eaten too many fried
pies for supper. Its well enough. Still, they run it too high up
in the air. I'm inclined to favor Boston."

 "I've never been to Boston,!! she answered thoughtfully.
"I've been in many cities, but never there. My father says it's
a rebel town. He says it's seeking for trouble."

 "He may be right," agreed the young man. "Can't tell which
way that cat will jump--yet."

Again there was silence. Then he broke it.

"I saw you, you know, on the steps as I was coming in."

 "Oh yes," she replied quickly. "Anne Farquharson and my
cousin, I Ielen MacNeill, were with me. We had been for a
cup of tea."

 "I thought they were pretty girls," he ansv,~ered shyly. "I
thought you all were."

 "Oh thank you. They are pretty. Helen's my favorite
cousin, and Anne's so spirited. She's a niece of Colonel
Anne, you know, in the Forty-five."

He looked bewildered.

  "Colonel Anne but you're an American, maybe you never
heard. She was Anne Farquharson, halo, and she upset a
kettle of boiling kale all over her husband, the Maclntosh, so
he couldn't fight against Charlie. So they called her
'Colonel.' She "

  The young man smiled ruefully and interrupted. "She
might have made a good colonel, but she wouldn't make a
wife I'd care for. My wire wouldn't have !'!

  "Oh!" cried Marger in very small tones. "Do you have a
wife? Did you bring her to Edinburgh?"

He spoke harshly. "I did have a wife. She's dead now."

  "I I'm sorry," said Margery gently, and he looked so bleak
she really was sorry. She did not quite know how to go on
with the conversation.

  After a moment he remarked in a careless tone, "What
was the Fortyfive, and who was Charlie?"

  "You you don't know what the Forty-five was?" asked
Margery blankly.

  "I've been trying to think. It was in '45 we took Louisburg
away from the French. But you don't mean that, do you?"

  She was still groping for words when her father and Dr.
Cullen stepped into the waiting room. The doctor looked a
little older than she remembered hirr.;. He had thick lips and
piercing eyes and v.70re a bushy

34 S W E A R rl Y A P O L r o

peruke and a cloak that made him seem hunched at the
shoulders. Her father, lean, and sandy-haired, of middle
height, was such a well-10\1ed and familiar figure that she
hardly saw him at all.

 "Well, Margery," said the doctor, putting out his hand.
Then his gaze darted past her to the young man who had
climbed to his feet and was holding out a white envelope.
"What's your business, Woodbury?"

 The young man handed the envelope to the doctor.
"Professor Fergusson asked me to give you this, sir. It came
for you after you dismissed classes, and he thought you
should have it at once. He bade me try your lodgings first,
and il you were not at home to come here looking for you."

Dr. Cullen took the envelope.

 "Thank ye, sir. Margery Comyn this is one of our men
from the colonies. C)ne of their best, I think. He comes
recommended by Hall Jackson of Portsmouth, v ho went to
study at the London Hospital and showed them a better way
to treat gunshot wounds than they'd ever known before.
There's good mettle in some of these colony lads. Let me
make known Dr. Woodbury, Dr. Randall Woodbury. Sir,
this is my friend, Comyn Rhinn, Laird of Rona, and his
daughter, Miss Margery. She knows Frencll, music, dancing,
sews neatly, makes shellwork, and can milk a cow. Are ye
not afraid of such female erudition?"

 "I'm glad she can milk a cow," said Randall Woodbtlry,
smiling at Margery and putting out his hand to her father.

 "Ah wet]," muttered thl doctor, "get ye gone, sir, or ye'll
miss Botany lecture, which ye can ill afford. Comyn, ye and
Miss Margery are to come home with me for a bit and crap,
and I won't take nay from ye."

 And it seemed that none of them would say nay to Dr.
Cullen, as willy-nilly, they dispersed themselves much as he
had suggested they should.

 After the bit and crap, Margery walked back to Parliament
Square beside her father in the late afternoon. Cold purple
shadows lay in the drifted wynds, and icicles hung on the
wooden balconies above the High Street. Probably they
ma,le the town look more than ever like a bad dream to the
young man from Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, she
thought. More and more she thought about him, murmuring
inside herself.

 "What did ye say?" demanded her father, cupping his hand
to his ear to shut out the harsh December wind whistling
down from Castle I fill.

".... a handsome gaucho," repeated Margery, her gaze fixed
afar off.

Comyn R~hinn, Laird of Rona, shook his head. "Lass," he
said, "I lived

A flandson~e Bucko 3:

a long time, and I ne'cr Lead Wullie Cullcn spoken of as
a handsome bucko before."

 Margery crooked her fingers round his upper arm and
drew close against him as they started up the turnpike
stair at Tait's Land.

"I wasn't thinking of Wullie Cullen, Father," she said.

                    IV
              A GOOa Evening

COMING IIOME tllrotlgh I be dark wynds and closes that
follov.~cd tile rambling remains of the old E locldcn Wall,
built almost in a single night, he had heard, to protect the
city while a battle was going on, Randall walked with his
head up, enjoying the fresh l\ilarch wind, the clean smell of
wet stone, and the sunset dying away red in back of Castle
Hill. After five months in the medical school it was an
increasing trouble to him that so much of his time was spent
with books and lectures and so little in acquiring further
experience in the actual treatment of disease. All his life, he
now discovered, he had been taught medicine according to
the principles of the Dutchman, Boerhaave, of whom he had
never heard. I le had heard of Boerhaave now, but he still
did not l~now a better way to treat a flux or a fever, and he
was beginning to doubt that these wordy Cots doctors were
ever going to teach him a better way. One thing h' could do,
and that was to return to the Infirmary in the late afternoon
when the rest of the College was having its tea, and spend
his time in the paupers w arc, working with the almost
mtended sufferers theft, and observing ravages and torments
more varied than he had ever met with at home.

 The ghastly results of vice and squalor were ills he had
never treated and hardly seen. The po:; now, was almost
unknown in the clean-living country town where he had
grown Up. Oncc, indeed, his father had taken him to
Poltsmouth to observe a sailor wht' was almost dead of it,
one of Hall Jackson's patients. He could see the man now,
Iying in a bed all foul with the matter from his own running
sores, his human shape slowly leaving Film as his bones
collapsed in decay. He had been young then, less than
sixteen, and the pity and shock and hopelessness in his heart
must have shown in his face, for the odder men had taken
him to a tavern afterward and bought him brandy. Well, he
was alone now, on the other side of the world--or
almost--with no one to take him tt) a tavern and bun him
brandy, anti he had just come away funs a

A Good E.venlil~ 37

worse case, for which there was little he or any man could
do. Wrack with mercury and burn with caustic, and shell
anodynes to ease their going out. It was the same in
America as here.

 Through the stone streets around him flowed the rough,
glittering? boisterous life of the city, and he tried to lose
himself in it as he walked homeward to his lodgings and
forget the patients he had left in paupers' ward as the
twilight settled in. All the small, sooty windowpanes were
shining with lamplight now, and the shopkeepers' signs
creaked on their hinges as the spring wind set them swinging
overhead; first the painted wooden likeness of a barley loaf,
and then a periwig, followed by a cheese, a butter firkin, a
pair of stays, and a petticoat. Then the gilt and scarlet fiddle
over the door of the music shop, and the next door ivas
his a gapping arch with a crest cut into the top of it,
fantastic animals reared upright on their hind legs, and the
motto Blesset-beGod-in-al-his-giftis underneath. I homson's
Land in Rowan Tree iVynd, it was, and he felt his spirits
rise as he toiled up the crooked turnpike stair. The first flat
was let to a dowager, and the second to a minister of the
Kirk, and the third to a dancing master. He had long since
learned that old Edinburgh had piled itself up this way
toward the sky, all kinds of ill-assorted folk scrambled
together, because there was not ground room enough within
its walls for everybody who wanted to live there. But times
were changing now. They were draining the Nor' Loch and
building out beyond the walls, broad streets and squares and
bridges. Ike wondered if he would be in the city long enough
to see these new workings completed, and he did not think
that he would. He put his hand to the latch of the door on
the fourth landing, swung it back, and stepped inside.

 A low smoky sea-co.ZI fire burned in the center of a tiny
grate, and the lads were sitting in front ol it with no other
light, though both of them looked as if they had been at
home a long time, sprawled in the only two cushioned chairs
the loom afforded, their pipes drawing well. Sandy
MacCrimmon from Skve and Tom Culpepper from Garoline
County, Virginia, turned their heads and grinned a welcome
at Randall.

 "Tally-ho!" called Sandy, speaking as English as you please,
the chief accomplishment he had brought back from a year
in the London Hospital. Any Scot who had the least desire
to be well thought of, Randall noticed, spoke as much like
an Englishman as he could whenever he remembered it.
I.ank and pale~haired, Sandy just missed being a fop, but
he was a good roommate, always easy and affable, in and
out of pocket like the rest of them, but when he had it, most
generous to pay.

Tom's lean, dark, go< d-looking face lighted v.itll a happy
smile as he

38 s w E A R B Y A P O ~ To O

waved a claret bottle. Randall went quickly forward, took
down a thick cracked tumbler from a corner shelf and strode
up to Tom.

'How did you come by that?" he asked, holding the tumbler
out.

 "Lawrence, my cousin, God bless him. Ile sent me three
pounds credit for books and inst-tlments." Tom poured the
clear red wine with a free hand. "Sit down, sir, and account
for yourself. You've been in some tavern moistening your
clay, I'll warrant."

 Randall flung himself on a strip of worn carpet before the
fire and rested his head on the fifth edition of the London
Pharmacopoeia, that happened to be Iying there. There was
a weariness in him, he realized as he lay stretched out, the
weariness of tense nerves slowly relaxing, aftermath of the
last two flours in the hospital. He watched Sandy shake his
head at Tom.

 "Arrh,'(homas, you know he was at the Infirmary, was you
not, Randall? Bessie now? Is she gone yet?

 "She may be," said Randall, very low, straightening up long
enough to take a heavy pull at his claret. "She was alive
when I left. Asleep. At least I could do that much for her."

 "Who's Bessie?" asked Tom, the dandy of the three, given
to silver buckles and fancy waistcoats and sword-carrying.
Poor relative of a rich family, Tom vvas trained in all the
graces and welcome at every tea table in Edinburgh. I in was
not likely to know the name of a dying harlot in paupers'
ward. Still, FRandall had spoken of her often enough during
the last week or two. No ither young nor old, ugly nor
beautiful, Bessie had been, when in health, he thought, a
pleasant-faced woman, brown and comely. But there was
nothing brown about her now except her sick eyes, nothing
from top to toe but a mass of red-rimmed sores, even her
hair bleached and fallen away, so that she was in a worse
plight than the Portsmouth sailor he rcrncmbered from long
ago. The order Lad gone out that no more drugs were to be
wasted upon her, and there was nothing Randall could do
except sit by her filthy pallet sometimes, and talk a little,
and try to make her believe that no soul is ever quite alone.
But that afternoon she had burned in such utter torment
that he had given her what little opium he had about him,
knowing well that it was not enough. He should have stayed
with her, he thought. But he had not stayed. And Tom,
already forgetting Bessie, had the reason.

 "Are you going to Stc wart's with the rest of us, Ran'?
Who's your lady for the evening?"

 "Yes," staid Randall, watching the fall of firelight and
shadow on the plaster walls of the loo room. "I'm going to
Stewart's. I'm meeting Margery Rllinn.''

            A (good Evening 39

 Tom Hung his empty pewter cup at Randall, missing him
narrowly, as he intended.

 "Why, damn your eyes, sir! And to think I was proud as
Cock Robin to have worked myself so close to her as her
cousin Helen! How do you manage it?"

 Sandy reached past Tom fl>r the claret bottle, perched on
a threelegged stool all by itself. He poured out another drink
and entered the conversation.

 "Why, Thomas, lad, at their first meeting he struck her
with a catalepsy from which she has not yet recovered. He
told her Margery Rhinn, the MacNeill's
granddaughter that he'd never heard of the Forty-five and
Charlie!"

 Tom leaned back on the frayed cushions. Outside the
casement window facing the Nor' Loch aml all Fifeshire
spread beyond it, the sky had gone from pale grey to purple
black with a few stars sprinkled through. St. Giles's bells
chimed for six o'clock.

 "You're not speaking Greek, for Greek I studied with my
cousin's tutor before I was table-top high," Tom announced
thoughtfully. "But I do not catch the sense of you, if there be
any. Why should it captivate a woman to show her you're
ignorant in what she's fond of?"

 "Why sir, 'twas the sheer novelty of the thing," retorted
Sandy, sip ping his wine with almost feminine daintiness,
"and the brazen effrontery of it! Heret; she, brought up in
Scotland's last tradition, still hoping in her heart that the
Stuarts w ill come back. And here's this whooping red Indian
from the frozen swamps of North America comes up and
tells her he never heard of her bonny Stuart. 'Twas like a
club knocking her senseless. She's fixed as with the eye of
the basilisk, and she cannot tell him nay."

 "Who are the MacNeills?" asked Randall, his empty
tumbler put aside, still Iying Hat on his back with his head
on the Pharmacopoeia. He had seen Margery Rhinn many
times that winter since she had sent him a prim little note
about a week after their first meeting, asking him to tea at
her father's flat in Tait's Land. He had squired her to
concerts at St. Cecelia's Hall and dances at the Assembly
Rooms, enjoying her company, not unduly troubled by the
fact that other men shared these decorous favors too. He
knew a deal more about Scottish history now, knew that in
the eyes of many people besides Margery the country had
fallen to utter ruin with the defeat of Prince Charlie on
Culloden Moor after the uprising of 1745. He knew that was
the end of the old, proud Scotland, and that the kingdom
was humbled now under England's dreary Georges. Slowly
he had learned all that, by the stray word spoken here and
there as he moved all-out in the social life of Edinburgh.
The

40 S W ~ A n B Y A P O L L O

old men liked to deliver lit ctures on it over their whiskey,
but Margery's talk had been more like a ballad than a
lecture. She made him see waving banners and plaided
troops marching. But she had not mentioned her own family.
Ile had never heard before of the MacNeills.

 I lis roommates lounged in their chairs and Sandy went on
talking, staring dreamily into the fire, which woke green
flashes in his pale eyes, almost slipping out of the identity of
the young medical student from Skye, becoming the
troubadour, the bard, the ancestral storyteller.

 "Why first of all," he told them thoughtfully, "this special
MacNeil] was a breeder a prime sire of daughters. He was
famous for that. My father told me they were the most
beautiful women in Scotland. I do not know, for they had all
gone out of the country before I was of an age to notice
women. There was Helen married a Lindsay from the bor-
der, and l\laisie married a Frenchman, Sir I-dinna-ken-what,
and Gillian married the Laird of Rona's heir, and that was
Comyn Rhinn. Beautiful women they were, and proud, too.
That was the MacNeill in them. Why 'tis said that in
Flood-time the MacNeills refused to take passage with Noah
because, they assured him, they had a boat of their own. 'Tis
~aid, too, though I canna' vouch for it, that the family
herald used to go forth and stand upon the crags of Barra
with a golden horn and blow. 'Hear ye, oh ye people, and
listen, all ye nations! The great MacNeill of Barra having
finished his meal, all the people of the earth may dine!"'

 Tom guffawed. "Well," he said, "what else did the
gentleman do? We set no great store by the breeding of
daughters in Virginia."

 Randall lay silent, thinking of the differences between
Margery's mother and his own. Martha Randall from
Pickpocket Mill! Daughter of Caleb lianda]l, always called
"Thief" not that he had ever stolen anything in his
life because of the ancient name that went with the land he
owned. "Thief" Randall, famous for his apple trees and the
use he made thereof. "Hear, oh ye nations, and listen, all ye
people! 'Thief' Randall of Pickpocket Mill has pressed his
autumn cider, and now all the people of the world may
drink!"

 But he could not laugh as Tom could. You could laugh at
such stories in America:. Not here.

 Sandy straightened up in his chair and the far-off light
died away from his eyes. His storytelling mood seemed to
have ended before it had well begun. "When Charlie came
from France," he finished, "'teas just north of Barra he
touched first foot on Scotland. Many of the lairds thought he
had bonny prospects then. Many of them died. But that was
near thirty years ago. Didna' the bell ring for six a while
back? Should we keep the lassies waiting?"

            A Good Expelling 41

  A few moments later, their Scots friend left behind them
in the outer room, Tom and Randall crowded each other at
the narrow mirror in the sleeping quarters of the flat, hardly
more than a cupboard, furnished with a box bed, a cot, and
a stout oak wardrobe that reeked of black pepper, which a
thrifty landlady said would keep moths away. Both were
trying to tie their new muslin cravats in the fashionable
bows, both cursing a little and making ill work of it. Randall
no longer wore his mourning suit. He had a well-fitting pair
of doeskin breeches now, and a dark blue velvet coat with
black-banded sleeve. Finally edging Tom away from the
glass, he started to brush back his fair hair, sleek-lying
enough already.

Tom spoke very low, just at his shoulder.

"Did you have word from home lately, Ran'?"

Randall narrowed his eyes and shortened the strokes of his
brush.

"Why?"

  "Oh, I thought maybe your father had written you or
something like."

  Randall put the hairbrush down and turned all the way
round to look the Virginia man full in the face.

  "My father did write me. You had a letter from your
cousin, too. Did he say ? Had he heard about-?"

"Boston?"

The word was out between them.

  "Boston," repeated Randall, keeping his voice too low for
Sandy to overhear. "He didn't say much. The letter was a
long time coming. He wrote it just three days afterward.
What'll come of it he wasn't too sure. I le said it was too
early to tell."

  "What did happen?" asked Tom. "Lawrence wrote
something about somebody stealing some tea. Said Boston
had taken things into their own hands, and he thought, by
Cod, it was about time for us to do the same."

  "Way Father heard it," explained Randall briefly, "there
was three ships full of the East India Company's tea off
Griffin's wharf, and nobody'd move it either in or OLlt until
tax was paid. There it sat, 'cause nobody'd pay tax. Then
comes a band of Narragansetts down through town, all
blankets and war paint under a bright moon, and threw
every last leaf of that tea overboard. Providential, wouldn't
you say?"

  "Ah, the noble savage!" Torn cleared his throat and
winked. "Providential," he agreed, with a sanctimonious nod.

  "We've no call to tell MacCrimmon or the girls," cautioned
Randall. "They're from this side of the water, they might see
things a different

,,

way.

42 S W E A n B Y A P O L T O

 "I doubt they d care much," said Tom. "In their eyes
we're all red Indians from the world's end, and 'tis no
matter what we do. It will not disturb his Gracious Ma
jesty. Yes, MacCrimmon!" He lifted his voice in answer to
a complaint from without, "Stop nagging at us, you old
horse godmother of a main midwife! We'll be with you
anon.'

,, ,, ,, (< << <<

Stewart's oyster cellar near the bottom of 1-ishmarket Close
was only a few steps away froln Th imson's Land, and the
three young men covered the distance quickly in the sharp
spring night. Down a flight of crooked steps they went. into
a long narrow room, dark and dingy, lighted with tallow
candles in crude sconces and a great fire blazing on a hearth
al: the far end. T he room was almost filled with a long
narrow table so much its own peculiar shape that it must
have been built there, the boards and trestles carried in
separately and benches ranged along each side. Round the
table, gay in bright coats and dresses, sat as goodly a
company of young foil as could be found anywhere in
Edinburgh that night, students from the College and young
advocates from the law courts, girls from James Court and
Parliament Square, helping themselves to wooden bowls ol
raw oysters and mugs of porter. In a cleared space before
the heartll, two fishwives from Leith rocked about in an
awkward dance ~ ith much mmp shaking, their creels
tangling in their striped gowns.

 It did not tale llanclall!s eyes long to find Margery, and in
a moment he had slid to a place on the bench beside her.
Tom likewise sought out her cousin E Ielen, and Sandy was
welcomed by a slender red-haired girl seated near the fire
and clapping in time to the fishwives' dances.

 "You're late, sir," said I\fargery with a soft little laugh,
pulling away and then Icaning close again.

 He smiled gallantly. "Well, the loss was all mine, wasn't
it?" he retorted, thinking that he had come further in six
months than across the ocean. He never v.70uld have
thought of talking to the Portsmouth girls that way. Or to
Sally Anne. Sally Anne seemed to him now like someone in
an old story, no one he had known himself. A bitter old
story. One that had an unhappy ending. He suddenly flicked
his hand across his eyes as if he were brushing cobwebs
away. He felt l\fargery touch his sleeve.

"What is it, Randall? Did ye see a ghostie or aught like?"

Coming out of his revery, he noted with amusement that she
had

A (mod Evening 43

spoken in broad Scots, the old-fashioned country tongue. She
did not often do it. Somehow it pleased him.

 "'Twas a dust mote settling past," he told her lightly,
motioning at the stained and dingy rafters overhead.

 "I hope it was only that," she answered soberly. "You
looked as if it were a graver thing. Like Andra when she
sees before her."

"Who is Andra?" asked Randall.

 Halfway down the table one of the lads who had been
sitting there drinking too long overset his porter. Tom
cracked a broad jest to hide the embarrassment. The two
fishwives had stopped dancing now, and somebody called for
Margery to sing.

 She jumped to her feet eagerly. "Oh 1 will," she cried, "but
not alone! If Jess and Kate and Nancy--" And in a moment
she and three other wide-skirted belles with jewels in their
high-piled curls were standing where the fishwives had stood
and singing the old songs of Scotland. They were not new
songs to Randall now, he had heard them often that winter.
They sang "Green Sleeves and Pudding Pies," and they sang
"The Flowers of the Forcst," and a plaintive air that was
sweeping the town called "Auld Robin Gray."

 And after the singing they came back to their seats, and
jests and laughter went round till the last oyster was eaten
and the waiters brought in melted cheese and apple Poles
and brandy, whereupon the lads started to toast each other.

"God bless him! Give him sons and no daughters!"

"May fools grow vvise and knaves honest!"

"Here's to us! Who's like us? De'il a one!"

 Looking around him, Randall saw that the moment had
come, as it came to most parties in Edinburgh, when the
gentlemen should leave the ladies, if they were able to do so.
It looked like the start of a roaring night for the other lads.
I le determined not to share it. He turned to Margery.

"Shall I take you home now?"

 She smiled in agreement and they extricated themselves
from the bench and found their cloaks, hung on hooks near
the stairs leading up from the cellar. Walking along the High
Street, he held her elbow in the palm of his hand, clinging
tighter sometimes so they would not be separated, for other
folk were hurrying home too. It was almost ten, the hour
when all the tall flats opened their windows and flung their
slops and refuse into the streets below. Everyone would take
shelter wherever he was, the moment that deltlge started,
and the nearer home he was, the shorter journey he would
have afterward through the filth and muck.

4~ s ~' r. A rl B Y A P O I. L O

They were hrcatlllcss witch they reached the head of the
stairs at Tait's l.and.

 "Will you come in for a cordial?" asked Margery, her
manner friendly and honest, with none ol the exciting'
femininity she some times displayed. "My father is here, I
think."

 But Gmyn Rhinn was not there when they entered the
high-ceiled room with leather-pancled walls and heavy
old-fashioned furniture. Randall had come here often
before, and he felt at home enough to go directly to the
brass grate and blow up the sea-coal fire smoldering on it.
Margery put o* her cloak and went herself for liquors, not
disturbing Meggy. When she joined him again, she had a
tray with a squat bottle and two glasses, and was .oon
pouring out a pale green liquid.

 "What is it?" he askecl, as they sat tc,gethcr on an ancient
damask sold and lifted the glasses up.

 "I do not know," she told him. "lVly father brought it back
from the East. Stronger than wine. Not so string as bl.lndy.
If you do not care for it "

 "It will do," he said, sipping. It had a honey taste, he
thought. Thele had been bees and Howers in the making of
it, he'd wager.

 I\largery leaned back and closed her eyes, then opened
them, smiling at him.

 "It was a good evening, Ranclall," she said. "Do you like
Edinburgh better now?"

 "Better," he said, still not completely yielding the point,
still thinking in his heart that he preferred Boston, and
wondering what was going on in Boston. "But v-es it
was a good evening."

 I le I`?c?kocl at her slender hands Iying in her satin lap
and thought of taking one of them in his. then decided not
to do it. He was not shy, the other thing, rather, but he
knew well where such games ended, just as he felt sure
l\l.lrgery d d not know. I-laving no wish to frighten or offend
her, he kept both his hands cupped carefully round his wine
glass and set himself to make conversation.

 "A thing you said tonight," he begall, "1 wondered about.
You mentioned someone named Andra. Does she live in
Edinhurgh? And what did you mean by saying she sees
before her?"

Margery put her own glass on a small carved table by the
sofa.

 "You do not know what it means 'to see before you?' Oh,
but of course you would not! I have heard folk lose the
power when they cross the sea, that it never happens in
America."

"What power?"

 "'The Second Sight' solne call it. those who have it see
things that have not yet happened btlt that will or things
afar off. Andra is a

A Good Everli17g 4s

woman in Ballyrhinn who has the power. I have known her
ever since I was a little girl. I ler daughter Ellen was my
playmate."

"Does Ellen see before her, too?"

 "No, Ellen does not see before her, nor anyone else in the
island, though many do in that part of the world. It is not
thought of as a gift, but as a curse, Randall. It does not
make folk happy. To think of it frightens me a little when I
am away from there but at home on Rona I am never
afraid."

 Ele was about to tell her impatiently that such things could
not be, that he would bet he could cure this Andra of her
powers with a good bloodletting, but she looked so serious
and troubled that he had no heart to say anything that might
unsettle her further. Ele was sorry he had asked about the
woman. He gulped his cordial whatever it was and fought
an increasing desire to draw Margery to him, to kiss her lips,
to touch her breast, to take her with him into the deepness
of love. It was hard enough to have to hold himself back,
without trying to chat gaily while he did it; an actual relief to
him when Comyn Rhinn stepped into the room, rubbing his
hands and hastening to the fire.

 "Awrrrr, it's a cold night for spring. How be ye, lad?
Margery, could ye no find more of a man's drink in my
house than what he's holding? Join me in a whiskey, sir?"

 Randall shock his head, put down his empty glass and
stood up. "Thank you for your kind offer, but I think I'd best
say good night to both of you." Ele turtled and bowed
toward Margery. "There's still a deal of studying ahead of me
before bedtime, if I'm not to be a dunce at tomorrow's
lecture."

 "Dinna' hurry, lad," said (:omyn, fetching a whiskey bottle
from a lacquered cupboard in spite of the young man's
refusal. "And ye, wench," he spoke firmly to his daughter, "be
off to your chamber. It's now my turn with the lad, and I
have somewhat to say to him. We can <lo without your
presence. Good night to ye."

 Margery gave her shoulders a saucy tilt and made a face,
but she went, smiling wryly as she flung her good nights back
over her shoulder.

 Randall settled again on the sofa and found himself
drinking the proffered whiskey in spite of his protest. It was
good whiskey. It warmed the throat going' clown and sang in
the blood a few moments after. The Laird of Rona did not
come quickly to his point, but his guest made no attempt to
hurry him. He could relax now as he had not been able t<i
do when Margery was so close, lie back and enjoy the warm
rich smoky room, the yielding cushions, the liquor, and the
companionship of a sharp, kindly man he like d and trusted.

46 s iV E A ri B Y A P O ~ 1. 0

 Finally Rona said, "I hear ye're not overfond of Edinburgh
and the ways of the College."

 "Won't say as to the town," answered Randall, choosing his
words cautiously. "The school, I'll admit, is a disappointment
to me.

"Why is that? Do ye know more than your teachers, do ye
think?"

 "No," said Randall, willing to tell the truth and trying to be
sure he knew just what the truth was. "it's not that I know
more than my teachers. But that so often I do not know
less. It seems they study more to range knowledge in
patterns than to advance it. I spend my time making lists of
diseases that may afflict the spleen, but I want more to learn
what to do when the spleen's afflicted."

 Comyn Rhinll nodded. '1 think I see your trouble, lad.
Part of it is because ye ha' already practiced medicine and
find it hard to go hack to naught but the book. And part of
it, I hear, is true. There's too much of theory and system
and too little of practice in the College here. IT been about
the world some, and I've talked of it with men who know."

 "Don't mistake me, sir," said Randall uneasily. "'Tis God's
truth, I know little enough of medicine, hut I question, am
I like to learn more of it herd"

The Laird of Rona went on as if the young man had not
spoken.

 "And ye be an American! Their wit has a different color
and edge to it. Sir, I think your country will be a match for
us in a hundred years."

 "Thank you," replied Randall, wondering if perhaps the
two countries vrere not already matched in Boston Harbor,
thinking that he ought to be there and have a part.

 But his host was speaking of medicine. "Wullie Cullen tells
me now that your doctors have their own excellencies.
Fever, he says, and the rheumatism Those diseases be
treated better there than here."

 "I couldn't say that," said Randall. "I haven't been here
long enough to know. i,\;'e do what we can for them.
They're among us a-plenty."

 "Fevers, rheumatism and smallpox! I le says ye're past
masters in the inoculation."

 "It's a common practice " Randall told him, "in New
England. There's few lives lost by it now."

"Ye're apt in it?"

"I can do it well enough."

 Rona was looking into the fire. "The Laird of Muck hired
a young doctor last year," he went on, 'ihired him to come
to his policies and inoculate his people the crofters, every
one for six shillings two pence a head. Would ye think that
was fair enough wages6"

 "Where was his 'polio ies,' you call it? I low many
crofters were there?"

           A C700d i~ve1:i17g 47

  Rona was smiling at him. "Lad," he said, "I'm not speaking
now of his people, but of mine. And I'd not quibble at pence
and shillings. My crofters round Ballyrhinn are poor as the
dust they're made of, and it's little enough I can do for
them, but when I saw how Muck kept his from disease last
year, I thought this is one thing I can. 'T has been in my
mind ever since then to take a young doctor with me when
I go there next month; to have him inoculate every man-jack
and womanjill on Rona before he goes away again. I didna'
know where to find such a man. I was to ask Wullie Cullen.
But now I've a different thought. If it be ye're none so happy
in the College; if ye'd like to leave your books and go back
to doctoring again for a season?"

  It came to Randall as a flat question. He suddenly realized
that his wits were so mellow and all awash with whiskey he
could not tell any man nay. He wondered if Rona had
intended that. Then he was ashamed of his StlSpiCit,n. He
stood up, reassured that his feet felt steady under him.

  "I'll tell you tom~yrn~w, sir," he said. "I ll be round and
tell you tomorrow.

  Rona walked to the door with him. "Sleep on it well, lad,"
he coun seled. "Do not say I tried to urge ye."

  Going away from Parliament Square, Randall did not turn
directly homeward. Instead he went down the broad stone
steps into the Cowgate and walked past the squalid shops
there, picking his way over heaps of old rags, fish bones,
potato peelings, and worse offal. He thought of the clean
fields round his father's house wilere the night wind smelled
of sea salt or pine boughs, depending on which quarter it
blew from. There would be sea salt and maybe pine on
Rona, he thought, an island far west and beyond Scotland,
beyond Skye, Sandy had told him, west of the very Hebrides.
An island looking straight at America across the great sea.
And on Rona there would be Margery. He thought how trou
bled he had been in her presence tonight, so close to all the
warmth and sweetness of her, the two of them together, so
secure and alone. Well, he had not touched her, and he
would not. He had been a married man, and he could not go
back to being a schoolboy, to stop with kissing a woman's
mouth.

"A good evening to ye, sir."

  A scrawny little girl with pale eyes and wispy hair was
tugging at his coat sleeve. At first he did not understand.

  "Would ye no come in out of the cold, sir? I'm called
beanie, and Ive a tidy room, clean and warm. And for a
handsome young gentle man like yersel' 'twould no cost "

He could not mistakt her now. Tile ho' rid thing was that as
he looked

48 s w E A 1{ B Y A P O L L O

at her face it seemed to ~ Lange. I ler leanness turned to
delicacy, her pale eyes softened, bright' ned, and a shine of
gold came on her hair. She had full red lips, he saw, and a
rounded bosom. She was there beside him, and his for a few
shillings, and he needed her. Sally Anne was dead, and
Margery could never be his, it wasn't likely not the
granddaughter of a MacI\'eill of Barra. In vain he tried to
remind himself of Bes,ie, to tell himself he should warn this
girl, as a physician, what a short distance it was from the
streets of Edinburgh to paupers' ward. He stood there not
saying a word, looking down.

 In the end it vitas Margery who saved him, the words of
a gay little song she had sung earlier that night in the oyster
tavern. A ribald little song, he had thought it tllen.

The lassies of the Canongate Oh they are u70ndrous nice!
They u7ill not give a single hiss lint for a doul71e price.

It was the double price that stopped him. I-le was willing to
abandon and degrade himself for one night; he surmised the
pleasure would be worth that much. But not for e\ erv night
all the rest of his life, and he knew the memory of what
happened if it did happen would not let him rest, not
ever. Ele did not think Tom would have hesitated, nor
Sandy. It was probably a mistake to be born to the puritan
code of Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. But that mistake
he had already committed. It was too late to retrieve it now.

 He wrenched himself a\vav and felt in his pocket for the
largest coin there.

 "Go home, Jeanic " he muttered, "and sleep to yourself
tonight. Here's the price of it."

 He pressed the money into her hand and stalked off,
aware that she stood peering after him. find well she might!
He was probably as sorry a sight as anything abroad in
Edinburgh.

 He walled down to the Infirmary to ask after Bessie,
learned that she had died and already been carted off to the
dissecting table.

 I le wallk.ed back to Rowan Tree Wynd, but this time he
did not enjoy the starry night nor the fresh wind that blew
between the grey old houses with a promise of spring. He
was wondering what was a man to do who could not have
Nlargery and would not have Jeanie. He was wondering how
much of himself and his life he had buried with Sally Anne.

                     v
             A MaI2'S EI2~2Ona

IF A SIAN could, while still alive in the flesh, swing out
between two worlds, this would be something the way of it,
thought Randall. He stood at the prow of the little fishing
boat that scudded over the grey water in the early April
evening, its brown sails full of a rainy wind that blew from
the Long Island behind it, from hills and moors and harbors
all black with rain. Ahead of him, beyond the western edge
of the storm wrack, he watched the sunset flare up in a great
arc of crimson fire. l fore on the wide sea, between the dark
and the brightness, borne swiftly forward through! no power
of his own, he had a sense of great things coming to pass, of
excitement and adventure, and he in the heart of them,
ready to cope with all that came, to cure any sickness, or
throw any man wrestling, or court any girl. He felt a little as
he had that afternoon in September under the blue-green
cedar bee, but now it was in a different way and for a
different reason.

 It went back lo that morning a few weeks ago when he
had walll;ed from the College after classes, up to Parliament
Square to give his answer to Comyn Rhinn; an answer that
would settle nothing. He had asked the laird to wait while
he wrote home for his father's advice, but Rona had eyed
him shrewdly and shaken his head.

 "I canna' wait that long, I fear. Neither would 1. There's
a time, lad, when every man must decide for himself, when
he is no longer ruled by his father. If ye've no come to that
time, I dinna' want ye. I will na' send a boy on a man's
errand."

 He had spoken the words softly, but that had not taken
the sting out of them. Randall had looked clown, at first,
and felt his face redden, and studied the short golden hairs
on the backs of his lean hands. Then he had lifted his head
and met Rona eye to eye, and told him that he would
abandon his studies and go. A new feeling of strength and
selLconfidence had risen in him, as he said it, and had never
gone away. In any case, he thought, while trying to justify his
choice to himself after

50 s rev r A R B Y A P O L L O

ward, the session was endmg. it had cost him twelve pounds,
and some earnings of his own woulc! not come amiss. He
would be back in Edinburgh in September for tile start of
Michaelmas term. Meanwhile he would see a part of the
world he had never seen before, and he would be doing the
work he loved, in the ways he was used to doing it. And he
would be with Margery.

 He did not need to tuln his head now to know that she
was there, sitting with the helmsman in the stern of the little
boat in order to keep its balance true, since her l ether
wanted to stand at the front and wanted Randall beside him
so that he could point out to the younger man the first
landmarks rising up on the bright sky. The three had come
north by a leisurely route, sailing out of Leith on a packet
bound for Aberdeen, and at Aberdeen they had transferred
to a smaller ship that beat its way north and vvest, past the
grey sea lochs and misty blue headlands of Caithness and
Sutherlalldshire. Last night they had slept ashore, in
Stornauay, a slate-roofed fishing village in the Outer
Hebrides, and this morning gone aboard a tiny herring boat
that would take them the last of the way home.

 They had left most of their gear in the town to be sent
after them tomorrow Margery's silk dresses, and Comyn's
provisions and brandy; Randall's books, and the small
deerskin chest with brass nails that he had brought with him
all the way from America. It was made from the hide of the
first deer he had ever killed, when he was nine years old,
roaming the woods behind his grandfather's cornfields near
Pickpocket Mill. He wondered suddenly, with a pang of
uneasiness and doubt, if he had chosen wisely enough when
with Rona he had purchased the drugs for that little chest;
if everything he would need had really gone into it. He had
heard young Dr. Jarvis of Boston say that he wanted nothing
but opium, antimony, mcrcul~, cantharides, bark, and the
lances, but Randall had chosen to provide himself with a
somewhat ampler store. Still . Of course he was prepared
to do the inoculation, but illnesses were bound to arise, and
he would think it his duty to treat them as they came on. E
le hoped the island had a midwife. If his nerve ever failed
him it was in the practice of midwifery. He wondered what
he would have done when the time came for Sally Anne. He
cleared his throat and bent his head toward Rona in ordc r
to make himself heard in the rush of the sea wind whistling
by.

"Are they a healthy folk mostly, sir?'!

 The Laird of Rona kept his eyes fixed on the white-flecked
waters cleaving before them. He had flung aside his cocked
hat, and his hair was wet with spray. He answered promptly.

"Aye, mostly. E lard to purge and easy to cure of green
wounds. Fevers

A Man's Errand 51

they have, and jaundice, and the stone; smallpox and scurvy,
worms, sometimes, and spring fluxes. But no gout nor palsy
nor consumptions. And no vapors and barrenness in the
women."

"Is there a midwife amongst them?''

 "Aye, and a good one. Ye'll have naught to do with
lyings-in. Our lassies are modest. They'd no want ye
meddling about them at such a time."

 Randall was "fateful for their modesty. llad there ever
been a doctor there, he wanted to know.

 "Never a one," came the answer. "1 meant to speak of it to
ye before, lad, so we'll no frighten them at first before they
get to know ye. Ye come here as my friend. Your business
we'd best delay a bit. There  see yon shadow on the sea?
Low there where the purple cloud drifts across? That be
Rona our isle of Rona. Margery, gTO back! We'll be
o'erset and drowned do ye shift about so!'

 She had crept forward and come to stand beside them,
and she laughed a little at her father's chiding, but she did
not go away. It warmed Randall's heart to know that she
was there so close, but he did not look at her. Ele felt his
mouth curse in a smile, but he narrowed his eyes and
shielded them with his hand, and peered ahead, over the
darkening sea. They were drawing near to a low rocky coast,
hidden before by the glare of the setting sun. Comyn kept
on talking, trying to tell his young guest what he wanted him
to know.

 "Scotland's not what it was when I was a lad, sir. The clans
were all for cutting each other's throats and killing each
other's cattle then. The King's writ runs in the glens now,
and things be better ordered, though there's still many who
sigh for the free old time. But on Rona there's no change.
All iEi the same as it was in my grandfather's day. The
crofters are still poor, growing a little poorer through no
fault. A man be no richer than his land, if it's land he lives
by. Tumbled out of Scotland I was, because my wife wanted
to live abroad with the Stuart followers, and make my way
there I could and did. But 'tis in my heart now to retum. If
I've not stood by main people as I should ha' done, maybe
'tis none too late to try now."

 He paused for a moment, as it expecting to be challenged,
then went on.

 "I'm for the East no more. The Company's all corrupted,
and 'twas no honest to start. 'Twas alwa, s a knave's
business, and I weary o' being a knave. Kilns I've built for
our folk and set them to burning kelp, for its ashes that go
to the glassmaking. There's a glassworks in Greenock I've an
interest in, hoping to keep them a steady market there. But
just when the sun shines out and we've two coins to rub
together, then all

At s w r A r; B Y A P O L L O

the plagues of Egypt come down. First the barley fails, and
then falls the putrid fever, and then the emigration, and
everybody would be off to America! Ah well, such as go are
such as can be sparecl, I say! Now lad, if ye look to the right,
ye']1 see a bit of high country, and that's Ardmorv. And
below it's the town and port of Ballyrhinn, and to the left "

 The words of his host flowed on like a mountain stream,
but Randall was no longer listening, Or Alargery had put her
hand on his arm and lifted her face up.

"Look," she said.

She turned and gazed straight ahead of her without saying
any mole.

  They stood together, watching the isle of Rona take shape
slowly out of the April dark.

  Randall strained his eyes trying to see it all at once
because he felt she wanted him to. 1--1e could really see
very little, for the sunset had died, and moonrise was still an
hour away. On the right, the crags came down to the water,
blacl; and shadowy. To the left, the land sloped gently up-
ward, and on its crest shone out the lighted windows of a
house, large and low, he thought, though he could not trace
its outlines in the graygreen dusk. Straight ahead opened a
broad crescent of cove rimmed with white, either sand or
breaking surf, and beyond the cove a few lights were
scattered across a rising hillside. Beyond that lay only
darkness, and a thin fog, and the curving arc of night sky full
of stars, losing itself far out past Rona in the curve of the
western sea.

  Still scudding before the wind, their boat moved swiftly
into the cove. and Randall became aware of other boats
riding at anchor on the flood tide. Then a clay went UJ? on
shore, and torches flared along the water line.

  ''They're waiting far us'! murmured (:omyn, a quiet
happiness in his voice. "They've not forgotten though all
the rest of the world be set on

new ways."

 "There goes the bonfire " said l\largery, and sure enough,
a spreading patch of flame leaped upward in the midst of the
torches.

 As the boat drew to a small crooked wharf, Randall
glanced up the hillside, through the flickering lights of
welcome, and saw the town of Ballyrhinn. The scattered,
improvident cottages looked to his New England eyes to be
half stone wall and half haystack, and out of these mean
dwellings came a clamorous crowd of folk, all sizes and ages,
running forward eagerly, shoving each other and calling in a
hoarse, throaty, forcign tongue.

 The helmsman made the boat fast, and Gmyn leaped to
the wharf, his arms outstretched, advancing to meet the
island people. Randall turned to Nlargery and smiled,
bewildered.

            A Man's Errun`! 53

 ' I l-eylJ think l m a liar," he said, 'if 1 ever try hi tell them
about this when I get holllc to E lau:lpton Falls. We
Wouldn't turn out so t:o welcome the King himself, nest if
he came over with his crown in his hand."

 'And I'm not sure they would either," she retorted. "They
love my father, for he's one of them. T hey don't love the
King."

 Randall stepped to the what t and turned to offer his hand
to Margery when he lelt himself rudely thrust aside.
Recovering his balance, just short of pitching into the sea he
watched a burly young man with a handsome face and a
scarlet plaid waistcoat as he swept the girl into his arms and
kissed her lips and hair. Margery writhed away from him and
managed to get her feet on the rough planking.

 "You've not changed, Kenneth," she murmured, breathless
from the onslaught. "Still the ~vllirlwind coming down the
glen "

 "And master of all it blows on," he finished. "Was ye
forgetting that? Ye used to say that, Margery.'

 Watching her closely in the uncertain glare of the torches,
Randall saw her smile stiffen and her eyes turn restlessly this
way and that. If she had only looked at him pleadingly, he
thought, he would know what to do, and he clenched his fists
at his sides. But she did not look at him. Just then a group
of girls in coarse bright dresses ran out from among the
villagers and surrounded Margery, catching her hands and
greeting her excitedly in the: island tongue. For a few
moments she gave them her whole attention, while the two
men stood staring at each other. Randall felt as welcome as
sour ale in summertime. E le shifted about restlessly,
wondering who this insolent stranger was, and why neither
of the Rhinns had spoken of him before.

 Finally Margery freed herself from the island girls and
joined her former companions, catching an arm of each and
trying to draw them to "ether.

 "Lads," she said, 'ilet me malice you kilONVII. Randall
Woodbury, this is Kenneth Crary, the schoolmaster, who
lives with us in Rhinn House. Kenneth, this is; Randall, a
friend from Edinburgh, and our guest."

 Randall gazed into the hostile dark blue eyes, trying to
take the measure of the man behind them. Instinctively,
without really meaning to, he put out his hand. The
schoolmaster hesitated. Then he took it and gripped it so
hard Randall thought his bones would crack. He released it
slowly.

"Margery," he growled, "ye've no call to make friends in
Edinburgh."

 A line furrowed Margery's smooth brow. "And no call not
to," she retorted. Then she stepped forward, her arms still
linked with theirs.

54 5 W E A R B Y A P O L L O

"Come, lads, we must go fOFather, or hell take you and
knock your heads together."

 Standing beside his host it the edge of the blazing heap of
dried furze and bracken. Randall could not shake off the
sense of tmreality that had been with him ever since he
stepped ashore. It was as if Comyn and Margery and this
half-wild island man glowering beside her might vanish at
any moment in the white mist beginning to rise from the
sea. Around them gathered the people of Ballyrhinn:
square-built men smelling of fish oil and c attic dung,
smoke-dried, sturdy women, and the young folk all freshness
and bloom like young folk everywhere. He could not under-
stand their speech, but he could tell that they were happy;
laughing, and singing, and making holiday. A little way off
stood a flat stone with a handmill mounted on it, and
propped secure against the stone was a keg with the top
knocked in and a cup hanging from a nail, waiting all
comers. Both men and women alike visited it, often, but not
unduly so, and no one seemed to grow any the worse
thereby. Suddenly through the open doorway of one of the
cottages poured an unearthly sound, rising and falling from
raucous shriek to faint moan, dying away and then reviving
again.

 Randall gripped the hunting knife that he would always
wear under his jacket, no matter how many seas he crossed
or cities he studied in.

 "God's sake, what was that?" he exclaimed blankly. Then
he realized that Margery stood at his elbow.

"It's only Johnny Dweeney's bagpipes,!' she told him
soothingly.

 "Bagpipes? No! I've heard them before. In Edinburgh I
heard them. NIacCrimmon used to play them when he'd
been drinking. But they didn't sound so! Not like stuck hogs
at Martinmas."

 "Oh, but you've never hi ard Johnny's bagpipes. Nor that
tune, maybe. it's Father's favorite. Once the MacDonalds of
Glengarry shut up the Culloden men in a church and set fire
to it, and that was the tune they played whilst 'twas burning."

 "You don't make it souml any better to me," said Randall
with a shudder. "Wher' 's yon jolly lad, the schoolmaster?"

 "He's gone to fetch Ellen," she answered, drawing away
from him. 'We're going to the house for supper now, and
Ellen and Andra always come on our first night to share "

 "Aye," boomed Comyn behind them, "fetch Ellen and
Andra! And we'll have another pair to sup with us tonight,
lass. Iver and Lavan! They tells me they was married last
New Year's Day."

 Randall turned to his host, who stood between a slim girl
and a flaxenhaired young man, his arms around their
shoulders.

"There was many got married through the winter," said the
girl in

/l Man's; En-an~l 55

halting English, her eyes cast down. i'But we was the only
ones to be married on New Year's Day."

 Keeping his arms about the young couple, the Laird of
Rona strode off through the village toward the slope where
Randall had seen the lighted windows as he came ashore.
Margery started after them, and he walked beside her,
following a rough cart track that wound upward through wild
shrubs and budding fern. In their wake straggled the
townspeople, with Johnny Dweeney's bagpipes mailing, and
the torches lighting up the thatched huts and barren hills till
it looked to Randall like a scene from an earlier world,
caught here forever in this curve of the ancient sea.

 They came out finally on a strip of greensward with a
rambling stone house in the middle of it. Mellow lamplight
streamed from the leaded casements, shining on a daffodil
bed, and here and there a clump of dwarf holly or clipped
yews. I le looked down at Margery.

"Is this I"

 "This is Rhinn House. Come round to the front. They will
not take leave of us till we're through the door."

 Rhinn House, he discovered, was on a craggy headland
looking south. Two bay windows faced the shining water
under a newly risen moon, and between the windows, in a
wide doorway, Comyn stood alone, waiting for the rout by
overtake him. When he saw Randall and Margery he moved
aside.

 "Go in, lass," he told her. "I'll be with ye when I've said
good night to all."

 Looking at Margery, Randall thought she was going to cry.
She bit her lip and closed her eyes a moment and swallowed
painfully. Thinking he knew the reason, he followed her into
a wide hall, stone-floored, hung with dull tapestries and lit
with a score of iron lamps in wall brackets. He overtook her
and caught her by the sleeve.

 "You don't need," he said, clearing his throat with
err~barrassment, "to come in because of me. I can wait
here. Go back to them."

She smiled; but he had been right, there were tears on her
lashes.

 "It's no that, Randall," she said. "Your being here makes
no difference. 'Tis the usage of the place. I would stand
there with him, yes if I were his son and inheritor."

"I'm sorry," muttered Randall.

 "Aye, we are all sorry, but there's no helping it. 71 is only
for him that I mind. A sad thing, for a man to have no son.
My brothers were stillborn. Come to the table. There's
company there."

 Together they crossed the great hall of Rhinn ~ louse,
two stories high with a stairway at the rear leading to the
galleries above. Turf burned

'6 s w rat A R B Y A P O L L O

fragrantly on a wide heartll, and not far from it stood a table
set with linen and silver and quei n's ware. The hall was old,
he thought, old as the craggy hills and rude huts, and the
quiet-eyed, timeless folk of Ballyrhinn. The supper table and
its appointments were new, and fine, and fashionable, in the
latest taste of Edinburgh; and maybe Paris and London, for
all he could tell. Five people had already taken their places,
in black old carven chairs, and sat waiting for the meal to
begin.

 Iver and Lavan crouched side by side, uncomfortable and
shy. Across from them Kenneth Crary loomed between two
women. One was young, and one divas older. One wore a
blue dress and the other a green one, like the shapeless
dresses of all the island women. Randall noticed nothing
further about them at that time. Margery did not sit down
at once, and he stood awkwardly beside her, waiting.

 "Andre " she said gaily, her tears all dried away now, "and
Ellen! You know hove I'm glad to see you! You know I
always am!"

Then she gave a quick look at him, and turned as quickly to
the others.

 "This is Randall Woodbury, our friend from Edinburgh.
Randall, you have met -with Kenncth already, and with Iver
and Lavan Gall. Now you must meed Andra Deveron. She
is our midwife and our wise woman. Would you be angry if
I said she knew more than all the doctors of Edinburgh7"

"Why, no, I'd say it could be that she did," he answered
gallantly.

 Andra was the older w omen. The one, he remembered,
who was supposed to have the second sight. Maybe she was
having it now, for she was certainly staring at him almost
like she had seen him before. He felt himself shudder. He
knew that Margery must have noticed it, for she spoke so
quickly, or perhaps it was only to cover the fact that the
midwife had made no reply to the introduction.

 "And this is her daughter. We did not live on Rona much,
while I was growing, but whenever we did, Ellen was my
playmate and stayed here in tile house with me."

 Ellen gave him a long appraising look out of narrow eyes.
Hardly a pretty girl, he thought. Leo thin, with hair that
could be called either pale red or dark, tawny yellow. She
bent her head and said no word, any more than her mother
had. Then she lifted her eyes again. Suddenly he and she
were conversing amply in the old wordless language of sex.
Ike knew that Ellen would never be without a man; she
knew that he understood this perfectly, but that for himself
he had no desire to be concerned therein. He looked
covertly at Margery, grateful for the inrlocence of her open
smile. With all her poise and sophistication, she had not
understood this interchange in an elemental tongue.

Outside he could hear shouts and cheering, lifted three
times in rapid

A Man's Erran`] '7

crescendo, then dying away. Margery seated herself at the
foot of the table and motioned him to the empty chair on
her right. Kenneth glared at them. Then Comyn came in. He
took his place facing his daughter and sat there upright,
knife and fork in hand, beaming all around him.

 "they're gone away now," he told his guests, "but I've
promised them I'll be out and amongst them tomorrow to
see how it fares with all. Andre, lass, ye're as bonny as when
I first saw ye, near twenty years ago. Arc ye no married yet,
Ellcn?" I Ii.i eyes held tenderness for one woman but none
for the other.

"Not yet," said Ellen demurely.

 "Ah, well, if ye wait long enough at the ferry, ye'll get
across sometime. Margery, where's our OW31 house folk?
If they will na' turn out to welcome us, they can at least
Etch us somewhat to eat."

 "It's strange they're not waiting," said Margery looking
uneasy. "Call for them, Father. They must have heard
us with Johnny's bagpipes and all the cheers."

 Ellen explained. " ~ is Caitlin," she told thclll. "Sue's been
ailing all winter and mus': keep l.eitis by her side. When we
came through the kitchen just novel, Sim was there all lowly,
trying to prepare."

 Lavan stood up, blushing, loo1cillg at her bare feet. "I'll
go," she mur mured. "I'll go and help Sim."

 Randall suddenly realizcd that the wor,l~ln Andre had
spoken no words at all.

 Lavan opened a door to the left of the staircase just in
time for a russet-faced elderly man to stagger through it. I
Ic carried a tray full of covered dishes and managed to <'et
it to the table safely and ease it down. Then he turned
toward Comyr, and bowed low. I hc laird reached out and
gripped the old servant's h and.

 "Why did ye no shout for aicl, man? Norc ol US ever. too
good to help ye. Where be your sister ~ nil wife?"

 "~;Vhy my sister is beclfast, sir and my wife canna' leave
her side, but I bid ye welcome home. Ye and Miss Margery.
l was never no cook, but I've contrived for ye some pullets
with prunes in the broth. Ye've fared better, but ye'll no
starve thereon."

 "It will taste wonderful, Sim,' said Margery reasstn-ingly,
"and l ll go to Caitlin tonight, if it will hell, her. Would it, do
you think?"

 "Aw the poor soul be out of her pain and sleeping now,
and ye cann.l aid her at all. Eat your supper, Miss Margery.
Ye've come a long way. Merciful God, but I've forgotten the
whiskey! I'll go for it now!"

 Sim hastened from the room and Comyn started to serve
the pullets and thick-sliced barley calve. Thc n he paused
and put down the dripping ladle.

5 8 s w I; A n B Y A P O r 1 0

"Look to your mottler, Ellcn!! he said.

 Randall did not need to be told to fool; at Andra; he had
been doing so for the last five minutes. The woman sat
upright in her chair gripping the arms, but now her eyes that
had been gazing straight before her were rolled back; in her
head. I le glanced around him uneasily, to see hoist the
others felt about this strange behavior. They were all
watching, but no one seemed excited or disturbed.

 Ellen sighed impatiently. Then she put her hands to her
mother's face and pulled the eyelids down with her fingers.
Andra shuddered and twisted against the back of the chair.
Her white linen cap fell off, and her glossy dark red locks
slipped down on her shoulders. Then slovvly the light of
consciousness woke in her face. She shook her head slightly
and gave a faint smile. Lavan was bringing her a cup of
water.

 She tool; the cup with a steady hand and drank thirstily.
Then she spoke in a soft deep voice that made Randall
think of honey bees in the fields on a summer noonday.

"Welcome home to Rona, sir, and you, Miss Margery."

 She gave Ranclall a long slow look, not patent like her
daughter's. There was meaning in it, but what it was, he
could not tell.

Comyn leaned forward curiously above the platter of
steaming food.

'What did ye see, Andra?" he asked.

She gave a nervous little laugh. "Nothing, sir. Nothing so
much."

"Ye mean ye saw emptiness? Space, then?"

 I le sounded as if her evasion had nettled hills, so she gave
over. Randall had a feeling that this had all happened many
times before.

 "Why, I did mat see anything of sadness or evil. I think it
is good, what I saw. I cannot tell why. But I think that good
will come out of it for all of us."

"What was it, /\ndra?" asked Marycr`77.

 Ellen began to chew down a piece of barley cake and eye
the dish of birds still before Comyn.

 "I saw four men. They were sailors, coming ashore from a
boat with double sails, like the boats of Stornaway. Double
sails, one brown and one red."

"Did ye know their faces?"

 "No. They were strange to me. they were carrying a little
chest. It was covered with a pale hide, nailed together with
brass."

 Randall swallowed. He felt Comyn and Margery turn their
eyes toward him, but he did not look up. He lifted a heavy
silver fork and pretended to examine its chased handle. He
felt shivers slide up his backbone and a prickling at the roots
of his hair. I lis chest of drugs, this

A Man's Errand 59

woman was seeing! This wo~1lau in the lleI)Iides! I lis
chest that he had brought from America.

 "It seemed strange," said Antira,'itl1at four 11ICII should
carry it, when it could scarce have been a burden for OIIC.
Such a little chest. Blot big enough for Miss l\largt ry's
jeNN7cIs. But they bore it as if there u as frailest glass
inside."

"Was that all ye S.IW, lass?' asked Rona bcgimling~ to
serve the chicken.

"Yes, only that," replied Andra simply.

 In spite of the long v voyage and the many hours since he
had last eaten, Randall did not enjoy his filet supper in the
old stone Louse between Ballyrhinn and the western sc i. I
tore he was, with llo Nvisdom to lean on but his own
withdrawn to an island whose people belonged to an older,
simpler world than the Me he had grown up in, a people
whose speech he could not understand. Somewhere, hidden
away in the stone wings of the mansion, lay a sick woman,
perhaps a dying one. Across the table, eating her food
heartily, sat this Andra, and maybe she was a sick woman
too, or maybe a sibyl out of his despised classics book. Well,
if she was a yropl1etess? she was a false one. True, she had
described a chest like his that we; due to arrive tomorrow
from Stornaway, but it was most unlikely that four men
would carry it ashore. Realizing the unlikeliness of it made
him feel better, and the tension and vague disquiet that bad
plagued him ever SillCC he had set foot 011 Rona began to
ebb away.

 But then he looLecl at Kenny th. KennerI, N;vas \vatching
N1argery with the unIllistakab'Ie air of a man surN/c,N7ing
sonlethillg he holds jealously to be his own. Beside Kennetl1
sat Ellen, and hcl- eyes meeting Randall's made him hlrn
hot and red. ~ eke all things together, he could under
stanct why (:omyl1 wai1tcd a man for this errand. There
were matters afoot 071 Rona that ('0Uld not be cutrustccl
to any boN.

         llfjl~ Goes two {~e Borne

ink CANNA' tell you nay in ~ our father's house, Miss
Margery," said Leitis, the old serving woman, "hut Sim and
I would take it kindly did you leave the poor soul alone with
her pain."

 Margery stood in the low corridor that led to the
chamErcrs on the capper floor of the stone wing which
housed the granary and store rooms beneath. Sim's wife
barred her way now, keeping her back from the visit she had
meant to pay to Caitlin, his ailing sister. They spoke
together in the islarrd tongue that came as easily to the
laird's daughter as the quick French of Paris or the careful
English of Edinburgh.

 "Of course, Leitis, 1 will not go to her if she does not
vvish to see me. 11 there is nothing I can lay or do to
help "

 Margery turned from tile worn brown face and somber
eves of the old woman and gazed through a small dormer
window that looked dozen to the clachan of Ballyrhinn.
Morning sunlight shone through the leaded panes, Iying soft
on the green hillside and thatched cottages with peat smoke
curling above then, dappling gold on the water beyond the
crooked pier. She longed lo be Otlt in the April weather, up
in the hills vhere Ranclall and her father had gone, or
walking along the shellfish Irools by the craggy shore. but
the thought of ilhless and suffering under Ircr own roof was
a troul-'le to her, as discomforting as a cold wind or a cloud
across the SUII.

 "There i; nothing ye earl do, Miss Margery,' said Leitis
simply, still barring the way.

 Margery gazed steadily back, a pleading in her voice ptlt
there by her own intent, but coming, nevertheless, from her
heart.

 "Leitis," she said, "you treat me as if I were a stranger, and
it hurts me. When I WEIS born on Barn and they took me
from my mother first, did they not give me to you?"

 "Aye, they did, Miss Margery," said Leitis, wetting her lips
and turning her eyes away, "and be lieve me, 'tis not
unkindly meant, and ye must

Llgly ('O,?S to the loose 61

not grieve. It is only that she is sick to her death, and a sad
sight for those who look on her witlt love. We would spare
ye that sight, since it can in no ways llell1 her at all."

 'iBut are you sure, Leitis?" persist d Marycfy. "Sure that
there is no cure fair her? Is it a lever or a pleurisy or what
does Andra say?"

 "Nay, it is all within," explained Leitis, "much pain and
much wasting alla a little illness, but noticing one can name
or see. Andra comes here every day, but she can do little.
She says it is beyond her skill."

Margerys eyes shone and she leaned forward intently.

 "Leitis, we did not mean to tell folk y et, and the word
must not cross the threshold ol this house until we arc ready.
But we have brought a doctor with us. One of the unit ersity
men. He may have means of which Andra has never heard.
I Ie hat g inc out with Father to walk the policies not, but
when he comes in let IlS take him to Caitlin. Let him
try "

 J.eitis gazed through the window at the shining water and
brownsallcd iishiilg b`~'ats headed fo' the open sea. Then
she shook her head .uId twisted the corner of her apron in
her rough hands.

 "I have seen him, Miss Marg ry. When he walked out with
your father this morning I law him go. 14; is a man, and
yoking. Caitlin has stayed always a maid. Born c,n llona, as
ye know, and never been away. Why no lad ever fancied her,
1 caur a' tell, but it always has been so, and she has kept
much to herself. If I v ore to bring a young man to her
chamber, she would die of shame."

 Impatience burned in `Nlaigery's soft eyes. "you talk like
a daftie, L.eitis! As well die of shame as of an illness within.
He would be gentle with her, and not familiar or rude. He
would understand. I am a maid tOO, but if 1 were ill 1
would 'IO: fear to have him treat me.'

But Leitis shook her stubborn peasant head.

 "Ye are used. to all the world's wickedness, Miss Margery,
but we scarce can yield ourselves up to it here. 1 will speak
to Sim, and to Caitlin when she wakens but 1 doubt---!
Now I must go to her. Forgive me,

.,

pray.

 She curtsied awkwardly, turned, anc:l wall d down the
corridor, through a doorway and out of sight.

 Margery stared after her thoughtfully. What should she do,
she wondered. She could complain to her father and insist
that the sick woman receive Randal] whether she would or
no. A cruel outrage, but surely justified if Caitlin's life could
be saved thereby. But could it? Perhaps Andra would know.
She would go down to the clachan and see what the midwife
had to say.

 A few minutes later, wearing brogues and a short petticoat
like anv other island girl, she left Rhinn 1 lotlsc and hurried
down the slope and

fi I s w ~ A n B Y A P 01 LO

along the curving sand. She met no OIIC, nor had she
expected to. A few old wives sat on the doorstones minding
the bairns who were too young to be where Kenneth kept
school in a loft over the cattle barn. ~I~he younger wolllen
would be out on the vvide sandy plain, the machair, sowing
oats, and the men lulling kelp or fishing for cod and ring.
Whell she reached the little stone hut by the cockle bed,
Ellen was standing at the door.

 Margery went Llp to her smiling, much of her trouble
dissolved away in the clean tang of the sea air, the warmth
of the SUII.

 "Oh, Ellen! I did not know you would be at home, but I
am glad. We could not talk by ourselves last night, with the
men there and all. But it's been so long, and there's so much
to say!"

Ellen looked her up and down, but she did not smile.

 "if there is," she answered, "then yc're the ogle to say it.
Ye been about the world, and 1 been in Ballyrhinn."

 It was almost an accusation, and again Marycry felt as if
clouds had gone over the bright sun.

 "Where's your mother?" she asked. "1 came to speak to
her about Caitlin. She's very ill, you know."

 "Caitlin's dying." said Ellen Hatly. 'fled ha' died Years ago,
had I been left on the bush like she.'

 "Oh, but you'll never he left so, Ellen," l\largery hurried to
reassure her. She peered through the open doorway into the
cottage, and decided Andra was not at home. Ellen followed
her glance.

 "She's away," she said. 'Lip on Caldune gathering simples.
But she'd tell ye the same as 1. Caitlin canlla' last. Be the
ladies' gowns longer this year?"

 Margery closed her coca a mommy not wanting to look
any more at Ellen, hut seeing her all the same. She was tall
and Ellen was not. Last year when the fashions chall.ged she
had gis en the cattle maid a whole sheaf of discarded gowns.
\tow it was in Ellen's mind to hint for more, without a care
fol- the sick woman up the llill. Ellen is greedy, she thought;
Ellen is mean. And then she was as quickly ashamed of
herself. (Of course Ellen wanted finery; so did every other
girl. Ellen was restless in Ballyrhinn and longed to be away.
Margery loved the island, but she knew she would not want
to spend all her days on it. Ellen was unhappy. Margery
could not remember that she had ever knovvn anybody who
was greedy or mean e xcept unhappy folk.

 "The governs are much the same," she answered evenly.
"But I've a new bhle poplin with garnet t bows that clues not
suit me at all and would suit you very well. Come Lip this
afternoon and if Leitis can spare the time from C'aitlin we
will get her to change the hem for you."

Llgly Goes to tIZe Bone 63

 A delicate flush of pleasure came to Ellcn's cheeks and she
looked al most pretty. I-ler mouth softened.

 "Sit down," sue invited, hel- voice a little mellower now,
lowering herself to the patch of scurvy grass that ran along
the cottage wall.

Margery sat down on the wide stone before the door.

 "My trunks will he here today," she went on eagerly, happy
that her old friend had warmed to her at last, "and you must
help me unpack; them. There will be many things silk
flowers and thread hose and Brussels lace "

 Then she stopped, stricken. Was she, Margery Rhinn,
suddenly grown ski poor in friendship that sue had to bribe
and buy?

 Ellen's eyes glistened, and ;he did not notice the pause in
the conversation. Silence lay for a mom nt between the two
girls. Margery looked down at the rings on her fingers and
Ellen stared idly at the blue bay. Then an idea seemed to
come to her, for her face grew tense and the line of her jaw
sharpened.

 "Trunks!" she muttered. " 1 hey're full of wedding things!
Ye're going to marry Schoolmastcr!"

 "No," said Margery slowly. '1 did not bring any wedding
things, Ellen. When I will marry I cannot tell."

"I le says ye're promised to him.''

 Margery's sweet mouth thinned to a harsh line. "Ellen," she
said, "you will speak no more of it to me."

"Your pardon, my lady," answered Ellen with a sneer.

 Margery fen close to weeping. "Oh, Ellen, do not quarrel
with me! It is sad for friends to grow apart, and between us
it must not happen. Tell me about yourself. Have any of the
lads finally pleased you? Many have tried, I am sufe. I want
to hear."

Ellen began shredding a blade of scurvy grass in her fingers.

 "Let them try. Ye'l-e not daft, Madge. Ye know there is no
one here for me."

"But one wiJI come, Ellen. 1 am sure one will."

 "Then he had best be quick. Do ye know what Johnny
Dweeney said to my mother yesterday?" Her voice broke
with bitterness. "He pointed at me with his stick, and he said,
'Daughters and dead fish are no keeping vvare."'

 Margery gave a little cry elf pity for her friend. "Oh, Ellen,
the old are cruel sometimes. They do not mean to be, but
they are. They are jealous, I think, because for them it is all
behind. But I am sure someone will come. It is strange, I
have noticed, how folk will go across the world to find each
other, not knowing all the while if it is meant they should."

There was a wistfulness in Margery's tone, but Ellen did not
ask her

64 s all E A n B Y A P O L L O

to explain it, or ffucstioll the me~fllillg in what she said.
Again the two girls fell silent.

 Finally Ellcn asked, in a voice that implied it mattered
little, "That incomer at your table last night I forget his
name? Does he mean to stay long? It; he an Edinburgh
lad?"

"Randall? f le will stay the summer, 1 think. I le comes from
America."

 "America! They say ther Is gold in gowpins there, waiting
for a body to pick it up. Many have gone from Skye and the
Highlands this year. I-Ias he talked of the gold '

 "Gold? No, he has not f. flkeci of gold. I le came to study
medicine at the College, as marry do."

"Is he bespoken'"

 "No," answered Flarg'ly, stfddcnly aware where l~llen's
questions were tending, filecd with mealiness and disgust
which she could not explain to herself. "I do not think so.
But really, Ellen, I have not asked him. He had a wife in his
own country, but she died. When do you think your mother
will come home?"

 Ellen shrugged her shoulders. "When she's hungry, 1 do
not doubt. Perhaps not till dark. WilJ your trunks be here
today?"

 Margery stood up. "I think so. Tam MacVean in
Stornaway promised my father. Come whenever you will."

 "At the Rood tide," said Ellen. "1 canna' come before. 1
must go now to pull kelp so long as tile rocks are bare."

 I\largery took leave of hi r friend and walked slowly
homeward across the worn turf of the clachan. Then she
stopped. The sun was high. Randall and her father had left
soon after dawn to circle Rona, and they should be returning
by now. They would have gone west to the machair, sullwise,
as travelers must always go, according to the ancient belief
of the islands; then crossing over, through the green knolls
and burrows of Puffin Town, and homeward along Ardmory
and the rough crags sloping down to the beds of l;clp and
dulse that rimmed the sea. She would walk up Arclmorv, she
thought, and meet them, and she turned her steps that way.

 She did not follow the burn, but chose a steeper path
through the young heatller, coming out on the long ridge
that led to the shieling hut and the moors where the cattle
would be tl rued out in late May. Never, she thought, did
any homecoming of hers have such a sour taste to it. thirst,
there was Kcllneth. She could never marry him, she knew
now, any more than she could marry one of those great
black snarling creatures in the Paris bear garUcn. But she
had given him her word. The word of Comyn Rhinn's
claugllter. (be word of a MacNeill of Barra. Then there was
Caitlin's illness and l.llen's cold welcome. hlargery began to
cry.

Ugly (goes to the Rone 65

She held her head back and her face lifted up, her eves
streaming. Rut it was only for a moment. She arranged her
features in a wan smile and walked upward through the
heather.

 To the east, the land fell sharply away in cliffs of searrled
and weathercd rock, and the path Margery had chosen took
her along the edge. where she could look down at the small
black figuecs toiling in the kelp beds that spread their glossy
red-brown streamers on the crags below. Smoke drifted
upward from th' stone kilns, and faint human voices, hailing
and answering each other. She felt her heart lift as she
walked along. Once again the bright weather cheered her. A
body who could be sad in the midst of an April day on
Rona, she thought, wouldn't be happy at the right hand of
(>od's ve~-v throne.

 In a cleft of the moorland she came suddenly upon them,
taking their rest in the heather, her father seated against a
rock all green and gold lichens, and Randall flung prone on
the ground, Iying so he could see nothing but the tlight of
gulls across the blue sky.

 "I tell ye, lacl," her father was saying with stubborn
assurance, 'land ye may depend upon it. Ye canna' judge a
lass by her face,'tis said but sometimes, ye can. Bcauty's
only skin deep, but ugly goes to the bone.

Randall answered lazily, and as if he did not much care.

 "You were speaking of Ellcn Dcveron. Do you mean to say
that about her? I should not think she via as so ill-favored
as all that."

 Margcry had been ready to 1 un forward and greet them,
to ask Randall what he thought of the island and if he had
seen the whole of it. But her father's words had a strange
sound to them, as if it were another man talking, a man she
had never known. She paused uncertainly and stood very
still.

 "Aye, it was Ellen I meant. ~ lad will mend and change
his ways, but with a lass it is never so. There be Kenneth
now. Studying for a minister he \ras, at the College in
Abcrdeen, and taken up by the watch one night for being
oterfull in a tavern and roistering thereupon. The Kirk
wouldna' have him after that, but I was in town at the time,
and heard o the commotion, and v ent to sc e him. E-Ie
seemed to me to have no fault, save for being a hot-head
and young. So I offered him a post on Rona, for five pounds
a year and a p fir of shoes, and he serves in it v elf. Some
day he will make peace with the Collegc again."

 "I wondered how he came here," said Randall. He was
sitting up and leaning forward, his arms Iying loosely on his
bent knees. 'I v ordered if it Noms as Malrgery's friend that
he came."

 "Nay, not my lass. Ye may hear talk there be somewhat
between them, btlt'tis false.'Tis plain to me who knows her
she has not yet settled her fancy. Ah well, though he w ll na'
do far her, as T tell ye, Kenneth is

66 s vv E A ri B Y R P O L L O

a good lad arid will mend. But the lasses are like lambs;
born black or white, and there's an end on t. About Ellen
now. 'Tis an ugly little story that none but a kna\e would
repeat. But I never scorned to be a knave if 'twas to serve
a cause I thought honest and good. And it seemed to me
better that ve know -'

 Margery stepped forth from the outcropping Icdge that
had hid her presence. She knew perfect tly well all of
Kcnneth's misadventure, but she had no idea what her
father was going to reveal about Ellen. She meant to hear
wh.~tc\er he had to say, but she u70u]d not stoop to eaves-
dropping.

 "What is the ugly little Tory, Father?" sue asked so~,crl\7.
"I l~now no harm of Ellen. You nc\7cr told it to me
before.'

llona started, Hullg up his head quickly, and stared at his
daughter.

 "What are ye doing a-crce~p on the heath lilac an old
woman' I didma' know ye was about? What be ye after?"

 "I came to meet you," s lid l\Iargerv simply. '\;`i7h.lt were
you going to tell Randall about Ellen, Fathcr?"

 Randall got to his feet, flicking a bit of moss from his
doeskin breeches. TIe entered the conversation. "Maybe it
will keep until later, sir. The sun's overhead, and breakfast
was a while ago. I'm about to be a rude guest and say I'm
hungry" He turned to Margery and smiled. "~7C started a
red deer back in the hills," he motioned toward the north of
the island and tile scrubby uplands of Calclune. "There'd be
venison for dinner, if I'd had my gun with me."

 "There's guns at the house, lad. In the attic ak~llg with
the targes and claymores, weapons the Rl,inns used in battle
in old time ere ever the C;eorges came out of (Germany,"
answered Mona, grateful to the young man for trying to
distract Nlargery's attcnticn. "Ye v e ~hc eye and nerves of
a good marksman and

"What about Ellen?" ins.stecl his dauglltel.

 "Well, if ye willna' leave it lest, I'll tell ye the kernel of it
and no more. 'Twas called to my attention once that she was
too free with the lads, and she being scarce tout of hel-
chi]cTlloocl at that time. There 'tis. I'll have no more to say
on 't."

 "I know when it was," cried l\Iargery. "It was that fall of
the great rains when I brought home the swan with the
broken Sting, and he lived in our fowl house all winter. We
were twelve years old that fall, Ellen and 1. You had alwa,
s said before, that when the time came you would send her
to school in Inverness so she could be trained to teach a
Iaird's children in a fine house somon here. But that fall vou
called her to you and told her she could never go, and must
bide as she was, for all of you. I have alw<l-.s w ~nclerecl
why, leather.'

         ligly('oes to the Bone 67

 "Ellen hasna' wondered why," he answered with a grim
little smile. "Come, lass, did ve no hear Ranrlall say he
needed victuals? TO the house with us!"

 EJe strode off in the viny M.lrgery had come. She stood
looking at Randall.

 "Forgive me,' she said contritely. "If we use you so, and
quarrel amongst ourselves before your face, vou will wish
that vou had staved in Edinburgh."

 Together they started alter Comyn, away from the cliffs
and down the steep path to the cottages below.

 "You were not quarreling," he assured her easily. "After
all, 7twas a matter between the two of you? and since
chance brought it out, 'twas well to settle it there. ()ne thing
thougll? I thinl< he is \vronC, in. I would Lot argue with
him, and still--"

"What NNas that, Randall?"

 ''About girls not changing. I think they can. I remember a
woman or two at home good wives and ~ hutch members
when I knew them, but my father told me that when they
were young they were the talk of the C1OC7T~S in
Portsmoutll. When they married they gave up their light
ways, and So will Ellen, no doubt. I should not worry about
her.'

 "I am glad, Randall, glad you believe it will be so. I have
known father had no liking for her, but I never knew why.
She seems worse than she is sometimes, because she is so
unhappy. She finds it lonely in Ballyrhinn with no lad of her
own.

 They were licking their way between the scattered cottages
now, drawing near to the cove whcrc half a dozen fishing
boats stood in from the bay.

 'She should Act a lad with no trouble," replied Randall.
"She's as fair as most, if not uncommon fail. Her mother is
a strange woman. Could it he she scares them away?"

 "Oh no! No one on all the island is loved as i\ndra is not
even my father surely not me! She is all the bedside wlleri
they are born and again when they die. No sotll can pass
either in or out of life, they believe, unless she is there to
ease its way."

"Has she lived always on Rona? Where did sue act her
skill?"

 Margery tripped lightly ahead of him as they crossed the
stepping stones set in the burn just before its sluggish
peat-stained waters flowed into the sea.

 "Oh she is an incolllcr--on`. not born on the
island though it seems strange to thinl.; of her so. Sac came
from 'round Banflf, I think, and had lived in Ireland, and
was on her wav home when her ship went to pieces here. It
Noms bc fore I can rcmcmber. But she never went away.

68 s \\' a. A 11 n Y A P O L L O

look, Randall! 'I'liat's Tim l\I]LV{a!1S ljo.it bringing our
things fnmn Stornaway. Oh Randall see!"

 She caught his arm anti motioIlecl for llim to look toward
the vvharl, looking there herself, neNer taking her c yes
aN`vay. Then she felt him start and shudder, and Drew that
he had seen what she saw.

 The laird waited at the end of the crazy platform, thatching
while the crew of a small bc>at with double sails of red and
brown unloaded its cargo. Beside hind rested his dauglltei's
trunks and a disorderly heap of' bags and boxes. I our men
were gingerly climbing out can the wharf? carrying between
them Ralld.ill's small medicine chest. a pair of hands
clutching it. at each corner.

 "Word of God!" mutter d IRallclall. "II'S what she sa\N! it's
what Blat woman told us of at tile table last nigllt! 'I'lie fotir
loll with mv chest  the double sail!"

 Nlargery g]ancL: qtlicl;'v Em a! ibis, stilp~isec1 tilat lie
siloulcl be so shaken.

 'why, yes, it is just as ~Nndfa sails it, but that is nothing
new. I~!othin4 to be afraid of. Slie often does so. OZI Rona
we are used to it."

 "I'm not afraicl," retorted Randall. i'R'm g Oitlg do\N!n
theIe. I w mt to find out."

I le strode swiftly towarc the dock, and she htirricd alone
bellied h;7ll.

"What--vvhat do you want to find out'"

"Why it tales four then to carry what's less tin tWL> stone
weight."

Breathless from trying to lamp u], with loin she ran clown the
uneven

 allking till tiley reached 1ler father. Romi, too, seemed
curious, for I\L was questioning the men in their native
Gaelic, nodding gravely at their answers. Still uIlablc to form
arty words herself, she heaid ZR.rilLlall SctN. 'By God, it
gave me a start, sir! What's Llle meaning of its"

Rona smiled widely and motionecl the men to go on with
their work.

 "Wily there's naught qtr. Age aljout it, and '`is easy
understood. Somerine in Stornaway, I'am NlacVean, likely,
heard us talking among ourselves and Icarned ye revere a
doctor and the chest had your drugs and instruments in it.
i)octorin ~ and magic, for folk in these islands, sir, be much
the same. I-IZC lads chewed the matter betwixt them whilst
they was crossing and none of ~hCm wanLc~ci to be the
one to bear it ashore;, lest it slip and fall frolll h.m, alla its
cc>ntcnts brealc and bring curses clown. In the end they
agrLecd they weld all put a hand to it. 'Tis not strange,
Randall. we're pail, lacl, a; it' v<Jur <~randmotller!s
ghostie 11.13 bespoken ye."

 "I wouldn't have minded ller,''Illtl~t red Kalldall, "for she
was a good kind woman living and would Lurn no diLercIIt
after. But that could

 ot be.  We    NIL>  ZlLlt mtlcll j]CI;CVCill
glZosLsin111V  COUZItrN7,Ilo\\7ada~s.

llg1v (,408 to t3ie Prone 69

And I nevtr knot w a c~cature of Rcsh and blood \~ho
could shu; her eyes and see what will come to pass! I'll
admit, it fair distracts me.'!

 Lena made a careless gesture. "Ye'll na' take it so ill next
time, will he, Madge? Come to the house, lad. I It pOt1l ye
no French slop this time, hut usquchaugh as was distilled
from otlr own barley. It'll turn your legs to widow wands
aml sing in your bk~ocl like music. Andra's a rare lass, and
'twill no seem so ghotilisl1 to ye when ye'ie talked to her nd
Know her \vcil.

 :\largery had her greatly back now. bbc lnoN:ctl tetweel1
the two men ant! linked her arms \vith theirs.

"I;ather's right," SilC said. "1 et's go home.''

 ()n the cart road just above the clachan they met Ellen.
She curtsied and stood aside for them to pass, giving
Randall a s]antvvise look from hel narrow greenish eyes.
But Ellen had said she was going to pull kelp, thought
Margery, and here ski' was, coming front Rhinn House!
Well, pclhaps she had only gone to take milk ol a cheese, or
herbs for Caitlin. And in any case, what harm was it if she
had been there? What harm it she hatl changed her mind?
It was a common thing to do.

 They greeted the cattle maid briefly and walked oil, and
Margery thought Randall had missed the sly glance aimed
at him, but a moment later she knew that he had not That
was when he threw his head back, and his eyes smiled
without n erriment, and he spoke to Rona.

 Mid I hear you say, sir, that lasses arc horn white or black,
and there's an end on 't?"

"Aye," agreed his host warily. "I might ha' said such a thing
to ye.

 '`ThCT1 I SaS ST'OU,;e Wrong, SI;, begging your partlom
Black and white they may Ihc own, btlt th.lt's never the cud
of it orgy the start."

                    v l l
            A Mc'(ten ~:0~2 Women
XE;L .ft~ told hin' tl1ele here more Ronas 7hal1 one in the
Western Is
lands, that it was a common name amongst them, an old
northern word
meaning "bare rocks in the sea," but Randall was finding
Margery's is
land home anything save rocky and bare. Sometimes he felt
almost over
wl1elmed by the tcemiIlg life of it. No matter how early he
wakened,
the men in the clachan and on the circling farms were Lip
before him,
calling to each other as th'y strode off for the machair, to
scatter rotting
heath and burnt sca`A7eecl on the crops of oats and barley
already laid
down. And in tl1c evenings they gathered in little groups
on the door
stones or worn glassy places, smoking their pipes and plucking
their
fiddles, gossiping, and whittling small animals out of horn and
bone, or
merely sitting rcl~ixtcl, staring contentedly into the dark. They
were a
quiet, dignified People; shy, not unfriendly, given to bursts of
rich laugh
ter, loving a jest or the rhythm of a SOlig; good seamen, at
home on the
seater as if their nlccstor. had been a web-footed folk. He had
gone
among them often during :he month he had been 011 Rona,
learned their
names, and enough simplt phrases of tl1e Gaelic to make
himself under
stood, discovering somewhat later that most of them could use
English
themscl~cs when they chore, a rotlgh, reluctant, workaday
kind. His phy
sician's eye noted blat the y were prolific. Many of the women
carried
suckling chilklrtn into the fields with them, and Kenneth's
school over
the byte was crowded with sturdy lads and solemn little girls,
sitting on
tile cmde steps that led t',;' to it, because there was such scant
room for

them inside.

 Nor were tht lesser for ns of life missing. Overhead, from
moor and crag and sca beach, the lords kept calling all day
long; gulls, gannets, l.ittiwal;es, strange birds he h.ld never
seen before, and many familiar birds of home. Rid cdcer
cropped the heather, and Flue and orange and purple
shellfish1 clung to the rocks in the shallow coves. To go
a-fishing was to co,ne back w;tim lt! ~ ftul ol cod duct long.
Small dark cattle graztcl

A Matter for 117o1nen 71

on Ardmory, and black faced shtep and rams 011 the middle
uplands of Caldune.

 Only the land he distrusted, poor and stony on the crofts
round the village, and a reach of glittering white sand
beyond the daisy fields in the low-lying west. Could it fetid
all the people who must rely on it, he wondered. He thought
regretfully of his mother's table the good roast beef and
mince pies, stewed cranberry and pumpkin and doubted if
there would be any such ample fare for the folk of
Ballyrhinn to warm their insides with when winter came.

 Some of these rambling thoughts he tried to put into a
letter to his father one night in late May, sitting alone in his
room on the upper door of Rhinn f louse. Supper was long
over, but the sky had not yet grown dark, for it seemed as if
twilight lasted forever here. He had opened the casement
looking w st over the gray-grecn curve of the island to the
low grey sea, and a soft wind cooled his face and ruffled a
lock of his blond hair. It V AS enotigil to make him lay his
pen down, and turn his back on the candlelight, and stare off
into the misty world that would never be real to him as
l-lampton Falls vvas real. Hampton Falls, he thought, and
then other familiar names rang over like a chime of bells;
Dover, Barrington, Exeter, I-laverhill, New Castle and he
remembered with a start where last he had heard that music
played. It was in a letter from his father he had received that
morning, the letter he was trying to answer now.

 When John N;Voodbury sat down to write that letter, he
had not known of his son's decision to Icave Edinburgh, and
he had addressed him at the house in Rowan Tree Wynd.
Either Tom Culpepper or MacCrimmon had sent it on. EIe
had been disturbed when he wrote it, and apprehensive of
troubles greats r than could come to the son of any one
man. It was runnored, his letter said, that Parliament was at
work on a whole spate of new acts to punish the colonies for
destroying the Com pany's tc a. That Lord North
complained Boston should be knocked about the ears, and
he would send four or five frigates to do the work. That l
ord George Germain wanted u' abolish town meeting! At
home, Governor Wentworth had tried to calm the Assembly
and tell them how happy they were under the King, saying
that their taxes were light, the French war was paid for, and
the treasury had a surplus of five thousand, eight hundred
and seventy polmds. But he had not convinced the New
Hampshire men who listened to him. Their ears were cocked
for rumblings from Massachusetts aml Virginia. There \vas
talk of rallying to defend Boston, in Dover, in I'~xeter, in
the others, the old towns.

 "It is like when there is a black wind blowing oHr'the sea,"
John Woodbtlry had written, ''wl1cll the sky draws do\\ll alla
bides the Isles of

, 2 S \\' r A ~ B Y A P O L I. O

Shoals, and you knoiv a storm is coming, hut what will come
of the storm, you do not know. Will your house have a roof
when it is over, alla your cattle and your t hildren be still
alive? You are on that side of the water, lad. For God's
sake, write and tell me, what is the truth of its \7i7hat are
they doing thelci"

 Randall smiled bleakly as he stared out into the night. He
was eight hundred miles from London and his father was
three thousand, but his father knew more of what they were
doing than he. Lie had withdrawn into an island. He had
retired from the world and set his face to another life. But
had any man a right to do that? The thought troubled him.

 Below on the terrace he saw Carvery coming out of the
garden. She wore a full-skirted white dress, filmy and thin,
her hands were full of sea pinks and she was singing.

"Oh I glaI7g like ~ ghost, tiHt1 L care 11a/ snuck to spin,
I Glare Ha ti~i'~k c'Ja~zie, for i1~at Z'701ll~ be ~ sin
- "

Sometimes it seemed to h n that l\Iargery was the only being
on Rona who did not "gang like a gl1ost," who was made out
of the real substance of the earth. Even Comyn Rhinn,
sturdy and matter-of-fact as he was, had lived long in the old
East, and sometimes a foreign word on his tongue or a
quicl;-hidden light in his eyes caused Randall to stir uneasily,
as he imagined hot jungles full of swollen flowers and great
snakes festooned from the trees like streamers of flecked
brocade, disturbing slant-eyed women, knives and incense
and temple gongs. There was so much in the laird's
consciousness that was not in his and never would be.

He blew out the candle and ran downstairs to join her on
the terrace.

  "Oh, Randall," she cried, as they stopped and stood still,
smiling at each other. "I was going to take these to Caitlin.
Do you think it would disturb her if I carried them up nowr"

  l le frowned, looked past her at the squills and primroses
beyond the stone pavement, all the sane soft colors of mauve
and ivory in the evening light. "You know I ~ annot tell you
!' IZC said. "You know Caitlin will not see me."

  "Oh, but- Randall," she spoke gently, as if she sensed the
wounded pride in his voice and sought to comfort him. "It is
only because she is so modest out of all reason. and you are
a man. It is not you she distrusts. It would be so vvitl1
anyone. But I saw you talking with Leitis today. 1 thought
she might have told you more than she tells me.!'

  "I do not. think; even Lo itis knows all of the
trouble only that there is pain. But: I was asking her what
medicine Andra leaves. I was curious tc, know that."

"l)id she tell you'"

       A Matter [tr7'l'\7017]e77 73

  He smiled. "Yes. It is simple ~ nougll and seems to work
as a palliative. Chopped nettles mixed with Plaits of egg to
smooth on her forehead and make her sleep."

  "Oh? I never heard of it myself, but then, I am not wise in
such matters. Is it a remedy you use in America?'!

"I am afraid we would put no great faith in it there."

"But does it really help?"

"Sometimes, I eitis says, unlit ss the pain is too great."

"You have never talked to Andra herself:

  "No, and I should like to. (Gould you arrange it, do you
think? She might be more friendly if you were there."

  Margery looked thoughtful. She might talk to you about
Caitlin," she answered finally. "She never keeps her
medicines secret. She says they are for folk to know and use;
that she had the recipes from her grandmother who is long
dead, and wants others to have the good of them when she
herself is gone. But she might fear you would question her
about the sight. That, she does not like to talk about."

"She tells her visions. I heard her, that first night I came."

  "Yes, but not always. And sometimes before she is quite
awake again. And that night my lather commanded her to,
that night. He never means to, and be is always so-rv after.
But he often does. I le wants so much to know."

  Margery's voice died away, md Randall was conscious of
a little And stirring the ro\N:ans in the garden, and the beat
of surf on the crags below the house. Now at last the daik
was settling down. Over the sea hung a crescent moon.

  "You knoNv," she sp~ol;e hurl icUly, as if she wanted to
finish the speech before anyone could stop her "I think he is
always hoping that Andra will have a ward from the dead.
The taischers never do. But he loved my mother so much he
cannot let her go. He '

  "He might as well!' Randall spoke sharply and then was
sorry when he saw the hurt in her eyes. But of course he
could not explain. He could not explain even to himself how
he felt about those dying words of Sally Anne. And yet, he
was still not sure how he felt about Margery. If he had been
a lusty young bachelor, he thought, a man who had not
known marriage for what it was, he would have shown her
a thing or two about courting that hel loutish Highlander
seemed unaware of shown her and had her answer weell;s
ago. But he had been married once, a marriage that he had
not chosen, but that had happened to him, like losing his
childhood voic. or growing a beard. It had happened, and it
was over, or appeared to lie, for he still distrusted that last
threat of Sally Anne's. Next time he did not meal1 for. it to
h.7l~pen. ale meant to

74 S \V E A R B Y A P O r r. o

choose. E le sighed and gl lnced about him restlessly, at all
the peaceful beauty of the dark island the faintly glimmering
meadows of the sea.

 "Come," he said, "let us go in. Play me a ulne on the
spinet. Not what yt U were singing abut 'I Ernie.' It's too
mournful for a fine night. Play the Crcensleevcs.lir.

 I lea\7y stays moved dctermilleclly across the flagstones
and Kenneth ace peered out of the shadow. Forgery fumed
to him with a playful greeting.

 "Ancl where have you bee n, sir? Out all alone
contemplating the moon' Are we to iRclicvc that?"

 Kenneth looked startleci, Randall thought, like a boy
caught stealing apples, but the lot k passed quickly from his
face and perhaps had never eally been there.

 "Down in the clachan,' I.e repliecl, scooping the sea pinks
from Margery's grasp. "C7ivc me yl ur posies, lass, and to It
me where ye want them Put. I carIna' hold h.lncls with one
so cambered." He paid no more attention to Randall than to
the Iittle stunted rouran tree by the garden wall.

 ;\Iargery forced a laugl1 that ended on a broken note.
"Bring them into the houst," she told l,im. "lisle were just
going in."

 The schoolmaster bent toward her and was about to utter
another pleasantry vrllell Rona cam hurrying arotlnd from
the la\i\7ns by the front door.

 "I-loo, lad!' he' CliCd, co ding straight Or Randall. "Get
down to the clachan! Tlleres a lass there like to bleed
herself away!"

"Who is it:" plcacleti M.Irgery. "Oh, who is it, Father?!'

 "I.avan," lie saicl. alla stood still, his filch mottled red,
trying to catch his breath.

i'\~3,7hy LavalI was I.avai1 was "

 "Yes. Lavan \NaS with cl ilcl. Ancl she fell going up
Ardmorv to spell Fllen. they brought her tat Andra's. C7et
ye down there, lad."

 l Iurrying Upst.li's for his little deerskin chest, Randall felt
almost ovcrcome with inner reLclliGn. I to did not want to
go. It was not, he told himself, that he had seen the
schoolmaster's arm fall about Margery's shoulders as he
turned away from thorn. It was the unlucky chance that his
first trial of skill among the island people should be in a
branch of his profession in which he felt Icast qualified. He
tried to reassure himself. He knew what should lie done. E
to had seen it done, done it himself. but not in front of a
witch woman like Andra, not to a patient who looked on
magic and merlin ine as much the same. E le cheered
himself with the thought that they might not let him in.

 When he descended again to the hall of Rhinn House on
his way out, Margery Divas not there having gone to her
room or to Caitlin, perhaps. Kenneth st.nitl h`7 tIn' coltl
hC~llLil fiO\\7ning, and Mona SpraU7]Cd

A Matler for lion 75

in a chair, still panting and calling for vvhiskey, which Sim
was bringing tram a sideboard as big as a corn bin.

  "Get down to Andm's wi' ye," he ordered Randall.
"There's a mort o' women there, and ye'll send one of them
for me if there's need, but dinna' send for my lass. Such
lights are not for her."

  "If it's as you say, I'll need no help from either of you,"
Randall told him soberly. "Andre will be tile one. Perhaps
between us, we can save the child."

  The laird shook his head. "Save the lass herself," he
muttered, and 'we'll be in debt to ye Ah, Sin! Thank ye, lad!
'Tis the breath o' life ye're bringing me, as none can deny."

  As Randall strode down tht cart road through the soft
island night toward the lighted cottages by the water, he
tried to order his thoughts For the work ahead of him, like
lining lip the men of a trainband on muster day. Dr. John
Burton's book on midwifery, considered in Edinburgh to be
the latest word in such matters, was somewhere in the niche
of stone shelves in his room at Rhinn House, but you could
not go to a patient with a book in one hand and take a pulse
with the other. Better to try and thinl; what his father r did
that time the bound girl was bleeding to death in Seabrook,
and the doctor there would not treat her because she was
unwed. It had taken her master so long to send, and them
to ride down, they had almost lost her. As he followed the
winding lane along the white beach he could sense a hush
unusual that early in the night. The women and children
were not on the doorsteps. Here and there a group of men
smoked and chatted, watching him uneasily as he passed, but
no fiddles played, and even Johnny Dweeney's obstreperous
bagpipes were still. He greeted the loungers briefly, and he
read in their eyes that they knew his calling now. Rona had
told them, doubtless, that he was a book doctor from
Eclinburgh. They would wait, skeptical, perhaps, but willing
to see what he could do.

  He had sometimes thought to himself when he walked
alone at night beside the sea, either here, or in the old days
at home, that hidden away in every man there are many men
the world does not know about, and at least one child the
child hi was before his beard grew and he learned to fire a
gun and hold a plow and make his way in the world; the
child that he will carrry to the graN e with him, that is never
wise, nor disciplined, nor grown. In his soul he could feel
that child now, stir, and tremble, and cry out, and tmn to
run from a challenge too great for it. Stubbornly he forced
the child down and held to his course through the silent
clachan.

Before Andra's house he I aused. I Ic could hear a murmur
of voices

76 s \v E A ~ r3 Y A P O L T O

within, and a light shone under the matting that hung across
the door`.vay. l le tapped against the crude stone of the wall.

"Andre," he called softly, and then with greater firmness,
"Andre!"

 When she pulled the matting aside and stood looking at
him, he stared into her sea-blue eyes and pale ivory face,
and suddenly it was as if his own blood turocd and all his
strength and confidence came flooding back. Andra, he
thought with surprise, divas indeed a magic woman to affect
him so. l Ic cleared his throat.

 "Andre, I am a doctor of medicine. Perhaps Rona told
N70U. ICle said Lavan was very ill here and you needed
help."

 Andra bent her head ever so slightly. ''I.avall is bad
indeed,' she answered in English as prolJer .1S his. "Rona
told me what you are alla that you would come."

She stood aside for him to enter tile cottage.

 At first the smoke hurt his eves, and he could hardly see
more then the blurred outlines of fit male figuecs clustered
in one corner, but he was aware that all talking among them
had ceased, that a breathlessness hung in the air, as tangible
as the hltle fragrance of peat smoke. Lie stood still and
l~rtlslled his hand across his eyes, and gulUtlally the room
all came clear.

 It was more like a cave ~ llan the clean kitchens the
women kept where he had grown tip, not dirty or littered but
windowless, almost without furniture, the walls of gra;,
discolored stone. A fire burned in an earth pit in the tcnter,
and twit straw pallets stood at the far end. One of them was
covered with a clean blanket, and on the other lay a huddled
form. A few of the women crouched, animal-like, near it,
and two small iron lamps smelling of fish oil burned on a
shelf above. He thought regretfully of the bright sunlit room
with its scrubbed oak table where he and his father had
spread tne unconscious body of the bound girl to do what
must be done. I Ie thought of the rosy-faced kindly Nev,~
Hampshire housewife in her starched dress who had stood
by to help. He stepped forward and pulled back the blanket,
aware that all eyes were following him, the patient, deep,
far-seeing eyes of the island women.

 At first he thought Lavan had died, she lay so still and
clay-colored, but then she stirred a little, and he noticed a
faint beating in her throat. She was covered with only .i shift,
and all about her curved a sort of nest of woolen rags, dark
and blood-stained toward the center. Lavan writhed, 35 if to
escape from what he knew must be an almost unbearable,
heavy, grinding pain. She was shivering. l 1e pulled the shift
away and laid bare the delicate young bode. It must have
been early days with her, he thought, for there was no
swelling to betray her condition, and he remembered that
she hail 0131v been marilecl at New Year's, alla Lav.n1

A Alattel for 11ioillel:7 77

was a girl of good narIle. Now; iN\IS allMOSt ]UIIC. The
child could date 17~n1 any time b' twecn. file su.ldenly
remembered the husband.

"Where is lver?" he asked without turning his head.

 "At sea," someone murmurs cl, "fishing for ling below
Stornaway. Three days he has been gone.'

 I-Ie stared down at the body of the girl, the softly curving
belly, the loose and tRabby bosom, the depressed nipples
that in health must have been so rosy and firm. Ile realised
that Andra stood beside him and that he was glad to have
her there. It was as if his mother had come to the aid of the
child he was, the frightened child, hidden secure in bonds of
iron within. And maybe a man's mother was a better help
than his father at such a time, or than the wisest doctor ever
born. It was a worn an's season and crisis, a matter for wan

"I As the chil`:l ?" he asked.

Andra shook her he 7d. "No.

'man it be saved, do. ~770U thinks

 She shook hen head again. "No. I think it should not be.
Once 1 saved such a child, and it came to a monstrous bird.
I have not tried to do so again. But we Callnot mal;e it pass.'

 Slowlv, tcnse]y, while the omen watched him, he examined
Lavan. Whenever she stirred, blood w'llcd in the lags about
her. I lo knew what he must do now:, alla he hated doing it.

"You are right. It must cone away," he said.

  I le opened his deerskin chest and took out a metal rod
with notched prongs on the enci, and bega l to rub it with
sweet oil. Suddenly he caught an hysterical murmur ill Gaelic
front one of the women.

  'What dries Ike sat ?'' he a ;ked Ancll-a still stalking the
narrow in~itrumcnt.

She says, 'It is the I[I.lgiC staff of a wark~cii,"' replied
Andra tonelessly.

  I fe fumbled for the words himself and t'tlcn gave up. "Tell
her I am no warlock," he ordered. "Tell her it is a tool like
a harrow, like a prow. Iil;e a spindle such as she uses every
day. It is to open the mouth of the womb and draw away wh
it would have been the child. The bleeding can be clucked Al
tot Lhat. 1 know no magic. i`7\Te will use no magic hc~e."

  As he bent over LaNan he could hear Andra calmly
repeating his mes sage. Then he c ailed to her to help him
as he drew the tender flesh apart.

  The climax of his task was surprisingly easy. The young
wife had sunk too deeply into u nconsciousness to feel pain
or offer resistance, and in any case, the foetus was no ar
ready to pass of itself. I fe noticed that it was a well-formed
chilcl, a troy. Perhaps Lavan had a little anticipated ho
wedding alto ail. I ic cotllc1 mat b. sure. At least, be would
not allow

  78 s w E A R B Y A P O L L O
the question to arise. I-le i aught it Lip quickly in a rag of
stained wool.

"It is dead," he told Andra harshly. "Burn it."

 Bending again to the sick girl, he was dimly aware of the
midwife carrying out his orders at the fire pit behind him. He
thought of Iver ('all, who had holed for a son, perhaps; of
another lad who had hoped for a son once, long .IgO, under
a blue green tree on a New Hampshirc hill.

 He delivered the memb.anes easily and adjusted wads of
clean linen in case further bleeding should occur. Lavan
twisted herself again, and writhed, and muttered. Randall
held her head up so that she would not choke, and gazed at
her slim arms flung limply outward, at their soft flesh all
waxen pale in the light of the reeking oil lamp. If he followed
the custom of his profession as it was practiced both in
America and in Edinburgh, he would lift one of those arms
now, choose a likely vein and draw blood; establish the little
bleeding there to draw the flow away from the great arteries
that fed the \vomb. 13ut he could not bring himself to do it.
Lavan had lost sit much blood. Then he straightened up and
spoke to the huddled woollen who watched him with their
quiet \vise eves.

 "Go home now. She must have rest and stilt/less about her
and clean air to breathe, unpoisoned by so many breaths. We
cannot tell yet how she will fare, but 1lo\V there is no more
to do. You will be called if there is need."

 I le was prepared for protests and excited speech, but no
one demurred. Instead they crept silently past him, out of the
cottage, their patient heads bowed and their glances all cast
down. Finally he was alone with Andra and the sick;
girl and that last undying danger out of the old dark, that
will always win in the eml, but that a man must always fight.

 "We shall watch togetl,er now," said Andra, bringing him a
thicelcyged stool. "first 1 shall make he r bed clean and dry."

 I-le sank down on the rough wooden seat placed just
behind Lavan's head and leaned wearily against the stones of
the cottage wall. He could feel their cold through his
~voolen coat, alinost feel the moisture seeping

througll.

"I)o not move her too mucll,'' he said.

 Andra did not reply, and he watched her expert fingers pull
the stained GlgS from the bed and draw clean ones gently
under the still body. When she had finished she stood a
moment looking down at the results of her work, then she
went to the fire and heaped on another sod of turf.

 "She must not take a chill," Andra told him, "and we dare
not hate more than a thin cover ova r her while we watch,
lest the bleeding start again and we L,c un.l\v.lre"

        A AI`Ttte7for W`;r11e77 79

 I Ie nodded in agreement. She pulled up another stool and
seated hersclL by the narrow bed.

 "May I see it?" she asl;ed, holciing out her 1lancl for the
instrument he W.1S cleaning to put away.

He gave it to her, and she examined it carefully, then
handed it bacll;.

 'lt served you well," she told him. "lt opened the womb as
the child's head could not do. A dead child has no power to
stir, only the dull weight of itself bearing down. I never saw
a device like this before.'

 "l do not like it," said Randall. "Childbed fever too often
follows its use And I cannot see why, for it is always washed
in warm water and lcept clean. You must watcl1 her for
some days, to be sure the fever does not start.'

 Andra nodded silently, and for the moment he felt too
exhausted and relieved to malce any further t ilk. IJe W.1S
content to sit \7v-ith his back to the damp wall, closing his
eyes sometimes, not in sleep, only to shut OLlt the
unfamiliar sight of the squalid hut and the gaze of the
woman s eyes, so quiet and keen, asking, so much of him,
and offering so much strength and confidence in return.
Then he grew alert and tense again, watching Lavan, waiting
for the clean rags around her to turn red and clarlien. But
she lay qLIic~t, not writhing or muttering any more, and
the redness did not come. And then he grew restless with
the long night going by them, and he felt rc Issu.i-ed and
himself again. ile turned to Sandra and spol.e.

"You have seen this ha,opcn to women many times, have
vou not?'

She shook hot hcacl.

  "Not many times. lt is uncut mitten llcrc. You TlZUSt
have seen more of it than I."

  I to smiled at her. ".\ndr3,T' he saicl, "I'll be honest witl1
you. At midwilery I'm no better than a blacksmith. You
shot71d see Sandy Mac(:rimmon catching pauper bairns at
the Infirmary. He's but to curve his hands and call, and they
creep forth like snails after a rain. But when I'm confronted
with a l.earing woman, the Devil himself couldn't scare ne
more.'

  She looked at him witl1 a quiet smile on her lips but her
eyes did not change "Yes," she said thoughtftlll\T. "I can
SCC it might bc lily that for a man.

"You can see?"

  Andra, he thought. must h tve undc7-standing a gtCAlC'r
gift than the second sight.

  "Yes. I can see. Bearing is a matter for women. l ho;\ can
vou thinly to aid US, wilen you vourselv~`s cannot give
liPc-"

80 S \V E A R B Y A P O r. L O

I le smiled again, Somers hat wrvIy. "We have our part in
it," he said. "In the pleasure, yes. But not in the time of
pain.

  Suddenly he wanted her to know that he, too, had once
almost had a part in the great miracle of'- life.

  "Andre," he saicl. "1 know that pleasure. 1 had a wife, but
she died before our child had quickened in her. She died of
the throat-ail.'

  Andra nodded sympathetically. "That was hard, yes. But
you are young. You will have other r sons."

  E le cried out, startled. "That was what my mother said to
me! Did you hear my mother say that? Did you see me
before I came to Rona? Did you, Andra`> That first night
when I came to Rhinn House, you looked at me as if you
had seen me before."

l Ier eyes met his steadily across the body of the
unconscious girl.

  "1 saw you," she murmured uncertainly, like a person
\vaking from sleep. "I saw you, but I h'ard n o such words
spoken. I heard you say, 'Edinburgh is the lilacs and 1 better
go there.' I saw something red upon the fioor."

  "The Turkey carpet in toy father's study!" he breathed.
"Here halfway across the world you saw that! You heard
me talk! Bv God, I think  [ think I am afraid of you!"

 Then he was shocDcd at himself. I le sank back on the
stool, muttering n apology.

But Andra spoke calml\, seeming again to understand.

 "Many have been," she said. "At first there was no one
more afraid than I. But never, after tl at first time, have I
feared what I saw. It is not held a matter for fear ii' the I
lighlands. There is a clachan on Eriskay \vllere everyone has
it. I have heard that in Skye there are those vvho offer to
teach it for a potted of tobacco."

 She reached for l avan's wrist and began to rub it gently
as she talked. "You are young and valise in all the ways of
the world and its new learning. But you are in an old
country here, where time moves slowly and customs linger,
and there is little change."

 i le had heard the saTne from Rona and Margery, he
thought, but there was something about Andra that made
him go on listening to her.

 "The old beliefs stay, like the old mist that hides the hills
even in broad noon and never quite fades from them. We
believe many things Acre that the professors in Edinburgh
say are not so, but when you find the\ are wring, you must
not he afraicl."

NON she was Iccturing llim, he thought, and he was nettled
by it.

 "How do you know," hi askecl, hating his own rudeness
even as the welds left lids mouth, "whit the professcrs say in
Edinburgh?"

.-\ndr.l sn-iilccl, ignoring Lois insolence.

            A Matter for women

 "1 do not know," she told him, "but 1 kntlw well how they
used to talk when I was young in Aberdeen, for my father
was one of them. 1 think the city scholars of today are likely
much the same."

 "Margery told me," he said, interested in spite of the cold
stones at his back and the heaviness of sleep about his
eyelids. "that you were not born on Rona; that you came
Jrom away."

 "Ah, Margery! 1 was as young as she is, once, and our ways
in life were not so far apart. 1 was not a laird's daughter, but
my father owned houses in the ctry and a country place in
the hills east of Banff, by the little river Deveron that we
taLc our name from. My father taught Hebrew and Creek at
the Collegc. I was a pretty girl. You would scarce believe it."

 "You arc beautiful llO\V, Andra," he told her, and he
meant what he said. "It shows in your face that you have
lived beautifully healing and comforting all."

 Still smiling, she shook her head in denial and went to
pour Iresh oil Irom a clay jug into the iron l imps. Then she
returned to her place by Lavan's side.

 "Many would say my life has been ugly and mean,' she
resumed. I let eyes looked straight at his but did not seem to
meet them, stared. Only, at the wail behind. She Night have
been talking to herself rather than to him, but she was telling
the thing he had wondered about ever since his first night on
Rona, .md if the thatch over his head had taken fire, he
might have stopped listening, but for no lesser interruption.

 "I was a girl in the country house I spoke of. My brothers
were grown and well-placed in the world. 'Twas thought I
would marry well. I wish I could tell it all over as it was, the
wonderful safe feeling of being a lass in my father's house,
fair and desired and young. The wind would whip through
the little Scottish firs at dusk, and in winter the snow would
cling like eiderdown to the pointed turrets, and my father's
students would ride out to take tea or wine."

 "And there was one lad out of all the others he prompted
her. "There is always one."

 "Yes. There was one. The young men arc brave and bonny
nowadays, as they were then. But they are not the same as
he, and they never were. There was a difference on hiln. We
were much together and thinking to be wed. But then- lad,
have you ever been in a country that fell to war?"

Randall considered.

 "If you count fighting Indians," he told her. "My country's
never out of that. Likely won't be, in nly time. But war
between nations no"

"This was fighting all amongst our own, and that is the
bitterest kind.

82 S \V P A R B Y A P O L L O

l he old and the new, lighting to see who should ilave
Scotland. Man\ lads marched south with Charlie and did not
come back, and among them was mine. 'Tis stale gossip now,
for it was many years ago. Perhaps in America you have nevi
r heard."

  "It is no'- much talked .160Ut in America, but I have been
near nine months in Scotland and heard little else. I know
the route of Prince Charlie's army as well as you."

  "Not as well as 1, for it is my heart that know it. One
afternoon I was sitting in the great hi711 with mv family, all
in a white dress with my ,7lair down."

  Ranciall remembered \1argcry moving across the terrace,
her hands full of sea pinks, her white dress stanciillg out
against the dark. Andra went

()11.

  '1 was at the spinet, and the others were drinking tea. And
it was then that the vision came. No one knew I had the
sight. It had never afflicted me before. My grandmother was
a Manson of Cromarty, and the Man sons were always
famous for seeing what was not there but would be. My
mother did nest have it. "Lois said to be in every red-haired
daughter, alla her hair was brown.'

  "What did you see that 7'7rst time?" I-lc gave a hurried
glance toward Lavan, but she seemed to be in a natural
sleep IIO\V, and no fresh bloodstains marred the whiteness
of her bed.

  "I saw my lad, all thin and pale, lying in a prison chamber
with his hands bound. Near him stood an older man,
dark-bearded, and his hands were free. file offered my lad
a cup of water, but he could not swallow and his head fell
back. It seemed I saw him die. I screamed then, and
wakened, weeping, and trembling, and all a-sweat. My father
was a man of the new day, just as you are. He tried to tell
me I had had a dream. But my mother knew. Later only a
week it was the strange man in the vision came to our
door. He told us how my lad died in the prison at (Carlisle,
just as I had seen. I hey had fought side by side and been
taken together, but the one had perished with gaol fever and
the other been freed and sent home. file promised that he
would seek me out and tell me the way of it. He could not
know I had seen it all before."

She sunk her head on her breast and huddled silent on the
stool.

  "But after that?" Randall asked her gently. "Ellen was not
his child. I or Ellen is only nineteen, and that was near thirty
years ago."

  She had turned away Tom Lavan and sat staring into the
fire, and he [cared that sue might be seeing before her, but
she was not. She finally roused herself. He could hear gulls
screaming from the waterside, and a thin line of morning
light lay under the matting at the door.

"It makes sorry telling, the rest of it," she answered. "My
father turned

A Matter tO1' 1~V`i'1icll 83

me out, after that. I had fallen ill, and he swore that 1 was
with child, and he sent me to his cousins in Ireland. I-le said
it was to save my name before our friends at home, bm I
think he Was troubled that I had the sight, and wanted me
out of the way. I Its cousins were of the Old Faith, and they
gave me to the nuns to become one of them. Lost and
grieving as I was then, I knew it was nut in my nature to be
a nun. I ran away and lived in Belf'ast as 1 could. Sometimes
I spun at the looms. Sometimes I did not spin. ]. did not
care what became of me. Ellen's father was a sailor from
Bristol. IIe had a wife in England, I learned later, and we
were not together long. But wi h a child to care for, life
began to matter again. My strength came back to me, and
my pride came back. I would not rear her to the streets and
looms. We started home to Scotland, but our ship ran
ashore here in a northeast gale. Some of those who had
traveled with me were sick or injured, and I nursed them. I
remembered my grandmother, Jenny Mansoll, was a wise
woman of the glens, and many of her cures she had told to
me when I was a child. I found 1 remembered them. Then
the island people called on me when illness came. I have
always thought that when the last one was well, I would go
home. But " she Hung out her hands, smiling ruefully at
him, "you are a doctor. You know how ,t falls about. The
last one is never well before another is stricl;en do\Nn.'!

 Lavan stirred and called faintly for water. I le stood over
the bed while Andra held a battered cup to the girl's lips.
Faint color crept back under the pallid skin.

 Andra touched him on the ihouldcr. '(lo home,'' she said,
sand sleep. Ellen will be here soon to help me if there is
need. There should be no more trouble now."

 Lavan stirred again, and hi heard her murmur a desperate
question. I-le did not want to be there when Anclra replied
to it, to tell her the child w as gone. 1-lllrrving to matc his
cscane, he stumbled at the threshold and Lavan'i bitter
crying c vertook him. It was well enough for Andra to say
that bearing W.15 woman's \vork, but he felt he knew better
than she did how Lavan was feeling now. He thought he
could not bear it as he strolls through the clac!lan and up
the hill.

                  V ! 1 1
               1( Was Nof I

WIIEN ELLEN came do\vn ~\rdmcTry a pale gold mist hid
everything before her, muffling the beat of the sea and the
first sound of morning life astir in the clachan of Ballyrhinn.
Ellen was angry, and she hurled an impatient curse at a tiny
rabbit that leaped out of the dewy rushes by the burn and
scuttled between her feet, almost tripping her. She kastened
on, grinding her bale heels into tile ferns and mosses as
savagely as if they were at fault be cause she had had to
stay alone all night at the shicling after being there all the
previous day. Waited, she had, while the stars burned
themselves away, but that worthless Lavan had never come
to take her turn. \;\ell, Ailis would be there in an hour or
two. She'd go home IIOLV for a bit of bread and a cup of
barley-bree. Then she'd go and rout Otlt that ;cile struinpct,
as sure as hot name was Ellen Deveron. Putting On asps,
La~Nall thotigilt she COUId' now that she \T as a married
vvoman'

 '[here had been some start of oL`tC`V in the glen last
night, about the time Lavan should have joule to her Ivory.
Ellen had not paid mucb attention to it thclt, For Kt nnetll
had just left her, and she had still lain soothed and sated
with love in the nest of heather all warm from the two of
them. What a lover Kennetll was! She could lie with him
forever. Fire in his blood arid marn>\v in his bones. Not
lilLe the cold-eyed American lad, unbending as a dry staff,
for all the gold in his pocket. If there vas, indeed, any
'~gold there. Then the querulous suspicion event out of
Ellen's mind. Everyone in Scotland knew that all Americans
had money.

 Well, thus she had lain up there, feeling herself almost
ready to weep tout of a fins sadness, thinl.ing flow the old
proverb was true, that a man could woo where he would but
must marry where his fate was. Kenneth \vc.ttld have his
~Jarycry, tIccome the l aird of loony \vllen the old man
cried, for she had often hi ard there was no male Lin close
enough to stand heir. Kellllctll expel ted that she, Ellell,
would go on, living disgracefully on his botlllty, perhaps as
a sctvant in his \vife's very hall. But

it Was Not 1 85

that, Ellen Lid not mean to dot. She meant to be married
herself and away to America. Thinking th, se thoughts, it was
no wonder that she hat not missed haven until it grew cold
and very dark. Then she had watched, and shivered, and
finally warmed herself with rage. All night Lavan had not c
ome. Perhaps her husband was back from the fishing and she
was even now Iying in bed with him. How strange and sweet
it must be, thought Ellen, to lie so with a man.

 Now it was morning, and she was still alone, still thinl;ing
the same. Why was this sweetness given to Lavan and not to
her? Oh unfair thing, most unfair! Envy and anger grew in
Ellen's heart with every step she took. She crossed the burn,
ran through the mist to her mother's house beside the
invisible sea, Hung open the mat and went in.

 The first thing she noticed was the close smell of sickness,
the smell of blood. It often greeted her when she came
home. The place was as common to the villagers as the open
street, and Lolk were always dragging themselves to its
refuge lot a death or a Iying-in. Andra stooped over the fire
pit, settling an iron bake pot in the swirl of yellow peat
ashes. Staring past her mother, Ellen saw a slight form tmder
the blankets of the low bed.

 "Who is it?" she asked impatiently, fetching herself a cup
of ale from the stone shelf near the door. "Who's taken
now7"

 "Lavan," unsevered Andra quietly. "She fell on the way up
the glen last night. She miscarried."

 She pulled a lump of hot b ~rley cake from the pot,
slipped a wooden plate under it and cease it to Ellen. "Don't
burn your fingers, child," she said.

 Ellen began to devour the mcagcr breakfast. "So that is
where she was," she replied, still aggriev. d. "I should ha'
thought somebody could ha' come up there, and at tht far
least, told me."

 "She was bad and we were all afraid." said Andra, looking
quickly toward the pallet and then b Ick to her daughter.
"When she fell she cried out, and kept crying till Ewen Gow
heard her. I le'd been fishing lor trout in the loch and war
coming down the burn. He carried her here. 1 doubted we
could sate her, and folk were distraught about it, for they all
love Lavan. I be lorry, Ellen, but no one thought of you at
all."

 "Oh they're a line kindly folk, and they all love Lavan,"
said Ellen with bitter sarcasm. "Will she live, is it settled
now? flow long will she cumber us herb"

 "She will stay here till she C1ll go forth well again," said
Andra quietly. "Yes, I think she will be healed in a week or
two. It was the work of the strange lad at Rhinn E Iouse. E
Ie is a doctor in his own country, Ellen,

86 S in' E A rat B ~ A P O L ~ O

alla he canoe down here lost night anci sailed her with such
means as I never saw.'

 "I-le was here?' asl~ed Ellen, her voice sour with a
IICW vexation. To think the American had hi en in her very
hoLIse, alla she had not known! Ellen a happier thought
tame.

 "Is he coming back this morning' To see how she does?
Do ye look fol him soon?"

 Andra smiled. "1 doubt he will come at all unless 1 send
for him," she said. "the crisis is past. Lavan only needs to
gain strength and heal. 1 promised him I would lo t him
know of anything untoward. He must be asleep by now. I-Ie
is still young enough to need sleep."

 Ellen knew what she meant. Too often she had seen the
watchful, wakeful eyes of the okl looking at death, Iying and
looking at it all night long. She sighed. Well, she had missed
the cone chance, but likely there would be another soon. She
stood up and yavvned, and was just going to the empty bed
to lie d own when a rough cheery voice called from outside.

"Ho, Anclra! Be ye up arid about? 11o~;~'s lye lass? Is it
decent I come

ill)

 AncLra hurried to pull the mat aside and bid Pona a good
morning multi vt~elconrle ti' her poor home. Ile wore a
tartan coat and a threecornered hat, Ellen noticed, and
carried a small chest under his arm. INlot as if it were a gift,
she thOliglIt, but.15 if he was prepared to travel somewhere.
And so it turned omit.

 "I'm awaits to (Glasgow, lass," he told the older woman.
"Tam l\lacVean brought me a word last night from my factor
that's left me nothing to do but go. 'his these new laws about
America that blast the tobacco trade. I do not know vvllere
the right lies. I canna' say, with [~enuctll, that the King
should call out the red Indians to help put the white rebels
down. But 'tic not as if they were strong enough to wage
war. Should we feat our own blood, these colonies of our
o\vn?"

 "We have seen wars," said Andra soberly. "you and 1. Seen
our own blood fight against us before."

 Rona shrugged. "I fought in one war L didna' want
to only to please a Iass. But I was young the n. Still, if she
were alive and asked me, I'd d(:) it over." E lis sharp brown
eyes always misted, Ellen noticed, when he talked of 05 wife.
He turned his head slightly.

 "But how is Lavan?" he continuccl. "I came here to ask for
her, that .rnd to take leave as I go away."

 "I avan is sleeping," Andre told him. "He is skillful, the
American doctor. She would have died via ithout him, I fear.
Did he tell you about her when he came home?"

              It Was Not 1 87

 "-Ioo sleepy he was to tell me much, but well-pleased with
himself. 1 thought him, when 1 asked what he had done. 1
am glad if he be able to help ye at such times. 'Twas for that
I brought him here."

 He watched Andra closely, and Ellen watc}lcd her too. She
saw a faint color darken the cheekbones of the pale ivory
face. "I am glad for the people," she replied evenly. "He tells
me he has been in Edinburgh at the College and studied
with all the great ones. I le knows much that I do not know."

 Comyn Rhiml Hung his arm around her shoulders. "Ye're
a good lass not to take it it].. I know there's no better heart
than yours, and none more skillful in all the isles, when it
comes to the old ways o' cure. But there be many new ways
o' doing now, and so much new knowledge. It was against
any conscience that the folk here should hate no benefit
therefrom."

 Andra bowed her head. "Yc-,, there are new ways. \;~iays
that are beyond me. I have been out in the world, and I
Icnow }TOW much wiser the great doctors are. They had
new skills twenty years ago, and they will have more now, for
they always seek to experiment and learn. I am no wiser than
the old women of the glens in my grandmother's time. I shall
be glad to aid and follow this young Inan.'

Rona smiled approval.

 "So now, I go. A week, two weeks, no more. If Lavan
needs aught  or any of the people go to the house and
asl; h1arycry. Ye will find her there. Ye will find the dot for,
the young man."

 He stopped art the door. "Ellen, lass," he said kindly, "1
thank ye for staying at your post last night. 'Twas brave in ye
not to come wailing down. I spoke to Ailis Ogg and Janet
(;illancler as I came by. They will help ye all ye need till
Lavan be about. Dinna' hurry tile lass. Give her full time.
Well a good day hi ye."

 Ike left the mat askew behind him. Ellen could see the
bright sunlight dancing on the water, the fishing boats
p~lttillg to sea. The early morning fog vvas dissolved and
gone. She stretched and yawned and turned toward the bed.

 "I could sleep till Dunvegan (castle Lalls," she mufmurcd.
She gave Lavan one curious glance, but the girl slept on,
unstirring, her face the color of the faded blankets around
her. Ellen lay down and went to sleep.

 She slept deeply at first, and then Lily, dreaming. In her
dreams she lay utterly contented, drugged with all the warm
sweetness of love. Kenneth was hers, she thought; not with
her, only gone from her for a little while. He would not have
to marry Nlargery, and she would not have to struggle to
charm the American lad. Leave them to themselves

88 S W ~ A 11 B Y A P O ~ r o

and their money, that bleat, proper pair. She and Kenneth
would hate enough without. She seemed to be Iying on the
heather, the full purple heather of summertime, and she
could see tile white clouds drifting ovelhead and hear the
curlews crying, hear them all so plain. Then in the midst of
their crying came another cry. it was near her, somewhere
in the low grasses; it was weal: and plaintive, full of pain,
but more full of terror. She rolled over. I It any her body
felt so heavy, and it took her a long time. She was looking
suddenly into the eyes of the rabbit that had crossed her
path that morning as she came down the glen. The rabbit
was caught in a snare, she saw, a snare woven of horsehairs,
sharp hairs that hurt. 'I he rabbit cried out again. Ellen had
not known that a rabbit could cry. Tile Cly brought her
broad awake.

 She vies not in the heather, she was in her own bed in her
mother's cottage with the smoky thatch overhead instc;ld of
the blue sky. But the crying still went on. belle struggled up
on one elbow. The sound came from the other cot. Lo van!
She remembered. Lavan was Iying there. and Lavan had
miscarliecl. and she was crying now in terror and pain.
:Ehere was something about the cry that frightened Ellen.

 "mother!" she found hc~self wailing like a child, and then,
"~\lothcr!" again.

 I\o one ansviTcrccl. She glanced quickly rot~ncl the
cottage, rubbing the sleep lin:'m her cycs. Andra was not
there. She jumped from her bed and ran to ]Lavan.

 She was shocked at the p inched grey face on the pillow,
the dark eyes sunk deep in the heacl. LaN an was not crying
now, only making a weals, desperate noise like the rabbit
caught in the snare. Then Ellen saw the red stain. it had
soaked all the bed around. 13100cl dripped on the stone
Hoor. On Lavan's wedding day she had hated Lavan, she
remembered, had hated her this molnillg', but she did not
hate her now. There was no feeling in her except fright, and
only the one thing to be done.

'1'11 find my mottler, LN7an," she cried. "I'll find her. Lie
still, and

~ '1 1 '!

 Lavan cri~alicd s ~mctllill.', but what it meant she did
not wait to see. Out into the wide lane she ran, then along
the row of houses, calling, "Mother! Mother!" till her chest
seemed to turn to iron and she thought her breath would
fail.

"Eras hornets sttmg ye, kiss? I-las the i rench landed?"

 Johnny Dweeney rambled toward her, his bagpipes under
his arm, a Peace in his slack old face and faded eyes that
somehow quieted Ellen and eased the fear in her heart.
People did take sick and die, she thought, and the world ran
on the same. Death was a thing Johnny DweeneN would
many times have seell. She had seen it l.erself, come to her

It llias Not 1 89

mother's house to the stricken souls Iying there. But her
mother had alwavs been with her then. She had never seen
it alone.

"Where is my mother?!' she gasped. "Lavan's dying!"

 In a second 1l,e had put the bagpipes to his mouth.
Leaning against a driftwood hurdle stacl;ed with herring
spread to dry, Ellen heard the shrill, squeaky tones of the "I
amens" lifted on the sunny air. Johnny only played the
"Lament" when trouble was abroad, a storm coming, or a
ship foundered on the reef in the outer sea. All down the
lanes of the clachan, heads poked out of doorways
inquiringly. Colin MacKay came leaping down from the roof
of his cottage, where he had crouched unseen, mending
thatch.

"What be wrong, JohIIny?'' he demanded.

  Ellen cowered against the hurdle, too spent to notice
(Colin, tot all he was sturdy, dark-haired, and young, and
indeed a bran man.

"ye seen Ano'ra? She's needed bad. Her lass says Lavan's
like to die."

  (Colin noddecl, his black eyes grave. "I saw her," he said.
"She went to Meg Munro's. They sent for her there. The
daftie's had a fit again."

  Ellen watched him as he ran, head down, elbows close to
his sides, to the weathered cottage halfway up the hill where
the young widow dwelt with her idiot boy. In a mon~ent he
came hurrying forth, her mother beside him, moving almost
as quickly as he. Ellen's composure returned to her in a
flash. She smoothed her rumpled hair and skirts and held
her head high. Into that head ideas began to come. 1 Ier
own weal was before her eyes again.

She caught Andra's sleeve .IS the midwife hastened yast.

  "Lavan's bleeding," she said. "The bed looks like
Martinmas slaughter time. Shall I go to Rhino 110usc for the
doctor lad'"

  Andra nodded. "Aye," she said. "Aye, do that, Ellen. find
Johnny, go and bestir your wife. There's none better than
she at such a time.''

  Johnny pleaded that his Nan was turning to stone in her
bed, and 'twould be the work of a regiment to move her, but
lie would try. Ellen turned her back on them and walked
swiftly up the hill to Rhinn House.

  On her way she suddenly realised how long she had slept.
It was no more morning, nor noonday even. It vvas late
afternoon, and far in the west beyond the red crags of
Kindearg the SUIT was going down. The rambling stone
house faced av\ ay from the clachan and Ellen approached
it from the rear, coming on two broad wings with an
unpaved courtyard between, where geese and hens roamed
in the last warmth of the day, picking ul-> scattered grain.
She crossed tile yards V;it}l tile granaries and kitchen OII
one side and the byte on the other. No one seemed to be
about, and she s}ippcd into the hall by a low door at the
rear.

90 S W I. A ret B Y A P O L L O

To one we; there either, s ) she walked straight thrc)ugll.
out at the front and around to the terrace Then she stopped.

 Kenneth and Margery stood near a bed of yellow
primroses. He had gripped her by the shoulders and was
staring unhappily into her eyes.

 "EIow can ye say that, lass," he was pleading. "How can ye
sav ye'li have none of me ally moo, after all that's been
between? Ye gave your word."

 Ellen forgot her errancl. She stool tense and still, feeling
her {ace stiller in an ugly mask, her obligers curl.

 "Ah, well I know it, K nnetlI,'' she heard M.Ilgcry saying,
her lace white. "'Tis a reproach to me, sure, to change. But
should I bring vou the curse ol an unloving wife? Is there
honor in tha.? Could you take any happiness there?'

 "Ye will love me after" he insisted cloggedlv. "Ye will see
then, .\largery. Ye are mine and ye canna' choose. Ye know
how it was belure. Ye searched the Cour!s and the cities,
and \e came back. Ye came back to a Highlancl man. As ye
alw\aNs will. It's the MacNcill in ve, ve canna' help"

 Margery stood there, sw lying like a Nvilk~w wand, and
Ellen thought she saw defeat and acquiciccnce in the girl s
eyes. Oh, she would lose him in the end, Ellen knew, but
not so soon, not before one more summer of love in the
heather OII the hill, not before her own plans were
complete. If she remembered Lavan now, it was not with
compassion, only as an excuse for her own ends. She hurried
forward.

"Oh Madge, LaN7ail s flying! Mother bade me come "

  Ale pair turned sharply KennetlI Ict go of Margerv and
stood back, drawing his black bri)\vs fiercely down. 1 to
turned on E]lcn, angered by the interruption.

  "And if she be, there s no hL1I1 in IIS. (Net tbL doctor
from his chamber a bove. "

  "his for Doctor l calve, murmured Ellcn smugly, well in
control of herself now. "Will ye fetch him, Madge, or tell me
where I'll find '

  "Randall!" called Margerv, lifting her voice anxiously.
"Randall!" She turned to Ellen and explained. "His room is
just above." She pointed to an open casement, and loon
enough a tousled head thrust forth.

  "Oh Margery! You think I've slept long enough, and
you're right. I m a sluggard sure. I \V.!S just waking!"

  "Randall! Ellcn's come for you. l for mi)tlIer sent her.
Lavan's worse again."

"1 Iow?"

"She<. blec ding, I think,' said Ellcn demurely, looking
down.

"lm coming. Tell Andre I'm coming," he said. He withdrew
from

It Was Idiot 1 91

the window. When lillell turtled back to l~larycry the girl
stood alone. Kenneth was no longer there.

"Shall I go with yoLl, Ellen?" Margery asked.

  Ellen shrugged. ShC could not see what use Nlalgery
would be at the bedside, the tryst with Kenncth was broken
and that purpose served. She shook her head.

  'iOh the house will he full of women, I dinna doubt, who
know of themselves what's useful at such a time. If we need
ye, we'll let ye know."

  She lingered, thinking to walk back to the clachan with
Randall, but she misjudged his swiftness. When she crossed
the midden and started down the hill in the first long
shadows of twilight, she saw him striding far ahead of her,
too far to overtake. Since there was no need to hurry she
walLcd slowly through the peace of the village. Most of the
women were by the hearths cooking supper, and the men
came straggling home now, in little groups, from the fields
or the sea. Blue smoke drifted upward, and children played
on the green turf in the pleasant evening light.

  When sue peered into her mother's house she did not find
the turmoil she expected. Randall Scot over the bed, his hair
still tousled from sleep and the ruEled sleeves of his white
cambric shirt rolled to the elbow. Old Nanny Decency, her
face like an oak gall left on the ground all winter, crouched
in a corner grasping her staff and watching him with steady
toadliLc cvcs. Andre stood close to the bed, too, soaking
rags in a wooden bawl.

  "Tis the coldest water," ski. was telling iland.ill? "and Colin
has gone to tile spring for more.'

  Ellen slipped in anal stood silently watching them. the
American looked cahn and sun, she thought, even a little
self-satisfied. He was proud of having saved l avan last night,
and he would now proceed to do it again, with no snore
trouble than taking his stq~pcr and a dram. Even Rona,
who trusted the old ways more than most, had let it bc
known this morning that he found them no longer goocl,
that he preLerred the skit] of this young man.

  "Cold water," said Randall, turning away, "and pillows to
keep her feet high."

"I have done all that," said Andra. "She is bleeding still."

  1 lo moved to the table, opened a small chest and began
reaching into it, taking certain vials out.

"These should help," he said, smiling confidently into Andra's
eyes.

Ellen watched them as they stood, shoulder to shoulder at
their work.

Then time drew out, and Ellen forgot to watch them. She
moved

92 S \V h .\ R B Y A P O L L O

idly about the room, non crouching on a stool, now going to
the door alla gazing up the hill at Whiten LLlouse and its
lighted windows on the night sky, vrondcring if Margery lay
in lit nucth's arms as last night she had lain.

 "All that had been beta een them!' What had he meant by
that? He had never spoken intimately of Margery, and she
had never dared to question him. Was Miss Dviargery, for
all her fine airs, only a common slut after all?

 With one ear she listens d to Randall and her mother.
Lavan v. as still bleeding. They dosed her with powdered
alum and honey. They steeped wads of linen in alum and
tannin water to check the flow, and Lavan bled still. Finally
she heard Randall say tensely, "She is going now, 1 think!
Andra-I know of no other thing!"

 "Nor I," said Andra slowly, standing by his side and
looking dowll. Ellen let her eyes follow ~heirs. She had
never known so much blood could flow or that it took
anyone so long to die.

And then she became aware of a new presence in the room.

 "I remembered sometlling an l I l~rotlyllt it do\\n," a
low, faltering voice said.

 Ellen turned, scusing that the others did the same.
Margery Rhinn stood just inside the clocirway. She had a
velvet cloak over her flowered silk dress, and in her hand a
small stone crock.

 "Margery," she heard Randall say harshly, "go away. Your
father would not want you here. It is no place.'

l~largery looked at them uncertainly. "Is Lavall ''

"Lavan is dying," he rasped. '~We cannot help Lavan any
more.'

"Not you nor Andra either?

"No, neither of us."

"And it is sure Lavall will die

 "Yes," he told her, half s Allowing his words before he
could get them OLI t.

"Ihen this I have brought it would not be wicked to try it
no\v.,

  I Ie only stared at her. Andra stared. Margery went on,
falteringly. "1 went to the cellar for some wine or
cordial for something that might help. I divas alone there
in the house not knowing wishing there was something I
could do."

  For the first time she looked past them at Iowan, grey and
shrunlcn in the stained bed. She caught her breath.

  "And there, all in the cilb\vebs, 1 found it. It is old, and it
is strong. and there is a curse Oil it. [t can kill of itself. But
I saw it save a man from death on Barra long a go. I will
give it to Lavan, if there is no other way."

it Was.~tot 1 93

'There is no way at all," said Randall.

Then Andra spoke. "Is it heather ale, Miss Nlargery?"

Margery gave her a timid mile. "Yes," she said? "it is heather
ale.

 Randall looted at them qua stiollingly, his back turned to
the dying girl, for he could not bear to watch her any more.

 "I have heard of it," Andn' went on. "It is said to be half
made of blessings and half of curses, ~ nd it was the drink
of the little old dark men who held all Scotlalld loll" ago. It
is said to be an uncertain risl always. But in the last
extremity one malt try."

 "If it WAS a thing N'OU had beard of, why did you not
send for some before?" asked Randall, reluctant to dose a
pat~cnt, even a dying one. with the curse, of little old earls
men.

 ' 1 never saw any of it," Andra told him simply. '1 did not
know there V`'.IS a drop of it left in the world any more. I
do not know its action or its source. There's tmnC alive
knows the My for making it now."

 "I know the way," said Margcly steadily. "The MacNeills of
Barra know. But I did not mal;e this. I thinly it \N7.iS from
my grandmothers brewing."

 She stepped forward and ::VCIIt tlowl1 on her lances in
all the blood alla filth of siclincss on the stone floor. She
held up Lavan's head and hesitated, \vitl-~ the crock
grasped in her other hand, looking for a cup.

 No one brought it to her. Lavan gasped. Eluder the
flickering lamp the grey shadows gathered in the hollows of
her face.

"Ellen," said Margery imp riously, "fetch me a cup or
spoon."

 lillen wanted to resist the command, less to protect Lavan
from the uncertain drinlc thrill to show the other girl who
was mistress here. But there was a quiet strength in the
voice of the laird's daughter that would bend iron and halt
llallle. Silently she brought a small earthen cup.

 Margery Filed it flom the crock, held Lavan's head up
again and set Else cup to the drawn mouth Lavan's head
lolled back. She made no attempt to drink. After a mom nt
Margerv turned as if seeking help from them. Mutely they
stood and watched her Randall, and Ellen, and Alldra, and
old Nanny L)\`eeney, and the neighbor women. Randall
slowly shook his head.

 Margery's face hardened into a cold little smile, and Ellen
suddenly hated the girl, that she had smiled instead of
railing and cursing at them, as she herself would leave done.
Setting tl~e cup down, the laird's daughter ripped a Hollnce
fond her silken skirt, soaked a bit of it in the dark purple
liquid, and wol-kecl the lag between Lavan's chattering
teeth. Then she held her Land across the sick girl's mouth
so that she could not spew it Loltll, waiting there on her
lcnccs, paying no more at

94 s vat r A IN B Y A P O L L O

tension to the others shall to the soft crackle of tile fire, the
thin stools drifting through tile room.

 Convinced now, that the magic fluid would seep down
Lavan's throat and save her life, Ellen waited for the
miracle, but no miracle came. I.avan still lay like a corpse in
the reddened bed, and Margery still knelt, and the others
waited, tense and alert and looking down. Suddenly Ellen
grew aware that it had been a long time. She looked at
Randall and followocl his glance. Ile was watching the pulse
in Lavan's throat, that somcho',v kept beating on. She could
not see Margery's face, only her slim, defiant shoulders, and
dark silky hair falling in ringlets on her neck. Then it was
swiftly all too much for Ellen, and she began to cry, with
ugly shuddering sobs that should her as a wind shakes a
thicket. Hard old arms went round her, and she sensed it
vitas Nanny Dweeney !ycnding down.

"Come outside, lass," shc mumbled. "We seen too much, 1
think."

 They stumbled tram tile house of sickness and went and
sat on .\lanny's doorstep all Alec in the black clerk under
tile old stars whecling down the sky.

 "We'd disturb Jc~hlln`, d ci we go in,' explained the old
woman, "and he might take a taste for ~ bit o' the lxagpips:
music. 'twill come on him at any queer time."

 Ellen did not want to risk that either, so they crouched
there, shiveling with a cold that did nest come from the hills
or the sea. She must have slept, for the next thing she
realized there was a faint light in the sky over the Long
Island, and Nanny was shaking her.

 "there comes Miss Margery," she said. "'Twould seem she's
goring IZome."

 FIargery walked slowly toward them, her dress all torn and
stained and her hair hanging down. Ellen jumped up and
stood waiting, while old Nanny dragged herself painfully to
her feet.

Margery l-~eld her head tip, pale and disheveled, but
smiling still.

 "Lavan is better." she solid. "She is not bleeding any more.
Andra thinks she will live, and Randall himself is almost
convinced of it."

 "And it was all your doing, Miss Margery," cried Nanny,
her wrinkled bn,\vn face alight. "For all their wisdom, it was
ye was the more wise."

 "Oh no, N anny," answen d Margery soberly. "It was not 1.
I had nothing to do with it at all. It was only a thing I
happened to remember. It was all done by the little dark
people a long time ago."

IX

.

            MacNeilL of Rs:~na

IlETwEr-N the day and the clerk, in that slow hoof of a
warm June evening when the shuttle stands still till the lamp
is lighted, Margery walked through the upper gallery of
Rhinn l-Iouse, under the blackframed pictures on the wall.
There was little to choose among her ancestors, she thought
Dryly, for the brandy-faced old men looked much like one
another, the same dLIII blue and green plaid cloaking all of
them. There were not many portraits, for the line did not go
back very far. The Rhimls were income rs to the Hebrides;
Scottish, but no one knew from exactly where. One story
had it that they went back to that exiled Earl Ru~-hven
whose name was decreed to be forever dead in the land, but
there were other statics as likely to be true.

 Only two women had been allowed to leave something of
their color and softness here on the hewn stone walls;
red-gold Charlotte Stewart, whom her grandfather had
woQcd and vvedded in the Lowlands, when he went south
on his way to the court of Anna Regina before ever the
Georges came to the throne, and Margery's own mother,
Gillian MacNeill. Allan Ramsay, the poet s son, had painted
Gillian in sea-green and silver with a scarf of silver g.iuzc
drawn over her hair and one or two dark curls showing
through. Margery remembered the dress and the scarf and
the long hot afternoons in Master Ramsay's studio where
she waited with her mother while the sketches were made.
She had been a tiny child then, who kept reaching in vain
for a large golden pear in a dish on a corner shelf. The
artist's face she could not remember, nor his voice, but she
could remember the rank summer smell of Edinburgh
streets, and the wonderful Lmattainable golden fruit, and
her mother's warm hazel eyes smiling down.

 She stood now under Gilkan's picture, wanting to tap on
Randall's door close to her elbow, not quite daring, quite
sure that to do so would not be the proper thing. They were
alone in the house save for the servants, since her father
had not returned Lrom Glasgow, and Kenneth

96 s w r A n B Y A P o r L O

had gone out after supper with a muttered excuse she had
not even bothered to hear. Randall, file knew, had come up
to his room to write. He had told her that he meant to keep
a journal of all the cases he treated, so that he could send
it piecemeal to his father, submitting himself to the older
man's criticism or approval as he had always done. But he
had been there for mole than an hour now, and the house
seemed lonely and SD very still. She had read a page of
Thomson's Seasons, and gone into the deserted kitchen and
made herself a cup of tea. She had walked in the garden and
Played three tunes on the spinet. She would call him once,
just once, she thought, and then if he did not ansvv-er7 she
would go down to the clacllan and chat with the women
there.

 "Randall!" she called lightly. "Oh, Randall! I IO\V much
longer will it take you? Is your writing not done?"

 She heard his chair scrape back, then quick steps
approaching the floor. He Hung it open and stood smiling
into her eyes. His blond hair looked as if he had been
running his hands through it, and there were ink stains on
his chin.

"No, it is not done, and v ill not be until you help me,
Madge. Come!"

 Ele beckoned and she followed him inside, gazing around
the pleasant chamber, at the grey wool carpet, the plaid bed
curtains, the heavy chairs built in the woodyards of
Edinburgh. The only really elegant piece, she thought, was
the mahogany writing table. It hurt her to remember the
graceful white and gold furniture her mother had brought
back from France, warped past all usefulness now by the
island damp that would dissolve sugar lo a sticky paste and
rust iron latches away. Candles burned on the table, and
beyond the windows the sunset still flared in the endless
summer dusk.

"I can help you?" she asked, smiling back at hi ll. i'l?"

"Yes."

 He motioned for her to tit clown at the table and stood
there facing her, holding out a sheet oi foolscap so that she
could see the writing

thereon.

 She wrinkled her brows alla bent forward in the flickering
light and read. Then she sat back awl asked, "But how can
I help you?"

"You read it? You know what is written there?"

 "Yes. You have written about Lavan. How she miscarried
and was taken with a bleeding afterward; that you and
Andra could not save her, but that I came and gave her
heather ale; that you have examined her two weeks after,
and she seemed healed and well."

"Yes, I have written that "

 "And that was the way it was. The virtue was in the old
drink, and I only put it to her mouth. What more would you
say?"

           MacNeill of 13urru 97

 "Margery," he explained patiently, "think of my father
reading this. You do not need the second sight to know that
he will ask about heather ale. What will he think of me
when I tell him I do not know what it is and have not
bothered to find out?"

She looked at him with dismay and apprehension in her
eyes.

 "You mean you want me to, tell you how it is made to
prepare it  how ?'!

"Yes. That is what I want. You said you knew.''

 She forced herself to look him squarely in the eye. "Yes,
I know, but I cannot tell not even you."

 "Why not? From what you said, I thought it must be some
family secret. You said, 'The MacNci]ls of Barra know!'
Have you promised someone that you will not reveal it?
Have you given your word?"

She sank into a low chair and gazed at him with troubled
eyes.

 "Even if you have," he told her, "you would be justified in
breaking it for such a cause. It should be stabilised in the
laboratory and added to the pharmacopoeia to advance
human knowledge. It is your duty to science, Margery."

 She clasped her hands in her lap and looked down.
Whenever she was with Ranclall she felt a closeness and
understanding between them. a companionship beyond the
delicious excitement of being man and woman. Most of the
time she felt that. But on the turn of a phrase or the lift of
an e yebrow now and then, the understanding vanished, and
he reminded her of a bright new coin, of good worth, but
hard and shining, and so proud of being new.

The laboratory! The pharmacopoeia! I--ler duty to science!

 She knew her duty, but how could she make him know?
She could not put it into his language, and he could not
understand hers or pelhaps he might, if she could only help
him to find his own key.

 "Randall," she said, "will you forgive me if I take the long
way round. since there's no straight way therer"

 "Take any way you please, Margery," he said, hinging
himself into an oaken chair and leaning hack, watching her
face.

 "It is all " she groped for words, stumbled, and went on,
"that some things are old and some are new thoughts and
ways, I mean."

 He tried to help. "You mean that heather ale is an old
medicine made by a people who used to live here, a people
who have died out. I learned that much frc,m what Andra
said."

"Yes," she agreed. "It is that."

 "Andre believed the secret. lost, but VOU say it is still
known in your family, that you know it yourself.'

"Yes. I knr~\v it."

98 s w E A R B Y A P O ~ r. 0
"Who told you'

"My mother."

"Did she swear you not to tell?"

 "No, she did not swear me. There was no need. She said,
'We know, and we tell it to our children. To none but they.'
I heard her tell me that. She knew it would be cuough.!'

"What otlters hloNiv?''

 "I cannot say. It is not a thing we tall; of. My cousin
Helen, perhaps. I have many cousins more. Perhaps other
families know. All 1 know is that my mother told it to me."

"And you will nut tell-"

"I will tcl]l my ckluglltcr or my son.

 "And meanwhile folk mi y die for the need of it. I did not
know any mixture of drugs held such power to restore. But
you \vould withhold it from those to whom it would do
good! Why, I do not see! Margery!" His face had a stony
kook, but there was a pleading light in his eyes. tiMargery,
can yotl not say somttlling that will help me to understand
you?"

"I I was trying to," she laltefed, "till yotl questioned me.

"What were you trying to say?'

 She leaned to~ivard him to make one more desperate try
before she rose, and asked his forgiveness, clnd slipped
away.

 "You are from i\merica," she he girl, "and that is a new
country. What is there that seems old to y flu?"

"Old? Why a man past sixty's okl. My father's house is
old "

I lis fathers house? I lerc. she thotlyllt, was a place to begin.

"I low old is that?"

 "Oh, it's of I-d!' he an;`vcrect, giving the \vord a long
impressive sound. "My grandl ether built it. Let brie think.
He came up from Beverly in I/:o and built tPc house the
next year. Fifty-three years, that would make it."

She smiled faintly. 'And Iota S:lv be ii\;cd in
Beverly before that'" "Yes. In Bcverly.'

"And where did his father r live? And his father before?"

"Why, in Beverly. We always lived in I3everly."

"How long, has Beverly Teen there?'

 "lIow long' has ?" I-Ie stared at her. iWhv it's always
been there. Ever since the coming over"

"When wits the coming liver?"

 "About a hundred and fifty years age." 1lc told her
solemnly as if that ended the matter.

"tend hCIOrC teats

          MacNeill of K`!7~ra gg

 He looked startled. "Why 1 think I heard my
grandmother say the Woodburys came from a fishing town
in Somerset. But it's never mattcrecl, what's back that far."

 "I am not boasting, RandalJ," she went on quietly. 'Believe
me, I am not boasting, only trying to make you understand
me, when I say the MacNeills were kings in Sc'thia and were
summoned into Egypt for their learning. They sailed west
from there in the time of Moses, and to Ireland out of
Spain. We were in Barra before the Norse came down."

 "Do you believe that?" he.Isked her, his voice keen and his
eves narrowed, a scormEtll smile on his mouth.

 She flung out her hands. "\;Vhy not believe? I cannot
proi!c it is true and you cannot prove it is a lic. If it helps-"

"I Iow does :it help?"

 "It helps, somehow, when solllcthing happens that is hard
to bear-when your mother dies or your wife " She paused
and swallowed and turned her head away. "It helps to think
back to all those other people all the ages down, people who
have the same blood as you, and who faced such trouble and
worst, and behaved themselves so that so that there was no
great stigma on the name. You want to be true to them and
do as vrell as they. Do `770U see Randall, do you see what
I arm trying to tell you? Everyone knows it here in
Scotland but in America, I think, it might be hard to make
known."

 "You are telling me that I am a new man from a new
country," he replied slowly, choosing his words, "and a
creature of yesterday. That I cannot understand the ways of
people who know much of the past and think much of it, and
feel that their roots go back through time."

 "Yes. I am saying that. But I am not saying you are a
worse man for being new. You may be better. I am only
saying that we are different.. That it is not strange you
cannot understand me.

"And you understand me of course?"

 "No, Randall, I do not understand you. But 1 wish I think
we cot~lcl both try."

 A warm little wield blew in from the garden heavy with
fragrance stirred the curtains, and troubled the candle flame,
and set Randalls pages swirling to the floor. He ignored
them.

 "You are right, Margery. We shall try. For tonight let us
say that your duty to the dead MacNeills is greater than your
duty to living men who may suffer because you feel as you
do. I shall not trouble you any more about it now."

 Still he did not understand, she thought. Still he was
impatient and angry. She stood up.

loo S w 1-2 A R B Y A P O T J. O

 "1 shall go down to the clacl1an, 1 think," she told him,
"while you finish telling your lather w.7hat you have to say.'

I Te bright/ ned. 'The cla. hen? Will yotl see Iver Gall?"

"I can see Iver. If you have a message for him, I can.

 "Ask him if his arm has any soleness? If he is fevered or
feels in other ways ill?"

 She had gone as lar as the doorway, but n7~\\7 she
turned, wondering what these ominous questions meant

"You think liver may be unwell?"

 Randall sighed. "into. I thinly he wig Trot bc. now. It ]ldS
been a v.~etk since I inoculated biro.''

"Oh," she cried, rcassureci as SOOil as sloe unclt rsioocl. '
You have begun

He smallpox inoculations. I we ridered when N'Otl
WOUICT do so. Have You tried others? Father says you
arc to do all in I'dtI)TrIlillZI N'.hO haYc not suffered the
disease before.'

 "I'm afraid we'll haste to wait, worse luck, until C,od
Icnows when. I have plenty of dried Iymp}1 with me, btlt 1
fear the virtue has gone out of it. I tried it on Iv c r and it
seems to have no, cflcct. That means I must wait till I can
dna\;v matter froll1 a frtsh case.

"It means--?'

 "I shall hate to wait till s ~mcorTc nca.rl7y falls ill of it
and I can draw from their infection. Once I am sure 1 haN-c
failed vTit11 Tver, I shall 4t? Lo Stornaway or pcll1aps t(,
Skye."

"You cannot send to EclinStlrgh. then?'

 He shook his head. "I am afraid it would be ustlcss. Riley
have none better than what I brought I haste never put
much faith in the dried Ivmph. We c10 not use it ~nucl1 al-
home. I'erl1aps \vLen your father comes back "

 "He may have heard of a t ask," said l\largery as cheerful\
.15 she could. Tam MacVcan will bring him, and Tam
travels the islands and well cot1ld know." /Nnd shell,
"Pandall are you trying to understand?"

 "Yes," he answered. "I am trying, Nlar`7erv." But he did
not look tit her. IIe had turned to his papers again.

 Outside Phinn House, the evening light was like clear
w.lter flo\ving over the lanclscapc. Margerv walked slyly
through the beds of kingcups and forget-me nets beyond the
east terrace neatly laid-out, welltended beds, tl1at showed
the careful touch of Sim's gardening. She VV011dered
briefly how the old man could perform all his usual chores
\vhen he had to spend such long hours in the kitchen
carrying out much of the work that had been done by his
wife and his ailing sister. Tomorrow she would put on an old
ho lice and petticoat and go to Leitis and offer to help hcr
she thought. Slic had dolly it hcfore, only to have her sup

MacNeill of Laura l o l

gestion refused with excuses and embarrassment. It had been
the fashion one winter for the young ladies of Edinburgh to
attend cooking school, and Margery had gone with the rest.
She could pickle anchovies and whip up French creams and
jellies, but her attempts at simple Scottish cooking usually
ended in a sodden gray-black mass at the bottom of the
oven. She sighed ruefully as she thought of them.

 Then her thoughts went bat k to Randall and stayed with
him all the while she was walking down to the clachan.
Would she ever be able to make him see? Would he evel
trouble to try to explain himself to her?

 It was a soft, starry night, with no moon and a white mist
curling up from Glen Fruin and the burn beyond the village.
Down on the sand the men were [burning cow dung and
barley straw and sea tangle for nourishing ash to spread on
the fields tomorrow, and Margery wrinkled her nose at the
rich familiar Knell of it. In front of the first cottage she met
Meg Munro, a pretty w,dow, red-haired and young, her face
incredibly sad. The daftie followed her a boy about eight,
with a slack mouth and vague eyes, skipping along in time to
a music no one else could hear. Wllen he saw Margery he
stumbled toward her, yammering and pointing to a cluster of
I aste jewels that fastened the collar of her dress. Margery
spoke soothingly to him, took off the trinket, and dropped
it into his hand. The daftie loved any bright shining thing.

 Petting the child's head, Tvlargery spoke to his mother.
"It's a fine night, Meg."

 "That it be," said Meg soberly. "Davy and I been up by the
Cursing Stones. We went there to watch the souses.
13ut but there Bras others tllere, and we came away."

 Margery's eyes Hashed. "I illink `770u are not telling it
quite as it was, I\Ieggy. I think Colin follows d you there and
wanted to court you, and vou vvould have none of him. It
has happened so before. Why?"

 Meg looked even sadder. 1 he child made a little
inarticulate croaking noise and sidled against her. She
stroked his hair.

 "Ye know, bliss Margery, whv I canna' court with Colin or
any man. That I couldna' wed and bring into the world
another poor soul, maybe -- another like this."

 "Oh Meggy, it need not happen twice that way. Nellie
Gow's first born was lame=, but after that she had a healthy
four. Every time I see Colin, he looks so sorrowful it near
breaks my heart."

 "lie needna' look sorrowful. He could have Janet
Gillander, for l know she wants him. She is bonny and fresh
and young."

 "Yes, Janet is bomly, but he does not want Janet, he wants
N'OU. SOlMe clay, Meggy, I hope you u7i!1 change your
mind."

102 S W e A R B Y A r 0 L L O

 l\leg shook her head st-ul~bornly, and they \:v.lllied on in
silence tl7e child ambling before

 "I wonder if Iver is drawn on the beacl1 with the men?"
asLcd NIargery, as they passed Johtlny DweeTIey's cottage,
lamplight streaming through the open doorway. the old
couple moving about inside.

 "Iver Gall? No, he is at Andra's, I think. t le and Lavan
were going there tonight to carry a present. l-le is so
grateful to her for making ILliS wife well that he brought
her a fine pair of leather shoes from Stornaway. '

 They walked a kc w steps further and then hieggy spicy,
'iYe 1lTnlJNV, 7NIiss Margery, leer is a smbborll mall. He
distrusts the strange lad in your house, and he is ar'7.iid of
hi atllcr ale. I lc sa 7s it was ~Nncl7-a who saved his wife,
and he is grateful candy to her."

 "But if he is ungrateful t, ~ Randall if be cli~t~-L7sts
him- why did he h t himself be scratched for the smallpox-"

 "l le would not-at the first. But the doctor latl-R.u1dall, ye
call him ---\V.35 canny in tilOt AS ill `.11. t le is canny, is he
not, NlarorerNT

 Margery rloticccl that Meg had forgotten the title before
her name, and it pleased her. But she was mole concc~ntcl
for another thing.

"What do yotl mean'"

I\leg regarded her steady!, in her eyes a veiled question.

 "I le told -it all to Iver, what he meant to do, and wily.
That he was not sure his drugs had qtr. ngth, being so king
from their source, and wanted to try them 071.1 vOr~TIg
strong, wholesome man; that they might do good, and Could
do no h.1rnl. l Te asked Her to hare his Resh to the wee
knife."

"And Iver wotll(l not?"

 "Toot at first. I Ie muttered of warl(7cks.Ind potions. He
started to remove away. It was at Andra's house. I had gone
there for a poultice for Davv, for he cut hi, toe at the last
full moon, and I feared lest when the month's time
returnecl, he would bleed again. I sad I,.;er and the doctor
there."

"What did the doctor save"

 "I le put the vials hack in his pocket and his little knife,
and smiled and oh, but there was taunting in his smile, I\liss
Margery!"

.\largery Lne\v that taunting smile and was silent.

 "He put his tools away, and he said, 'Very well, if ye are
afraid, Iver, I will ask the next lass bairn I meet. It will not
frighten her.' '

'Did he say 'lass bairn'?'' asked Margery eagerly.

Meg looped as if she th``ugllt the laiid's daughter N\'.15 as
daft as poor

D.IV,N'.

'ryes, he said 'lass bai~n."~71lat else would he say when
he meant that'" "girl chil'.l" word have been the English
thing, th(Jug}lt Mergers

MacNeill of /3~rra 103

and the American words the re was no knowing what they
might be' But he had spoken the proper Scots phrase to a
Scotsman. Perhaps he would come to understanding after all.

  "So of course Iver turned from that word 'afraid.' Your jo
could have cut off his head after that. Is he really your jo,
Margery: Some of the women say that he is. Some say it is
Schoolmaster."

  "1 do not have a jo,,! said M.lrgery with sudden formality.
"Look, there is Andra, and Iver and Lavan nowhere about.
You have told me wrong."

  l'hey had come almost to the end of the clachan and the
white mist rising up from Fruin Burn. B' hind them the
men's voices echoed across the shingle, once a seal barked
from the crags below Ardmory, and in the background was
always the low murmur of the sea. Andra sat in her doorway
in the midst of a group of children; fair-haired, dark-haired,
pale-skinned, and brown. She had a tiny black lamb on her
knees and was gently rubbing its eyelids with a white fluid.
Two vvomen, Nell Cow and Christie ;NIacNayr, stood
watching her, young wives and comely, in spite of the large
broods around them. Margely called from the pathway.

"Whose is the lamb, Andla, and what ails it?"

Andra lifted her kit ad, but Nell had the first answer.

  "It is ours," she said. "Ewen brought it do\vn from Caldune
pasture when he came at suppertime. 'Twas born blind, and
we fear there's little help. But if there be any, Andra will
know.'

  "Sometimes powdered chall`," murmured Andra, bending
again to the tiny creature in her hands.

  "Andre surely will," agreed Margery. 'But 1 came here
looking for lver. Has anyone seen him about?"

  Nell and Ghristie shook their heads, and Andra replied,
"He was here early, but he has gone up Ardmory to keep
watch at the shieling with Lavan tonight. She felt sure she
was well again and wanted to go back to her work. But the
first time she tried it, he did not wish her to be alone. I
think he was wise."

  Margery shrugged. She certainly did not intend to go
prowling alone up the misty glen to the dark moorlands
above, no matter how Randall might chide her afterward.
The colors of the sunset had faded, and the long soft
gloaming was almost done. Soon it savour he deep night.
She would go home.

  "Ah, well," she answered, "it will keep the errand I had
with him. Did he happen to say if he w is feeling well?"

  Andra, still busy with the lamb, did not seem to hear, but
Christie spoke now, a troubled look in her warm brown eyes.

"Ye were thinking of his arm, Miss M:lrgery, where the
young doctor

104 S \V E A n B Y A P O L L O

scratched it and put the pox seeds in? :Iver says his arm
feels as it always has, and the wound is healed and gone. I]e
says Doctor means to scratch us all."

 Both Nell and Gllristie looked so worried that Margely
hastened to explain.

 "It is nothing to be afraid of. I had it done myself years
ago in London. The Queen ordered it Lor her two
daughters, not far back. My father brought Dr. Woodbury
here to inoculate everyone on Rona who has never had
smallpox. It will give the disease in a light form to prevent
the fatal one. Hc means it as a kindness for them."

 The women stood silent, watching her, with valise, worried,
mother eyes. It was not for themselves they were afraid, she
well knew, only for the small heads all turned intently
toward Andra and the lamb. She murmured a brief good
night and walked homeward through the clachan, alone now,
Eor Meg and the daftie had remained with the others.

 But she was not alone for long. First she sensed the beat
of purposeful steps behind her on the turf path. Then
Kenneth's hand fell on her shoulcler.

 "A good evening, lass," lie greeted her. "'his well that I met
ye away from the house, for I'd lik' a private word with ye."

Margery fumed and staled at him.

 "If ye've aught to say," she retorted, "that cannot be said in
my father's house, I am not sure that I want to hear."

 "Ye will avant to hear this," he insisted, taking her by the
arm. i"Tis a bonny night. Come up to the Gursing Stones
with me."

 Margery glanced up the hill to Rhinn I louse. Randall's
window looked to the west, and she could not sce it. She
wondered if the light still burned there. but even as she
hesitated, Kenneth was pulling her along the narrow track
that wound upward through grasses sweet witl wild
strawberries, Recked with young mushrooms shouting
whitely in the dark. She followed, half-willing, not having any
reason to resist him, surely not fear. Whenever he caressed
her it was more with possessiveness than arclor. Sometimes
she wondered at that. But tonight there was a strange
urgency about him. and she sensed it was not a matter of
lovemaking, but of something he would SHIV.

 The sea lay behind then, and the lights of the clachan
along the curving shore to the right. After a short climb,
they came out on a long stretch of greensward, and enough
light remained in the sky so that Margery could see the
circle of upright stones, each one as tall as a man, several of
them joined to each other with a slab laid from top to top.
No one knew who had put the stones there, or when, only
that it was very long ago, before ever the l\l.lcNeills had
come to Barra, likely. If you

MacNcill of 7jarr`~ 105

walked about them sunwise, it Divas saicl, yotl could bring
a blessing to your friends, and, conversely, if you walked
widdeIshins, a curse to your enemies. Margery had never
circled them either way. Everywhere else on Rona she felt
free and self-confident, the way its laird's daughter should,
but this was one legend the dared not try not even the
blessing. No one else alive- had ever trie l it, so far as she
knew. And still, the place did not seem to strike awe into
the people now, as it had done only a few years ago. It was
a f 1vorite trysting place for lovers, and she had doubted if
she and Kenneth would be akine there. Yet strangely
enough, they were.

 When they reached a low clump of hazel bushes a little
way from the stones, Kenneth drew her down on the grassy
turf and sat silent, not touching her, staring downNvartl at
the fires OII the shore of the clachan, and beyond them at
the misty heaving greyness of the sea.

 She waited for him to speak, \vaited a long time. I;inallv
he said, "Lass, I had word from a friend o' mine in Skye."

 "Did you?" she asl~ed, tryirg not to seem curious. "lio\v
goes the weather there?"

"They say Kingsbulgh and his wife are going to Armerica."

 "To America?" asked Margery blankly. "I;lora
MacDonald's going to America? Why<"

 Her mother had once been well acquainted with the
famous lass who helped Prince Charlie in his flight from the
islands after the disaster at Culloden. She herself
rememDcred Flora, married now to MacDonald of
Kingsburgh, as a slight pretty woman whom she had met
once at a ladies' tea-drinking in a London drawing room.
Flora had lined quietly after the uprising fell apart, loyal as
ever to the Stuarts, but making no move, so far as Margcry
knew, to stir forth into public life again. Why should Flora
be going to America? Surely it was not for gold, the way so
many went. She repeated her question.

 The Highland man continued to look out over the water.
There were deep shadows in his eyes and his heavy brows
drew down.

 "'Tis noised abroad that there's to be a great upheaval in
those regions. What does the American say?"

 "I le says little of it. My father says more. I1e begins to
fear there will be war. I should think Flora would have seen
enough of wars to last her for her time."

 "She's going where there's rebellion raised up agains,
England. Does that make better sense to ye''

"What do you mean, Kenneth?" she faltered, her hand on
his arm.

 He turned to look at her. She remembered suddenly wily
it was she had promised t:tJ marry him a year ago, felt the
old compulsion, the force

I o6 s \v E .\ R B Y A P O L L O

of the old charm. Kenneth could have worn the white
cockade and brandished a claymore in the streets of
Edinburgh. He knew how to pass the wine glass above the
water jug to drink to the king over the water. He could have
lived in a byte on oat bread and brandy, as the Prince
himself did after the fall. Kenneth came of the same earth
as she, and shared her way of looking at life.

 "There's talk," he said brusquely, "that the Prince himself
will go over to take the lead there."

 "Prince Charlie!" she breathed, with a little catch in her
voice, the way she had heard her m other and their friends
so often do. Then she checked herself and spoke sharply. "I
thought my father said he was drinking himself to death
in Rome."

 Kenneth nodded. "Aye, that has been said. And this new
report may be naught but clishmaclaver. But it has tongues
all a-going like bell clap pers in Skye. I will let ye know, lass,
as I hear more. I thought 'twould be somewhat ye would
care about."

 "I cannot believe in it, Kenneth," she answered. "And
yet I wish I could. It was a thing my mother hoped
for that each new moon would bring the Stuarts back. 1\/ly
father "

 "Your father says Charlie is a done man," said Kenneth,
smiling at her. "For all he was out in the Forty-five, he's no
true to the Stuarts, and he was not convinced then fir after.
He only went to please a lass, I heard him say."

 "No," said Margery thoughtfully. "I le was not convinced,
when he went to that war. Few in the islands went. Few
were free to go. The MacNeills were not. Thev were sworn
to the MacDonald of Sleat, and he forbade his folk to ris`.
The Rhinns held Rona under Clanranald, and Clanranald
was for Cllarlie. So my father could fight for the Prince, as
her own father and brother could not, and that made him a
hero to my mother and she marri d him after. But he was
not convinced only that he loved her. I do not think, if
there was another rising now, he would so much as turn his
head to look.'

"But ye would turn ?"

 "Kenneth," she said, rising to her feet, "we must go home
while there is still light enough to see the way. What you
have told me it could be something too great and strange
for us to see to the end of, kingdoms all changing about or
it c ould be no more than the rattle of dead hews when the
winds come down in the fall. But for Scottish men to join
with this uprising in Am rice with Flora already gone !"

 Kenneth, too, had risen, and they started slowly down the
hill, await from the shadowy cluster of the Cursing Stones.

"She has not yet gone. I hear she will sail from
Campbelltown at the

A 1~7cNcill of liar ra ~ of

cod ot summer. It cotter be as ye silly, a great thing, but 'tis
thus far only a bit of mist rising in the glen, where we
thought naught could ever rise. But the Amcrican llO\V ) 1
wnt~ldlla' talk before him, but I would listen. I las he taken
a sicIe?'

 "l{ush," wllisFcned Ma1gcry, cackling hcnnctli s arm. '''Tis
he yonctcr. the still!"

 Kenneth looked where she poillted. Randall Woodbury
stood on the grassy slope a little \7vay from the path to the
clachan. He stood very straight with his head liftccl, staring
into the night sky. IIe must have thought he was alone.
Suddenly he firing out his arms and called aloud, in tones
that scemecl lo Marc litre those ot a praNcr sharp with

`] 7,lgtiisll.

'Come back to me it you're Coming, Sally Anne!"

 She stopped and stood still for a moment. Then she began
to run. Swift as a wind she went, leaping over hillocks and
brambles, treading the path from memory, blinded by more
than the misty dark. Kenneth did not catch Or till she
slowed her steps among the flower beds by Rhinn House.
file was panting. btlt he managed to gasp out a question.

 "l las he gone off his noggin. lass? l las he got a woman
here? There be no one on Rona named Sally Anne.'

 "Sally Anne is his dead wife, said Margery tonclcssly. "1
did not know  that he still cared so much lor her."

 Kenneth gave her an answer but she did not hear it. She
went hurrying away fron;l him, into th' hall and up the wide
stair. She knev. that she was going to cry, and her tears
v.70uld be just as salt, and her heart as full of htlrt, as if no
N/lacNeill of Barra had ever done the same.

         Tile [)anke'2 M,yster2`y

'I1OCI(Y ran afoul ot a Icclgchog, in Bell ~liltons
NNOOdS. Your mother .uld the girls have been plucking
quills from hel fcJr near three days. by good luck, none were
deep driven in. You need not worry now."

 Randall frowned and looked up from his father's letter.
Poor Rock! I le hoped Sue and Bett' had been gentle with
her. They were kind, lent impatient and young. She was an
old dog. She might be dead before he could get home again.
But maybe not. The way things were going there, it seemed
as if he o1lgllt to start for home now.

 I le sat at his v rising to l,le, by the open window that
looked out on a hot August morning, all white haze and
lucid green sea. He had withdra\vn here after breakfast,
partly to reread his letter, partly to get away from John
Riddoch, a Pr; sbytcrian minister from I Iarris w ho had
been Rona's guest since his return from Scotland a week
ago, and seemed likely to remain until for. ibly driven away.

 "While men of this province are slow to quancl," his father
had writtcn, "once they have talic n the cudgels Up, be the
cause good or bad they are most ardent ther, in. Avery day
it seems that bad matters grow to worse here. At present,
here is a lea ship lying off New Castle. There is talk of
boarding her an.l destroying her cargo as was done in
Boston last winter, but Governor i;Ventworth has so Iar
succeeded in restraining all, and'tis rumoured he thmllis to
reship the stub to llalifax. Portsmouth profits much by the
closing of Boston I Iarbol, but we had rather see it open and
trade moving in its accustomed ways. Every ship from
England brings word of some new act Parliament has taLcn
to bedevil us, and humble as we are, we retaliate whenever
we can. Your mother and I have signed a pledge to purcha
;e no Englisll goods, and so have most of the neighbors. The
Govcrnor has adjourned the Assembly because there is a
rumor that the COUl1tiy will raise a general congress to
protest our grievances loo the King, and he does not wish
that iNeNv Hampshire shou]cl scild delcgatcs talcs to. I
C.lililOt sat; tumult 1 line pleat faith in .1!lN

The 1'7arEc7 M y stc n log

plan for all America to act as one country. There are too
many dir~rerences among us. A Massachusctts man md a
Virginia man are hardily the same species of life. Many say
there will be war "

 Randall stopped readin7c. and stared out into the sunlight,
at the shimmering barley fields to the west of Rhinn House,
all silvery green. War, his father had written, hut how could
there be a war between England and America; Where would
they fight it, to begin with? Somewhere halfway between
them, somewhere in mid-sea? No land battles, surely, for
England had all the armies. His own colony had nothing but
a few little trainbands meeting on muster day. No, he did not
think there would be a war, but ]IC had the vague uneasy
feeling that trouble threatened those at home, and be
wanted to be with them and share.

 Margery's laughter rang through the garden belo\v his
window. He looked down and saw her standing with the
wllite-llaired clergyman beside the tawny orange curve of a
marigold bed. John Riddoch lifted an admonishing forefinger
and shook it under her nose.

"Hush, lass," he warned her gruRly. " Tis the Sabbath Day!"

 The word that leaped to Randall's mind was not a Sabbath
word, but he Icft it unuttered. I le could not hear Margery's
reply, but he knew Irom her face and bearing that she made
a demure apology. The pair strolled out of sight behind a gl
sissy clump of rhododendron, and he returnecl to his letter.

 "You will proloably final that ll:le wolllan who claims to
have the second sight employs some form of trickery," John
Woodbury had written. "We have no time for superstition
here in America. We must get on with the business of the
world. Mat grandmother came from Salem, and she has
often told me how in her girlhood she witnessed a disgusting
spectacle there. The witchcraft delusion, I am spc..l~ing of.
Thank Clod. we are wiser now."

 Were they really any wiser, Randall vvondered. al rue, they
had learned new things and laid old ones by, but was that
always a better change' I lis father would not yet have
received his account of the powers of heather ale, but he
would probably scoff when he read it. Yet he rc membered,
that l or all L)r. John's homely common sense, he had his

superstitions too, and was One 7sy when he of~cnded them.
Isle turned the page over.

 "We are making salt hay e\ery morning, and yesterday I
deli\Tered Ruth Janvrin ol twins; as you will recollect, her
third set. The new church has no settled minister, and Mr.
Thurston continues to supply. We are forced to do most of
our buying in NevvEtlryport because of high prices in Exeter.
We hope you will soon return to your studies."

Ranclall put the letter do\NTn. stared Otlt of the w.nclo\N7
again alla be

I l Q S W E A R rl Y A P O L L O

gUI1 to tap nervously with his lingers fin the polished wood
of the writing table. Again he was fro\vning. Late August
had come; sheep shearing was over and the harvest ready.
Ele should be planning to go back to Edinburgh, but he did
not want to go back, and he had a good excuse to stay where
he was, because he had not even begun the inoculations.
The dried Iymph had proved useless, and so far he had been
unable to find a single case of the disease from which he
might draw fresh venom. The islands had been blessed with
a healthy summer. Rona pleaded with him to stay till the
work was accomplished. I\largery did not plead. She did not
have to. She smil' d, and that was enough. He refused to
examine his feelings toward Marl ery. If you could not pick
the lilacs, at least it was sweet to linger where they grew. It
was also tantalising. He sighed, stood up and straightened
his cravat, and started downstairs. It was Sunclav morning
and getting on towards meeting time.

 When be first came to Rona, he had thought that religion
sat lightly on the island people, but as he came to know
them, he realized that hasty impression was not true.
Kenneth preached often of a Sabbath; sometimes on the
slope b' low Rhilln E louse, sometimes in the hall itself, if
rain was coming down. They listened politely, but with
neither transport nor rapture. In thei daily lives they lived,
it seemed to him, most clean and Christianly. Bllt the savage
and rigid insistencies of the Kirk, as he had observed them
in Edinburgh, had not penetrated here. Slowly he was
beginning to realize that their lives were dominated by a
deep quiet faith. in the unseen They had a sort of weekday
religion, made up of the thousand little superstitions his
father was so scornful of, and a Sabbath Day religion th.lt
was pure love and reverence for God, Unix disciplined with
theology. Rona had told him the Synod sent a minister to
sojourn among them n tow and then, preach the Word, and
investigate any irregularities of conduct. This was the first
time such a visitation had taken place since his coming to
the island, and he Was not enjoying it, and neither, did he
thinl; were the hapless people of Ballyrhinn. Rebellion
troubled his heart as he went downstairs.

 "And I tell ye, when I came to Taransay to hold Kirk
Session and take cognizance o' scandals, I found there three
contested bastard bairns a thing unheard of in these isles
since the Reformation!"

 John Riddoch stood in the middle of the hall, a strutting
little turkey cock of a man, haranguing his listeners. The
laird and his daughter shifted uneasily in their high-backed
chairs, on their faces something of the same distaste for the
man's self-righteousness that Randall felt in his own heart.
Margery's mother had been a Catholic, and the girl herself
attended the English chinch in Edinburgh, as did Comyn,
when he went at all. Ile was used to rclvillg on his own
strength and it hatl

The l}arktr i\~]ysler?/ Ill

always served him. Religion had given him but cold comfort
\vhen his wife died, and thcreafttr he did not turn to it.
Kenneth, too, seemed uneasy, and that was harder to
understand, for he should surely find himself in agreement
with Master Riddoch if he still aspired to a living in the
Kirk. Perhaps he was afraid the man would suddenly turn
and uphraid him for the sins of his student days.

 "Come, sir," protested Rona, drawing his brows together
in a frown. "T3e ye no accustomed to bastard bairns after
forty years o' holding Kirk Session? 'Tis unlucky if tile young
folk make too free with each other, hilt m) cause for a man
to work up an apoplexy."

 'I can see y're no troubled tit the thought o' wicl.:eUness
yourself," retorted the minister. "Ye thinly Less o' religion
than o' trade and menu lactur`. Ah, the love O' I\IamnlOn
bc great-cl than th love o' God nowadays. Little you' shills
and \~N irchot~sts will boot ye Oil the Day o' Judgment!"

 "Why, little will an\tlltllg b`>ot us then, I\.lastcr Riddoch,'
said Margely, Icanin~g forwa7cl. "I)ocsn t tlLc Girls It'll U';
\ve are all saved or damned before we are born?"

 "L will na' argue religion Will a lass," slid the old man,
shaking his head stubbornly. "Let tlS go now, for 1 bilve a
bla\v sermon in me that will tal<e four hours Fir its
pltaching. Is the woman prepared for atr"

 Randall had joined the group in the center of the great
hall and stood beside Kenllcth, listening. Ile did not
comprehend the last remark, and his face must hiive
rciLccted the qtlcstion in his mind, for Rona hastened to
explain to hirn.

 "Ire's meaning l\~nclr`~, lad. I'is ht'lkl by the Girls that
taischers can be relined of the sight by the raters of Baptism
at the pulpit side. Ofttimes when Parson's Stun here be's
deviled me to Ict him tOuC]1 her for the cure, but T
~vott]dna'-only il she herself be persuaded she should.
Before sermon today he's determined to tTv, but I doubt "

 "T)inna' talk of CUtCS, sir," intern~pteci lolln Riddoch
truculently. "This woman has no disease or alllictio,n. She
commits her impostures out of self-seeking and v anity. 1 ha'
seen milllN7 like her in my time. God's mercy, and what do
theN not ~ laim to see! Black dogs, funerals, phan toms,
corpse candles, ghosts carrvirig the very avow and nails to
make their coffins of! And they suck later that it all came to
pass just as they foresaw it, and a dozen ignorant cottcrs in
the parish will swear the same! We touch them as for the
Sacrament and hid them give over their lying
practices,'~vheretlpon they generally do, claiming to see
visions no more, not daring to persist fur her in Sill. T old
were hanged or burned for it a hundred years gone. 'Tv/ls a
\vise custom that should prevail \N~ith to still.'

1 12 S \V r A rat D Y A P O L L O

 "Andre had a grcat-grandmottlcr burned for it," said
Margery. "Her name was Kate Manson ol Cromarty. Andra
said she was a good woman."

The minister ignored her, speaking only to his host.

 "HONV can ye believe in it when 'tis founded on no
principles, and would be naught but a senseless deviation
from the known laws o' nature if it were so?"

 "Everyone believes in it in these islands except the clergy,"
said Rona shortly, climbing to his fat et. "If ye've a four
hotly sermon under your hatches, we'd best be avva'."

 The little party walked out of Rhinn I louse, the laird,
brave in blue bonnet and tartan, going ahead of them, and
the old minister close behind him, like a shado\N7 in his
rusty black clothes. Margery followed with the young men.

 "Where are we going?" asLcd Randall, as they crossed the
slope vvLere Kenneth usually held scrN ices and walled ON
or the rotigll sweep of moorland just below the Curs,ng
Stoncs.

 "To the chapel," the girl replied. "it is hidden away in a
cube of the hill, and we never go thorn except when the
minister comes. 'Twas a church of the Okl I~aitll, but when
that faith died out on Rona it began to crumble away. Soon
it will he gone."

 "The faith of Rome!" muttered Kt Mncth, glilldirlg a Sift
of goldenrod under his boot heel.

 "My mother \v.l5 of the faith of Rome," shill Margery
steadily. Watch ing the other man, Randall sa\\T his face
soften and a wary look come to his eyes.

 "I'm sorry, lass," he said awkwardly. " Twas the faith o'
Barra, was it not, and ye were born to .t? "l~`vas the faith
the Stearns followed wllencver they dared."

 Margery lifted her head quickly and put her haild on
Kenneth's arm. She seemed to have forgotten that Randall
\vas there, which did not much please him.

"Did you have aught to tell me of the Stuarts, Kenneth?" she
said.

 "Yes," he answered, his deep eves gazing into hers and
holding them. "Flora has gone."

"Oh?"

"Last vvc~ek, from Canll.helltoNvn."

"For where? "

 Kenneth looked pointedly at Randall and did not answer
her. He began to whistle, but was ,:heclced by a shout from
Joim Riddoch, who halted abruptly in the path and turned
on the tall Highlander.

"So ye go VVIliStIillg to the Kirk o' Christ on the Lord's
Dav! If 'twas

Tl~e Durker 3Iystery I l ~

that they taught when ye studied Divinity in (,lasgo\v, praise
Clod I be Aberdeen bred!"

 Kenneth yielded with a better grace shall Randall felt he
could have done.

 "Pray for me, Plaster Riddocll! As 1 hope for mercy, I \vas
looking at the bonny heather, and the occasion 1 quite
forgot.,'

To Randall's surprise, he saw a smile come over the harsh
old face.

"Well, for that I dinna' know that I can blame ye, lad!"

 Randall did not think the reason Kcnneth had given was
the true one, but he could have understood if it had been.
The way before them, more like a channel shall a path,
wound through a sea of tall spiky blooms, deep purple, pale
rose, and lilac, fading to pure ivory. Wherever he looked, up
and down the hills of Rona, from the cove of Ballyrhinn to
the dark green reaches of the western ocean, the heather lay
like a fragrant mist on all the land. ()ne need not be a
Scotsman to feel his blood quicken and respond to the
beauty of it. I to would remember the changing lights and
shadows over this impossible landscape, Randall thought,
when he was back in E lampton Falls where no heather
grew. At the rninister~i insistence, Kcnnetll walked ahead
with him, leaving Randall and Margery to follow which they
did, unhurriedly. For a momcnt or two they were almost
alone.

 "Who is Flora?" he asked her curiously. 'You looked as if
it mattered to you that she was going anal where. I
thought you were startled by it."

 Margery did not try to evade Slle looked him straight in
tile eye, and he knew she lied to hire.

 "Flora is a friend of my mo her. She is sailing for l rance,
Kcnneth tells me."

 "But he did riot tell you. He only whistled a turie when
you asked him where and what had the Stuarts to do ?"

 "Well, maybe she is sailing lor Rome. It is one of the
twain. Hurry now. If we are late, Master Riddoch will make
us sit on the cutty stool for repentance, till his four-hours
preaching be done.

 They came suddenly out of the heather onto a grassy plain
with a low wet bog at one side and half a dozen dwarf
willow trees. All the clachan seemed to be there, crouching
patiently on the hummocks or outcrops of stone. Most of the
men were away at the Wick fishing, but all the old folk, the
women and children, had come. At the far side of the glade
Randall saw a small stone building, hardly bigger than a
bacl;woods cabin at home, roofless, and all open to the sky.
But its window openings were arched, and as ile and
Margcry drew close to it, he noticed scrolls and swollen
crosses delicately carved in the stone. Rona and

I 1.', S Nv E A R C Y A P O L L O

l~cnneth sat or1 a small knoll, and Randall and Margery
joined them. John Riddloch vent to file crtlmblill,cg steps of
the chapel, stood forth and began to praw.

  l Ie prayed long alla wl1clllelltly. so that llallclall lost the
thread of what he was saying. It was easier to listen to the
gannets and kittiwa~ries f flat went screaming ov' r in the
blue air, easier to think his o\Nn thoughts, .howevcr
troubling they might be.

  Why had Margery lit'Ll to him, and why shotllcr it
matter? What really mattered leas not fllis unknown Flora;
it was the fact that Kenneth and T\]argery seemed to draw
close together at the mention of her, to retire into a secret
fellowship of their own and shut him out. It vvas like being
with two peo lie who spoke in an unknown language; like
being a child and hearing your elders discuss something you
did not undcrstand. Lie looked at Alargery. She gave him a
wicked grin, right in the middle of John llidd Oh's calling
hellfire down, and he felt better. But Riddoch went 011
praying, and he was soon so numb from the sound of the
high-pitched singsong voice that he did not feel anything at
all.

  The minister prayed that this congregation might be saved
from sensual appetites and random lusts, and fold them that
such abominations might seem to triumph, lint that after this
life there would be another state of things.

  "The Children of the l~irk.Ire indeed the excellent ones,"
droned the minister, in a thin voice bleat carried over the
assembly like a searching wind, "while all otllel men be but
the beastly slaves of Satan, and there is none whom he
assaulfcth not. Yea, the Great Deluder is strong in evil,
having had these six thousand years to study on it, and to go
from this life is to go iron one hell into a worse!"

  NIeg Munro's claftie g.lve a shout of glee, and his mother
put her land tightly across his ,moutll. Somewhere another
child began to cry. A light wind stirred in fee dwarf willow
trees.

  "Creation is an old rc>~;en h fuse all dropping througl1
and leaning to one side '

  Comyn bent fl~rivard and spoLc to llandall. `'lle croaks
like a raven, like flocks of ravens enough to cloud the sLm
over. They be blackbirds all, the corbies and the clergy!!'

  "Now I call ye to witness that there be fifty-two diseases
for the sinful eye, one for every we ek in the year, but today
Ye are no dealing with one o' these "

  A murmur went up fort m the congregation. Close to
Margery's shoulcler, Randalll could feel her stiflten, and he
kioLcd around him for the cause.

"We are hen. to large a sister of the lying way of the second
sight.

The Darker Mystcr1, I 1 5

(Game forward, Andra Dever~>n, aTItl stand before your
(god as ye will on the Judgment Day!"

  It was not that the gulls burst forth in a shriller fury of
sound, it onlNseemed that way because everything else was
so still, and when the gulls Hew over and their clamor
ceased, Randall could hear the little waves that broke far
down the shore. I~Ie looked up, somehow expecting the
bright sun to darken, but above the burning summer mist, it
still shone warm and clear. Then he saw Andra come from
among a group of women and walk slowly forward. She held
her shoulders high and proud, but she kept her eyes down,
and her fingers [decked at the rough grey folds of her dress.
Standing before the minister, she lifted her face up.

  "Woman," he called out harshly, his eyes cold and his lips
curling, "are ye ready to renounce this unhappy gift'"

"I will renounce it, if it plea es God," said Alldn~ in a low
choice.

The minister smiled coldly.

'Assist me, Mr. Crarv-," he s. ;cl.

  [Kenneth strode forward with dignity and a soft of heal y
grace Ranclall had never observed in hilil bctore. talc was
holding out a glass stoppered bottle, and rainbows flashed
from its prismed sides as it caught the sun. Mr. Riiddoch
cupped his left hand and Kenneth solemnly poured a few
drops of clear florid therein. Then he stepped back.

The minister rlloistelled his I ioht forefinger in his palm.

  "With baptismal water I anoint ye," he announced harshly.
"Stand closer, woman!"

  Andra took a step forward. Irlc Icanecl toward her and
touched the holy moisture to her evelicls.

i'J'e shall see visions no more,' be declared. 'it is the will of
the Kirk."

  Why did he not say, "It is the will of (god"? thought
Randall. Or did he assume that they would be always the
same?

  With a gesture as if he meant to hurry an unclean thing
from his presence, Master Ridcloch was ed Andra back to
her place in the congregation. Then he straightened his
shoulders and threw his head back, and launched himself on
his lour-llour sermon, with no admonishing hourglass to tell
him nay.

  His hearers were exhausted at the end of it, children
sobbing with weariness, and :Nanny and Jollnny Dweeney
openly snoring, but the preacher himself seemed to wax
stronger with every word he spoke. He finally ended with the
Ten Commandments alla a separate homily on each one.
After the bcnedictiell folk dispersed quickly, disordered and
hungry, and in no mood to stand about gossiping. Margcry
and Comyn collected a little party to takt back to Rhinn
[louse for dinner, and

1 16 s w E A 1' B Y A P O L L O

Randall found himself bringing Ul! the rear as they started
homeward, oh~l Riddioch at his silly

 Looking ahead of him, he noticed Marg~ely alla Kenlleth
arm in arm, talking closely, their heads together. Comyn had
been joined by two grizzled men in tartars, wllo~n he
introduced as James and Ranald NlacKenzie, friends of his
wl~o owned estates in the south of Harris. They had come
to fetch Masts r Riddoch away. The rest of the party were
women Alldra and Ellen, of course, Widow Agnes
Gillander and her lanes, Ailis Ogg anti LaNan (:all.

 "I hear ye're 110 cursed with the sight in America," said
the minister, still drunk with the power of his OWII words
and their fine sound on the air.

 Randall was glad they were nearing the gardcus of Rhinn
House so this conversation cotllcl not be prolonged.

 "No," he said. "I neared heard of it till I came to Scotland.
I understalld it aces not CIOSS the sea. AMdra says that in
Ireland she was never troubled by it."

 The crabbed old face .larkened. "tSh 1 hear there isna'
much to be said for her life in Irelard. She should face Kirk
Session, even at this late day."

"That was twenty years ago,! said Randall coldly. "1 consider
Andra

. ,,

a goon woman.

  'Ha!" said Ridclocll thr Pugh his nose. ' A Sill after twenty
years is still a sin a stench in the nostrils of God."

  Randall bit his lip and reminded himself that the man had
been stirred by the beauty of the heather, and must have a
gentler side, loath as he was to let it be see n

  A few minutes later they were all sitting aroulltl the long
table in Quinn House, eating shccp's head broth and boiled
beef and greens. drinking dram after grant of whiskey. Not
wholly by accident, Randall found himself between ].Inet
and Ailis, pretty girls, slender and brown and mddy, and he
chatted and laughed with them, pretending, for the ~urpose
of jest, that he knew less Gaelic than he did, and thus
mistook them. I\largery devoted herself se\~ere]y to
Kenneth, Andra ate little, and Ellen was sulking, Rlndall
neither knew nor cared whys After the cheese and treacle
pudding, Sim came roLInd to fill the men's glasses, and
Margery rose and withdrew with the women into the east
parlor. Mona lit his pipe.

  "Do ye think the hiss is cured?" he asked the minister, who
sat at the loot of the table. "That tile sight willna' trouble
her more?"

  "Aye, she is rid o' the sight,'' answered the minister. "She
will no persist in her vanity when tile Kirk reproves
her no!"

        Tl7e L)arher AI1:stery 117

  l he \lacKcnzi' s were shaking their heads. They were nit
so certain. "Why, there was a man in Bar\:as once, and he "

  Slowly everyone relaxed in his chair, full of hot food and
old whiskey, alla always sipping more. R.,ndall pulled out his
pipe too, and sat smoking and listening, IlOt because be was
loath to join in the conversation, but rather because he bad
nothing to add to it, anal he was interested in what he
heard.

  Ele learned that some said Sl Columba himself was a
taischer, for did he not fofesec the triumph of (Christendom
over the little dark picts (the heather-ale Ellen)? I lo
learned the customs of visions and the rules that governed
them, while outside the late aftcluoon darkened over, and
far oil, thunder !-lonblcd the ail.

  I~aiscllers were, for the IIIOSt: part, he discovered, sober
and cleanliving folk, not given to drink of maclllcss or
excess, but not godly. They seldom saw men who Here
already deatl, bL't their function \vas to tell what death a
man would die and when it was near. He might appear to
them wrapped in a winding sheet, and the farther up on his
body the sheet had moved, the sooner ills death would fall.
If he were to be drownecl, he would appear with a dripping
coat, or drenched in the phosphorescence that lights up the
summer sea after dark. If he were to be hanged, the
slUldo\v of Ike gallows would fall across him. Each man had
his double w170 dwelt in the old fairy country among the
mid cue earth men, and when a seer sa\v a man's double
walking behind him, it was a sign that he wc~uld soon be
gone. Sometimes there was n`, indication what man w ould
die, only of coming death. (glasses that \verc to be drunk
from at t'~nerals could he heard by the taischers to rattle
loudly before, alla so witl1 the nails for a collie, or the
needles that would mate a shroud. Not akN ays did the
vision presage death. It might warn of illness, or strangers
coming, or SOIDC SilllllIe household eNellt. .\ man might
have a vision once in his life alla neNer any more, or he
might be a tais' lies all his da,-s. I lis neig~llbors believed in
his powers and respected him, tent they were glad that they
were not as he.

 Now and then Randall pet red into the lowering dark
outside, but the storm did IlOt break nor vet move away. l
inally Rona knocked a last bowl oZ pipe ashes into an
empty platter, leaned hard against the back of his chair, ant!
confronted John Ri~ldocll, \vllo held taken drink for drink
with theTil all afternoon.

 "And ye still say, sir, there s no try in it. Chat 'tis all a
pretence, and that touching vvitZil the b.`Z'tis~31 v`~atcr
will cl;ecl~ it because it puts them in fear o' the Kirk'"

 Ridcloch nodded conlldcntly. "Lear o' tl e Girl " he said.
"That is (3od's weapon in our hands. It is strong against all."

I 18 S \\' ~ A R rat s A P O L 1. 0

  "leather! Randall! Andra is seeing bclore her again! She
was never so shaken! I think she will die!"

  Margery stood in the doorway of the cast parlor, staring
at them, her eyes gone clerk in her white face.

  All Ranclall heard was his own name. I le did not know
what the other men did. I le supposed, later, that they must
have followed him, but he shoved his chair back, flung down
his smoking pipe, and ran toward the room where the
women had withdrawn.

  I le had never been in that room before, and he saw
nothing of it now, only a stretch of wall hung in gilt leather,
lightning that Hashed through an open window. but pale and
far away, and Andra crouched on a sofa, tile other women
standing nearby. Ile strode forward.

  'Do not touch her!" shrieked Ellcn. "Wait till it is gone!
Do not touch her! No!"

The shrillness of her v<,ice stopped hilll.

  He stood looking down at the pale tense figure with the
dishevcled hair and staring eyes. Tllen a tremor shook her.
Then a mighty nerve storm seemed to convulse her whole
body. Then she went limp, half falling frond the cushioned
seat, on her face a look of exaltation.

Ellen darted forward and pulled her eyelids down.

  "You told me not to touch her," he accused the cattle
maid sharply, 'but you do it yourself, now."

  "Because the taisch is gone," said Ellen. "It is always over
when she falls sideways so.'Tis said if ye try to wake them
too soon they will die."

  "Here's whiskey, lad," said Rona, panting at his elbow.
"We'd drunk the sideboard dry, and I couldna' raise Sim.
Give her a crap o' this. Kenneth's awe' to the cellar for
more.'

  "I think she will vvallt water," said Randall quietly. 'Sue
did that first night I was here.'

  "She always does," said Allen, faint freckles standing out
on her pale skin. "Lavan's gone to the well."

  Gingerly Randall picked up the flaccid wrist, but even as
he held it, he could feel the pulse slowly change from thin
and Heeting to full and strong. Her eyelids flicker d. Ivory
color was returning to the chalk-white skin.

"She's coming out," mannered Ellen. 'So bad 1 never saw!"

  Randall felt her eyes watching him as he bent solicitously
over her mother. He twisted with the discomfort of it, and
shot a swift glance at the girl's face. Yes, she was watching
openly, and with a look he could not fathom. It suddenly
came to him that he knew little enough of what went on
inside men's bodies, but what happened in their minds was
a darker mystery still.

        I lie Darker Ml!itery l ~9

 Andra stirred and tried to sit up, so Randall liked her and
propped her among the cushions. She opened her eyes and
looked around, first in confusion and bewilderment, then
with a suddenness, as if all things had become clear. Then
her mouth twisted. She gave a bitter little cry.

"Oh no!?' she moaned, and buried her head in her hands.

 "Here's water, Andra," said Randall, holding out the cup
Lavan had just given him.

She shook her head and waled him away.

"Woulcl you rather have whiskey?" he asked her.

"No. No. Nothing. In a moment 1 will go."

 Slle still crouched there iD their midst, her head bowed,
hiding her i ace.

"Andre," said (tome Rhimi sternly, 'N\TIIat did ye see?!

"I will not tell."

 "Andre, I be your old frien;l and tile third of Rona, and 1
asks ye, what did ye see?'

 "If you were 111\7 0\\'11 father and tl~c King of Scotland
too, I'd not tell you this time what 1 saw.'

Rona bowed his head and vats still.

 "Andre," ventured >'largery al very small tones, will you
come to my lied and lie down for a while. You're not fit to
walk home."

 Andra lifted her head then and laced thclll, calmly, but
there was a dull heavy look of sorrow on her face.

"Yes, I will go to your bell, Miss Margery."

  I he laird's daughter beckon cl to Ellen, and tilC tWCI
girls helped the twist her from the room.

  Randall sighed and lool;ed around him. Idle other women
straggled mutely away without bidding good night. The
MacKenzie brothers stood like statues. Kenuctll hurried in,
bearing a white glazed pitcher in his hancl.

i'l lere lie the whiskey, sir," he rumbled. "Be it in time? Is
she ?"

  ''Sue's gone upstairs with Margery," said Rona, his
shoulders sagging and a battled look on his face. "But for us,
ye re in time. We'll back to our glasses, lads."

  As they gathc red once more at the feasting table littered
with greasy dishes and cold meats, Randall remembered
John Riddoch.

"there's the parson?" he asked.

  It was Kenncth who told them. "1 passed him \\hen I went
to the cellar. file was going to his room, he said, and read
his Bible, and med itate on the ways of the Lord and the
prevalence of sin."

Rona growled and splashed whiskey into his glass.

"Ffe done his best for Andra, and ye see how she be cured!
She's no

~ 20 S W 1. A R ~ Y A P O L L O

cured at all. There be sortie things outside the pointer o
Kirk Session," he muttcrecl, "but Iliddocll will no admit to
that."

 "No," said Randall. "Hi may be no wiser now, after
what's gone on here tonight, but perhaps the rest of us
will."

 But Roma shook his Lea 1. "I lla' always kllOWI1 there
be things in this wor Id not understood, and ye might as
well bolt your door with a boiled carrot as stand forth
against such as they."

                    Xl
            No Law of Natr:~2e

RANDALL was still musing over those words three weeks
later as he sat one afternoon in a smoky little tavern in
Stornaway, waiting for Comyn Rhinn. Summer had broken
just the way it often did in New England about this time of
year, with a cold beating rain that stripped the flower stalks
and drenched the late hay, but the winds here blew higher
and stronger, tearing slates from the rooftops and driving
them along the street, together with bits of driftwood, hats,
tiny furze bushes and anything else that was not nailed
down.

 John Riddoch had said that if the second sight were a true
phenomenon and not a trick, it was a senseless deviation
from the known laws of nature. He, Randall, had never met
with any deviation from these laws before. 1 le believed in
them. He believed there was nothing they could not
eventually explain. But Rona was a sensible man, a practical
man, a keen trader in Glasgow, London and beyond. And
Rona had said that there were things in this world, as well
as the next, that had never been understood and were not
likely to be.

 He glanced through the one small leaded window and saw
nothing but a liquid wall of rain, then moved his stool closer
to the turf fire and called for the old woman who tended the
whiskey keg to bring him another drink. The room was
empty, save for the two of them. It smelled of herrings, and
peat smoke, and lamp oil, and sour ale. He went back to his
thoughts

 Very well, he told himself, suppose the sight divas a true
phenomenon, how would he go to work to explain it in
terms of natural law? First, he would ask, did the vision
come from without or within? Was it perceived by the eye
and transmitted along the nerve paths to the brain, or did it
arise, like imagination, from some inner source? And yet im-
agination itself was only decaying memory, Aristotle had
said. The mind cannot create; it can only rearrange what the
senses gather in. Then he would want to know

I ~ S W E AR B Y A POL LO

 The door creaked on its hinges and swung inward. The
turf {ire blazed up as the draft struck it. Randall turned and
saw the Laird of llona against a panel of thick grey rain. Lie
came in, hastily closing the door behind him. Water poured
from his brogues with every step, and dripped from the oiled
linen cape he wore. Going straight to the fire, lle wheezed
and snorted until his pipes were clear, and then turned to
the younger mile.

 "l)evil a fine porpoise l mace, do 1 not, lad? it's raining
yet, but the sky's breaking clear in the west, and Tam
MacVcan is already to go. Did ve visit the smallpox case eve
heard of?"

Randall drained his ghl.s and smiled hack ruefully.

"I visited the sick man. But it ttirnecl out to be spotted fever
he had."

'So he vitas no good to ye?"

  "None at- all, but I hope I was some to him. 1 gave him
bark and a purge, and told him to drink brandy till the spots
appeared. He should recover well, if he keeps l~imself
warm and dry."

  I;.ona shook his head. 'That be none so easy to do in
weather like this," he said. 'it thought to toast myself here
for a bit, but now it comes offer me that I'd rather do it at
home by my own fireside, drinking my own whisli~ y. I.et
tlS go!"

  1 ogether they stepped ()ut into tile street. The rain vvas
indeed slacking our, hut the ~ ind that clove from the
eastward out of Scotland was still damp and mall. Randall
shivered as they walked in silence down the terraced slope
of the little fishing tO\VII, noted, Rona had told him, for
drinking anti piety. The mist had cleared away from the
black boggy moorlallds to the westwa d, but wisps of it still
lingered about the Castle, gutted by C'romwell's soldiery a
hundred years before. Few peoplc were abn~acl in the
narrow streets, and the only sound was the wail of the
curlews anct the uncuding complaint of the sea.

  Rolla Icd the way past a pile of lobster traps to the crazy
wooden \\~h.irf where Tam waited for them, a young man
with thick shoulders, a lcather-brovvn face, and smiling blue
eyes. I le murmured a greeting n Gaelic, k aped into his
boat and of,tered a hand to help them down. In a few
m~inutcs they N,v rc tacking out of Stornavvay Harbor,
round the low headland to the portly. From there on, the
wind vvas behind them, and they drove steadily over the
sullen grey sea.

  Tam had come on an errand to Rona the day before, and
the laird had decided to return with him to meet the weekly
packet from Dunvcgan that shot~lci be bringing them hocks
he had sent into Scotland for. Randall we at alc,llg because
of the rumor of the smallpox case. He tOt!, had been eaycrly
avv~iting the packet. He had sent for drugs  Opium,
Plu:incr's ['ills, cal.'mel, ginger, rhubarb, and aconite and
also

No Law of Nature red

for Dr. Cadog~m's book on the gout. He had been treating
Johnny Dweeney for rheumatic feet and was doing him no
good at all. The symptoms of the two diseases could be
much the same. It seemed unlikely that the old piper could
have the gout, since it was a trouble that came of living too
rich and high. Still, Randall wanted to know what Dr.
Cadogan would say.

 Crouched under heavy rugs in a sort of roofless gallery
midway of the small craft, the two men made little
conversation. Randall kept his head down, and Rona
watched a streak of sunset flaring raggedly ahead of them.
Finally he spoke.

 "Last time I went yonder, 1 thought I'd found a lad for
Ellen. But I was talking wi' his father again today, and he's
gone sour of the bargain. He'll hear no word o' hi r at all."

 Randall turned to him in surprise. "I did not think that was
how courting was done here," he said. "I'd thought the girls
were most free and forward to look to it themselves not in
any harmful way, I mean  only that they are not so coy "
He floundered in his own rush of words and broke off.

Rona smiled somewhat grimly with his brows drawn down.

 "Aye, I take your meaning, lad, and ye are right. But Ellen
is an uncou' case. Ellen spoiled her market years ago."

 Randall shifted about uncomfortably. "Was that what you
tried to tell me about on Ardmory that first day?"

 "Aye, and was balked by my own child therein. But it be
none so much to tell. It seems in the afternoon when the
schooltime was over, Ellen would go up to the Cursing
Stones with the young lads, and show them how they were
made different than she. Their mothers came at me for it,
and I turned them off and told them 'twas summat all lads
must learn. But I called Miss Ellen to me then, and I told
her did I hear any more such talk, I would send her to the
country workhouse in Dingwall or elsewhere beyond the sea.
If I hadna' so valued her mother, I would ha' sent her then."

 "She was young," said Randall thoughtfully, "and she has
surely learned better IIOW. How has she borne herself
since?"

 "Well enough, for all I hear. But when the lads are
choosing wives, the old tale is remembered, and they'll no
choose Ellen. I thought perhaps in Stornaway but the word
has gone even there. Folk here in the islands do not give
money with their daughters two cows is considered
enough but I would offer gold. 'Tis for her mother's sake
I do."

 If he would take so much trouble in the interests of his
cattle maid, Randall thought, what must he have in mind for
his own daughter? Something, surely. A marriage to
someone high-placed in Edinburgh or

124 S NV E A R B Y A P O L L O

among the loyal Stuart Lamilics abroad. l le tried to think of
a way to ask, but could find no words and his throat felt dry.
Rona changed the subject.

 "Well, I hear everybody be of l for America, and no doubt
Dunvegan Castle be going next. Thr e months back there
was a Philadelphia captain a-stealing away of immigrants,
the colonies be that eager for indentured help. And now I
hear even i lore MacDonald has gone."

 Flora! That vitas the name Kenncth had whispered to
Margery. The Flora who was going somewhere. Flora
MacDonald? EJe had heard that name often in Edinburgh,
where she was still the toast of many in town, almost thirty
years after her heroic adventures that saved Prince Charlie.
But he had not known it was she of whom Kenneth spoke.
Perhaps it was not she. And in any c SC, why should
Margery's face turn so strange at the news, half-happy,
half-troubled, wholly upset? Suddenly he felt baffled and
impatient because there nerc So many questions in his mind
he had no answer to. He was sick of 7hcsc misty islands. He
longed for the clear-cut look of a whiter lanclsca7pc at
home, all white fields and black branches, every twi\,
standing OL1t against the sky s iron gray.

 Then he felt the boat nose against the barnacled wooden
piling of the wharf. They were bar k at Roml. it would be
good to be in a warm house with hot food on the table, lo
hear Nlargery's laughter once more.

 The clachan seemed even more dcscrtcd than
StorlIaNN7ay had been. It was almost dark, and lights shone
7hrotlglI the cottage windows and around the door mattings.
As he and lions Icft the shore and started homeward,
carrying their bundles, he glanced toward Andra's house.
The matting had been pulled asiclc, and Ellen stood in the
open doorway. The wind whipped her skirt and tossed her
pale hair. She was looking at him, Randall knew, but she
gave no sign and neither did he. He followed his host
aloIl7c7 the muddy cart track winding up the hill.

 Margery met them in the cloor\Nray. Slle wore a dress of
soft yellow wool with buttons of carv d ivorN, ho chcclis
vvere fluslIcd and her eves bright.

"I watched you all across the cove,' she told them. '1 knew
the boat

r or , ,,

for 1 am s.

"Have ye been painting, your face, lass?" asked her father
critically.

Margery smiled and shook lIer head.

 "Oh, no " she answered, "l vc been SittilI,g too close to the
fire. 1 told Leitis to lay supper in the east parlor. It will be
ready by now, I think. What did the packet bring?"

 Once in the warm pleasant rookie, all iliclccrillg hearth fire
and candlelight, the men spread out their purchases on an
oak bench for Margery to took at, while Leitis movecl to and
Lro, bringing covered dishes

No Law of Nature 125

to the table. Randall's drugs and his book on gout occupied
little space, but Rona's goods were more varied: a pruning
hook for Sim, a keg of nails, pickled limes and Lisbon sweet
oil; coffee, raisins, chocolate, and a packet of bright sewing
silks for his daughter. Finally, with a smile of triumph, he
stripped open a thin wooden box and pulled out a huge
Cheshire cheese, smelling, Randall thought, as though it had
died and been buried and dug up again.

 "There, lad," he said, crossing over to set it among the
steaming platters on the table, "is a cheese with a soul in it!"

 Kenneth strolled in just then, and the diversion saved
Randall from having to make any reply.

 They seated themselves around the table and gave their
fullest attention to the tender young woodcocks, that Leitis,
under Margery's prompting, had stewed delectably in wine
in the French way. Rona did most of the talking, chiefly
about the horse races to be run on North Uist on
Michaelmas Day.

 "We always had horse race s at Michaelmas on Barra," said
Margery dreamily. "I was born on a Michaelmas night. My
mother said she sat at the window and watched them lead
out the horses while she waited for me. Do you have horse
racing in America, Randall?"

 "Yes," he answered. "I hear they've had them sometimes at
Narragansett. Mysell, I've never seen "

 He was interrupted by the sound of the hall door opening.
Ellen Deveron came in. She had a dark shawl over her
olive-green dress and carried a stone crock in her hand.

Margery jumped to her feet.

 "Oh Ellen, you did not need to come here tonight. She is
quieter now, and Leitis could leave her long enough to get
supper for us." She turned to explain to the men. "Caitlin
had an ill turn this afternoon. I hated to tell you till you had
eaten and rested a little, but she was so bad we sent for
Andra, and Andra said we should try oil from a solan

,,

goose.

 Randall frowned. Caitlin had never allowed him to come
to her bedside, but Andra had told him what little she knew
about the case, and he was as baffled as she. She had told
him many of her remedies too, and he knew that the oil of
the small, black and white, yellow-paled solan goose was said
to have specific powers against cancer. All other diseases
struck outward, only the cancer buried itself and struck in.
His own favorite medicine for such cases was a paste of
bloodroot and caustic  not that he had ever had much
success with it, but after all, a man had to try. He thought he
would send for some by the next packet boat. Ellen was
speaking.

1 z6 s PI E A n B Y A P O L L O

 "Yes, it is the goose oil. Mother thought she should have
some tonight. She couldna' come herself, for Meg's daftie is
bad with the chin cough, and she went there. Shall I tale this
up now?!'

 "I'll go with you," said Margery quickly, "and we'll stop in
my room on the way. 1 was cleaning the chests toclay, and
1 found a length of blue "

The two girls left the ;>arlor together.

 "Michaelmas next week," said Kenneth slowly, "and the
black rains o' autumn already begun. and winter will lie on
us soon.!

 lde turned sharply to l'andall. "Ye'll be late for Edinburgh
and the beginning o' term."

 Rona was silently pouring whiskey and watching the two
young men. Randall felt his face grow hot. There was no
reason for it, no reason at all.

 "I'm not going back to Edinburgll, he said as casually as he
could. 'Not now, anyway. Tller`'s been no chance to do the
inoculation."

 The Highlander's face turned clerk, and a quick light
smoldered in his eyes, then died away.

 "'Twould be no great harm were the folk to bide forever
without the inoculation." he retorted. There's a teelin,g
against it in the Kirk."

 "There was many against it in past time when it was a new
thing,! said Randall lightly. "When Cotton Slather came out
for it in Boston, he near had his house bl own up for his
trouble. But most folk now have got better sense. Why is the
Kirk against--?'!

 "Because it takes the power Otlt o' the hands o God
AImighty," said Kenneth, his voice still sharp-cdgcd with
anger. "bragging men back from the grave when the l ord
has ordered them into it!"

 "Why you could say that of all medicine," answered
Randall, trying to hide his own irritation. "Would you leave
sick folk to die with no remedy, outlaw our whole
profession, sir, and have ale doctors turn to mechanics and
laborers?"

 Kenneth shrugged his shoulders and reached for the
whiskey bottle. "If they did, I'd no object t o it," he
answcrccl, filling his glass and drinking deeply.

 Rona gave a loud laugh. and Ralldall turned his head. The
laird sat in his high-l:'acked chair with his hat still on, his
face flushed with drink and good cheer.

 "Go to, lads! Make a cock pit o my parlor, if ye've got
your spurs by ye. I'm o'erfond o' the sport, to stop it. But
dinna' ye break the furnishings or scatter the fire about "

 "Hush!" said Randall, putting his hand up. I le was sure he
heard it, or almost heard it, louder than the fall wind tearing
at the slates of

No Law of Nature I27

Rhinn House, a woman's scream. He listened, but it did not
repeat itself. Kenneth and Rona were staring at him.

 "I thought I heard " he was about to explain, when the
door burst open. Margery stood there with a look of horror
on her face.

"Oh come!" she cried. "Please come! Ellen is seeing before
her!"

 Rona swore an oath in Gaelic that Randall did not know
the meaning of, and lumbered to his feet, heavy with food
and drink, weary from battling the wet day.

"Where is she, lass?" he demanded.

 "In my room. We were sitting there, and she was looking
into the fire and suddenly I saw her face turn strange. She
looked as her mother looks when "

"Come, lads," interrupted Rona.

 The men went out of the parlor, through the great hall,
and up the stairs. Margery crept after.

 Randall had never been in Margery's room before, but he
did not stop to gaze tenderly around it, as he would have
liked to do. He knew there were blue and white hangings of
some sort, pictures on the walls, a thick carpet, furniture of
dark, polished wood. Ellen was crouching, tense and rigid, on
a heap of cushions before the small brass grate. She gazed
steadily into the fire with eyes that did not seem to see.
Randall stood still and watched her, not knowing what else
to do. Kenneth and Rona stood and stared.

 "She never had it before," whispered Margery, "but she well
could have it. They say 'tis in every red-haired daughter."

 Yes, Ellen's hair could be called red, he thought, as he
studied her vacant eyes and clenched hands, the pattern of
violets and green leaves on a cushion at her side. He turned
to Rona.

"Is there something we can do, sir?"

 Rona shook his head and answered roughly. "No, there is
naught we can do but wait. But did I think the wench were
a-bamboozling o'me "

 "Oh no, Father," pleaded Alargery. "'Tis no trick. You can
see it is not. She has the sight just as her mother has."

 Kenneth made a hoarse sound in his throat that drew
Randall's attention. The lowering Highlander looked even
more distraught than Margery. It seemed strange that he
should be troubled so. He must have seen taischers a-plenty,
too many to be unnerved by one more. But he stared with
stricken eyes almost as blank as Ellen's. Here, thought Ran-
dall, was another question he had no answer to. Suddenly he
remembered his thoughts in the tavern that afternoon. He
strode forward and waved his hand with a downward motion
before Ellen's face. The girl gave a scream and tumbled
sideways among the vivid silk cushions.

128 S U' E A R B Y A P O L L O

 In an instant they wele all about her, Rona holding her
head up; Randal] on his knees taking her pulse for no
good reason he could think of, except ':hat he was used to
taking pulses; Margery bringing water; only Kenneth
standing back.

 "What did ye see, lass?' asked Rona impatiently. "Did ye
see a taisch before ye, dike your mother'd do?"

 Ellen lay back against him with the air of a tired child. She
put her hands to her face.

 "We went to (::aitlin's room," she said vaguely, as if
reaching back beyond the vision to the old security that had
been there, "and Caitlin was asleep, so we left the oil with
Leitis and came here. We were looking into the fire, and
suddenly--and then "

"Go on, Ellen," said Randall gently. "What happened then?"

 "Why then it seemed that the fire grew till I could see
nothing but fire, and then the fire fad d out, and I saw the
road that goes through the clachan and across the burn 1
saw it a]] so plain. I saw Caitlin coming toward me. But
when she came near me, she stood still. She began to
dwindle away. She dwindled down till she was no higher
than the hem of my skirt. And then she grew ta]]. That must
mean it must

    ,,
mean

 It seemed to Randal] that some frightful significance now
became clear to her, but none was clear to him. He bent
closer to catch what she said, and found he was still holding
her hand.

"Caitlin will die soon," she whispered.

 "Aye," said Rona gruffly. "[hat's nigh the commonest taisch
o' al]. To see a body dwindle and then resume forbodes its
death. Poor Cait]in! For a long time I ha' thought she could
no last."

Margery held a cup of water for Ellen to drink.

"Has the like ever happc ned to ye before, lass?" Rona
wanted to know.

 Ellen shook her head. "Jo, and I care not if it never
happens again," she murmured weakly, beginning to cry.

"You must stay here tonight, E]]en," said Margery kindly.
"I'll make

milk posses and-"

 Kenneth interrupted, speakillg for the first time since he
had entered the room.

 "She']] fare best with he mother who understands such," he
rumbled. "1']] take her home."

 Rona approved the idea at once. "Aye, Andra should
know of what's come about," he said, "and the lass wi]] be
better there. 'Tis no matter for Madge and me, or OUI
doctor of medicine."

 Watching' Kenneth help E]]en from the room, Randa]1
became aware that the rain was beating again on the slates
above, the wind lashing

No Law of Nnture 129

the breakers into new fury along the dark shore. Gould
Ellen have been tricking them, he wondered. After all,
Caitlin's death was probably a safe enough prediction to
make. But suppose she was not they had been truly,
terribly convincing, the glazed eyes and stiffened body.
Suppose it was not a trick but an actual phenomenon like
electricity like magnetism! Was it really a deviation from
all natural law, or the workings of a natural law he did not
understand the principles of ~ Well, he would certainly talk
to the girl when she was over the first shock of discovering
hel affliction; search her with questions and see if he could
glean enough facts to build an hypothesis on. Rona had said
it was not a matter for a doctor of medicine, but how did
Rona ll;now~ I le. Randall, was not so sure. He found
himself following the others downstairs, watching Kemleth
and Ellen disappear into the black rain as if they, too, had
been part of a vision Irrevocably gone. And then he was
sharply aware of Margery standing beside him, close, and
warm, and sweetscented, in her golden dress. All the rest of
the world could leave him and go its way, he thought, if
only Margery would not go.

-
            Two a~2D {l~e Firze

Two NIGHTS after Kenneth had taken her home from
Rhinn House, Ellen stood in the twilight- by the curving
stones of the beehive hut and chatted with Rob MacNayr.
Rob had a small mouse-colored pony harnessed to a crude
sledge for dragging burdens over rough ground where wheels
could not go A thick-set, brown-faced man, he was loading
the sledge with leather buckets full of new milk, fastening a
lid tightly on each one.

"There be no more here, lass, than folk is needing," he said
dubiously.

 Ellen gave him an indifferent stare. "Cows always give less
milk when the wind's north," she answered. "Ye can no
blame me." Then, mellowing her speech a little, she asked,
"Did ye hear what went on at the laird's o' Wednesday eve?"

 It was in her mind to know whether the gossip had run
through the clachan yet that she, like her mother, had the
sight.

 Rob shook his head. "I heard naught. I been for birds to
the Flannans. A good year for fulmar, though gannets be
scarce "

"Diana' C'hristie have any news when ye got home?"

 "Christie? Where would she get news from?" he asked,
strapping the last bucket in place so it could not shift and
spill over when he was leading the pony down the glen.
"She's near her time and keeps to the house, sewing for the
new bairn and caring for those already by. But if something
happened at the laird's, I'd say 'twas likely Miss Margery's
banns be posted. Did she plight her troth now, whilst I was
away?"

Ellen stiffened. "Who would she plight it with?" she
demanded.

He smiled widely and picked up the reins at the pony's
head.

 "Why, with any one that pleased her. Could be
Schoolmaster or the doctor lad. Some rich man s son from
the cities. I wouldna' know."

 He moved away, apparently not much interested in gossip,
and for Ellen, too, the talk had lost its saver. She turned and
went into the hut where Janet Gillander was; scouring milk
pails with a heather brush.

          TU70 and tile Fire 131

 "Be off with ye, Janct, she said. 'Would ye work all night
after working all day? Have ye naught L~cttcr to do'"

 Janet put the brush down and gazed back, a wistful look
on her pretty face flushed with the heat of Ale turf fire.

"Oh Ellen, ye know well A hat 1 wish I could be doing," she
said.

 Ellen smiled c oldly. "Why i7 wouldna' matter what ye
were doing, so long as Colin Mackay were by. But ye canna
have him, Janet. Meggy's in his heart, and he wants none
but sue."

;'I know," sighed Janet. "flu I'm told Meggy keeps giving him
nay."

 Ellen shrugged. "When the daftie dies, 'twill be a different
story. If ye'd mend your market, ye'd best go to Portrce or
Stornaway."

 Janet's eyes snapped, and she spol;e tartly. " 1 here be
others could use the same advice," she said. She pulled a
tartan slam around her, stepped out, and vanished in the
purple dark.

 Ellen stirred the fire and stacked the clean wooden pails
at the back of the hut. Then she went to the c37~orway and
stood there, gazing down the hill. Tall clumps of prickly
furze and reaches of drying heather showed all pale in the
light o1 the harvest moon. She heard the belling of the red
deer from the uplands, and on the crags below, the endless
trouble of the sea. Srnolie fr am the kilns drifted by, stinging
in her nostrils. She was waiting for her lover, Kenneth, but
it was Randall Woodbury who came.

 "Did I startle you, l~ilen?" I e askecl, stepping out of the
darkness suddenly, just at leer shoulder. "if I did, I am sorry.
I mean '770U no harm. It was only to talk WitTtI vC'u in
private that I came here, but if you wish, I will go away."

 Ellen stood still for a mom nt watching him, trying to keep
her face from showing the triumph in her heart. She had felt
he would seek her out soon, but she had not known just
when or where it would be. "Lord Jesus," she prayed
inwardly, nake Kcniletll be late tonight. Oh, make Kenneth
be late."

 Aloud she said, locking do\,vn, smoothing the skirt of her
dark dress. minding the proper Englisll speech, "O1Z I am
not afraid. Not of you, sir. I could not be. Rut 1 we: startled,
I own, for I had been watching the path, and I saw no one
. ppn~acIl by that way."

 She lifted her eyes to his and let her smile widen. Yes, he
was hand some, she thought, with his wispy yellow hair
blowing in the night wind, his friendly grey eyes and
persuading smile, for he stood just in front of the door
where the firelight shone out and she could see him very
plain. Not so handsome as Kenneth. Thinner and finer-cut,
without the ruddy earthiness of the Fligh1anc1 man. 13t1t be
\TvTas an American. and she re

137 SWEAT APOLLO

minded herself that in America there were gowpins of
gold whole handfuls of it.

  He sighed lightly and shook his head, as if amused by his
own blunder.

  "And I did not come by the path, for I could not find it in
the night. 'Twould be more fitting if I came to your mother's
house, I know "

  Ellen felt her heart stir with surprise and delight. Did he
mean to ask for her hand already, with no courting at all?
When they had not even kissed; When they had not ~

"But what I have to say cannot be said there."

  "Oh;" murmured Ellen, in her voice all the flatness of her
disappointment.

  "I waited for you to come to Rhinn House, for I knew
Rona would let me take you aside and speak with you alone.
He does not feel as I do in the matter. Still, he would let me
try "

Ellen kept her eyes cast down.

  "It was in my mind to come to you," she told him very low.
"But my mother has kept me a-spinning and gathering dye
herbs. She was not pleased when Schoolmaster brought me
home that night and I told her what had happened to me.
She would keep the sight all to herself, that one. She would
not have even her own daughter share it, no."

  He was regarding her steadily. His look made her feel
confused inside, and she knew that she must keep her
outward manner direct and simple, keep her two halves
separate, with a brazen wall between.

"Why did you think of coming to me, Ellen7" he asked her
gently.

  This was the moment, sue thought. She let herself shiver
in the chill wind blowing down from the dark purple uplands
under the waning moon. The deer were still belling far away.

  "Come in," she invited. "It is a poor place but there is a
fire and all " She let her voice trail into silence without
finishing her speech.

  When they were both inside the hut, she pulled the mat
across the door. Kenneth was almost sure to come, and if
Kenneth came ah Lord  but she would have to take that
chance.

  "Not even a stool," she cried, flinging her hands out in a
gesture of apology. "Only the blanket here "

  Randall looked at the strip of grey wool laid close to the
small seething pit of fire. Then he went to the heap of milk
pails, placed one of them bottom-up a little way off, ;md sat
down upon it.

"I'd be back out of the smoke," he said.

  Ellen sat down on the blanket, arranging her skirts
carefully about her.

          Two arid the 1 ire r33

 "I was coming,' she said, "oh I was coming " She looked
up at him with obvious distress, her eyes dark in htr tliin
face.

"Tell me," he said, leaning toward her. "You need not be
afraid."

 "Well I thought I would c``me, l~ccause of that night in
August  when my mother was churched for the sight and
then stricken after "

He interrupted her. 'I)id sh ever tell what she saw that
night?"

  "NO, she has never told, and she shudders and turns ill
when I ask her. But from the way you locl.ccl at her and
tended her that night, I thought, "Tis not the, I~irk can help
this affliction, 'tis the doctors, maybe. Perhaps she needs not
~layer, but medicine.' I meant to tell her that I thought so.
But then wizen it happened next it was not to her."

  His face had lighted. "I am s lad you feel that way. The
same thought must have been drifting in the air that nigllt,
and went into your head as well as into mine. I have v
ondcrccl ever since if the sight is not a problem that could
he explained and treated by medicine. We do not have it in
America. It was not lectured upon in Edinburgh, and I heard
it mentioned there only once. That was wilen Margery spoke
of your mother."

  "Aye," answered Ellcn, feeling, in spite of herself, a lift of
pride in her mother's powers. "Miss Margerv could scarce
speak of the sight and not mention her. bier skill be well
known.

  "So its manifestations were new to me vvEcn I came here.
I watched your mother, and I thought i would like to study
her case. But then I grew to know her ancl work by her side-
as with Lavan and I saw that I never could study her. Can
you understand wily?''

  Ellen looked thoughtful. "I Iy mother keeps a wall around
her," she said.

  I-le nodded, his face clcarin I. "I Ic\w \vcll you put it! She
does exactly that. Without meaning to do it, she makes me
feel like a greenhorn and a fool. I honor youl mottler. Thert
is a great goodness in her. She is strong and wise, and gifted
beyond the common run. But I could not ask her what she
eats for supper, as I mean to ask you. Can you see that,
Ellen) Can you see?'

  She looked into his eyes, lorlcst and grey and open. Not
even the Pickering firelight of the hut could raise any
shadows of false purpose there. It would be a slow patll, she
thought, but she would tread it, straight to all those gowpins
of got I. She let herself smile, and tossed back her hair with
just a touch of provocativeness in the gesture. "Do you mean
to ask me what I t at for supper-"

  "Yes, 25 any doctor might if VOLl had a sick stomach or
an aching head. Ellen, I do not know hat I can cure yotl of
the sight. I do not even know that you avant to ''e cured of
it. But I want to find out more

134 SWEAR BY APOLLO

about it, to study it, and see if it be a matter for doctors to
cure. Will you help me in this to increase the sum of
human learning ?"

 Now there was a light in his eyes she did not like, she
thought; the same light that shone on the faces of earnest
young ministers too deeply devoted to the Kirk.

 "Yes, I will help you," she told him. "But how am I who
have no learning, to help increase it? That I do not see."

 "You may not have learning, but you have knowledge," he
replied, "a special knowledge." He drew the improvised stool
closer and sat there, looking at her intently.

 "First," he said slowly and carefully, as Kenneth talked to
the children at school in the byte, "I would know whether it
comes to you from within or without. Is it seen by the eye or
the brain?"

 Ellen replied as slow as he, cautious, venturing every word
forth as if ready in an instant to draw it back.

"I do not know. It is like something seen in a dream."

 "You say you saw Caitlin walking toward you on the village
street. Was it summer or wintertime? Was it a bright day?"

 "It was all grey about her. It might have been in time of
autumn rain. I cannot tell."

"Were there other people on the street?"

 "No. But there were little green lights like butterflies
hovering along the way she came."

"She dwindled then?"

"To the hem of my skirt, as I said that night."

 "And then she grew to l;er proper size, but she did not
speak to you? She made no cry?"

"No."

"How did the vision end?"

Ellen wet her lips and darted a swift glance about the hut.

 "Why, it was as if as if a black lightning flash came and
swallowed all."

"You are sure of that?"

"Yes."

"Do you know what it was?"

"No."

 "It was my arm descending. I swept it before your eyes. I
wanted to know if the vision was coming to you from within
or without. Suddenly, in that moment, I wanted to know."

He stopped, looked puzzled and dismayed, then he went on.

"I had been sure it came from within the mind. But if my
arm fell

Two and the Fire ~35

across the vision and destroyed it, it must have come to you
through the visual senses."

 "I do not know," said Ellen ~imply, shaking her head and
drawing a long breath.

In a moment he had another question.

"Have blind folk ever been known to possess the sight?"

Ellen pondered. She might as well tell him. She could see no
harm.

 "Oh yes, there was an aunt of Tam MacVean's at
Stornaway. She is dead now, and I cannot remember her
name. But she had the sight, and she was blind all her last
days as any newborn thing. Once Tam had a passenger fall
overside and drown, and just before it happened, both she
and my mother saw him with his clothes shining like the
skins of fishes, and the hairs of his periwig all wet. Folk can
also see taisches in the dark."

His face showed an even greater bewilderment and dismay.

 "Why then, if it can be seen by those whose natural sight
is clouded or destroyed, it must come from within, as I
thought at first. Ellen, you are telling me yes and no all in
one breath."

 "I am sorry. I told you I had no learning," she said. Long
before this, she thought, Kenneth should have been tearing
away the mat at the door.

 "Do not ask pardon. clowns no fault of yours. This is only
the beginning, and it will take a long lime to get things clear.
Do you wish me to cure you, if I can ever find a way?"

"Yes."

"But do you think of it as a sin upon you?'

"How can I, when it came to me through no wish of mine?"

 "I thought it: was according to the teachings of your Kirk
that very deep sin came about so. But I am not interested in
that. I lave you suffered any illnesses? Do you Al in any
way?"

 She shook her head. "Nothing worse than a chill when the
wind blows east in winter, and for more than two years, I
have not ailed at all."

"Did anything uncommon happen that day?"

 "Nothing. I slept till noon, having watched by the cattle all
night. After the rain stopped, my mother sent me to gather
sea herbs along the shore."

He smiled. "And for supper ?"

 She allowed herself to smile back. "Potatoes, and herrings,
and wild carrot wine."

"And after?"

I36 SWEAR APOLLO

 "My mother gave me the goose oil in a little crock and told
me to take it to Caitlin."

"Did she say what it was for? What illness she thought
Caitlin had?"

"No.',

"Do you know the uses of oil from the solan goose?"

"I thought it was used for healing green wounds," she said
innocently.

"And for no other thing?"

 She looked him in the eye and lied boldly. "It may be," she
said. "I do not know."

"Had she or anyone ever told you Caitlin would die?"

 "No. No one had told me. We are all afraid lest she might,
but no one is sure of her death."

 He stood up. Ellen rose quickly and moved toward the
door. This first meeting had passed well, but if it kept on
much longer, the interruption she feared was sure to come.

 "I am afraid," she murmured plaintively, "I have not helped
you. But I will try again, if you wish it, Randall. I hope you
will try to help me."

 He stared at her long and reflectively. He wore a different
countenance now, she thought, than he had worn that first
night when they exchanged their wordless speech across the
laird's table. He was drawn to her now, not in the way she
wished, but she was content for the moment that it should
be accomplished in any way.

 "I shall talk to you again, Ellen, surely," he said, a sober
note in his voice and a sober look in his grey eyes. "I shall
want to ask you more. And if you have another taisch, as
soon as you awaken please send for me."

 "I promise," she murmured, smiling a little, wishing he
would be gone.

 "Good night," he said, "and thank you. What you have told
me confuses me only the more. Rut the beginning of any
new thing must always be that way."

 For a moment they stood looking at each other. Then
without another word he strode out into the dark.

 Scarcely had his footfalls lost themselves in the silence of
the heath before Kenneth thrust through the doorway. A
flush burned high on his cheekbones' and his eyelids looked
hot and inflamed like those of a man in drink, but he did
not smell of whiskey. He lunged past her and flung himself
down on the blanket Randall had ignored. Ellen stood
perfectly still, staring down at him.

 "What Hell's broth are ye brewing, lass?" he demanded,
not letting his eyes meet hers, peering into the fire as if he
expected to find his an

Two and the Fire I37

swer there. "What do ye mean by it? Setting up for a
taischer! And the whole of it a lie!"

 Ellen sighed with relief. So he had known! Known that she
only pretended to see. They had not met since he had taken
her home to Rhinn House that night. He had walked silently
then, holding her arm, letting her lean on him. But he had
mat gone into the house to confront Andra. He had left her
at the door, muttering that she would do well enough, now
she was at home. Well, she was glad he knew for he would
not betray her, and she liked to have as little pretence as
possible between them. It interfered with another thing. She
had not dared to reveal the truth to her mother, only to tell
her that she had seen a taisch and hoped it would not
happen to her again. Andra had believed. She talked of
sending to Ireland for holy water from the Roman church.
Perhaps, because she had been in a nunnery onc e, she
believed it would be a more powerful fluid than the common
Scottish kind. But Ellen did not need holy water. She was
not ready yet to be cured of such sight as she had. It was a
comfort to know that with Kenneth she need not lie, at least,
about this, so she spoke out, blunt and forthright as he.

 "And why should I not set up for a taischer, if I choose?
I seen my mother do it enough times, so I ken well the way.
I could think of naught else to make the lad notice me."

 "So it was for that. I should ha' known. I seen ye give him
that slanty look ot yours. But why did ye think he would
notice ye for that? 'Twould scarce drawn a Highland man
on."

Ellen explained with more patience than was usual to her.

 "Why I watched him tend my mother the night Master
Riddoch was here. He thinks he is wiser than the law and
fifteen lords of Edinburgh; that he can find the right pill for
anything whatsoever that is crosswise or untoward. I thought
I would set him to curing me."

 Kenneth laughed harshly. "He is uncou' well begun! For I
watched him at it! Through a crack where the mortar is cleft
from the stones, I watched him."

 "I thought ye must ha' done that," said Ellen, "when ye
rushed in the moment he was gone. I feared lest ye would
come before and ruin all. I feared on 't."

 Under the clerk bush of his eyebrows he stared up at her
for the first time that night.

 "No, ye needna' ha' feared, lass. I hate your game, but I
wouldna' spoil it, since it furthers my own so well."

 Ellen spoke slowly, her greenish eyes narrowing, the right
one more than the left.

138 s w ret A R B Y A P O ~ ~ O

 "What do ye mean by that?" She sank down on the blanket
beside him.

 "When he's with ye, he's not with her," said Kenneth, his
anger smoothing itself away. "1 tell her lies of a rising for
Gharlie Stuart, and it draws her to me for a while because
the poor lass loved her mother so. But it doesna' last, and
I canna' always think of lies. Arrhh Ellen!" and he caught
her by both wrists pulling her close to him, "ye know 'tis my
plan to wed with Margery and keep ye for my lass, in your
own little house, with silk gowns and a'. And I ha' tried. But
she has smiled o ermuch of Late on the outlander, and if
she were wed with him and I lost her portion, I might lose
what's more to me than her. Every time I see them together,
I feel my purse grow a guinea light. But every time I see
him with ye, I want to cut his throat."

 Ellen considered slowly what she had just heard, like
trying to unwind one thread from a tangled skein. Kenneth
feared that Randall was finding favor with Margery, so he
was willing that she, Ellen, should try to divert the other
lac!. If he did not win Margery and the portion, he feared
that Ellen, too, would go. What would he say if he knew she
had plans of her own in which he had no part?

He was still holding hi r wrists, drawing her ever more close.

 "Awww, lass," he was pleading, "say ye are only after him
in sport  to while away the time that I must tend so close
to her! Say'tis for me ye care !"

 She looked into his stern dark face and troubled eyes.
Then she bent forward yieldingly. He dropped her wrists and
caught her in his arms.

 Ellen felt as if the fire in the earth pit was rising and
surging through the hut, enveloping both cf them. A short
while before she had sat with a lad before this fire two
people and the fire there once before, tonight  but it had
been a different two. Even she herself had been different
then. But now, but now oh, the re was never such a pair as
Kenneth and she  together for one time more. Ellen gave
herself up to the living wonder of the flaec.

                   X111
                    - -
           No Death,:2 Scotland

GOING to the window to draw the curtains against the wild
black storm roaring up from Ireland, Margery remembered
that much rain in autumn was supposed to be a sign of the
Lord's displeasure upon the land. She stood there in the
circle of casements that formed the bay, gazing out into the
late October night. Far down the wind-racked seas, she
thought, were the towering cliffs of Barra Head, the walls of
Kismull Castle where she had done much of her growing up.
The seasons returned as regularly to Barra as to other places
she had known, but in her heart it was always summer there,
in that island lying like a dark green shadow on a
peacock-colored sea. She thought of the scarred hillsides and
white sand beaches and little, crooked apple trees where
such sweet fruit grew. She could taste those apples, almost,
and smell the pink, trumpet-shaped flowers said to come
down from seeds Prince Charlie had scattered out of his
pocket, just north of there, on Eriskay where he had come
ashore. There had been an eagle flying over that day, her
mother had told her. Everyone thought it boded well for the
Stuart cause. And now most of those who had seen the eagle
were dead, and the bonny young prince a beaten old man,
destroying himself in Rome.

 Or was he destroying himselQ He had taken a young wife,
and now there were rurmors of a son. At least, Kenneth had
said there were such rumors. Almost every day Kenneth
leaned to her ear to whisper some new tale about another
uprising to try to put the Georges off the throne again, but
when she asked him where he got the news from, he would
only say that he heard it in the cry of a passing bird. She
wondered what her cousins on Barra would say. If any such
matters were afoot, they would be sure to know. It seemed
fantastic to think such a thing could happen after all the
years since the Forty-five. But "The Stuarts will come again,"
her mother had said, said it in her last hour, looking on
death.

And then, Kenneth himself puzzled her even more than his
stories.

l do s `17 E A n B Y A P O L L O

Always at her side when he was not in the schoolroom, yet
seeming to get no pleasure from beings there. E le said little
to her himself, but if Randall or any chance guest of her
fatllcr's tried to engage her in speech, he would scowl, and
mutter, and show plainly by his manner that he wished they
would sail north into utter darkness and never return. He
kept referring to their marriage, but he never asked her to
set a day. Well, if this was I lighland courting, she thought,
she was ready to take herself to P'aris again. An I still worse,
if he had been more ardent  but that she could not have
borne. Sometimes after supper he would disappear in the
direction of the clachan, saying he needed a walk in the
fresh air because his throat and eyes were dusty, the
schoolroom being just over the threshing Hoor. She had no
idea where he went. Perhaps to meet some boat bringing the
rumors he would whisper to her at breakfast next day. While
Kenneth was out on his walks, she would chat or play chess
with Randall. Thinking about Randall hurt her. She could
hear voices now, crying alone in the wind outside, and they
made her remember that night in the dusk below the
Cursing Stones when she had heard him call out to his dead
wife, Sally Anne. She drew the curtain quickly across the
small thick panes, shutting out the night. She crossed the
room and flung herself into a low cushioned chair by the
fire.

  Now that she was withdrawn a little from the clamor of
the storm, she could hear Caitlin's moans coming from the
far end of the servants wing. Caitlin had been crying out at
intervals all day. Rona had left in the early morning, taking
Kenneth and Sim, and gone to Stornaway to meet the wood
boats from Mull that were bringing timber, and blue stones
of Talisker to menc, the terrace pave. Leitis had not once
left the sick woman, so Randall and Margery had been
alone. They ate cold chicken and cockle pie on the kitchen
table, and sang together at the spinet, and played chess until
darkness fell. Then he had gone to his room to answer his
father's last letter. It had been a happy day. Margery felt
comicious-stricken now that she had been so happy, with
Caitlin lying only a little way off in such pain. Twice Randall
sent her to rap on the door and call to Leitis, offering his
aid, but troth times she had heen forced to carry back t'le
woman's stubborn no.

  Now she stirred uneasily in her chair, shivered and leaned
to the seacoal fire. In a moment she would go downstairs,
she thought, calling to Randall on her way, and set out some
spice calves and a cordial. Sudclenly Caitlin's wails rose
loudly and were muffled again by the closing of a door.
Margery ran out into the narrow wooden corridor that led
to the back of the house where the servants slept.

  "Leitis," she called softly. "I heard you coming out, Leitis,
and I vanted to ask Is there anything ? Will she let
Randall come in now

         No Death irzScotland 141

 Leitis was twisting her apron in her gnarled lingers, and
tears ran down the grooves of her brown old face.

 "Oh, Miss Margery," she choked, "she is that bad I never
saw. I wish Sim were here. He shouldna' ha' gone. I
shouldna' ha' let him go. I wish your father were at home."

 "Please let Randall go to her, Leitis. And I will fetch
Andra. Together they might "

 Margery broke off. She had a feeling there was nothing
anyone could do.

 Leitis' hands fell limply at her sides. "He may go to her if
he will  the doctor lad. She will not know. She knows
nothing now but the pain."

 Margery clasped her hands and her eyes lighted. Quickly
as they had come, all her doubts were gone. Randall was
going to treat Caitlin at last, and now, miraculously, she
would soon be well.

 "Go back to her, Leitis," she cried. "I will tell him at once.
In a moment he will be there."

 The old servant wiped her eyes and shuffled away, her
horsehide slippers scraping a little on the timber floor.
Margery ran out to the gallery in the center of the house
where the portraits hung, coming around a corner quickly.
After a step or two, she halted and stood still.

 Randall and [Ellen were sitting on the narrow stone bench
just under the picture of Charlotte Rhinn in the green
brocade she had worn at the court of Queen Anne. Ellen's
wet shawl lay at her side, and there were raindrops on her
hair. Randall was looking earnestly into her face, and she
gazed raptly back.

 "Do you see what is pasty" Margery heard him say, as she
waited, so surprised at the little scene she was uncertain for
a moment what to do.

 "No," said Ellen gravely, but with an air of quiet pride.
"We see the future, and what is happening in the present,
but far off. The past we do not see."

 "Do you ever " his voice broke off and resumed on a
slightly higher note, " ever see the dead;"

 Sally Anne! thought Margery, a quick pang leaping in her
heart. He wants to use Ellen's power to reach Sally Anne!

 "No," continued Ellen, "we do not see the dead. We see
the deaths men will die."

 Just then Caitlin wailed at the far end of the house. Ellen
half turned and lifted her head quickly. Margery
remembered her errand and hurried forward.

"Oh, Randall, you can go to her now. Leitis says you can go."

Randall stood up. "I'll get my chest," he answered. Then he
turned

I42 S W E A R B Y A P O ~ r o

to Ellen. " I hank you for coming. You have told me much
that 1 wanted to know, but there is still more."

 Ellen smiled at him, s ood smiling after he had
disappeared into his own room

 "I'd ask you to have a cup of hot tea, Ellen," said Margery
evenly, "except that we need yot,r mottler. \NTotlld you
mind giving her a message to come?"

 Ellen shook her head. "Ye'll no get her tip here this
night," she replied, "Christie MacNay 's in Jabor arid making
an ill piece o' work."

 Without- stopping to co Isider her motive. Margery
suddenly found she had another errand ready.

 "Well, you can at least stop by Colin MacKay s and tell
him to go to Stornaway for my father as 50011 as its fit to
put a boat in the sea."

 Ellen picked up her we t shawl with reluctance. "Let me
dry myself a bit, Madge," she protested. "'Tis raining a flood,
and the wind's enough to take the tails olf horse`. Dinna'
send me forth in it."

 "Ye got up here," said Margery, with a tartness she was
quickly ashamed of, "and ye can get back."

 She turned and went down the corridor to ('aitlin's room,
left Ellen standing there.

Why why, I'm jealous of I lien, she thought.

 Just as she reached Ca~tlin's door Randall overtook her.
He rapped gently, and they stood looking at each other,
listening to Leitis fumble with the bar. For the moment
Caitlin was still.

 "Margery," he said, looking down at her soberly, "I wish I
don't know  but I wish you w ouldll't go in there. Go back
and have tea with Ellen, or go to your room and re Id a
book, but please "

 "But you may need hell','' said Margery simply. "Andre
cannot come because Christie is in ]abor. and she must bide
there. And Leitis is nearly worn out. You must let m; stay.

Leitis opened the door then, and they stcypecl into the
room.

 Margery had not been allo`;vecl here since midsummer,
and she was unprepared for the fetid odor ot the Place, an
odor like decaying rushes, gray-green f ungus, and cl coping
slime. Impulsively she covered her mouth and nostrils and
looked at Randall. She saw recognition flash in his eyes and
then grim lined appear in his face. Andra had told her once
that every disease had its own unmistakable smell that can
never be con fused or forgotten once it is known. Randall
must know what Caitlin ailed of now, but he did not look as
if the knowledge cheered his heart.

"Margery," he said harsl Iy, "will vou please go away."

"No," said Margerv.

         No Death in Scotland I43

 She turned stubbornly and looked past Leitis toward the
figure on the high wooden bed.

 Caitlin was a good twenty years than her brother Sim. She
had been a quiet woman always, Margery remembered, tall
and graceful, with dark eyes and hair and a very pale skin;
pale lips, too. Perhaps the reason no lad had ever been
drawn her way was because there was no warm color about
her anywhere. But now her face was a waxy yellowgray, and
her nose hooked downward like the beak of a bird. Her eyes
were fixed and staring as if they looked out on a world full
of darkness and fright. One clawlike hand lay outside the
counterpane. As Margery watched, the sick woman's mouth
sagged open and a rusty-looking fluid seeped out and
drooled over her chin and wasted neck. She uttered a
croaking moan. Leitis hastened to her with a towel of clean
linen. Sick and horrified, Margery could not take her eyes
away, but stood there looking on.

Then Randall touched her arm.

 "Margery," he spoke gently now, "will you go and make me
a pot of hot tea."

"I want to stay here," she choked. "I want to help Caitlin."

He continued patiently as if he were explaining something to
a child.

 "I know you do, and you can help by bringing the tea
quickly. I have a tincture here that may ease her pain, but
fear her stomach will reject it, and hot tea makes it easier
for her to take. You will get the tea  unless," he looked at
her searchingly, "you think it is a time for heather ale."

 "She has had heather ale,' said Margery. "Leitis gave it to
her a month back, but it only made her sick, it did not
restore. I will get the tea."

 Caitlin's moans rose to a shriek, and she rocked to and fro
in the bed, clutching both hands to her bosom.

"Go quickly," said Randall.

 Margery fled to the doorway and turned back just in time
to see him lean over the sick woman and strip the covers
off.. Then she ran toward the gallery and the wide stair.

 Only one of the small iron wall lamps was lit, and she
paused to make sure of her footing before she started down.
In that moment of pause she heard a slight sound. She lifted
her head. The door of Randall's room stood halfway open,
and candlelight flickered inside. Was someone there? Who
could be there? l here was no one in the house except for
the three in the sick room and herself. Had the men arrived
home unexpectedly) Had one of the crofters come to fetch
the doctor lad. Maybe

144 s \v E A R B Y A P O L L O

Christie was worse and iNndra had sent. Curious, and not in
the least afraid, Margery stepped t`' the door and peered in.

Ellen Dcveron stood b`T the table reading a letter.

"Ellen!" exclaimed Margery.

 Ellen turned swiftly around. Panic flashed in her eyes one
moment, and then a cool, self-possessed smile spread over
the thin face.

 "I stepped in to warm n;yself," she explained. "It was cold
in the hall, and crafty, but 'tis scarce better here. This had
blown to the floor, and I but picked it up." She tossed the
letter on the table. "Well, I'll be going now, if ye'll no offer
me a cup of tea or a crap."

 "Good night, Ellcn," said [\iargery as calmly as she could,
watching the other girl until she we. well out of sight on the
dark stair. Then she picked up the letter herself. It was no
longer a private thing. Ellen had read it. It now belonged to
the whole world.

 "Dear Son," John Wooclbury had written, "While youl
account of the heather ale cure was interesting, I am not so
impressed as you seem to be. I feel that a noggin of
:Nlewburyport rum would have served as well. Still, I should
like to test and observe the workings of it. Can you not
cozen the lass to give you the recipe? Sally Anne's mother
has closed her house and taken lodg ngs in Portsmouth for
the winter, she being all alone now. Wc had a wind storm
last week that scattered the green nuts and ruined all
unpictcd fruit. Most folk lost some of their trees, but we was
lucky. Ours were spared to us. Your mother and the girls
are well. Rocky is too sluggish to chase crickets, so I dosed
her with buckthorn last night. We are going to drive to
Kingston for the preaching next Sunday.

 "The affairs of the countly worsen every day. The
Assembly met to choose delegates to the great Congress to
be held in Philadelphia, but the Governor ordered Sheriff
Packer to disperse them, and they repaired to a tavern.
Later they met in Exeter and chose Nat Folsom and John
Sullivan, a lawyer from Durham. I believe the province is
finally aroused. Before this, we have been lout a poor
ground for agitators. Many are still weak-noddled and
distracted, and I confess I have not been in haste myself to
take a side. But when the King's governor disperses the peo-
ple's lawfully chosen assembly, I thinly it is time to cease this
endless choosing of committees and prepare for a more
active part. I look for war, red and bloody war, to break out
between Great Britain and these American colonies. When
this happens, every man of us will be needed, and you will
want to come home. Governor Wentworth tries to flatter
and appease all, but I met him in the street yesterday as he
was coming tout of the taproom of the Earl of Halifax, and
I said to him, 'Sir, fair words butter no parsnips'- '

         No Deatlr in Scotland 145

 Suddenly she remembered Caitlin. She Hung the letter
down and hurried to the stairway.

 Moving about the shadowy kitchen with only the firelight
to see by, she got out the little earthen box of dried tea
leaves and set the kettle on the trivet. Herring, carefully
wrapped in rushes to preserve them in drying, hung from the
beams overhead. An old crested targe served as a lid for a
flour barrel, and a rusty, two-edged sword propped open the
low wooden door that led to the dairy. It was a homely,
familiar room. Margery could remember being little and
crawling on the floor of it. Caitlin had picked her up often
then, when she cried, and soothed her. Caitlin, having no
children o/ her own, had always been gentle with children.

 When she carried the tray into the sick room, both Leitis
and Randall were too busy to notice her. They bent over
Caitlin, whose moans had grown weaker and hoarser but
more insistent, longer in dying away.

 "Andre never told me of thi i," Randall was saying. "She
told me that nowhere on the flesh was these any mark, that
it was all within."

 "True that was, yesterday," declared Leitis. "She was
shriveled there, and gray, but that was all. Shc would never
let me touch it, and hardly let me see. This morning it burst
through in the open sore. She has not spoken today."

 "I do not think she will speak again," said Randall. "1 can
do nothing except try to ease her pain. If Margcry would
come back "

 "I have come," said Margery stepping forward, her hands
shaking so that she almost dropped the tea.

 Caitlin died a little after one o'clock, when the tide had
turned and the storm blown itself away. Randall's tinctures
had not quieted her pain, and God had granted her no easy
way to die. Margery worked as hard as the others, trying to
keep the sick woman dry and clean, to stanch an occasional
welling of blood from the ulcered, decaying breast. Once
when Caitlin was quiet for a few moments, she looked across
the bed at Randall and smiled weakly. I le smiled back.

 "Could you have helped her," she asked anxiously, "if she
had let you treat her when you first came here? Could you
have saved her then?"

 He shook his head. "I do not think so. But I could have
made it easier for her. She took the hard w ry."

 "She was a maid," said Lritis defensively. "She would not
lay her bosom bare before any man."

 "Maids should be schooled differently," he answered with
some bitterness. "They set knowledge back a hundred years
with such modesty. Sometimes it is no shame to lay the
bosom bare."

His eyes met Margery's. She flushed and turned away, then
when he

146 SWE'AR BY APOLI.0

was once more busy with Caitlin, touching her own breasts
to be sure they were still sound and well.

 The poor woman went peacefully at the end of it, the
yellow ebbing out of her face, leaving only the gray. Her
whole body seemed to shrivel, and her hands turned cold.
The moan became a little fluttering cough high in the throat.

 "I think she is bleeding from a deep vein within," Randall
said, feeling the pulse, and then a moment later, "she seems
to be going now."

 Tears ran down Leitis' face as she mumbled a little Gaelic
prayer. Margery went to the narrow window and stood there,
tearless, gazing out into the dark. She did not know how
long it was before Randall came to her and put his arm
around her.

 "It is over, Margery," he said. "Let me take you back to
your room. You must sleep now."

 "No," said Margery, "I must help Leitis to wash her and
make things fitting in a house of death."

Two days later they buried Cait]in, the maid, on a day of
windy sunshine when clouds drove across the sharp blue sky,
and their shadows followed them, across the Leathery
moorlands far below. The crofters and fishermen and their
families stood awkwardly around the great hall at Rhinn
House, but there was tea going like chaff, and whiskey like
well water, and it soon proved to be true, what Margery
heard her father telling Randall, that a Scotch funeral was
merrier than an English wedding.

  "Do not look so shocked, Randall," pleaded Margery, as
they stood together in the midst of all, "by our ways of doing
things. I know you find us outlandish "

  He turned to her and smiled ruefully. "I apologise," he
said, "for showing it so plain. It is only that death well, it
seems there should be some respect for it."

  Margery :looked thoughtful. "I think we behave this way,"
she said, "because there is no death in Scotland."

He looked at her disbelievingly. "What do you mean?" he
demanded.

  "It is only that the two worlds seem so close to us
here the shadow and substance, the flesh and the spirit. It
is no very dreadful thing to go from one world into the
other. The wall between the two is no thicker than the mist
on a hilltop. Caitlin has only gone a little ahead of the rest
of us, that is all."

         No Death in Scotlan`1 147

 "Aye,' muttered Rona, dipping a ladle into an iron-rimmed
wooden tub full of usquebaugh and filling his glass, "that's
well put, Madge  no thicker than mist on a hilltop. King
and pawn go into the same bag when the play's done."

 Then he prayed loudly for (>oafs peace to descend on the
departed spirit and on all of them, and the men formed in
a double line for the march to the little graveyard beyond
the Cursing Stones. Randall paired himself with Colin
MacKay, just hchilld Rona and Kenneth; and Sim. the chief
mourner, preceded all, his grey head bowed, awkward in a
long black coat, walking alone Johnny Dweeney limped
ahead of the coffin and its strong yotlng bear, rs, sqtlcezing
now and then a blast from the bagpipes and calling solermlly
as the processi<?ll wound along over the dead grass.

 "All brethren and s;steren, I let ye to l~nOW and wot that
there is a sister departed rout of this present vorld,
according to the will of Almighty Gocl!"

 When tile sight and soLInd if thclll died aw.lNT below the
hill, Margery turned from the doorwa y whet e she had
stood to watch, and started for the k:itchcn to see that l\'ellic
(:o\v aml her helpers were preparing the baked meats and
pastries to 6c served at the mourners' re turn. She stopped
to give 1anct and Ailis a hand in upending a small cask to
replenish the v hisLcy l~arrcl. hotly girls were ]auglling and
rosy, panting from their exertion.

 "I came to ash you, Nliss ~N]a~-gcry " said a ION voice
beside her. It was Andra Deveron.

Margery smiled into i\ndra'i trotll:'ls~cl eves.

"To ask what, Andra'" she inquired.

 Andra repeated the familiar que tiC`il. "(l`>ulcl be
not--cot~ld not Randall have saved her if be had seen her
before?"

"I le says no."

 The voices ol. the island wcolell swilled arutmd them in
many small eddying pools of sound. Tile Ed light ol the
dying sun shone through the long windows, and fin the
black, old hearth, large as a small cham ber itself, Ellen was
helping J.eitis to light a file.

 Andra went on, her voice Nery IONV. "1 am sad for
(:aitlin," she said, "more than common sacl. Not that she is
dead, but that she had not lived at all when she came to
die."

 "I think 1 understand." mt~:rnulecl Marycrv, and
~\ncln~ continued as if she had not spoken.

 "When 1 came Acre, near twenty NearS ago," she said,
"(,aitlin was a young woman, past her girlhr oaf, but still
young. She had grown up in the kitchen where she alway.
served, been born in the little chamber

148 SWEAR BY APOr I.0

where she was to die. She never went further than
Stornaway. She never had a lad. She loved children, but had
never one of her own. She had nothing women prize."

 "She had the sunlight on the heather," said Margery. "She
loved that, for I have heard her say so; and the stars at
night, and old songs in her head, and turf fires to keep
warm by such things as that. Perhaps they were enough for
her."

"Would they be enough for you?" asked Andra bluntly.

"No," said Margery. "whey would not be enough for me."

                    xlv
      'IV~c~t's betweer2 Taiscl2e,2s

Trim Isr AND AUTUMN, Randall thought, as lee walked
down to the clachan through the November r afternoon, was
much like other autumns he had known in his home beyond
the sea, and yet there was a difference on it. I Iere as there,
the cold c ame down the moment the summer broke,
followed by sharp days, and days of clinging fog, frosty
mornings, and nights of wild rain. It was mainly the colors
that were different. A month ago, in New England, the
maple-covered hillsides would have burned in gold and
scarlet almost too vivid for the eyes to bear. Now there
would be only the yellowish grey of dying grasses and the
dark grey of bare boughs against the shy; stripl7ed fields
rumlirlg back to evergreen forests Ihardly less austere. I lere
the moorlands had darkened slowly in a rich pattern of dun
and brown and russet, and an occasional patch of spring fed
rushes still flaunted its May-time green.

  It was a chilly afternoon ol thin pale sunlight with no
warmth to it, and he shivered insicle his vc lvet coat and
thought he would have to provide himself with .l heavier
one. l here was plenty of good thick wool being woven in
every cottage, but he could not remember that he had ever
seen a tailor shop in Stornawav. lIc Ict his mind play with
incon sequential things, liPc the th`~ugllt of buying a new
coat.

  Ilis heart lifted within him as he walled uk~llg, almost as
if he had talon one of those eastern drugs llona sometimes
talked about, that heightened a man's sense of physical
well-beillg and his capacity for pleasure. It was a little like
having a fever, like having drunk too much wine. 1 lo had
been feeling that way ever since the night of Caitlin!s
funeral, when he had gone to his room early and sat there
alone, not reading or sleeping, but gazing out of the
Wili6OW at a world that seemed to hold nothing in it but
stars and darkness and the sea. Not that he had seen the
island midnight, or any thing at all except Margery Marycry
in a brocade dress with jewels in her hair, as he
remembered her from the dances in Edinburgll; Nlargery in
brogues and a short

            150 Swear BY APOLLO

plaid petticoat, climbing up the rocks where the sea birds
nested, to gather eggs and wild flowers; Margery as she had
knelt by the deathbed, her fashionable gown all stained with
blood and illness and her curls awry. A man who had
Margery would have so many women, all in the one.

 At least, he was sure in her case it would not be as some
said, that silks and satins put out the kitchen fire. From the
way she had helped with Caitlin, he knew she, would not
think herself too fine for anything she wanted to put her
hand to. But would she, a MacNeill of Barra, want to put her
hand to being the wife of a country doctor in Hampton
Falls? It wasn't likely. And then he remembered how her soft
eyes would light when he met her in a corridor unexpectedly.
No, he had thought after Caitlin's funeral, he was glad he
didn't have to settle it that night.

 And ever since then hi had refused even to attempt to
settle it, refused to subject his own actions to any logical
scrutiny at all. He had gone on living joyfully and
irresponsibly in her company as much as he could. E le was
acting like a green, sick girl, he knew, and part of him was
ashamed of it, but with a good-humored, tolerant shame.

 This was Saturday afternoon, and Margery had gone with
Kenneth and her father to do the weekly shopping in
Stornaway. Randall had expected until the last moment to go
himself, but then Colin had come knocking on the kitchen
door with a message that he had almost given up hoping to
hear. An Irish trading vessel on its way north to the Orkneys
had stopped to put a sailor ashore because he was suffering
with painful loins and a high fever, and Colin had taken him
in. Now the man's illness was increasing, coming out in dark
red spots that began to fester. Andra said it was the
smallpox. She had said Randall would want to know.

 So he was on his way to treat this unknown sailor and see
if the diseased body would provide the venom he had been
seeking in order to secure folk from its very sting. He had
some oil of Riga balsam, too, for Christie's young child
whose navel was slow to heal. He would spend the afternoon
in the clachan, doing the work he had chosen to do, so much
more satisfying to him than living the student's life of book
and bell in Edinburgh. And tonight he would be again with
Margery, smiling at her across the wide table, sitting by the
fire with her while her father told old stories, or turning her
music at the spinet. They would not be alone; there would be
others there, but the others did not matter. No one mattered,
in that mellow golden dream of his life at Rhinn House,
except Margery and he.

He was shaken out of his pleasant reverie by the voice of
Johnny

What's between Taischers 151

Dweeney calling to him as he passed the blackened stone
cottage where the old couple dwelt. Johnny sat on the
doorstone braiding a heather rope, his bagpipes leaning
against the house wall, where they would be ready if he
should on a sudden find himself taken with a piping mood.

 "Aww, Doctor," he called, high and quavering, as if he
himself were an old shrunken set of pipes. 'iDid ye find any
new cure in the book, or aught for my sorry feet?"

 "Keep on taking the meadow saffron, Johnny," Randall
called back. "I know nothing better yet. But I pray every
night God will make me wiser than I am."

"He's favorecl ye over most, lad he's favored ye," croaked
the old man.

 Randall grinned, shook his head and strode on. He
hesitated a moment in front of the narrow hut close to the
waterside where Colin the bachelor dwelt all alone. Its
wooden door was shut tight, and smoke pouring from a hole
in the thatch above, probably the result of Colin's vigorous
attempts to keep the sick man warm. Lie made up his mind
not to stop there now, excited as he was at the idea of a
smallpox case. It would be better, he though!, to go to
Christie's house first. He would be less likely to carry the
pox to her child if he proceeded in that way.

 As he walked along the unpaved street between the
wharves and cottages, he cast a glance now and then up the
hillside, behind the town, where all the little crooked garden
patches were. Stripped clean of potatoes and turnips, they
looked almost as barren as the rock they were cleft from.
Harvest must be over, too, in the oat and barley fields to the
west. Men should be settling in for their fireside tasks to
await the winter it would seem, but no, there was another
chore to finish first, and every man-jack of them had taken
to the rooftops that autumn afternoon.

 Some of the houses were laid bare to the very rafters, and
crews of stout lads struggled to hoist up new sods of turf and
woven mats of heather and rushes. Widow Gillander and her
daughter Janet, having no man to do for them, got on with
the work themselves, spreading fish nets over the old thatch,
and Iver Gall was weighting his roof with stones. Such winds
blew here in winter, Margery had told him, as troubled no
other place on earth, and the island people were readying
themselves for the onslaught, as a thousand years of
experience had taught them they must do.

 Rob MacNayr's house was deserted, except for two little
boys who crouched on the wide doorstone beside a mangy,
sad-eyed greyhound, all three trying to crowd into one
narrow space of sun. Randall bent to pat the dog, thinking
of Rockv, and how if he were at home he would be prowling
the woodlands with her, this time of year, far afield in the
pines beyond Pickpocket Mill, looking for partridge, rabbit,
a young

15Z SWEAR BY APOLLO

buck, or anything he could bring down. The greyhound lifted
itself under his hand and then sank back, head on its paws
and yellow eyes closed. Randall saw that it was an old dog,
like his own. Then he turned and spoke to the children.

 "What's his name, laddie?" he asked, pointing to the limp,
rusty shape stretched on the grey stone.

"Brian," said the taller child stolidly.

 "Is he named for something or somebody?" Randall stood
smiling down, wanting to talk to the small pair, not knowing
how, thinking of a certain blue-green cedar tree. "Why is he
called Brian?"

 "Because that is his name," said the boy, with the
irrefutable logic of childhood. And then as Randall,
crestfallen, was about to ask for his mother, he lifted his
head and smiled himself, and his eyes flashed wide and
sharply blue.

 "I'm Donny and he's Jamie," he said, pointing to his
companion. "Ye want to see what I found?" He held out a
small reddish stone, shalelike and thin.

 "But I found it first," piped Jamie, the plumper, darker lad.
"It was I gave it to him."

Randall took the proffered stone and weighed it in his
fingers.

"Do you want to see your stone fly?" he asked them soberly.

"Yes! Yes!" they chorused.

"But if it flies, it will not come back. Does that matter to
you?"

"No, oh no! We can find another! We want to see it fly!"

 "Then come," he strode the few yards to the water's edge
and stood there poised, the flat stone in his hand.

"Come see!" Donny was calling at his elbow. "See our stone
fly!"

 Half a dozen other children, all boys except for one
tawny-haired little girl, came running from behind the pile
of peats cut for winter fuel and stacked at the house end.
They clustered round Randall where he stood on the narrow
strip of beach, smiling at them, wanting to make friends and
hoping this was the right way, holding the stone.

 "I will make it fly over the water," he said. "You can wish
on it, if you like."

 "But will the wish come true?" asked the girl child, looking
at him appraisingly.

 "It will if you believe that it will," he answered lightly.
"Now watch! Just there!"

 He pointed to the dark blue water beyond the shore, and
all eyes followed his lifted finger; all the laughing chatter
grew still. Expertly he scaled the stone. It drove away from
him in a straight line, hit the water with a smart slapping
sound, darted ahead like a swift bird in flight and

What's between Taischers 153

hit the water again, and then a third time. It did indeed
seem to be flying over the surface of the sea. Randall cocked
his head on one side and smiled quizzically at the children.

"It flew! My stone flew!" cried Donny, dancing all about.

 "Let us find another," said practical Jamie. "Sir, can ye
make another stone fly?"

 Randall nodded. "Yes, but not today. You are Christie's
sons, are you not? I came to see your moth. r."

 "She's gone to the waulking," said Donny, and he scuffed
the seawashed pebbles at his feet, no longer interested in
Randall or what he had to say.

 "She's at Nell Gow's," piped Jamie helpfully. "Do ye know
where Nellie lives? Over there." He pointed to a long low
cottage of weathered stone, next to Andra's, almost at the
edge of Fruin Burn.

 "Good-by, lacls," said Randall. "Save any flat stones you
find. We'll scale more of them some day.'

 He walked along the hard turf path to Nellie's house and
knocked on the door.

 No one answered him at first, but this was no great wonder
because of the continuous sound that came from the other
side of the crude wooden panels, the sound of women's
voices that blended and merged in a low, monotonous
singing. Not so loud as the song, but steadier and even more
monotonous, was a sort of rhythmic beating that accompa-
nied it; not a drum, he thought, nor any known instrument.
Curious, he knocked again and waited briefly, then a third
time. Then he heard footsteps coming toward him, and the
door swung open. Nellie Gow's pleasant brown face looked
out.

 "Come in for a crap o' barley bree, sir. We're a-waulking
o' the cloth, and there's oat cakes and herrings for all. Ye're
welcome, whatever's your errand."

 Gazing past her into the low smoky neon, he saw two lines
of women facing each other, a long table between them. On
the table lay a strip of grey woolen cloth, and the women
were thumping it with their hands in time to their singing, a
sort of four-beat time.

 Ellen was there, he noticed, and Lavan, and Ailis Ogg, but
he missed Andra. He looked around for Christie and saw her
coming from the fire with a plate of crisply browned cakes
in her hand. He stepped into the room. It had a turf Hoor,
and a fireplace and chimney hung about with iron cooking
ware.

 "Thank you, Nell," he said easily, secure in the knowledge
that he had been a favorite with the island women ever since
Lavan's terrible illness in the spring, "but I can stay only a
moment. There's a sick lad

154 SWEAR BY APOLLO

at Colin's, you kllow. I came to see Christie, if you'll bid her
step here to me."

 Christie was looking his way, he knew, and he could have
caught her eye himself, but he was too busy watching Ellen.
He had not spoken to the girl since that night Margery had
interrupted them as they sat under the portraits in Rhinn I
louse gallery, but he had thought much about her. Not about
her, so much, as about her strange affliction if it was an
affliction. He was scientist enough to believe there could not
be a physical manifestation without a physical cause, but the
sharp edge of his skepticism grew more and more tempered
the more he talked with Margery. (once he had teased her
about believing in some popular superstition, he could not
now remember what not the fairies or the middle earth
men; something about the stars or the weather, maybe and
she had tossed her head and hardened her sweet mouth and
retorted, "We do not believe. We know."

 He looked at Ellen, but he thought of Margery. And that
was wrong of him, because Ellen was his patient. She had
given him her confidence and put herself in his hands,
hoping for a cure. Now as he watched her, he was suddenly
aware that just as there were many Margerys, so there were
many Ellens, too. Bold and easy, she had seemed to him
that first night, seated by her mother at the laird's table, a
woman made up of odds and ends, and not worth a second
look. Rona, he knew, held her in little esteem. But ever
since she experienced the taisch, there had been a difference
in her. She had seemed chastened and unsure, appealing to
him for help with quiet looks and tremulous pleadings. Well,
maybe he was a fool to be flattered by her trust, but there
were times when a man could not help being a fool. As if in
answer to his gaze, she lifted her graygreen eyes that flashed
with the light of the open fire, then blushed but maybe
that, too, was the work of the fire and looked quickly
down, her hands faltering a little in their beat, her lips
ceasing to move in the rhythm of the song. She wore a dress
of dull green wool, and he noticed the delicate curve of the
bodice, wondering that he had ever thought her flat and
thin. Smaller than Margery, she was, but quite as
provocatively feminine, quite as well pelt together. Well, she
was not for him, that he was sure of, but he had a duty to
her and a duty to his profession, to study her trouble and
look for the cause and the cure of it.

 Christie stood beside him now, and he was about to give
her the ointment and leave, but Lavan came running
forward, caught his arm, and drew him to the center of the
room. She insisted that he must take a cup of ale with them
to bring good luck to the waulking, and while he ate and
drank and chatted and examined their work, he learned that
a waulking was a sort of cross between a quilting bee and a
fulling mill at home.

What's between Taischers 155

They showed him how they soaked the woven fabric in urine
to set the threads and tighten the color, and then beat it
with their hands to a texture considered worthy of their
famous island wool that would bring such good prices in
London. Allis displayed the crimson dye she made from
lichens, and Nellie brought out little jars of yellow dye made
from bog myrtle and bracken. Only Ellen said no word to
him, and he did not approach her, for this was not the time,
not now.

 The early twilight had fallen before he was able to take his
leave of the women and make his way through the cold grey
sunset to Colin's hut. When he rapped on the door the
young man came quickly to open it and usher him inside.
Colin was handsome, he thought fleetingly, able, no doubt,
to have his pick of the unwed girls and young widows, but
tonight he looked worried and tense, half sick himself.
Randall eyed him sharply and put the question.

 Colin shook his head. "Awww, no, Doctor, I be in health,
only revolted like at the smell o' him, and he canna' help
that, poor lad."

 Randall nodded, for the foul air of the place was already
causing qualms in his own stomach. I le went to the rope
pallet before the fire and stripped back the blankets from
the huddled form of the sick man. He was a burly fellow,
twenty-five, perhaps, with great shoulders and thick black
hair, his face reddened with fever, covered with the oozing
pustules of the disease. It was indeed smallpox, and by
questioning the man he learned that it had been three days
since the eruptions first ap peered. Only the fourth day
mattered for his purpose, since that was considered the best
for drawing Iymph from the sores. Yes, the sailor had heard
of the inoculation. Yes, he willingly agreed that Randall
should take pus from him to introduce into the blood of
others to protect them from the disease. He had, after all, a
light case. It would run its course, no doubt, alleviated by
bark and plenty of brandy.

 A few moments later in the light of the turf fire Randall
was instructing Colin about the medicines.

 "And this," he said, holding out a small sack of powders, "I
will leave with you for tonight, should he have any trouble
in sleeping. Give it with water. Tomorrow I shall come to
draw the pus and begin the inoculations. Do you think you
could have four or five lads about for me to start on? Some
prepare folk with a course of antimony and mercury, but I
do not hold it essential, and find it scares many away in
itself."

 Colin nodded soberly. "I can see that. I ha' had mercury
myself once, and well would think it might. But I'll have the
five lads for ye. There's me for the one, and I'll speak to
Iver. Gavin Gray, too, and Tam Darran, and Alan "

"Colin! Colin, lad!" It was a woman s voice calling from the
dusk out

156 SWLAR BY APOLLO

side, high, and excited, .md thin. "Is the doctor there? It's a
taisch has come on Ellen. She wants the doctor by."

 He couldn't have run quicker out of Colin's house and
down the turf path, Randall thought, if they'd called for him
because someone was bleeding to death, and maybe Ellen
was bleeding through a spiritual artery, bleeding out her
sense and reason and personality till they would all go away
from her, like the grey mist drifting over the sheep pastures
of Caldune. He only knew as he ran that he was afraid of
the sight.

 In Nellie's house the women had all left the waulking table
and stood together before the fireplace, not so much
frightened as withdrawn and silently watching. Nellie spoke
to him as he came through the doorway. In contrast to the
voice of Ailis, who had run to call him, her tones were quiet
and there was a soothing quality to her speech that is com-
mon to the voices of women who spend much of their time
with young children.

 "We shouldna' ha' called ye, sir. 'Tis only the sight, and I
ha' seen it happen on Lewis where I grew up, to other folk
than she, and they never took hurt from it. but she is a
young lass and not accustomed like her mother."

 "She began to stiffen," panted Ailis at his elbow, "and her
face took on that blind look, and she called for ye in the last
moment before the taisch came."

"I cannot help her," R`mdall muttered. "Would to God I
might."

 He glanced at the women by the fireside, but they stared
back at him, expressionless as a wall. Then he stepped
forward, reluctantly, for all the haste he had shown a
moment before.

 Ellen had not moved from her place at the table. She still
sat there, her head lifted and her face tilted upward, her
shoulders tense, her graygreen eyes fixed on something he
could not see.

 "I see war red war!" said Ellen shrilly. "War between
England and America! war, red war .md wounds and
blood! There is a tall man, a fair man. He is carrying a chest
of cures into battle where other men carry swords. But it will
do him no good there. He will be "

 Randall felt his breath c etch in his throat and his veins
run ice water. War between England and America, just as
his father had told him was like to happen. And here in this
far island this ignorant cattle maid with no knowledge of
affairs in the world was predicting the same. Was she
predicting his own death) He sought desperately to find
some other meaning for her words.

"War red war!" Ellen kept mumbling.

 And then there came a little stir behind him and a startled
exclamation. Unwillingly he took his e yes from the young
taischer. Andra stood in

What's between Taische~s 157

the doorway, her red hair escalJed from its linen cap and
hanging like a young girl's, all wind-tossed on her shoulders.
She must have come from the moorlands behind the town,
for she had a small willow basket full of herbs hooked over
her arm. She stood there watching her daughter, her eyes
blazing and her mouth twisted. He could not read her ex-
pression. Could it it could not be scorn?

  One moment Andra stood there. Then she moved swiftly
forward, stepped up to Ellen, and struck the girl a ringing
blow across the mouth. Ellen's head jerked back and she
gave a cry of surprise and pain. Andra stood looking down,
her face livid with anger. Then she struck again.

  Randall strode forward, moved by instinct rather than
reason, and put a restraining hand on her arm, but she
shook him off. Her eyes still burned in her cold white face
and she muttered harshly in Gaelic, phrases he could not
understand. He caught only the one word "lie." Then she
rubbed her hands together as if to cleanse them and walked
out of Nellie Gow's house into the night.

  Ellen had put her head down on the table, shaken all over
with fitful sobbing. He should comfort her, he thought. Her
mother's action had been inexcusable, and he could not
understand it, unless Andra was suddenly consumed with
jealousy and wrath at this proof that her daughter had the
sight as well as she. But no, he told himself, his
bewilderment increasing, Anclra was not a jealous and
wrathful person. Andra was wise and calm and honest, as
any woman he had ever known. He found that he did not go
forward. He stood there, feeling like a fool, staring at Ellen.

  Then he heard the low voice of Nellie Gow. "Ye'd best go,
lad," she said. "Ye may be a doctor, but 'tis not a matter for
doctors, what we ha' seen. Ye be an incomes, and 'tis no
matter for such. Ye'd best go back to your books and your
potions, and leave us to our own." Then her voice softened.
"'Tis no unkindly meant, sir, but ye canna' settle what's
between that IELSS and her mother. None of us can. They
be taischers, and not such as we."

  His pride began to recover, and he drew himself back
from the woman's fingers that lay on his sleeve.

"Indeed I will go, if I cannot be of help here," he said stiffly.

  Silently Nel'lie bowed her head. He turned on his heel and
followed Andra into the night.

                    xv
          If Ye Waif Of eke Fends

"I Never rHouGHT my own daughter would make a mock
of me," said Andra, with the cold bitterness that had
replaced her wrath. "'Tis true, I've been sinful and unholy
myself in my time. There's a puddle at every door, and
before some there's two, but I have been honest with the
taisch as I fear God, and never lied and tricked and
pretended it for ends of mine."

 She was kneeling by the fire pit in her cottage, rubbing the
carcass of a fowl with seaware ashes to salt it away. Ellen sat
on the edge of the bed, silently watching her mother.

 "When Schoolmaster brought you home from the laird's
that night," continued Andra, "and I first heard of the thing,
I was troubled, for I believed in it. I thought you were
having the sight come on you in your girlhood, just as I. But
when I saw you at Nellie's two nights back, I knew the truth,
and you cannot bamboozle me. How did you dare pretend
to a taisch in front of one who has it true? How did you
dare?"

 "How did I know ye meant to come running in?" said
Ellen coldly. "I thought ye was away on Galdune, like ye
said." She smiled, and stood up, and shook out her skirts.
"And as for that, how can ye be sure I did not see before
me. There's others besides ye has the sight."

 "A dozen ways I could tell," said Andra, also standing up
and staring at her daughter across the ruddy turf pit. "And
if you were a true Fischer, you'd know them as well as I.
What do you mean by it? What do you hope to get
yourself?"

 "Why, I hope to get myself a husband," said Ellen, staring
cruelly back, "which is more than ye've ever done."

"I'll expose you."

 "Do it. I wish ye would. 'Twill only make him believe the
more and feel sorry for me." She tools down her plaid shawl
and draped it around her shoulders. "I'm going out," she
said, "on affairs of mine."

She walked out of the cottage and along the turf street of
the clachan

If Ye Wait at the Ferry 159

in the late afternoon. It was a mellow golden day, too warm
by far for this season of December, the seas round Rona
almost a summer blue, and a shining mist on the horizon
that left no sharp lines anywhere. Children played outside
the doorways, for no matter how bad the fishing or the
harvest might be, the island always had a fine crop of
children. Most of the women were inside getting supper now,
and the men away at the seal hunting.

 Ellen soon left the clustered cottages and took the steep
path that plunged upward through the heath just above
Ewen Gow's turnip patch. The cattle were all home from
Ardmory now, and she would no longer be sitting up there
the whole night long, not again until spring. It would be hard
to contrive to see Kenneth, soon it might be impossible, and
Ellen sighed a little at the need for change. Well, she must
get on in the world. A few moments of swift climbing
brought her to the very top of the island, al]. wild shrubs,
dead heather, and the sheepwalks, almost deserted now,
since many of the crofters took their flocks as well as their
cattle down to the bytes in the late fall. To her right, the
crags of Ardmory raised up bluntly against the sea, and on
the left the land fell away to the green fields of the machair
and the white sandy beaches all along the west. Hastily,
because she wanted to arrive at the trysting place first, she
skirted the little dark loch that fed the burn. Swans drifted
along its surface, white silken birds that came in the fall and
stayed all winter, stretching their necks and preening their
feathers, enjoying the last warmth of the autumn sun.

 That morning she had sent a note to Randall asking him
to meet her at sunset in Pulfin Town. Donny MacNayr had
carried the folded scrap of paper to Colin's, where she knew
the doctor would be busy inoculating the volunteers. She had
watched Donny all the way to be sure there was no mistake,
and he had come back with the one word, "Yes," on his
grubby little mouth. Oh, she might not achieve her destiny
today, but she was going to try!

 The northern shore of the island, looking out to the windy
sea that went, Ellen had heard, straight from there to the
top of the world, was all high tumble d cliffs stretch d
between the two points of Kindearg and the Mull. Nobody
went there except to kill wild fowl or search for eggs and
downy feathers among the rocks, and that meant dangerous
climbing, nothing folk would be likely to do with night
coming on. She felt sure that they would be alone. On the
top of the cliffs the grass was still vivid green, furrowed all
over with the long burrows where the puffins lived and
hatched their eggs, giving the place its name. She picked her
way among the burrows and finally selected a little lichened
cleft

I60 SWEAR BY APor.r o

in an outcrop of stone, sheltered from the wind, catching the
last light of the sun. Spreading her shawl beneath her, Ellen
sat down.

  Gulls screamed overhead in the waning light. The puffins,
black and white birds with long orange-rosy beaks, waddled
unhurriedly by, staring at her out of solemn dark eyes. Ellen
shied a small stone at their leader, and uttering hoarse
croaks, they tumbled through narrow openings into the earth
and out of sight. Then, except for herself and the gulls, the
land was all alone.

  She waited restlessly. Maybe he was not coming. Maybe
she had come on a fool's errand up here. Maybe the daftie
had fallen in a fit and needed his services. Maybe Margery
had sent for him, and he had gone. Ellen hated Margery
intensely for a minute or two. Then far down the path she
saw the tall slim shoulders swinging along, the sunlight on
his bare blond head. Oh I shall have, thought Ellen, to be so
careful now!

  In a moment he was beside her, standing there, looking
down and smiling, then dropping to a place by her side.

  "Ellen," he said, "I've been worried. I keep remembering
how your mother struck you. Why was she angered so?"

  Ellen looked at him, a sad little smile on her mouth and
lighting the depths of her greenish eyes.

  "Do not blame her too much," she said, affecting the
careful English speech. "She has been the only taischer
among us for so long. It is hard for her to find that another
has the power. She will be happier if I go away, I think. I
wanted to talk with you, to ask you if I should go."

  He did not meet her eyes. He was studying the toes of the
boots he had purchased in Edinburgh.

"Do you want to go away?" he asked. "Where do you want
to go?"

  "I thought I thought I would go first to Skye," said Ellen
falteringly. "To Portree. And indenture with a sea captain
for America. I have heard that anyone who is strong and
willing to work can engage their passage

so."

"Why do you want to go to America?"

 "Why, to get rid of the sight," she answered simply. "It is
said to be taken from those who cross the seas away from
their home. All the time my mother was in Ireland, she saw
no visions there."

 "It is the wrong way," he muttered. "To cure an affliction,
by running from it. I wish you would give me longer, Ellen.
Give me a little more time to study its workings in you."

 "I will give you anything you want," she answered steadily.
"You have been so good to me. No one was ever so good to
me before."

 The long light of the sky to the westward was fading out
now, the gold draining from the landscape, leaving only the
gray, and the blue

If Ye Wait at the Ferry I6T

shadows gathered round them. The gulls were not screaming
any more. He looked up then and gazed into her eyes, and
Ellen saw in his face what she wanted to see. She looked
demurely down.

 "I will stay, if you wish it," she said. "It will be hard with
my mother's hand against me in the house all day long. But
I will stay."

"I have no right to ask it of you, Ellen," he said unhappily.

 "It is not a matter of right," she answered. "If it is
something you want, I will do it."

 For a moment they were both still. Then she moved
imperceptibly closer to him. She looked at his hands Iying
on his knees, at the little gold hairs on the backs of them,
and she could see that the skin beneath was drawn hard and
taut and brown.

 "I thought," she said hesitantly, "if you could be with me
when a taisch comes, from its very start, and I could tell you
all the way how it was "

 With the swiftness of a cloud moving away from the sun,
his attitude changed. He flung back his head, eager and
excited at her suggestion. The shadows that had been
drawing round them almost seemed to move aside.

 "What a wonderful idea, Ellen! It could surely be studied
in no better way! But how are we to know when the taisch
will afflict you?"

 Ellen cursed herself for a fool; cursed his inquiring mind
that seemed likely now to free him from the demands of the
flesh that she had counted on to help her.

 "I thought ''is known taischers cannot make them come
at will. But they are encouraged sometimes by long gazing
into water into a mirror  or across a fire."

"You thought we might ?"

 He was still the doctor, the scientist, the Edinburgh
scholar. Ellen sighed and kept on. "I thought if you have
the time now we are alone. No one will trouble what we
do. We could build a little fire here between us, and I could
gaze into it find try."

 He jumped to his feet. "I'll gather some bracken," he said,
"and I have flints with me. 'Twill take but a moment or two."

 Ellen rearranged her shawl, spreading it wide enough for
both of them to sit on, and watched him build the fire. The
stars were beginning to prick out, but no moon shone
overhead. It was very dark in Puffin Town.

 When he had a good sized heap of dried heather and
bracken blazing, he dropped to her side again and sat there
expectantly, watching her. Ellen gazed into the fire.

 At first they were both silent, and then she began to talk
in a low sweet voice that surprised her, it was so unlike her
usual sharp tone. It was a

162 S W E A R B Y A P O ~ E O

good omen, she thought, and her luck was running well. She
told him stories of taischers she had heard about, great
seers who predicted the downfall at Culloden and simple
folk who saw only boats drive on shore or cattle go astray.
Sometimes she let her voice sink in her throat and did not
talk at all. Beyond the reach of the fire, the chill winds of
late autumn were stirring, and now and then a flight of
small birds rushed past them down the night-. But within
the circle of firelight, all was warm and close and still,
except for Ellen's voice and the soft murmur of the flame.

  Suddenly she broke oil in the middle of an old tale of
Inverness and rose unsteadily to her feet, drawing a hand
across her eyes. He stood up too, leaning toward her.

  "Randall, I do not know there is a mist but as yet
nothing comes quite clear. Randall, I have heard that when
one of us sees before her, if she places her foot on another's
foot, and her hand upon his shoulder, that he too will see "

  She turned toward him and took a step or two forward,
her eyes wide open, staring straight into his face, fearing to
see the keenly observant scholar, but she did not se' the
scholar. She saw only a man's face, bright and sharp with
desire. She lifted one white arched foot, for she had long
since kicked her brogues away, and placed it lightly on the
toe of his Edinburgh boot. Then she leaned against him,
placing her hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, Randall," she cried, "the taisch! Do you see it as I?"

  He swept her into his arms. "No!" he muttered against her
neck. "And I do not wimp to see it! I want !"

  But he did not say what he wanted. He only thrust upon
her and took. For one swift moment as she lay there, borne
down by his caresses on the hard green turf of Puffin Town,
she felt a cold triumph soar up in her, higher than any c
trnal flame. She remembered Comyn Rhinn and how he had
taunted her with still being unchosen. "Ah well, if ye wait at
the ferry ye'll get across sometime." And she had waited,
Ellen thought, long, almost too long, but now ! Ellen
forgot Comyn Rhinn. Whatever the craft that bore her, she
was swimming in a sea of light  across across across!
Ellen reached out. She touched the other shore.

                    xvl
           A Fain-12ai'2e~ Mart
         to a Da'2k-12ai'2eD Woman

 WAIT A LITTLE, lad, said Comyn Rhinn, jabbing away
with a quill pen at an ink-stained paper spread in front of
him. "Sit ye down. I'll no be long. Ye've business wi' me, I
talce it?"

 "I came on business, yes," said Randall. He looked at the
bent sandy head of the older man and noticed that along the
center part the hair was beginning to wear thin. Then he
looked around the little low room just off the passageway to
the byte, where the laird kept his books and did his
reckoning.

 It was the last night of the old year, "Elogmanay," they
called it in this strange world's-end country, and the folk of
the island had been making merry all day long. He had
watched the grown lads and married men out on the beach,
playing with shinty sticks like children, and the children
themselves had trooped from door to door in sheepskin
masks, asking for sweetmeats and leaving twigs of rowan.
But to him it had not seemed like holiday. It had se. med
like the time to make an end and a beginning. That was
what he had come after supper to the laird's study to do. He
was here to ask for Margery, without confessing his guilt
with Ellen, as he no doubt should have done, but he was
learning more and more every day how a man does not
always do the thing he should. He had seen what happened
when a man denied himself beyond his strength, and he
would do all he could to keep himself from being laid open
again to those consequences.

 "I'll no be long," repeated Rona, frowning at the littered
desk before him. "Take a book there, if ye've a mind.'' He
shook his quill toward a hanging shelf on the wall between
the two diamond-paned windows, his gesture making a draft
that set the candles flaring and smoking.

 Randall looked at the shelf and let his eyes run idly over
the titles, with dates inked blackly on the spines beneath
them: Husbandry Anatomized, 1697; John Reid's Scot's
Gardener> r693; Observations on Growing Wool in Scotland,
1765; Life of Sir William Wallace; Jocky

164 s w E A rat B Y A P O L L O

and Meggy's Courtship. i le did not take down any of the
books. Instead he seated himself in a heavy timber chair and
studied the engravings on the opposite wall, that portrayed
the Rake's Progress from Fleet Prison to Bedlam Madhouse.
I Ie felt sorry now for the Rake. Once he would have
scorned him for a fool.

 In the five weeks since his adventure with Ellen, winter
had come to the island, frosty mornings, rain, and wind, and
quick melting snows. There had been winter in his heart,
too. But he felt now that it was a winter which pointed
toward spring. He felt now a little the way he had that time
under the cedar tree when he had been happy because he
expected to have a child by Sally Anne weak and strong at
the same time; the most doomed and exalted and precarious
thing there can ever be on this earth, a man alone. He did
not need books at a time like this. He stared through the
tiny window at one small star swung over the sea,
somewhere in the way America must lie.

 Suddenly Rona muttered a syllable in Gaelic that could
only be a curse and swept his papers to the fioor.

"What's the matter, sir?" asked Randall.

 The laird did not answer at once, but sat staring ahead of
him, tapping with the end of the quill on the pages of the
ledger that had resisted his attack.

 "Year's end, and rents owing, and not a ha'pence amongst
them," he said. "If the land gets any poorer, the whole of
Scotland had best be off for America. There's not a man on
the policy has more than a coat full o' holes and a handful
o' boiled beef to take to the field with him."

 Randall shook his head. ''They're poor, but not that poor.
You're making the worst of it."

 Rona nodded gloomily. "Aye, and ye wonder at it. 'Tis
because I must do again as I have these three years, and
forgive every man his rent instead of gouging it from him.
Never become a landholder in Scotland, lad. Ye'd do better
to go beg in the streets o' London."

 "I may come to it," said Randall with a smile. "It seems
unlikely, but a man never knows what's ahead."

 "Never unless he has the sight," agreed Rona. "What did
ye come about?" And then as the younger man hesitated, "If
'tis to offer your own account for the doctoring ye've done
here, I'd say I'm well-pleased, and ye can name the fee."

 "It has gone well, hasn't it?" said Randall, feeling satisfied,
and then admonishing himself inwardly. "I've done like you
said, inoculated every man-jack and woman-jill. Never a one
has died, and only a few will have bad scars to show."

"Aye, I'll admit 'twas a fearsome sight to me when I watched
ye prick

A Fair-haired Man to a Dark-haired Woman I65

the sores with your wee penknil e and scratch the pus into
the veins of a healthy man. But ye knew what ye was about,
it seems. What do ye want in pounds and shillings, lad?"

 "Why, I don't know. I hadn't thought," said Randall,
glancing about the room and shifting a little in the chair,
trying to hide his embarrassment.

"Ye hadna' thought? Then 'twas no about money ye came
here?"

"Not about money. No."

"Another matter then?"

"Yes," said Randall, and fell silent.

 Rona picked up his pipe, went to the small grate and lit it
with a twist of paper and a live coal. Then he returned to his
chair.

 Randall did not feel like taking tobacco. Beyond the heavy
oak door he could hear the voices of Margery and Leitis as
they chatted together in the hall, preparing for the crofters
who would be sure to come up and pay their respects
tonight, since that was all they could pay. Finally he said,
"Sir, I should like leave to court your daughter Margery."

Rona looked at him blankly.

 "Ye want to court my laser" he asked, not meeting
Randall's eye, drumming again with the quill on the back of
the ledger. "Court her to marriage?"

"To marriage, yes if she will have me," said Randall a little
grimly.

 "If she will have ye why there's a thought indeed,"
muttered Rona. "Sir, I ha' always said when it came to
marriage my lass should choose and do what her heart bade
her. I promised her mother it should be so. But to go
overseas amongst the red Indians that, unless she be much
set on it, I canna' let her do. Ha' ye spoken to her o' the
matter?"

"No, I have not. I want your leave to do so."

 Rona looked full at him now, and there was a smile in the
deep eyes under his heavy brows.

"And suppose I forbid ye?"

 "I was afraid you might," said Randall thoughtfully. "She
could get herself a richer husband with no trouble. Get
herself a better one. But not one who'd care for her more.
She's used to London and Paris and the ordering of servants.
At home we live by doctoring folk in a country town, my
father and I. We've help in the fields when there's need, but
my mother tends her own house, unless she is sick and
cannot. Likely my wife would do the same. You've a right to
ask better for your daughter. You've a right to refuse me."

"But I ha' no refused ye yet. I only asked what ye would do."

 "Why I would pack my chest and go down and get Colin to
take me to Stornaway and stay there till the next boat for
Edinburgh comes by.

166 S W E A R B Y A P O r. ~ o

But first," and he lifted his jaw stubbornly and looked
straight at Rona, 'I would tell her how I feel, before I go."

 Rona nodded, still tapping the quill. "Aye, a man could do
no less than that. I hate to lose ye, lad, but it seems to me
best that's what ye do."

 Randall felt as if cold winds were blowing on him and he
were falling through space. Somehow he had not really
expected a blunt refusal, though of course he should have
been prepared for it. He scarcely heard, but Rona kept on
speaking.

 "My lass is used to servants, true, and silks and satins and
the life that goes with such. I do not think she could be
happy in the frozen bogs of North America."

 "She's seen frozen bogs before," retorted Randall, feeling
his courage coming back, and underneath it a thrust or two
of anger. "She can see them from the windows of her
father's own house when she looks out in the morning. Our
fields are stony, but no worse than in Scotland, though our
towns be not so fine. She wouldn't want there. Maybe now
and then I could buy her a satin gown."

 Rona went on as if Randall had not spoken.
"Furthermore, I hear 'tis a cold grim life ye lead in New
England, such as our Kirk enforces among its people. My
lass teas a liking to be gay. No, lad, it wouldna' do. It would
end in tears for both of ye. Unless I like ye well for a son.
Could ye no stay here? I could set ye forth in the world."

 "No. My father expects me at home to take up his work
when he is through."

Both men stared silently at each other.

 Finally Rona stood up, went over and prodded the fire.
"Aye," he said, "a father has a right to expect that of a son.
So let it be as ye said. Tell her tonight, and be off
tomorrow. I'm sorry to see the last of ye, but tis the only
way."

 "I'm SOTTy you feel that,' said Randall, still not quite
believing in the other's no. ''Of course I shall respect your
decision, sir."

 "Aye, ye're a good lad, not one to come at the thing
behind my back, as ye could ha' done. Into the hall with ye
now, for the whole clachan will be there to drink with us this
night. Tell Margery I'll be amongst them as soon as I put my
books away."

 The hall of Rhinn House was still decked with the green
boughs that Rona had ordered from the glens of Inverness
at Christmastime. Sim had put out kegs of whisk< y and
claret, and Leitis had covered the long table with trays of
cold food. Half a dozen of the villagers stood near it,
helping themselves with their fingers, and Randall joined
them. He watched Colin swallow pickled herrings, but he did
not ask Colin to

A Fair-haired Man to a Dark-haired Woman 167

take him to Stornaway. Instead he waited till Leitis went by
carrying a tray of roasted oysters, and then he asked her
where Margery was.

"She's at the front door to welcome folk," Leitis told him.

 That would be a poor time to catch her alone, but he
wanted to settle the matter, so he started that way. In the
shadowy corridor he felt insistent fingers pluck at his sleeve.
It was Ellen.

"Randall," she whined, "why ha' ye kept from me?"

  He had not been alone with her since that night in Puffin
Town; made sure, in the shame and revulsion that filled him
whenever he thought of that night, that he had not been
alone with her. Early the next morning he had moved his
medicines and clean linen into Colin's house which he had
used for his hospital, inoculating the crofters one by one as
they came to him there. Ellen could not ask for the inocula-
tion since she had had the disease in her childhood, but she
had come to the door twice and he had sent her away. Only
two days ago he had finished the work, and tired out, come
back to Rhinn House to sleep the clock round. Waking from
that sleep, he had known what he must do. No man who has
had a wife should go without one, he told himself, and he
was ready now to give another woman the name and the
love that could be claimed no longer by Sally Anne. He
wished desperately that he had done so before before his
own flesh had betrayed him, and in his fall he had taken
with him another human soul. That unhappy creature now
stood before him, and he would make the inevitable ending
as gentle as he might.

"Ellen," he said, "I shall tell you why. Come with me here."

  He drew her into the small pallor, warm and lighted like
all the rest of the house on that festive night. He stood
before the hearth and she sank down in a blue brocaded
chair.

  "I think I kept from you because of shame, Ellen," he
began. "I should not have used you so, and I am sorry for it.
It will not happen again. We shall have always Margery or
your mother by, when I am trying to treat you for the sight."
He had forgotten for the moment that he must go away.

  Ellen stared at him, her eyes cold and her cheeks flaming.
"Ye mean then, that I am naught to you at all? That ye have
no more use for me?"

"Not in that way, no," he muttered, not meeting her eyes.

  She was silent for a moment and then burst out, "'Tis
wonderful, past all whooping, how a man can tire so quick
of what he wanted!"

  "But I never wanted it, Ellen," he answered wretchedly.
"You know there is no love between us. 'Twas only that
I that it had been so long. I tell you over and over, I am
sorry."

168 s w E A R B Y A P O L L O

 "Am I to eat and drinl.your sorrow then. and warm myself
with it in the night`"'

 He threw back his head and thrust his hands into the
pockets of his claret-colored breeches. "Are you asking me
for money?"

 "No, no!" cried Ellen hastily, tears welling in her eyes and
beginning to run down her face. " I here is nothing ye can
do, if ye do not care for me. I would not have let ye if I
thought ye did not care."

 "Ellen," he said, "I shall suffer for this all the days of my
life. If there is anything I can do "

 "Why, ye can take me away," she said, dashing the tears
from her eyes and looking fixedly at him. "Ye can take me
to America. Ye need not marry me. I can shift for myself, if
ye will take me there."

 "No," he said stubbornly, feeling a small-boy petulance
rising up in him, feeling himself caught deeper and deeper
in the net the more he struggled to get away. "I have harmed
you, Ellen, but after all, I have not harmed you that much.
You were not a maid when I came to you. You had been
with others before."

 She bit her lip and looked down at the thick carpet under
her feet. At that moment Margery walked in. Tier dark hair
was swept upward in a crown of curls, and she wore a white
wool dress embroidered with gold threadflowers, the bodice
cut very low. She was smiling at them. "I hunted everywhere
for you, Randall, and Kenneth said he saw vou and Ellen
come this way. He's outside, looking as black as a
three-days' storm out of Ireland. What did you do to him?"

 Ellen kept gazing at the floor, and her hand played
nervously with the fold of her dress.

 "Must be Ellen has injured him," said Randall lightly. "For
in truth, I have not. I ve scarce seen the lad since I got back
from the inoculations. What did you want me for?"

 "Why there's as many folk in the hall now as there's like
to be at any one time, and Nanny's g`,ing to tell stories of
the old days. I thought you would like to hear."

 "Of course I would," said Randall, taking her arm, not
looking at Ellen, but ]\Iargery held out her hand to the other
girl.

"Game! 'Tis ill luck on Hogmanay to sit alone," she said.

 So the three of them went back to the hall, now nearly
half full of villagers, the men in dark wool coats and the
women in plaid shawls, everyone a little threadbare, but
nobody looking pinched or ill-fed. Randall noticed that most
of the cold victuals were gone from the table, the kegs half
empty, and Sim bringing out more, leaving a trail of cellar
cob webs behind him.

Nanny sat in a high-backed chair by the fire, and everyone
drew

A Fair-haired Man to u Da/k-lZaired W07iia,' 169

toward her, the men pulling up benches for the women, then
settling themselves on the stone poor. Kenneth brought a
chair for Margery and did not go, but stood like a towering
hawk, just behind her. Randall sat down on the Hoor a little
v. ay off and near the fire, watched Ellen find herself a place
on the bench beside Ailis Ogg. Ailis smiled happily, and well
she might, for her banns to marry Tam Darran had gone up
the week before. Beside her, Ellen looked pale and thin and
sour as unripe fruit. That was a Iying look, he thought, as he
remembered the ripeness of her and wished that he had left
it untasted and unknown. I le looked for Rona and saw him
talking with Andra on the far side of the hearth, a half-eaten
leg of turkey in his hand, and his whiskey glass on the
mantel shelf above him.

 Then a hush settled over the benches. The talking and
laughing stopped. Everybody turned to Nanny and waited for
her to begin. Randall had never been so close to the old
woman before, for she was not one of his patients, trusting
rather to Andra whenever pain visited her shrunken bones.
Now he noticed every detail of her as he sat waiting, from
the worn slippers on the small, sturdy feet, to the neat white
cap and kerchief. Nanny's face was seamed and lined like a
brown land riven with water courses, and her brown eyes
stared unblinkingly before her. Her hands gripped the carven
alms of the chair. There was acceptance in her face, and
patience, and wisdom, the kind of wisdom never yet put
down in printed words. He remembered hearing Rona say
that the lords of Edinburgh made the laws, but the people
made the proverbs, and that was, after all, the better thing.
Then Nanny began to talk in a low voice, but strong and
steady.

 "I remember how it was when I was a girl on South Uist
before ever Dweeney came piping there, and vised me, and
took me away with him. We would gather by the widest
hearth in Garnan Ian MacCrae's, it were, till Jock
Campbell built a better one the young to dance at the
feasting, and the old to tell the tales. And in those days, I
was for the dancing. Sometimes, on such nights, the sea
seemed to creep nearer the house, and the wind kept all the
time trying to come in, and there was an eldritch moan to
it."

 Randall shivered, for there was something about Nanny's
face and the tone of her voice that made him hear the sea
and the winds of sixty years ago. Against the eerie
background that she had somehow evoked for them, Nanny
went on to tell one story after another. Maybe it would be
a plaintive little tale of a human child carried off by elves, or
maybe grim and savage, like the story of the old woman in
Stornaway who held the lamp while the island men cut the
throats of the Fife Adventurers; or the legend of the Norse
invaders with greenish blue

170 Swear BY APOLLO

hair. The I lebrides lay in old waters that had seen the
prows of the Vikings, the battered hulks of the Spanish
Armada, and the British menof-war hunting Prince Charlie.
Nanny Dweeney had heard of all of them.

 Margery asked for a story of her favorite hero, and Nanny
smiled far back in her deep old eyes and told how she
herself had seen the Prince drinking with his fellows till all
the other men lay prone on the castle floor. Then he had
spread their tartars over them and stood up in the midst,
singing De Profundis, pious as any bishop, and all alone.

 Half a dozen voices called for the tale of the Brahan Seer,
and Nanny told of the woman who was herding cows near a
graveyard, and when the graves opened at midnight and the
ghosts flew away, she placed her spindle across one grave so
its occupant could not return there. In order to get back to
its resting place, the poor ghost had to promise her that her
son should have the sight, and sure enough, he had it, but
little good it did him, for the use he put it to caused him to
be burned in a barrel of tar.

 After that Nanny said her throat was dry and she wanted
a crap of whiskey; that she was through with tale-telling. So
everybody had a crap, and it was time to dance.

 Randall had just stopped whirling round and round in a
boisterous jig with Lavan, when he saw the watchful Leitis
at his side, holding out a straw-jacketed bottle of foreign
wine. The screech of Johnny's bagpipes filled all the room,
and he had to put his head down to listen to her.

 We've no wintered here, sir," Leitis was saying
apologetically, "and how should ye know what's fit for the
keeping of Hogmanay?"

"Have I done something wrong, Leitis?" he asked quickly.

 "No. Oh, no, sir. 'Tis only something ye might do if ye
choose. The midnight will strike in a moment now, and they
will all watch for the first-footer to come through the door."

"First-footer?"

 "Yes. The first to cross the threshold after the break of the
New Year. He should bring a present with him. If he be a
fair-haired man, then 'tis a dark-haired woman he should
give it to. We think it brings the house luck that way."

She held out the bottle. "For your gift," she said.

 He grasped it, closing his fingers in a warm grip round
hers for a moment before she could draw back her hand.

 "Thank you, Leitis," hi whispered. "It shall go to the
dark-haired woman. Where else would my gifts go?"

She gave him a quick smile and slipped away through the
crowd.

A Fair-haired Man to a Dark-haired Woman 171

Tucking the bottle inside his coat, he crossed the room and
went down the corridor to the front door

  Once outside, he stood there in the cold starlight, trying to
order his thoughts. Seaward lay the blat k crags and the
black water beyond, but a light snow had fallen in the
afternoon, clinging to the furze bushes on the hillside and
the thatched roofs in the village below. Suddenly he caught
the faint far off ringing of the church bells on the Long
Island, borne by some trick of the hind over many miles of
sea. Year of our Lord, 1775, those bells were ringing in, and
he wondered what that year would mean to him, would he
hear the bells that rang out the end of it. "War, red war,"
Ellen had said with the vision before her. She had said that
his medicine would do him no good there. Then his thoughts
went to Margery, and he tried to make himself believe that
he might not see her again after tonight.

  He was going in to Margery now, and bring her luck for
the New Year, and he was going to tell her he loved her, but
if she wanted him to, he would go away. Somehow he did
not believe she would tell him that. And suddenly, there
alone with the stars and the snowy hills and the night wind
off the sea, he knew that it was time to say good-by forever
to Sally Anne. They had not really parted in that little
bedroom under the eaves in his father's house, where she
had drawn her last choking breath. She had not left him
there, and she had said she never would, but she had no
choice now, because there was another so deeply in his
heart.

  "Good-by, Sally Anne," he whispered gently to the night
wind. "You were good and sweet, and we were happy. But
you are in one world and I am in another. We must each go
our own ways now, Sally Anne."

  He listened, but there was no articulate voice in the wind,
and no star changed its place in the dark sky. Then he
thought for a moment of that other one, who had never
lived at all.

  In the silence he could hear the bells still ringing beyond
the narrow sea. Inside Rhinn lIouse laughter and gay voices
rang, and Johnny Dweeney's bagpipes shrilled as loudly as
if the Stuart troops were on the march again. He had better
hurry, he thought, or another firstfooter would come sliding
through the night and beat him to the door. He lifted the
heavy iron rod kept there for knocking, and hammered loud
enough to beat the oak panels in.

  As he knocked the piping died away, voices lifted
excitedly, and then they, too, were still. In a moment the
laird himself threw open the door. "Welcome, First-footer,"
he said, bowing as formally as if he had never seen Randall
before.

172 SWEAR BY APOLLO

 Randall bowed and pulled the bottle from his coat. "I
come seeking a dark-haired woman. I have a gift for her," he
said.

 Rona motioned toward the hall. "Go in, First-footer. There
are many dark-haired women there. Thank ye for bringing
luck to my household."

 Striding along the conidor, he could hear the footsteps of
his host as they followed him over the stone floor. All eyes
were upon him, he found, as he entered the hall.

 "Welcome, First-footer!" shrilled Johnny, and blew a
tremendous blast on the bag-pipes. "Whom amongst us do ye
seek?"

"I seek a dark-haired woman," said Randall easily.

  He looked around for Margery and felt a little crestfallen
to find her whispering in a corner with Kenneth, but he
stepped toward her all the same, holding out the bottle.

  "From a fair-haired man to a dark-haired woman," he said,
"and good luck to her house for the New Year."

Margery bent forward, gracious and smiling, to receive his
gift.

  "I thank you, First-footer," she said, taking the bottle in
one hand, and his hand in the other. "Come and have a bit
and crap."

  He let her lead him toward the table and pour him a glass
of claret, waited for her to choose some refreshment for
herself, which she did not do.

  "Margery," he said after a moment, as she stood there
smiling at him, "I want to talk to you. Let us be by ourselves
somewhere."

  She put her head a little on one side and looked doubtful.
"Can you not wait, Randall? Tomorrow there will be time.
You can talk to me from breakfast to sunset, if you wish.
But tonight if I steal away from our guests, and my father
notices me "

  "I may not be here by sunset tomorrow," said Randall
calmly. "It all depends on what you say tonight."

  A startled look came into her hazel eyes. "Why wherever
will you be? Are you going to Stornaway?"

  "Maybe. I\iaybe further than that. Come with me, Margery,
where we can talk."

"Very well."

  She walked ahead of him, through the crowd of
merrymakers in the hall, and opened the door of the small
parlor where he had been with Ellen earlier that night. 1
hen, instead of stepping inside, she hastily closed it and
withdrew. He looked at her, a question in his eyes.

  "Meggy and Colin are tl~ere," she said. "They have
quarreled, I think, because she is crying, and he looks so
stern. It makes me sad whenever I see them together. He
loves her so much, and she will have none of him because
she has borne a daft child."

A Fair-haired Alar' to a Dark-haired Woman r73

  "I know," said Randall soberly. "I have tried to talk with
her; tell her it need not happen again. But she will not listen
to me."

  "We can go flp to the gallery," said Margery, leading him
to the wide stair.

  At the gallery's western end, beyond the last of the
portraits, a broad bay window with a cushioned bench
looked to the dark sea. She sat down, leaning against one of
the angles, and motioned Randall to a place beside her,
which he hastily took.

  "Margery," he said. Then he paused, uncertain how to
begin. All his haste and urgency had left him. He felt
tremulous, unsure.

  For a moment her face wore a puzzled frown, then it
smoothed itself out. She saw he was in difElculty and began
to make small talk to steady him at least, that was how
R.mdall interpreted her action.

  "Randall," she said, "I should have asked before, for I've
often been wondering. How do things go in your country,
and do they still think there will be a war there?"

  That was an easy question to find an answer to, if a hard
question to answer. He had only to quote his father's latest
news. "It would seem that things are drifting that way. They
have closed Boston Port, and Portsmouth has sent help to
the amount of two hundred pounds, more than four times
the province tax. Other towns have done their share
Chester, Candia, Dunbarton, Newmarket Concord gave
dried Pease "

  It steadied him to say the old names over. "There has been
a great meeting of the leaders of all America."

  He cleared his throat and began again, "Margery " but
she interrupted him.

"Do you know where North Carolina is? Is it far from
Hampton?"

  He frowned, wishing he could tell her she need not dally
any longer. He was ready now.

  "It is almost at the other en.l of the country," he said
stiffly. "I have never been there, nor am likely to go."

  "I thought you might know it. Kenneth told me tonight
that was where Flora MacDonald had gone. Are they for or
against the King, do you think? Will there be a rising there?"

  His face cleared, and he smiled suddenly. "Was that what
you and Kenneth were talking about tonight? Flora
MacDonald and uprisings against the King?"

  Margery looked startled. She replied cautiously, "We were
talking of Flora. Randall what did you want to say to me?"

  "I wanted to tell you this, Margery," he answered, looking
into her eyes. At first she veiled them, i hen opened them
very wide as he went on. "I went to your father tonight and
asked him if I could court you

174 SWEAR BY APOLLO

to marriage. He did not approve. He did not think you could
be happy in the frozen bogs of North America with the red
Indians and me. I promised him that I would go away, but
first I would tell you how I felt."

  He paused, and she waited until she saw that he was not
going to say any more. Then she lifted her head, and smiled
at him and said, "Well, tell me, Randall."

"But I told you. I want to marry you."

Her face wore a rapt look but her voice was steady.

"There are many reasons why a man could want to marry a
woman."

  "I know there are. But not for me any more. I married one
woman because she wanted me fO. Our life together was
good, and I am not sorry. But this time it is tile other way.
I love you, Margery, and I want to marry you, and if you are
willing, I will do it, if it has to be against the drawn sword of
every laird in Scotland."

  "Then then " her voice quivered, but her face was
slowly brightening, "you can love me, and you will not
sorrow for her any more. I thought you would never love
anyone else. I heard you calling in the night for your Sally
Anne one night by the Cursing Stones."

  "I have told Sally Anne good-by," he answered steadily,
still uncertain how Margery would finally answer him.

  "Then if you love me-and you will never lie by my side
and be lonely for her why then--" and a light woke in her
eyes and seemed to shine from her whole Pace, "why then,
of course I will marry you, Randall."

  His arms started to lift, but he forced them close to his
sides one moment longer.

  "You will leave your father and your friends all the gay
times you have known and go to America with met"

  "Yes. I will go to Ameri a with you, or anywhere." She
lifted her face to his, and he did not hotel himself back any
more.

  Later they stood together halfway down the stairs,
hand-in-hand, while the Hogmanay guests filed below them,
singing, and cheering them, bidding their farewells to Rona
at the doorway. It was Lavan who had let the secret out
before it was more than a few minutes old. She had come
upstairs on an errand for Leitis, caught them kissing; in her
young wifely wisdom immediately known what it meant,
kissed Margery herself, and then run to tell all.

  Rona's face had turned dark purple at first, and he choked
back anger in his throat, but it was really more sorrow than
rage, as he thought ahead to his own loss. In the end he
shook his head ruefully and bade Kenneth to announce the
banns of Randall John Woodbury and Mar

A Fair-haired Man to a Dark-haired Woman 175

gery May Rhinn. This Kenneth had done with a bitter ill
grace, almost refused to do.

 "We are Queen Mary's men," sang the crofters, outside
the house now, going down the hillside in the night.

 Randall pulled his thoughts away from his own happiness
long enough to wonder if they meant the Queen of Heaven
or the old Scottish Queen. He would have to think more of
such things if he was to be a proper husband for Margery,
who loved tradition and old time, and knew the secret of
heather ale. Crushing her hand in his for the soft roseleaf
feel of it, he stood proudly beside her and gazed down at
the empty hall. Rona was now speeding his last guests at the
doorway, Andra and her daughter. As Randall looked at
Ellen he felt himself all burning inside with shame. She
lifted her eyes and gazed upward defiantly. Margery's eyes
were so misted with happiness that she misinterpreted the
look.

 "The luck of the New Year to you, Ellen," she called
merrily. "May it bring a dark-haired man to your door!"

 Ellen drew up her thin shoulders and tossed her head.
"Ye'd never think, Miss Margery," she said, "what the New
Year will bring!"

                   XVII
              B nipple B ail

1r WEEPING, endures but a night, and joy cometh in the
moming, that joy is scarce like to last past noontime before
sorrow clouds the sky again. Randall found this bleak
thought coming often to his mind in a month that followed
his betrothal, for he and Margery were never happy again,
quite as they had been when they stood hand-in-hand on the
stairs that night at the ending of Hogmanay.

 It began the next morning, for he could hardly greet her
across the breakfast table before he was called down to the
clachan to comfort Ellen who was troubled with a vision.
And almost every day thereafter she was troubled so. He
had lost much of his scientific curiosity in the matter and
was heartily sick of it, for the sight of the cattle maid was a
constant reproach to him. True, she had tempted him, been
quick to participate in what was for her no new game. But
she was woman, and therefore the weaker vessel. He should
have withstood the dangerous emotions rising in both ol
them. Oh God, he thought, he had been a fool all the way.
He had not realised his own weakness. He had tried himself
too far. He had loved Margery for a long time. Why had he
distrusted that love, felt so unsure of himself, unsure of her?
If he had told her how he felt three months ago, they would
have been safely married now; he would not have been
driven to make free with the first girl who flicked a petticoat
at him. Yes, it had been his fault.

 He was sorry for Ellen, distasteful as he found her. She
was an unhappy person, perhaps a mad one. As the
frequency of her visions increased, he found himself more
and more considering that possibility. So he went to her
whence er she sent for him, hating to go, but feeling he
could do nothing less, not entering the cottage unless Andra
was there, sometimes taking Leitis with him on one pretext
or another.

 And as for Margery, a mist seemed to settle over her like
the mist that hung perpetually round her native islands. She
laughed less often, the warm light of happiness no longer
shone in her eyes, and her face wore

Brittle Bail 177

a hurt, bewildered look, she who had always been so proud
and sure. Was it because she sensed the confusion and
unhappiness in himself, or had Ellen confided in her; Did
she know what had happened that December night in Puffin
Town; He could not ask her, and she never spoke of such a
thing.

 He spent most of his days in the clachan, for winter was an
unhealthy season, full of colds and rheum. The women were
busy in their kitchens with wheel and distaff, and the men
repaired their boats, made shoes and tanned leather, and
fished sometimes for ring, which great storms drove in from
the deep sea. There was not the intense cold and drifting
snow he had been used to in New England, but there was
freezing rain, and winds such as he had never known could
blow. Like all the island folk, he soon found himself walking
crabwise in order to move at all or to keep from being
thrown to the frozen turf.

 At the end of each day, when the bracken on the hillside
seemed all ablaze in the winter sunset, he would go back to
Rhinn House to eat supper and spend the evening by the fire
with Margery and her father, talking over their affairs. They
would be married in Edinburgh, she said, on Midsummer
Day, in the Church of England Chapel in Carruber's Close.
I ler linens and finery could be readied no sooner, and she
wanted all her mother's people who were scattered far and
wide to have time to receive their invitations and be there.

 "Aye," Comyn had growled, "there be few enough of us
Rhinns left alive, but ye might as well try to take the census
o' a hornets' nest as to count the MacNeills o' Barra. It will
take time, lass, to assemble them all."

 Comyn was not overpleased at the match, but he had
yielded with what grace he could. There v as no talk now of
going to America. It would have to be, some day, but it need
not be yet. Randall was to continue his studies at the
College, and they would take a Hat there for the next
season. Margery's face lighted when she spoke about the life
they would lead in Edinburgh, when she could have all her
accustomed parties and friends, and move about with the
innocent freedom of a married woman.

 Besides the underlying sadness in Margery, there was
another thing about her he could not understand. That was
the matter of Kenneth. Often he came upon them talking
together, ceasing the conversation with guilty looks the
moment he appeared. He knew, of course, that Kenneth had
expected to marry her, and certainly the Highlander had
every right to show savage disappointment. Randall would
not have been surprised at that. He would not have been
surprised at physical challenge of some sort. But Kenneth
had shown no anger. He had continued quiet and sullen as
a storm cloud the' hovers, but moves no nearer on the sky.

178 s w B. A R B Y A P O L L O

Once Randall met him in the corridor and caught him
whistling, a light, gay-hearted tune that MacCrimmon had
used to sing in Edinburgh. But the whistling had died away
when Kenneth saw he was not alone, and his handsome face
had gone back into its usual dour lines. He had turned
swiftly and walked away.

  Not that his betrothal was all sorrow. Whenever he and
Margery were alone together, the skies seemed to clear.
They went for long walks over the wild moorland when the
wind drove the spindrift till it fell like snowflakes about
them, far from the sea. They sat together in the east parlor
with the lamps turned low and nobody by, as it was proper
for any courting couple to do. He had known there was
sweetness in Margery, and gentleness, and warm,
understanding love. He had not known there was fire, too,
but he was glad to find it there. Remembering the adroitness
of Ellen, Margery seemed awkward and ardent, and he loved
her all the more. She would not shrink from him on their
wedding night, he knew, she would look forward as much as
he, find it as long till Midsummer. And still, when he held
her close and kissed her, there was always a shadow
between. He suspected it was because deep within each of
them there was something held back from the other, but he
could not know.

  Leitis had told him when he was preparing tinctures once
in her kitchen that February would come in with the head of
a serpent and go out with a peacock's tail, like the saw they
had at home about March coming in like a lion and going
out like a lamb. But in February the snow would still be
piled to the eaves in New Hampshire, while here, she said,
he would see the first green stirrings of spring. The old
woman had been devoted to him ever since the night of
Caitlin's death, and she spoke of Caitlin now, the thing that
worried her.

  "It is an old belief among us, sir," she told him soberly,
"that the last to die must always keep watch in the graveyard
and canna' pass on to the other world until the next funeral
appears. There has none died this winter in all Rona. I
couldna' pray for any soul's death, but Caitlin has lain there
three months past. She must be uneasy to go."

  "I do not think there is any truth in the belief, Leitis," he
assured her. "God knows I'm not learned in the ways of the
church and the ministers, but I feel certain she was at peace
the moment her eyes closed."

  Leitis tightened her lilts and went back to her spinning. As
it hap pened, she need not have worried. Caitlin was to be
relieved of her vigil very soon.

  As Leitis said, February did bring a change in the season,
and if green shoots did not spring forth overnight from the
dead wastes of brown moorland, at least the air softened
and the winds grew more gentle.

Brittle E'ail ~79

One day he went to the rocks below Ardmory where the
men were cutting seaware to spread out in a slowly rotting
mass on the long fields to the westward; not so good a
fertilizer as cattle dung, but sure, and plenty, and cheap. He
spent all afternoon among them, toiling with a saw-toothed
sickle, for the good-fellowship of it, and came home up the
cliff path among the lichened rocks all red with frost, past
the shieling hut, and into the clachan through the burn
valley. By the wharves he met Margery and fell into step
beside her.

 "Randall, I've a letter," she said. He could tell from the
slight tremor in her voice that the letter was important to
her.

 "What was in it?" he asked warily. "Who was it from? If
you want to tell me "

She gave a nervous laugh.

 "Do not sound so stern. It is not so serious as that. The
letter is from Mairi, my cousin Roderick's wife. They live on
Barra, you know."

"I remember you have spoken of them. What does she say?"

 "She says they are happy to hear of our wedding plans, and
they will be in Edinburgh at Midsummer. But she also
says "

 He suddenly realized Margery was trying to tell him some
simple thing in some devious way. He trudged along
patiently at her side, and let her reveal the matter as she
chose. She pulled a paper from the pocket of her heavily
flounced skirt and unfolded it.

 "Tam MacVean just brought the mail, and when I saw his
boat making harbor, I ran down. There was nothing for you
or Father. Only this for me. It i!, from Mairi "

 She broke off and walked slowly beside him, not looking
at him. He felt uneasy. He had a terrible thought. Suppose
in some way these MacNeill kindred could prevent tile
marriage! But no, she had said they would be happy to be
there.

 "She says, 'We heard your footsteps on the parapet of the
west tower, last night, dear Margery. Rodcrick says they
were yours, and so does Agnes, the cook-you remember her?
Tappingly they went, with your high heels on. When a
distant person longs to be at home, you know, his footsteps
can be heard there by his near kin "'

 She paused. Randall wondered if his near kin had been
hearing his footsteps lately in the snowy dooryard at
Hampton Falls. He thought it quite likely that they had. He
questioned her gently.

"Did you long to be at home?"

 "I have often longed to, Randall, in the last month. When
a lass is to be married, she must change all her ways of
things even herself, it may be."

Sally Anne, he thought, had made few changes when they
carried

I80 S W E A R B Y A P O L L O

her trunk and bandbox through the gap in the stone wall
between her mothers hayfield and his own. Margery would,
of course, have to make more.

 "I thought I would like to go back to Barra again, to my
mother's home. There are still things of ours in Kismull
Castle that I will want to have sent on to Edinburgh. Oh
Randall, you will not mind if I go there only for a
visit only for a week or two?"

 "No," said Randall carefully. She had not told him all the
truth, and he knew it, but he would not question her. "I do
not mind. Your father is going to Greenock next week. No
doubt he can leave you at Barra on the waltz.

"You are angry?" she said tremulously.

 "No," he said. "Of course I am not angry." He gave her a
formal kiss on the mouth, hated himself for doing it, but
found he could behave in no other way. So then between
them there was not only the old shadow, but the new
formality, risen because she had lied to him and he knew it.

 Nor did her going improve things. Rona agreed to the plan
without comment, except to figure how he could change his
route in order to touch at Barra. He finally decided to hire
Tam, a crew, and a stout Norwegian boat to take him all the
way down the gulf, touch at the south islands, and then
across to Oban where the packets put in. They left on a
foggy morning when the hills and the sea were washed in
grey rain. Margery clung to him at the last, and he thought
she was going to tell him, but she did not. He kissed her and
waved good-by as the boat pulled out on the tide; then he
went back to Rhinn House, all along in the bleak, dripping
day.

 It rained hard for a week after that. Ellen ailed constantly
and saw men carrying coffins whenever she turned her head
too quickly about. He was tired and sick ol the sight of her,
but he did not doubt the genuineness of her torment and
sought desperately to assuage it, partly, perhaps, because the
matter was his first professional experiment, and he felt
loath to give it Up. Andra sat, grim-faced, while the girl de-
scribed her visions, and Randall tried to understand how a
woman so generous and kindly could have so little sympathy
for her own flesh and blood. Then Johnny Dweeney's old
legs became so painful that he had to be treated every day
with soporifics, and Nanny complained of weakness and
could hardly hobble from her chair to prepare their barley
broth. Tam Darran and Ailis, newly married, had moved into
the empty cottage next door, and did what they could for the
old couple, but it was an ill season for everybody in the
clachan; cold sodden bodies, not always enough fire, and too
little food in the pot when suppertime came.

            Brittle Bail l ~ l

 Once in a dank twilight as he started home, he saw a tiny
elfin-faced girl hungrily gnawing a bit of frozen turnip that
had been flung out for the cattle. Ele shivered inside his
thick jacket and put down the impulse to take her on his
shoulder and carry her up to Leitis for dry clothes and a hot
meal. All that stopped him was the knowledge that he could
not do as much for whatever brothers and sisters she might
happen to have. He was particularly concerned for the
children and had been for the last few days, for in nearly
every house one or more of them was ailing. A slight cold,
a low fever, vague pains darting here and there, trouble in
swallowing nothing he could diagnose or give a name to.
He asked Andra if it was some Scottish disease he had never
heard of, but she, too, admitted she had never seen the like.
Poor food and exposure to the damp and cold was most
likely the cause of it. He dosed them with Peruvian bark and
sent down cordials from the laird's own cellar, but he knew
in his heart that he was only doing it because he could think
of nothing better to do. Fortunately nobody seemed to be
very sick, except for Nellie's youngest boy who had a stiff
neck and was inclined to tumble about when he tried to
walk. On the other hand, the victims all lay listless on their
pallets or piles of rags, and none of them got well.

 Once inside the warm and quiet comfort of Rhinn House
he went directly to the kitchen. He had been eating there
with Sim and Leitis since their master's departure`, and they
made no pretence of serving meals in the hall any more.
I.eitis hastened to him as soon as he came in, coaxed him
out of his wet coat, and began ladling up bowls of savvy
stew. Sitting between the old couple and spooning down the
hot food, he told them of his worry over the children, told
them of the hungry little girl.

 Both of them shook their heads at the mention of the
disease. "We can do no good there," said Leitis regretfully,
"but if they are hungry, as ye say, I will go to blaster Crary
tomorrow. E le has the steward's keys, and in the far c char
there is barley meal and bacon and dried Pease kept there
for such -use. Sim shall go down and give it out tomorrow
amongst those who have most need."

 "Where is the schoolmaster?" asked Randall, feeling
relieved at the solution of one problem; better, probably,
because he was now warm and dry and well-fed. Then his
horizon clouded over and he realized that tonight he must
write to his father to tell him of his approaching marriage.
He could no longer put it off. It must be done tonight.

 Sim answered, drying the ragged ends of his beard on a
homespun napkin.

 "As ye know, he seldom eats with us, and when he doesna',
'tis a tray in his room he would have, Ad me that must climb
the stair! Naught

18z s w E A R B Y A P O L L O

but the laird's best whiskey, too! There's none for whiskey
like a Highland man."

 "I think he has a lass in the clachan," said Leitis, "now that
he can no more court with Miss I\largery," and she smiled at
Randall. "He took tea with ma just before candlelighting and
went out then, and I ha' no seen him since. He's says he's
told the bairns to stay at home tomorrow, and all the days
till he sends for them to come back; that he'll keep no more
school whilst so many is ailing and canna' attend. Ewen
Gow's Jessie was taken over her book and couldna' bend her
head, and fell down when she meant to be walking. Her
brothers carried her home. There is a trouble amongst the
children, Doctor, lad, that I fear we canna' cure by feeding
them."

 "You may be right," sighed Randall. He helped himself to
a bottle from the dresser, bade his good nights, and said that
he meant to work in his room for the rest of the evening.

 The room, when he reached it, was warm and bright, with
the lamps and the fire already going. He sat idly at the
writing table for a few minutes, listening to the rain on the
roof and the sighing of a low wind in the eaves, thinking
how much he missed Margery. Then he poured himself a
glass of whiskey, straight and undiluted, after the Scottish
fashion. He tossed down a deep draught of it and pushed
the glass aside. He took writing materials and began the
letter to his father.

 He wrote quickly with blunt jabs of the pen into the leaf
torn from his journal, choosing this as he usually did, instead
of a smoother, more formal paper. He minced no words and
he spared no feelings. He wrote that he was marrying the
I.aird of Rona's daughter, that she was a woman of beauty
and fashion, for which, he hoped, they would forgive him.
He wrote that he was not yet ready to bring her home. He
meant to return to his studies at the Collar get If they
continued to send him the usual bills of credit, it would be
enough, he needed no further money. His winter's stay on
the island had cost him nothing, and he had been paid
handsomely for his professional services there. He hoped
they would be pleased with Margery. She sent her love. He
sealed the letter and laid it aside. Then he took another
swallow of whiskey. Then he got up, glass in hand, and went
to the deep armchair in the bay window, flung himself down,
and lay back there, listening to the rain.

 Slowly his taut nerves relaxed, and the sense of well-being
that he had felt at the supper table returned to him. True,
there was plenty of sickness about, especially amongst the
children, but it seemed like no killing complaint. Given a
little sunlight and some good food, and he felt they would all
be well. True, Margery had gone from him for a time, but
she had promised to come back before the month's end.
When he held her

Brittle Bail 183

in his arms again, he would not be the fool he had been
when she went away. He would bring out into the open the
thing between them that was keeping them apart. After all,
there had been shadows in the old days between him and
Sally Anne, but love and understanding had always cleared
them away.

  He heard Kenneth's steps in the corridor, going toward his
room a little unsteadily. Then he heard the shuffle of Leitis'
slipperedfeet and the sound of her voice asking for the key
to the far cellar.

  Kenneth muttered angrily, and his talk broke off with a
ringing sound that puzzled Randall for a moment. Then he
knew what it was. The schoolmaster had flung the key on the
stone floor. His steps moved off then, lumbering and
unsteady. Kenneth was apparently drunk. Well, Randall did
not know that hi could blame him. A door slammed at the
back of the house and Leitis shuffled away. There was
silence in the corridor.

  Glancing at the pile of books on a small table near his
elbow, he noticed that the one on top was Dr. Cullen's
textbook on the practice of physic. He picked it up and
began turning the pages guiltily. He had unpacked it to see
what the master himself would advise in the treatment of
nervous cases, if there was any suggestion there that would
help him in dealing with Ellen.

  In a few moments he was interested in spite of himself,
settled even deeper in the chair, and pulled the iron lamp
close, so it was easier to see.

  "Imagination rising in the brain, presenting objects that are
not actually present," Dr. Cullen had written. That surely
described the sight as he had seen it in Ellen and her mother
before.

  "Derangement of the nervous power, a subtle moveable
fluid present in every part of the medullary substance, of the
brain and nerves " Well, what to do? He read on
impatiently, "Madness is false perceptions, false associations,
and false judgments. In every case we may expect organic
lesions of the brain. Keep them always in fear. Put in a
straightwaistcoat if necessary "

  He muttered profanely at the idea of putting Andra, with
all her dignity and calm wisdom, in a straightwaistcoat.
"Shave and blister and purge with soluble tartar snow
packs, clay caps ducking "

  God help the man who went mad, thought Randall. And
then, "The cures are found in the causes." That he stopped
to think about.

  The visions had first come to Andra when she was young
and tenderhearted and all racked with grief and fear out of
anxiety for her lover. Women's wits had been turned for
less even in his short and narrow practice he had seen it.
There was no second sight in Hampton Falls, but sometimes
there was madness there. The cures in the causes! What

184 s w r A R B Y A P O L L O

had caused it in Ellen then, for she had been under no
strain so far as he knew?

 He put the book down and went to fill his glass from the
dark green bottle.

 "Oh L)octor! L)octor!" he heard Leitis wail from the
landing at the turn ol the stair.

 The urgency in her voice told him he was not being
summoned for any little thing. She did not want him to kill
a mouse or poultice a sore toe. He flew,, his door open and
ran through the gallery, down the stone treads to her side.
There he stopped. Ellen stood a few steps below them, wet
all over, hair, and skin, and clinging dress, come forth so
hastily that she had not even taktn a shawl to protect her
from the rain. Her face was pale as it had never been when
the visions plagued her. She stammered and gasped, and
Leitis mumbled.

 "For God's sake, what's the matter?" exploded Randall.
"You look like the Devil had landed and come ashore."

 "The children," murmured Ellen faintly, tossing back her
dank hair. "It's like Passover in the Bible. In every house
they're dying, and those who arena' dying, canna' walk. It's
terrible. It's all through the town."

 That was; the beginning' of it: the way the strange
serpent-stealthy plague that he had never seen before was
loosed on Rona. That was the moment his life stopped being
the ordered business of a sensible man and became a
nightmare. Finally he learned from the hysterical Ellen that
her mother had sent her, that Andra was with Christie, so he
gathered his drugs and his deerskin chest, left the two
women huddled by the kitchen fire, and set off for the
clachan, down the wet road in the endless rain.

 Christie's five children lay among blankets spread on the
floor near a sputtering fire of damp peat, that Rob, looking
stricken and helpless, was trying to coax into an open blaze.
At the far end of the long room, three cows watched
patiently, aware of the trouble as animals always are, and
fowl crouched on the rafters above. The children lay
motionless, making no outcry. Andra bent over ]amie, her
long supple fingers massaging his throat and chest. But:
what surprised Randall was the fact that Christie's children
should be taken down so suddenly, for they had not ailed
before. Only that afternoon they had stopped him to ask
about another flying stone. Christie sat silently, holding the
baby, who gazed before him with round, solemn eyes.
Randall went down on his knees among the blankets. Anclra
looked up at him and there was fright in her eyes. He had
never seen fright there before; resignation, when Lavan
seemed to Ibe dying, but not abandoned terror.

              Brittle Bail I85

 "They cannot breathe," she whispered. "When folk cannot
breathe even my grandmother did not know what to do
then!"

 She kept on working over Jamie, so he bent to examine
Donny and the rest. Every now and then the little faces
twitched. Donny's two eyes turned in opposite directions, and
he tried to breathe as if he had forgotten how.

 "Do you think," murmured Randall, taking pulses, "it is a
lung congestion?"

 The tawny-haired girl whose name he did not know was
choking, and he thought of the throat-ail, but he knew it was
not that. His exploring finger found no phlegm or membrane
in her mouth, but she could not swallow, and clear saliva
kept forming in little pools that ran over her chin and
dribbled on the blanket. None of the children were
conscious. Now a pulse would race to a wild two hundred,
now drop almost completely away under his fingers.

 Randall felt no emotion now save helplessness and
mounting horror. He had never seen the like. It was not in
Hampton Falls. It had appeared in none of the lectures and
textbooks in Edinburgh.

 Christie was crying with grief and fright, her tears falling all
over the baby's downy head.

 "What is it? Oh, what is it?" pleaded Andra, still rubbing
the little naked chest, trying to get the boy to breathe.

 "'Fore God, I don't know," muttered Randall, looking at
Donny. A shudder went through him as he realized that the
child was not breathing any more, that he would never watch
the lift of another flying stone.

 Christie's five older children died that night, but she and
Rob and the baby remained undiseased and well. And once
he stepped out of her cottage, Randall found himself
besieged with anxious fathers, waiting for him, gaunt and
red-eyed in their ragged coats, for in every house in the
clachan the story was much the same. The mothers were not
in the street. They were fighting death at the bedside, and he
joined them there.

 There seemed to be two separate and utterly different
forms of the terrible sickness that attacked only the children.
Fever, headache, nausea, pain, and increasing debility were
common to all, but some passed into a state of utter
helplessness of the back and legs. Many of these died, but
after a time some faltering few began to get well, though
they did not at once regain the body's use. But others, like
Christie's, were stricken in the lungs and throat, forgot how
to breathe, twisted, and choked and died. When the
breathing apparatus went awry, there was no saving them.

 For days the sickness went on. Randall forgot the feel of
a bed and the taste of food, except for a hasty gulp now and
then when one of the

186 swr:AR BY APOI LO

women brought him barley cake and herring or a bowl of
hot soup. He did not return to Rhinn House, sleeping
propped in a corner whenever he could not keep awake any
more, and then only for a few minutes at a time Sim brought
him clean linen and wines and whiskey, for his other drugs
had failed him now, and he had returned humbly to the
oldest, surest stimulant of all. And it was stimulants he
needed. Noth ing in his medicine chest, nothing in his poor
desperate groping wits could cure the disease. All he could
do was try to keep them alive and trust the body to find its
own cure.

 On the third night he had faced that decision when they
sat resting for a few moments at Nellie Gow's fireside after
her youngest child had been laid out in a sea chest and
carried to the little graveyard on the hill.

 "Andre," he said, leaning against a heap of sods by the old
black hearth, while Nellie and Ewen fed the children still
remaining to them, well and carefree children, not
understanding, enjoying the school holiday, "I never saw
anything like it, never. I feel like I'd been hit on the jaw so
hard I don't know what hit me. Colin is back from
Stornaway. I sent him there this morning to see if their
doctor would come."

 "Will he?" asked Andra tensely, eyeing the children with
their little earthen bowls, expecting any moment to see
another fall.

 Randall shook his heacl. "No. The bastard's afraid, and he
knows he's as helpless as we are. Colin wanted to go to
Skye, but he put him off and said there'd be no profit in it;
that 'twas either a new disease raised up or an old one that
had passed out of the memory of man. We'll have to fight it
all alone."

 "None of my herbs or potions will help it," said Andra. "I
have tried them all, and the children are dying still."

 "None of my drugs will help it. I might as well be a
shoemaker, for all the good I do."

 "I even went to Leitis," said Andra hesitantly, "to ask her
if in the cellar there was still some heather ale."

 He looked up sharply. "Heather ale!" he exclaimed. "The
most powerful stimulant I ever saw! Could she find any for
you?"

 "No. She did not know if there was any left or where it
was, and if she did, she said, she would not dare touch it
with Miss Margery away."

 He shook his head. ''I'm beaten, Andra. I don't know what
to do, except to try to keep them alive as long as I can. Back
home, my father's friend was a Dr. Bartlett. He's near fifty
now, and a well man, but the doctors gave him up when he
was twenty-three. He had a fever they didn't understand, and
they said he was sure to die before morning, and they all
went home. He sat up all night drinking apple cider by the

Brittle Bail I87

teacup full. And it pulled him through. My father always told
me when I came on a bad time, to remember that."

 "It is the same in all countries," agreed Andra with a wan
smile. "My grandmother always prayed to be kept from any
disease that whiskey could not cure.''

 So they gave the children whiskey. Some shuddered and
turned their heads away, and spewed it out on their pillows.
Some lapped it up and called for more, and lay happily
drunk in their beds till the crisis passed over. Others could
not move the throat muscles and were forever through with
swallowing. Drunk or dry, some died and some got well, and
Randall could see no pattern in the difference.

 Only one of the stricken was man-grown, and Randall
would have given a share of his own flesh and blood to have
saved him. Once at the height of the sickness when several
children were dying every day, and the wind bore always an
undercurrent of the women's soft wailing, he thought of what
Andra had said about heather ale, and he remembered how
it had saved Lavan when he thought nothing ever could. If
only Margery was there she could unearth a hidden bottle
or perhaps brew some more. Perhaps it was only that he
wanted Margery. In any case, he hurried to Colin's house
one day when the sunset lay in red pools like frozen blood
on the sky, having an impractical notion that perhaps the
young fisherman would take his boat out on the long voyage
down the Minch to Barra and bring Margery home.

 At first he thought Colin must be away fishing or cutting
seaware, though most of the everyday affairs of life had come
to a halt since the sickness hit Ballyrhinn. No one answered
his knock on the door of the little hut by the water. Then,
pausing a moment before he turned and hurried back to the
next bedside where they awaited him, he heard a slight sound
within. He pushed the door open.

 Colin lay on his back on the floor beside the dead hearth
fire. He kept swallowing convulsively and snapping his
fingers. His eyes turned in his head, and his chest throbbed
unevenly, as if he were breathing only on one side.

 "Canna' breathe " he rasped, clawing at his throat,
grabbing the motionless half of his chest and trying to move
it up and down.

 "Colin, lad," muttered Randall. He went down on his knees
beside his dying friend. Colin was past whiskey. Past
everything but the help of God. Suddenly Randall found that
he was crying. His tears dripped down on Colin's face just
the way Christie's had dripped on her baby's head the night
the plague struck.

Colin thrust out his jaw and drew his lips back over his teeth
in a

[88 SWEAR BY APOLLO

ghastly smile. With a terrible effort he reached out and
gripped Randall's hand.

 Then suddenly he no longer fought for breath, he groped
for it. He could not find it any more. Surprise,
bewilderment, final terror distorted his handsome young
face. Randall felt the loosening fingers fall away. A mist
rose before his eyes, and when it cleared, he was alone.
Colin would go to the graveyard, but he would not have to
watch there long. There were others on the way.

 Randall stole an hour's sleep that night in the Dweeney
cottage, unashamed to share with the old couple his grief
and bitterness and sense of inadequacy and defeat.

 "'Tis their time has come," said Nanny solemnly, "though
such a smashery o' poor weans I never saw before. 'Twas no
your fault."

 "But Colin," said Randall inconsolably. "He was no wean!
He was a damn fine lad! Why did (Colin have to die?"

 "And who's to tell Janet Gillander?" muttered old Johnny.
"Janet that couldna' have him and wanted him so."

 "I'd rather be telling her," said Nanny soberly, "than telling
Meg Munro Meggy who could ha' had him and wouldna'
have him at all."

                   XVIII
         Tl~e Strange Wavs of Cod

TO ~Ar~G~sT TAvERn in Stornaway was a two-storied
house covered with slates, looking ample enough from the
outside, but its parlor was full of gossiping women and its
taproom cluttered with geese and fowls, and Margery felt
glad to be away from it as she paid for her night's lodging
and stepped out into the mild grey day.

  She had come up the Minch from Barra on a fishing boat
the day before, arriving long after dark, and found Tam
MacVean gone on a trip to Polewe and no way at all for her
to get over the few miles of sea to her home on Rona that
she had taken such a longing for.

  "Wait till tomorrow," they had told her on the wharf when
she came ashore. "Jock MacLeod will sail ye there tomorrow,
we've no doubt. He's away tonight to take Master Riddoch
there. They've had trouble, and 't has come to the eye o' the
Kirk."

"Trouble on Rona?" she had asked quickly. "What's gone
amiss?"

  But the fishermen would not tell her, nor would anyone
she met in street or the little inn. "We heard some children
were sick," the chambermaid whispered, as she lit the fire
and turned down the bed, but when Margery tried to
question her further, she had ignored the proffered coin and
hastened away. Margery kept waking up in the night to
trouble herself about it. Whose children were sick, and what
ever ailed them? Why was it a matter for the Kirk?

  Now in the morning light and clean sea air she felt
reassured again. If there were children sick, Randall would
cure them. It was no new thing for Kirk folk like Master
Riddoch to go poking their ferret noses everywhere. Still, she
would feel better if she knew her father was at home, instead
of knowing, as she did, that he had gone on to Edinburgh.
It was when she first received his letter the week before,
telling her of the change in his plans, that she had begun to
be homesick. Before that, her stay on Barra had been happy
enough. Perhaps not happy but she

190 Swr:Al~ BY APOLLo

had found out much that it was better for her to know, and
after all, she had really gone there lor that.

 She walked slowly down the narrow street between the
stone houses with crow-stepped gables, carrying only her
purse and a rose-colored bandbox and her fur cloak over her
arm. The harbor was full of idle boats, for it would be more
than a month before the spring herring began to run. Surely
someone should be willing to take her over the short stretch
of open sea. Waiting in Tam's usual place she found a
stranger, a middleaged man with a battered brown face and
a worse battered boat, who said that he was Jock MacLeod
and would ferry her for the usual sum. As they pulled out on
the soft grey water into the grey mist hanging low, she began
to question him, but she might have saved her breath. He
ignored her for a while and then turned, his deep-set eyes
glaring, his low voice a growl.

 "Lass," he said, "I mind my own lot in life. What goes on
with my neighbors, I dinna' ken. Do ye expect to complete
this voyage, ye'll give over asking me."

 There was nothing she could do after that, except smile at
him and save her questions till she got home. The wind blew
steadily, moving them forward at a good rate, but it did not
clear the mist that rose here and there like puffs of smoke
from the surface of the sea. Her thoughts went back to the
sunlight of yesterday, the trip up the Minch following the
long line of blue islands, all little farms and ruined church
towers, bare rocks, and inlets full of fishing boats, like the
harbor at Stornaway. Her thoughts went back to Barra and
the circumstances of her brief visit there.

 Her cousin Roderick was much older than she, a tall
vigorous man, growing early gray, with three sons at school
in England where he had spent most of his life. He and his
pretty wife, Mairi, made her as welcome at Kismull Castle as
if she had never been away from her mother's home. For the
first few nights they talked of the old days, and the women
played and sang old songs to the spinet, and in the daytime
they went riding on small sturdy horses all along the
twelve-mile ring road round Barra, Margery feasting her eyes
on the high rocky country as if she might never see it again
and would try to hold every contour of it in her heart when
she went away. They talked of her coming marriage and
made wild laughing guesses about what her life would be like
in America; laughing, because you never gave way to
apprehension if you were a MacNeill of Barra and had
"Vincere vel mori" carved above your door.

 Over the wine at dinner Roderick told his wife with great
hilarity of the day in Margery's childhood when she had
insisted she wanted to learn to milk a cow because all her
playmates, the crofters' daughters

The Strange Ways of God Igr

called her a bluntie a stupid one for not having the knack.
Rona had forbidden it, for fear lest the beasts kick or
trample her. His wife was still in bed, recently delivered of
a dead son, and he treasured his little daughter all the more
because of this new loss. Margery had stamped her foot,
then grinned and turned away. At the next mealtime she was
missing. She was gone three days, straying from farm to farm
on the stony hillsides, known and welcomed everywhere.
When she came back she was tired and dirty, but still
grinning, and she could milk a cow like the veriest
dairymaid. Rona had been proud of the exploit later and
boasted of it among his friends in Edinburgh.

 When Roderick finished the little story, Margery lifted her
eyes over her wine glass and found that Mairi was smiling at
her.

 "Oh, Margery," she said, shaking her head dubiously, "I am
afraid of what will happen if the time ever comes when you
cannot have your own way.

 Margery thought unhappily of the invisible barriers that
kept raising themselves up between her and Randall in spite
of all she could do.

 "Oh, there are many times, Mairi," she murmured, "when
I do not have my own way nor anything like."

 Roderick, too, was smiling. "This American?" he
questioned her. "What will he expect of you? I know little of
their customs for the behavior of women there, but what I
hear does not reassure me. It seems they are a savage breed,
scarce fitted to offer delectable companionship to
gentlemen."

"Why do you say that?"

He poured more wine into their glasses.

 "I suppose it is because of a gruesome little story I heard
in a London coffee house years ago. As I remember, it
happened in the very province your young man comes
from New Hampshire, is it not?"

"Yes. Randall is from New I lampshire. What happened
there?"

 "Why it seems some doughty female Dustin, I believe her
name was, Hannah Dustin slew ten Indians and brought
their bloody scalps home for trophies. Unwomanly!
Appalling! I have always been sorry for her husband. If New
Hampshire men come to Scotland for their wives, it is
understandable."

 "I think that must have been very long ago," said Margery,
trying to reassure him. "I do not think Randall will expect
me to scalp anyone. I doubt if his mother is accustomed to
do so."

 "You shall have your choice of the family claymores to
fend with, Margery dear," said ;Mairi with a bubbling laugh.
"Let us go out on the parapet for a while. There is still some
sunset left in the sky."

So they walked the battlemented walls of Kismull after that,
and fi

192 swElARBY APOLLO

nally rested themselves on benches placed in a corner where
the cold winds did not blow. Then, under the stars, she had
finally told them her reason for coming to Barra; told them
all Kenneth's stories about the American uprising that would
put the Stuarts back on the throne, and wanted to know
how mu h of it was true.

 "Very little of it," said Roderick, at last, when she had
made an end. "There is no new undertaking in favor of the
Prince that I have heard of, and I am in touch with those
who know. Every day his body and spirit decline, for which
1 am sorry. I was a boy when he was a young man, and ] was
brought up that he would deliver Scotland to the old ways
again. A new star fl Ished in the sky the night he was born,
and a great wind ravaged all Hanover. We took it for a sign."

"My mother has told brie," murmured Margery.

 "Yes, she would have told you. Tall, young, beautiful
Gillian, gallant as a man! We could not rise when Lochiel
called out the clans, because we owed fealty to the
MacDonald of Sleat, and of all the MacDonalds only
Clanranald had the ~ ourage to go. But we sent our piper
to guide the Prince's ship into Erlskay, and three hundred
guineas in our free gift. With the piper, your mother went
along."

"That she never told me," said Margery wonderingly.

 "Aye. She could keep her own counsel, Gillian could, when
she chose. She knew your father would not approve, and she
had set her mind to him even then. But when the Prince
landed, Gillian was there."

 Margery stirred restlessly against the stone and looked out
over the sea into the dark. Much as she reverenced the
stories of old times, she wanted to know now about scare'
matters of today.

 Roderick noticed her impatience and broke off sharply,
then went on in another vein.

 "It is true, there is an uI rising in America. It will not be
easily settled, and what may come of it, I cannot tell. But the
Stuarts will never find followers there. Charles was an enemy
of all Whiggery and born to destroy it, only he failed therein.
America is a Whig's country, as all men in Scotland know."

 Margery made a wry fact . "So Cousin Roderick the
matter our schoolmaster told me was all a lied"

 "So much as makes no difference, yet there is a kernel of
truth therein. A year or two back three years, was it not,
Mairi, that we wintered in Edinburgh--there was a so ore of
young gallants and hard-bit old men who formecL
themselves info a group called the Royal Oak, and declared
their purpose was to bring back the Stuarts again. That they
ever did much beyond wearing blue bonnets, get themselves
a Latin motto, and drink wine, I never heard-though they
may have. It is true that Mac

The Strange Ways of G.'d 193

Donald of Kingsburgh has talon his wife to America, but I
think they hope to advance their private fortunes there.
There have been many who said it would be well if we could
take advantage of a rising in America. I expect such rumors
will be flying about these hundred years after we are gone.
Just so long as there is a drop of Stuart blood anywhere,
there will be those who are loyal to it loyal, and gallant,
and inept, likely, as their ancestors were. But as to your
schoolmaster's stories no! Why did the fellow lie to you?"

"I think I know the reason,' said Margery grimly.

  She was ready to Icave Barra then, but she did not go till
her father's letter came, saying that he himself would have
to remain more than a month away.

  She came out of her revert, and felt the boat nudging
against the familiar wharf, saw the cottages of Ballyrhinn
through the mist that was thinning on the hill. Jock
MacLeod grumbled inarticulately as he helped her ashore
with her belongings, took her money, and turned away. Then
as she stood watching him, he looked back and spoke over
his shoulder.

  "I'm sorry for what's happened, lass," he said. "None of us
wanted to be the one to let ye know." Hi leaped into his
boat, shoved off with an oar, and disappeared in the thick
greyness that still hung over the sea.

  Margery shifted her cloak and bandbox so they would be
the least trouble to her and walked slowly from the wharf
into the town. She met nobody. It was not unusual to go the
length of Ballyrhinn in the middle of a busy forenoon and
meet no older children or grown folk. Kenneth would be
holding lessons in the loft over the byte, the men cutting
seaware, and the womb n spinning this season's wool for
exportable tweed. But the little children should be playing at
every doorstep, running their short, busy erran, is, gathering
around like a flock of bright birds when they saw she had
come home. MacNayr's old dog ambled by, and a pair of
golden plovers settled behind Widow Gillander's house to
search for crumbs or insects in the soft ground. Smoke went
up from nearby chimney;, doors stood open, and she caught
the murmur of voices, the sound of the spinning wheel, now
and then a cough. She told herself she was foolish to think
that anything could be seriously wrong, but she stopped dead
still, nevertheles<, and stood there in the middle of the
winding turf street.

  Then she saw Kenneth. He was coming down the slope
from Rhinn House, his head bowed, cutting idly at the furze
bushes with a stout stick as if he had nothing better to do.
She had been angry with Kenneth, thought to fly at him
when they met and give him the scolding he deserved, but
she c ould not feel angry now not until she knew where the

  194 swear BY APo~o
children were and what it was folk would not tell her in
Stornaway.

"Kenneth!" she said.

 He stood still and lifted his head, and she saw that his eyes
were sunken and his skin had a mouldy, greyish look. His
face did not light up at the sight of her as it was wont to do.

"So ye've come home, Margery," he said.

 "Yes. I've come home. Tell me, Kenneth, why is everything
so strange  even you? You're not keeping school."

 "No," he answered hoarsely. "No, I'll likely be keeping
school no more here."

 "I heard some children were sick. Whose children? How
many? Will they soon be well again?"

 He drew his hands across his eyes. "Margery," he said, "'t
has been terrible here. There's a-many gone."

"Gone? Gone where?"

 It was not that she could not see, it was that she would not,
and Kenneth knew. He drew back a little.

 "They he' gone to the graveyard in boxes," he told her
grimly. "There's been a sickness let loose amongst the
children such as was never known."

 Suddenly it seemed to Margery that the whole hillside,
lanes, and bytes, and cottages, tilted slantways before her
eyes. She was near fainting, she knew, but she tried to control
herself. Kenneth kept on.

 "Eighty-seven children there was on Rona," he droned, as
if he were reciting catechism. "We ha' buried forty-three, and
twenty-nine canna' use their limbs nor faculties. That leaves
fifteen whole. Fifteen and no more."

"But what was it, Kem~eth?'' she breathed in horror.

 "Why there's none knows, not even your brew doctor lad.
They sickened and they died, and there was naught any man
could do."

 Down the street a child cried fretfully, and Margery thought
it was a most precious sound.

"Where were you going, Kenneth?" she asked falteringly.

 "To tend Johnny Dweeney," he answered dully. "He canna'
leave his bed, and no woman can spare the time from tending
o' her own."

 Hunching his shoulders, as if it were a cold day instead of
a mild damp one, he strode off. Margery stood still and
watched him. Neither had had the heart to speak a personal
word to the other. He had made no advances, and she had
not spoken the reproach that was in her mind. She did not
know what it was, but she had the uncanny feeling that
something more than the death of his pupils troubled him.
For herself, she wanted to find Randall now, to cling close in
his arms, and hear the worst that had happened, to hear that
he loved her in spite of all.

The Strange Ways of Grid ~95

But where would Randall her At Rhinn House, consulting
his books and mixing his medicines, or among the crofters,
giving comfort where he could, fighting lest another child
should die? Perhaps it would be best to go to Andra.
Whatever was right and fitting for her to do, Andra would
know. Walking as if her own limbs were about to fail her,
Margery went to Andra's house and tapped on the stone by
the door.

 No one answered for a long time, and then Ellen came out
of the byre. She had a willow basket in one hand with flecks
of turnip and mashed whine in the bottom of it, for she had
been feeding their one cow. There were dark hollows under
Ellen's eyes. Otherwise she seemed much the same.

 "Well, Margery," she cried. "Randall didna' tell me ye were
coming home."

 The words were harmless enough, but something about
them made Margery feel worse than she had before, and she
was already half ill. She leaned against the rough stones of
the cottage wall.

 "Randall does not know," she murmured. "Do you know
where he is, Ellen? I would go to him, if I knew."

 "I think he's at Rhinn House," said Ellen pertly, "having a
proper fight with Master Riddoch."

"A fight with Master Riddoch? Why?"

 Ellen shrugged. "I dinna' know. Old Parson came here late
last night and went up to the hall as he does when your
father be there. My mother sent me this morning to fetch a
salve Randall had promised to compound, and I heard them
squalling at each other across the breakfast table like two
tomcats on the thatch at the full moon. So I came away.
Would ye like a cup o' tea, Madge. Ye look scarce able to
stand on your feet."

 Margery gazed across the clachan and up the hill to Rhinn
House. It seemed like an endless way, and she knew she had
to go there. But first she would speak to Ellen. Perhaps
Ellen would tell her more than Kenneth had.

 "No," she murmured, "I do not want tea. But tell
me what happened to the children?"

 "Ye hadna' heard?" cried Ellen with new eagerness that
she should be the one to impart the story. "Why, first they
were ailing for a week  many of them. Then they began to
die. Christie lost five."

"Oh, no!" gasped Margery, sinking her head in her hands.

 "Nell Gow lost three. Everywhere it was the same. Some
lived as had better ha' gone, for they canna' get their legs
under them, and who's to tell if they ever will again? And ye
know, my mother foresaw it all!"

Margery looked up. "When? After I went away?"

Ellen shook her head importantly. "Awww no! Last
summertime, long

196 SWBAR BY APOLLO

gone. Do ye remember that night at the hall the night after
Parson had touched her with holy water to take the sight
away?"

 "I remember that night,' said Margery slowly. "She had a
vision that night. She would not tell us what she saw."

"No, and didna' tell it after only to Randall, and I heard."

 Margery knew what bothered her. It was Ellen's familiar
use of the name.

 "When a taischer sees a firebrand fall through the air and
light on a body's sleeve, she knows its arms will hold a dead
child soon. My mother says she save firebrands falling all
over the clachan that night. No wonder she didna' tell. Folk
might ha' moved away, or burned her in tar!"

 Margery was past everything except wondering how she
could get home. It had to be done, and finally she pulled
away from Ellen and stumbled along the lane, praying that
she would not fall, that she would not meet any
grief-stricken parent to whom she should offer comfort,
feeling unable to face such a piteous sight. She crept past
her cape and bandbox, letting them lie. She had just set her
foot gratefully on the edge of the lawn at Rhinn House when
John Riddoch rushed past her, almost knocking her down.
I le drew away sharply to avoid a collision and then stood
still and stared at her with blazing eyes, an angry little turkey
cock of a man, with turkey's swelling red throat.

"Hog, lass," he shrilled. "Is your father no coming home?"

 "No," she told him wearily. "My father is not coming home,
not for a month. Good-by. I am sorry. I am feeling ill."

 A cloud seemed to reach out for her then, and she drifted
on it toward the house. Then she heard Randall calling,
"Margery!"

 In a moment she had collapsed in his arms, a rain of wet
tears pouring over her face.

"Oh Randall," she wept, "the children! The children!"

 "I know," he said brokenly, and she heard the tears in his
voice that he would not allow himself to shed. "There's been
hell to pay with the children. Thank God, Margery, you've
come home."

 Later, sitting together in one great chair by the bay
window that faced the west terrace, he told her the course of
it, and she listened calmly enough, commenting here and
there as she could sense he wanted her to do. It was true,
what Kenneth had told her. Forty-three of the soft rosy little
bodies had gone to feed the old earth of the graveyard above
Ballyrhinn. Their souls and here Randall broke off to speak
words about John Riddoch that should not be applicable to
any minister of God. He had come there insisting that the
disease was a visitation upon the island for its lewd and
sinful ways in not seeking more earnestly for the es-
tablishment of a parish and a Kirk. He wanted to set the
people fasting,

The Strange Ways of God 197

but Randall had argued that they were weakened by grief
and hard work and hunger and could not support a fast.
Riddoch had been leaving in rage thereat when Margery saw
him go.

 He told her of Colin's death, and she was aghast and cried
a little. Janet had cried for three days, but Meggy had only
turned white and shed no tears. Then he spoke of those who
had lived but lost their body's use, and for them he was
hopeful. They were in no immediate danger, and there were
cures to try: salves, and poultices; and applications of electric
fluid had been used with much success for elderly paralytics
in America. Later, he thought, he should take a trip to
Edinburgh to consult the doctors there.

 They did not speak of their love for each other, for there
was no need. They felt sure and confirmed in it now, welded
together by more than the body's fire.

 The first moment that she felt her old courage and spirit
returning, so that she could bear to let him go, Margery
asked if he was not needed in the clachan. He rose at once,
sighing.

 "Yes. I am overdue there now. No one is in critical need.
The disease has waned, and no new cases have appeared
lately, but life there is all broken apart and will be, for a
time. I go to each family every day t

try to comfort those who have lost all, and assure those who
have children alive but crippled that there is hope and a
good chance. Andra is tireless in the work. She has been
invaluable to everyone, most of all, to me. There was nothing
we thought of that we did not try, but our remedies did no
good. Some died and some lived, and it all fell out according
to the strange ways of God. We had little part." Then
suddenly he remembered something. His eyes brightened and
he cried out, "Heather ale!"

"Heather ale!" Margery stared at him.

 "Yes. I did not think of it, not being able, I suppose, to
think beyond the Pharmacopoeia. But Andre remembered,
and she came here seeking for some. Leitis said she had
none by."

 "Would it have helped?" asked Margery faintly. "Leitis is
right. Lavan and Caitlin had the last of my grandmother's
brewing."

"If you had been here, could you have made some,
Margery?"

 She shook her head. "I could not. It is not the time of year.
It can only be done when the young heather first comes in
bloom."

 He smiled at her, a sad little smile. "I do not suppose you
will tell me how it is made?"

"I thought you understood. You know I cannot tell you."

 He kissed her upturned face. "I do not know whether I
understand you or not, but I love you, Margery."

She walked to the door with him, followed him to the edge
of the

I98 SWEAR BY APOLLO

terrace. The fog and greyness had cleared away, and the sun
shone out, almost springtime warm. The hillside had begun
to green a little, and down it, skipping gaily from tuft to
hummock, went Meg Munro's daftie, flinging his arms
about, piping a shrill, wordless tune.

 "I never thought of the daftie," said Margery wonderingly.
"I supposed he was dead like so many, being a weak thing
all his life, and ailing often before."

 She looked up at Ranclall. His eyes followed the half-wit
cavorting on the hill.

 "So many " he murmured, "so many twisted or dead the
strong, the quick, the beautiful, bright-witted children! But
the daftie was never sick at all!"

                    x1x
          Ba, Health ana AlL-heaL

SPruNo CAME In with late March, cold and stormy and
reluctant, but every day the sodden turf of the island showed
a little more green. Sim pattered in the daffodil beds, and
Leitis spread out the household linen for bleaching whenever
there came a few hours of clear bright sun. Kenneth sulked
in his room most of the time, reading sermons and drinking
whiskey, and went prowling off after dark, nobody knew just
where. The lovers were aware of nothing except themselves
and their work in the clachan among the families in the
silent cottages, that had once been loud with the clamor of
children, that had echoed with their shouts and laughter all
day long. The serpent plague silent and deadly as a
serpent had done its work and gone, leaving almost
unbelievable havoc behind. No new cases broke out after
Margery's return from Barra, and no more children died.
Some few had entirely escaped it, suffering nothing more
than a slight cold. Others were beginning to totter about
again, the iron that had seemed to bind their muscles
dissolving away. But nearly a score lay helpless on the straw
by the fire pits, scarcely able to drive off the curious hens
and geese that came pecking about them, or reach for a cup
of water even when it was set close to hand.

 Andra and Randall tried everything they could think of
that had no harm to it: hot packs and cold packs, salves, and
ointments, and massages. Margery tried awkwardly to do as
they told her, but her chief role was that of comforter to the
distraught parents, giving them her word that the disabled
children should never want for aught, even if all their lives
they never walked again.

 If Ellen was still troubled with visions, Randall heard no
more about it; in fact, it almost seemed to him as if she was
keeping out of his way, for he did not see her again after the
day of Master Riddoch's visit, not even when he went to say
good-by to her the night before he left for Edinburgh. Part
of him had been longing to go ever since the sickness
loosened its grip on Ballyrhinn, for he felt a nagging curiosity
and in

200 SWLAR BY APOLLO

tellectual need to know what Dr. Cullen would say when he
heard an account of it. Part of him was deliciously content
to remain where he was, where he could walk with Margery
in the soft twilight or sit close by the fire with her when the
wind turned chill. There were no shadows between them
now, and no strangeness. In everything except the ultimate
intimacy of the flesh they were already one, and Randall felt
he could wait for that now. He was still too troubled over
guilt for past incontinency to indulge himself again. And
Margery knew how to display all her warmth and love
without trying to tempt or tease him. It was almost as if she
understood, and yet how could a maid and he had no
doubts that she was a maid be so quick to understand?

 She confessed to him her real reason for going to Barra,
and he listened in amazement when he heard the account of
Kenneth's stories, wondering how she could be fooled by
them for so long.

 "But Margery," he said. as they sat together on the terrace
after supper the night she told him, "how could you believe
we in America would rise to support the kings we went there
to get away from? We do not really care who governs
England. All we want is for her to buy our goods and let us
alone." Margery looked a little rueful and shook her head at
him.

 "I think it was because I wanted to, that I believed it.
And how am I to know what folk are like in America? I only
know what I hear, and one can hear anything. Why, I'm told
in your very province there was a woman cut off the scalps
of savages, just as fierce and bloody as if she had been a
man."

"'Twas no such thing not in New Hampshire!"

"'Twas, too! Her name was Hannah Hannah Dustin!"

"Oh! Hannah Dustin! She was from Massachusetts!"

Margery giggled. "I suppose that makes a difference!"

  "Of course." His eyes twinkled, but his mouth was grave.
"Would you say a girl from Galloway was the same as a girl
from Aberdeen?"

"Oh! No! Of course nott Of course she would not be!"

  "Well, the difference between Massachusetts and New
Hampshire would be just as plain to anybody who knew.
Anyway, Hannah was none so bad. The Indians had lugged
her off into the woods up the Merrimac. She only killed
them so she could get away and go home."

"I see. But when I go there will you expect me to scalp an
Indian?"

  He looked thoughtful. Under her banter there was
apprehension he could not wholly soothe without a lie, and
he was through Iying to her.

  "Probably--no. But I should like to feel you could scalp one
if it was necessary."

  Margery shuddered, but she seemed to understand. "Well,
I suppose I could if it was necessary," she said.

        By Health and All-heal 20I

  She had taken Kenneth aside and told him quietly and
with no show of anger that she had found there was no
Stuart uprising in the wind, that likely there never would be.
She had not accused him of trying to win advantage of her
in that way, but she had suggested that there were children
needing his services in other places than Rona, and perhaps
he had better go. But Kenneth had not gone. He had made
no excuses for himself, only muttered that he would wait
until her father came home. But brief notes kept coming
now and then from her father, pleading great stress of affairs
due to the threatened war in America, always extending his
absence a little more.

  And so things went until the end of April, when the world
was warm again, most of the oats and barley sown, and all
the island covered with fresh springing green. Randall
decided then that he must make the trip to Edinburgh and
return quickly if he were to have any time to carry out Dr.
Cullen's suggestions for helping the children, before he
finally established himself in the city for the great event of
Midsummer Day. He meant to consult the doctor about
Ellen, too, and the night before his departure, he and
Margery walked down to her mother's house to tell her so,
but only Andra was there, sitting by the fire and brooding,
her head bent low.

  They tried to cheer her, but she only murmured of "trouble
coming to me and mine." No, she answered their question,
she had not been warned of it by the sight. It was in her
heart that she knew. Ellen, she said, was up at the hut on
Ardmory. Ellen was ailing. They had best leave Ellen alone.

  Randall promised that they would not follow the cattle
maid, but left word for her that he would try in the city to
see if he could find something that would bring her relief, or
perhaps even a cure.

  "Would you want to be cured too, Andra?" he asked. "If I
can learn of such a thing 7"

  "I do not know," answered Andra simply. "God will tell me,
I think, when it comes to the time."

  She promised, as she had no need to do, that she would
keep a watchful eye on the children while he was away.

  Randall and Margery left her after that, to wander over
the new grass, and embrace in the shelter of the crags below
Rhinn House, and think of nothing but each other aml their
own love.

  The next morning in the grey light before sunrise, Iver
took him to Stornaway. He was silent on the trip, thinking
that the last time he made it, Colin MacKay had ferried him
across. They had laughed and sung ribald songs and taken
tobacco together. Now Colin was Iying in the little graveyard
with its broken stone crosses, its ancient unmarked

202 SWEiAR BY APOLLO

stones, and he, Randall, was still breathing and alive and
setting his face east toward a new day. He looked at Iver and
thought of his wife. Lavan had ailed, and Sally Anne had
ailed, and one was taken and the other left, just as it had
been in Bible times. Even as then, interpretations still
belonged to God. He spoke of Colin to Iver, casually, as be-
came a man, and asked where the dead lad's gear would go.

 Iver answered as casually, pulling the oars hard against the
windless sea. Colin had been a bachelor with no kin.
Everyone knew he love

Meggy, and folk believed she should have all, but she
refused to touch anything, saying she would leave the matter
till the laird was at home.

  The packet for Dunvegan was already waiting when they
reached Stornaway. They shook hands, and Iver went back
to Rona, and Randall sailed for Skye, and beyond that,
Scotland.

  Six days later he was going along Leith Walk with the
great grey castle crouched on the rock ahead of him, striding
into the Old Town between the tall lands, feeling as much a
stranger as if he had never seen it before. It was dusk, a raw,
windy, spring dusk when he started down the High Street.
He had forgotten how finely attired the city folk were: the
men in ruffled shirts and embroidered waistcoats, buckled
shoes and powdered wigs, carrying short swords; the women
all decked with ribbons and tiers of flounces, dangling
bracelets and face paint. But the streets were not entirely
given over to the fashionable. Bare-headed shopkeepers
chatted in groups in the doorways; corduroy-clad men from
Gilmerton were bawling coals and yellow sand. There were
fishwives with Newhaven haddock to sell. chimney sweeps,
and water-carriers, and town rats, tired at the end of day,
trailing their Lochaber axes. Fine, full of color, was this
Scottish city, but hogs rooted in the street kennels, and the
reek of filth and human offal breathed out of every alley he
passed by. He was homesick suddenly for the island smells
of herring and wet wool and leather. The clean pine and
salt-scented air of Hampton Falls seemed very far away.

  He stopped under the grim shadow of the Tolbooth to
decide where he was going next. The Laird of Rona, he
knew, lodged at the White Hart in the Grassmarket.
I\Iargery had written to tell her father of Randall's intention
to visit the city, so he knew he would be expected there.
That was where he should go, but instead he found his feet
carrying him willy-nilly down the familiar way to the Qat in
Rowan Tree Wynd in search of Sandy and Tom.

  When he got to his old lodgings, he found one, but not the
other, of the two he sought. Sandy was Iying on the floor in
front of the fire, a treatise on midwifery spread in front of
him, and a glass of ale at his elbow. He did not stand up
when Randall opened the door and walked

By Health. and All-heal 203

in; only lifted his head and cocked an eyebrow and said,
"Tally-ho, Woodbury!"

 A strange lad, dark and sallow and stocky, sat at the
writing table. He looked up, shoved aside his work, and
waited to have the intrusion explained. Sandy took his time
about it.

 "So ye're back from the island, lad. Is it to stay with us this
time? We've room for ye here, since Culpepper took himself
off last week."

 "He's lodging elsewhere?" asked Randall in
disappointment. "Howtve you been, Sandy, lad? All the way
here I've been longing to see the two of you."

 "I been well," said Sandy thoughtfully. He waved his hand
toward the dark lad at the writing table. "This is Watt Ferlie
from Arrochar. After ye left us, he came. He pays a wee bit
o' rent when he can bide here no other way."

 Watt and Sandy smiled at each other. "And this," Sandy
went on, "is he I've oft told ye of, Woodbury, our American
lad."

Watt Ferlie stood up and came over to shake hands.

 "Where's Tom?" asked Randall after the introduction.
"Why'd he leave here? Wherever he is, let's send and get
him. I've ale money in my pocket."

 Sandy shook his head dolefully. "Ye canna' send for
Thomas, unless a dolphin be your messenger. He's on the
sea."

"You mean he's going home?"

 "Aye. The colonies be all in a turmoil, and there's constant
discussing of it. I find I canna' fash myself about the
colonies. They can raze and plow 'em and sow 'em with salt,
for all o' me."

'Was that why Tom went home?"

 "Well, he didna' discuss the whole matter. He had a letter
last week that set him swearing. He read it over and over,
and the more he read it, the more he swore."

"What was in the letter?"

 "He didna' tell me. I only know it came from Virginia. All
one night he paced the floor. Then on a sudden he struck his
hands together and cried, 'By God, they go too far!' Next I
knew, I was bundling him into the fly coach for Glasgow
where he could take passage westward. Don't tell me ye're
for the same, lad. I hear there's no an American left of
fighting age in all Scotland, or England either. Like the rats
out of a sinking ship, they've all gone trooping awe' for
whatever's to do at home."

 "I hadn't thought things were that bad yet," said Randall
uneasily. "My father hadn't written me things were that bad!"

 He sat down in the cushioned chair by the grate and took
the glass of ale Watt Ferlie poured for him. His thoughts
were all in confusion. He

204 SWLAR BY APOLLO

ought to go home if all the other lads had gone. But on
Midsummer Day he was going to marry Margery. He had
kept himself warm, cold nights on the ship's deck, thinking
what a high time he'd have with Tom and Sandy
MacCrimmon when he told them about his betrothal and
invited them to the wedding. Now he found he could not
speak of it at all. There was a chill round his heart and a
tightness in his throat. Both lads were watching him. He kept
on, choosing his words carefully.

  "I'm only here for a day or two. I came to consult Dr.
Cullen about a sickness we had on Rona. I've never seen the
like." Suddenly he found he was telling Watt and Sandy all
about the stricken children.

  They listened, shocked and interested, insisting they, too,
had never heard of such a thing. Gradually the talk warmed
him. After a while they went to a tavern for oysters and
toasted cheese, and he came back to sleep that night in his
old bed where he could look out through the small casement
at the far dark line of the Grampians and hear the bells of
St. Giles chiming the hours through.

  The next morning he went early to the White Hart to
breakfast with the laird. Mona was glad to see him, and
ordered a huge repast of fried potatoes, beefsteak, and ale.
He wanted a detailed account of the sickness and could
hardly hold back his tears when Randall told him how many
of the children were crippled or gone.

  "Find out aught ye can that may aid them, lad, and dinna'
worry for the cost. Trading worsens every day, but I've new
matters afoot now that should send many a fine guinea into
my purse."

  "What are they?" asked Randall, since the laird's face
indicated that he wished for the question.

  "Supplying the army," he answered quickly, seeming much
pleased with himself. "I've contracted with the King's
purveyors to supply wool and leather. Warm coats and stout
boots the soldiers will need, for the fighting in America."

  "You mean there be that many troops going you're that
certain there'll be war?"

  Comyn shrugged his shoulders. "Some say it canna' last
long. That we'll go through their armies like a knife through
new cheese, and be home before harvest. I only know we
are outfitting many lads."

  "Maybe I best be outfitted too," said Randall grudgingly,
feeling that his world was flying apart, in spite of all his
efforts to hold it together. "I heard from MacCrimmon all
the Americans have gone."

  Rona considered him soberly. "Lad," he said, "ye can see
I'm no in a position to counsel ye."

"I know what you mean," said Randall slowly. "I know I can
see

By Health and All-heal 205

maybe you've changed your mind about having me for a
son-in-law. If there's war, you 'know, I'll have to stand with
America."

 "If ye didna',ye'd be worth little. But ye know 'tis small
account whether I change my mind. Do ye think the business
will change Margery?"

 Randall smiled as he remembered her promise to scalp red
Indians if it became necessary. "No," he said, feeling his
heart lighten, "I do not think that it will."

 The laird nodded agreement. "Aye, she's a fine stubborn
lass like her mother was in her time. When are ye going
back to her?"

 "By the next boat out of Leith which is day after
tomorrow. I've only to see Dr. Cullen and then be away."

 "A good answer, one I was hoping for, and I'll give ye
company home. I've only the one more task to attend to
here, and that's to settle Margery's portion. What was ye
expecting with her?"

 Randall looked him in the eye. "Give her whatever you
choose," he answered, "and if you give her nothing, that will
do as well. My mother brought nothing to my father. A
man's not paid for marrying in America. But if you give her
aught " Rona waited, watching him steadily " I ask that it
be not in land. We've no use for land in a country we will
not

.. . ..

Ilve m.

 There was no reproach in Rona's tone, only a complete
lack of inflection that was worse.

"Do ye think it's fitting to rob a man o' his grandchildren?"

 Randall sighed. He had thought this issue was settled. Now
it was presented again, and again he would be no more
yielding than any stone.

 "No. I would not rob my father so. A man must first look
to his own father."

 Rona bowed his head. "Aye," he said. "And a lass must go
with her husband. Ye've the right of it, lad, though 'tis a
bitter drink to me. Well, I shall settle that it be not in land,
Margery's portion."

 Randall reached out awkwardly and cuffed the old man on
the shoulder, the only way in which he dared show his
sympathy.

 "I promise sure that when you've a grandchild you shall see
it. If you cannot come to us, we'll bring it to you."

 They parted after that. Rona went to the banker's in the
Exchange, and Randall walked down College Wynd to search
in all the places he thought Dr. Cullen might be.

 The doctor's tiny office was locked, nor could he be found
at the Infirmary. Finally, in mid-morning, Randall stopped
outside the door of a classroom, high up under the eaves of
old Surgeon's Hall. The door was half open, and peering
through he could see the front row of

206 SWEAR BY APOLLO

young men busily writing in their notebooks. He recognised
a face here and there: Tam Earnshaw was squinting worse
than ever and would soon come to spectacles, no doubt;
John Craddock looked as if he had had too much to drink
the night before. He could not see the lecture platform, but
he could hear the high, nervous voice of the master, utter-
ing, as he usually did, the stalest of facts with a kind of
suppressed excitement.

 "There is another particular in which Boerhaave's doctrine
concerning the fluids appears to be imperfect and
unsatisfactory, and that is in his doctrine De Gl~ftinose
Spontaneo. The causes which he has assigned for it are by no
means probable, and the actual existence of it is seldom to
be proved. Some of the proofs adduced for the existence of
the plegna calides are manifestly founded on a mistake. His
Generalia et incertne sedis has hardly any connection at all.
The titles Rheumatism, Hypochondriasia, and Hydrop follow
one another when he does not attempt any general data "

 Randall found he could not listen. He walked hastily to
the end of the dusty corridor and stood there at the tiny
window, looking out into the blue spring day. He knew what
he ought to do, right enough. If the English in
America and that was what must have been meant by
it had gone too far for l om Culpepper of Virginia, they
had gone too far for Randall Woodbury of Hampton Falls.
He, too, should leap abroad the fly coach for Glasgow. He,
too, should take passage home. But he had given his word
to marry Margery. He had given Margery his love. How was
it that within one poor addled brain the private man and the
public man must be so bitterly at war? He waited there,
trying to calm himself, but he might as well have tried to
calm a storm at sea.

 When the students trooped out of the classroom, Randall
waited until they had all gone pounding downstairs. Then he
walked to the doorway and went in. Dr. Cullen sat back at
the preceptor's desk, fiddling with his notes and waiting for
the next class to gather. No detail of him had changed, so
far as Randall could tell. He remembered the pointed nose,
bushy white wig, and hunched shoulders under the flowing
gown. The doctor started at him as if he were a small boy
called for a reprimand. He spoke in his usual quick
impatient tones.

"Well, sir?"

 Randall hesitated, trying to decide on the best approach.
Finally he said, "Do you remember me, Dr. Cullen?"

The doctor peered closer.

 "Ah, yes. The New Hampshire lad. Why are ye not gone,
sir, after your countrymen i"

"I went away nearly a year ago," Randall reminded him. "I
went away

By Health and All-heal coy

with the Laird of Rona, do you remember to his policies to
inoculate the people there."

 "Ah, yes. I talked with Rona last week. We shared a fish
dinner in Anchor Close. He told me an unlikely tale."

 The doctor's face had turned scornful and angry. Randall
could not understand why, but he decided to move slowly.

"What did Rona tell you?"

 "He told me that ye reported through his daughter's letters
some nonsense of a swift paralysis striking young children."

 Randall felt relieved that the doctor already knew, but his
relief did not last, for the older man kept relentlessly on.

 "I didna' tell him, for it would outrage the ethics of the
profession, but I tell ye, sir, I consider it a false report and
a grievous perversion of truth. Ye are guilty, either of
stupidity or maliciousness. Young children do not become
paralysed! They are not susceptible thereto. Paralysis is the
result of age or gross injury! Otherwise " and he shook his
head, " I have never heard of such a thing!"

 Randall had not expected this senseless rebuff. He stared
at the doctor for a moment, then he felt a c old anger rising
within him.

 "Whether you have heard of it or not, it has happened so,"
he said. "The children cannot move their legs or walk. I wish
that you could come through 13allyrhinn with me, and see
them Iying there!"

 Dr. Cullen turned his eyes away, picked up a scrap of
paper from his desk, and began to shred it with long,
nervous fingers. After a moment he replied, "Ye were always
a good student, sir, and I took ye for an honest man. A bit
impatient and unappreciative of theory; too quick to take the
shortest way; but decisive, and well-trained, and of a certain
skill, of a great human sympathy."

"Thank you, sir," said Randall, taken by surprise again.

 "What I heard of the matter from my old friend is hardly
credible, but suppose ye tell it to me in your own way. How
did the sickness fall?"

 This was what Randall had been waiting for, and his words
began tumbling over themselves they poured so fast out of
his mouth. He told of the slow onset of the disease, the week
of colds and lamenesses, then the terrible night when he had
been called to the deathbed of Christie's children.

 "And nearly a score are lying there still, sir. Their fever has
gone, and much of their pain, but they cannot move without
the help of others, no more than puppets. I cannot cure
them by standing at their bedsides and telling them the thing
has never happened before."

"There is a doctor in London," answered Dr. Cullen slowly,
"who has

208 s w L A R B Y A P O L L O

observed a slow debility coming on young children over a
period of months that renders their limbs inert and flaccid.
But he reported no deaths and no raging fevers, such as ye
describe."

"Has he found a cure?'' asked Randall.

 Dr. Cullen shook his head. "No. Some of the children were
able to walk later, supported in iron frames."

"Oh, God!" Randall cri'dout.

 "Hush, lad," said the older man, not unkindly. "A doctor
mustna' be too greatly affected with human sympathy. I ha'
always maintained that the cures will be found in the causes.
Have ye any theory as to what brought the thing about?'

 "There divas no uncommon weather," said Randall slowly,
"and no unwholesomeness of food, either plant, or animal,
or fish from the sea. Food was scanty, indeed, and it was a
cold wet season, but I am told it is always so there at that
time of year. It seems that it must have come with some
boatload of strangers. Ships often put in there to trade or fill
their kegs with fresh water. It is on the main sea road from
Ireland to the North."

Dr. Cullen nodded, awl Randall went on.

 "I remember reading when I was here at the College of a
doctor in Vienna some years ago l'lenciz was his name, or
some such foreign thing. He maintained that all epidemic
diseases are caused by specific

.. . . ..

vmg microcosms

Dr. Cullen gave a rude sound and spat on the floor of the
classroom.

 "How could he get such evidence save through a
microscope. Ye know I do not trust microscopes "

"I remember you lectured against them, Dr. Cullen.'

 More and more baffled by the doctor's replies, Randall
paced back and forth in front of the desk. If I were a
woman, I'd be wringing my hands, he told himself inwardly.
Aloud, he said, "Then you cannot advise me how to treat the
children, sir. You can recommend nothing but iron frames
strapped for all their lives about them?"

"I ha' heard of no other thing."

 "Thank you, sir, for the benefit of your vast knowledge,"
said Randall bitterly. He turned to leave. Then he
remembered there was still another question.

 "Dr. Cullen, forgive my rudeness. I have brought one more
matter to trouble you."

 "I am listening to ye because it is my duty," snapped the
doctor. "It surely isna' a pleasure to one. What is this other
matter?"

 "On Rona there is a girl and her mother, too afflicted
with the second sight "

        By Health and All-heal 209

 "What o' that? I ha' heard o' many such in my time. Seers
be as common in the Highlands as scratched hands in
blackberry time. Why do ye tell it to me?"

 "I thought it might be a thing that I thought there might
be a cure for it in medicine."

 "Ye wax preposterous, sir. The second sight is no matter
for doctors. Do ye find it in my Nosology?"

"No. It is not in your Nosology."

"Dinna' ye realize that every known disease is recorded
there?"

 "I can neither affirm nor deny. It well may be. You are
learned enough. I do not know. It seemed to me that the
sight might be a disease of the nerves or brain. I thought I
would ask "

 Dr. Cullen stood up and began to pace the room with
short nenous strides.

 "The second sight is a gross superstition, and its
practitioners should be banished out of Scotland. lead, ye
have a curious mind, but ye set it in the wrong way. If ye
were as quick to observe what wiser men ha' written down
as ye are to make ill and addle-paled investigations o' your
own "

 Randall flushed. He felt all his determination and courage
draining away like blood from a tapped vein. He would get
no good here. He would have to go back to Rona and
struggle with his problems alone. He could bring with him
no help for the children, no help for Ellen to recompense
her for his own stupid and cruel wrongdoing. He turned
again to the stairs, but the doctor laid a hand on his arm.
His voice quavered slightly, and his eyes Hashed with a
sudden light.

 "Ye are going back to the island? Ye'll continue to
practice medicine there?"

"For a month or two. Then I had meant to return here to
school."

 "Then, if ye are to be there, treating such mighty ills with
no sworn doctor to guide and advise ye, to keep ye from
doing your patients wrong  I think it is best that ye
swear "

"Swear?"

 "That ye take the great Oath!" cried Dr. Cullen
impatiently, "the oath of all our profession. The Oath of
Hippocrates! 'Tis not given here to our doctors til] they
complete the work o' the school. But ye are there alone, and
inclined to experiment and improvise. It may hold ye true to
established practice if ye swear. Stand in front o' me, sir."

 Standing in the dusty classroom at the top of Surgeon's
Hall, Randall faced the world-famous Scottish doctor and
repeated the ancient oath. But his mind was busy with a
half-forgotten thing. He was remembering a winter night in
Hampton Falls, bitter cold, with wind

210 SWEAR BY APOLLO

howling down the chimney and snow drifting under the door.
Two calls had come for his father; a man with a broken leg
out Seabrook way, and a child fighting for breath in a
farmhouse on the Kensington road. He was scarcely more
than a boy, but he had been brought up in the practice of
medicine. It was then that his father had sent him on his first
case alone. But before he had gone, his father had made him
stand as he was standing now stand and swear.

 "I swear by Apollo, the physician, and Aesculapius, and
Health, and All-heal, and the gods and goddesses, that,
according to my ability and judgment, ] will keep this Oath....

 "I will follow that system of regimen which, according to
my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my
patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and
mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if
asked, nor suggest any such counsel " He could not re-
member the whole oath, he had been so young, it had been
so long ago. But so far there was no guilt against him. He
had followed it well. He continued to repeat after Dr.
Cullen.

 "With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and
practice my Art." Well, he had done that, too, for the most
part. Except for the one time

 "Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the
benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act
of mischief and corruption; and, further, from the seduction
of females !"

 Randall did not hear any more that Dr. Cullen said. He
must have mouthed it over, but only the final phrases beat
at his eardrums hard enough to come through.

 " While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it
be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art,
respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and
violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot."

 Dr. Cullen stepped back, a smile on his lean face. "That'll
guide ye, lad. Keep it before ye, when ye're inclined to be
rash and do the unfamiliar thing."

"Thank you, sir," muttered Randall, "thank you for all."

  He bolted down the stairs and into the street. It was
himself he was running from, himself and his sin, but he
knew it was no use. He could never be free of them, never
escape from what he had done. He slowed down as he
reached the High Street on the way to Rowan Tree Wynd,
walked with his head hanging, not seeing the shop windows
or the passers-by. How true, he thought, was the old proverb,
that when it rains, it pours; and when it pours, it does not
bring down sweet rain, but blood, and hail, and fire. The
guilt over his adventure with Ellen

By Health and All-heal 21I

had been a dull, slow, heavy pain, but now he was not only
guilty of physical uncleanliness; he was guilty of breaking a
high and holy oath. How strange that he had never thought
of it before! Never remembered the vows of that winter
night in his boyhood that had defined forever what he must
and must not do.

 "From the seduction of any female " And in the guise of
her physician!

 Now the pain of his guilt was a living, moving torment that
pricked him not unlike the devils with pitchforks in the old
moral tales of long ago.

 Turning into the chilly shadows of Rowan Tree Wynd,
dark and cold even in the bright May daytime, he looked up
between the high walls at the narrow strip of blue sky.

 "Apollo, forgive me," he muttered. "By Health and
All-heal, I've done the worst I can! I've been a liar, a knave,
and a fool!"

 They were all evil companions to have about him, but he
felt with ever increasing anguish that the liar was the worst
of the three.

                    xx
       A Biffen Baa Jua,ge o' Women

AroNs by the door of her mother's house in the May
morning, Ellen looked out at the blue tide flooding over the
narrow sand. The tang of smoke troubled her nostrils, for up
on the moors the men were burning the heather, as they did
about this time every spring. She would remember this
spring, she thought, when she had forgotten all the years that
went before. She held her shawl about her in spite of the
warm bright weather, and gave a sharp look up and down
the road that wound through the clachan. No one seemed to
be astir in Ballyrhinn but herself and the gulls, and the old
dog on MacNayr's doorstep worrying disconsolately at a
marrowbone. The women would be out on the machair, she
thought, sowing beer-barley, or at home minding the sick
children. There would be none to watch her and gossip at
the way her body had begun to curve outward against the
shawl.

 It was a long time back that she had felt the first
quickening, the flutter within her like the beating wings of a
bird trapped in the hand. Since then she had bided indoors
during the daytime, climbing up Ardmory every night to keep
her usual vigil, and creeping down before the sunrise of each
new day. She had not told her mother, but she was sure
Andra knew. Ellen did not care. Soon everyone would know.
Just as soon as ever Randall Woodbury came back from
Edinburgh.

 With a quiet little smile of triumph, she picked up a tin
pail that stood by the door and started toward the cockle
bed. How would he feel when he heard she carried his child,
Ellen wondered. Well, no matter how he felt, he could do
only the one thing. Master Riddoch and the Kirk would see
that he did only the one thing. What would Margery do)
Margery with her silks and laces, her feathered hats and
high-heeled shoes, and all her wonderful well-bred
things and right under her nose Ellen had stolen her lo
away Ellen Deveron, the cattle girl!

 Ellen knelt clumsily on the flat shiny leaves of scurvy grass
that grew almost to the water's edge, but when she leaned
over the wet tide pools

A Bitter clad Judge o' Wonted zl3

to gather salmon bait as she meant to do, her head throbbed,
and she felt again the fluttering in her side. So she put the
pail down and sat beside it, idly sat there, thinking her own
thoughts and watching the red and brown sails beat in from
the sea.

  She had taken her pleasure for more years than one would
believe of a lass so young, taken it and remained sterile as
a snowdrift all the while. Or perhaps not quite sterile, for
she possessed more of her mother's knowledge of potions
than she would admit, if anyone put the question to her
mouth. Nothing violent and dangerous and wicked, of
course. Only a tea of tansy and juniper when her body did
not respond readily to the moon. She had never needed nor
employed stronger measures, but the time had come when
she had decided to let even those measures go. She was with
child by her own choice, and she had her own reasons for
that.

  As she sat there in the grasses watching the sea, she heard
the approach of heavy footsteps and turned her head.
Kenneth Crary strode forward and flung himself down, not
too close, but near enough for talk.

  "Ye look like a storm rack, Kenneth," she said. "Could ye
no win Margery back with the American gone?"

  "I dinna' know that I want her back," he retorted, scowling.
"Ellen, all can see ye've a child in ye. Ellen, is it mine?"

  Ellen picked up a blade of grass and drew it slowly
between her teeth before she answered him, waited a long
time, not sure what she wanted to say.

Finally she replied, "Why would ye think it might not be?"

  "Then !" Hi moved quickly toward her. "Then, Ellen, it is
mine! Ellen!"

  Ellen pulled herself to her feet and stood very erect,
almost flaunting the curves beneath the shawl.

"It dinna' master whose it be," she said. "It'll get Randall
Woodbury's

,,

name.

"Ellen !"

 "Go away from me," she hissed, staring at him till the
pleading in his eyes died away and they seemed to mirror the
fury in her own. He turned sharply from her and strode of
E, uttering a word Ellen did not choose to hear.

 Picking up her empty pail, her shawl draped demurely now,
she wandered along by the water side, further than she had
intended, to the crags below Rhinn House, gathering limpets
and mussels there. It was about mid-afternoon when,
straightening up from her task, she looked to sea, and the
sight she saw sent her hurriedly retracing her steps along the
shore. She reached the little wharf just as Tam MacVean
finished

zI4swr~An BY APo~o

helping Randall Woodbury and Comyn Rhinn to set their
baggage on the worn planking.

 "Welcome home, sir," she said to Rona, curtsying as best
she could. "You've been missed among us, and also the
doctor lad. 'Tis happy I am to see the return."

 "I've some ribbons for ye, Ellen," said Rona gruffly, "but
they're shut away in my bag. There'll be gifts for all, and a
feasting, verra' soon."

 "Thank you, sir, you were always kind to me," Ellen
answered, her head bent so that he could not see the scorn
in her eyes. "Did you say a feasting?"

 "Aye. 'Tis known my daughter's betrothed, but we've no yet
feasted her well. We shall do it as soon as Leitis can
prepare. Tell me, how are the bairns that ailed? Are they
well?"

 Ellen shook her head. "'Tis my mother's opinion they'll
never need shoes again," she said. Then she looked at
Randall.

 Her first thought was that he must have been ill seasick,
maybe, all the way from Edinburgh. His face was ravaged,
and his grey eyes dark with suffering.. Perhaps it was not
seasickness; perhaps he, too, was smitten like Colin with the
terrible creeping disease that stopped the breath. Perhaps
she should fling herself on him quickly and point out his duty
while he was still well enough to fulfill her plan. For indeed,
he looked sick enough to die and find death welcome.

 She took a tentative step toward him. "You look like
Edinburgh had no agreed with you," she said.

 He gave her a short answer. "'Tis not the fault of
Edinburgh," he muttered. He picked up a small canvas
knapsack and strode ahead of Rona up the hill.

 Ellen stared after him reflectively, the taste of the grass
blade she had been chewing nervously still sour in her
mouth. Then she went home, there being nothing else for
her to do.

 The feasting took Leitis more than a week to prepare for,
even though she had Janet and Agnes Gillander to help in
the kitchen. Ellen kept to the fireside and the shieling hut,
for she had chosen the moment to reveal her plight to
Ballyrhinn, and she knew that it must be close at hand.
Randall did not come to her with any suggestions for curing
the sight that he might have discovered in Edinburgh, and
she did not seek him out to reveal her case in private with
little discord. That was not Ellen's plan.

 Finally Sim brought the word from door to door through
the clachan that all were to sup that night at Rhinn House
in honor of the American doctor and Miss Margery.

As Ellen preened herself before the small gilt-framed mirror
that had

A Bitter Bad Judge o' IVomen ~T5

been a birthday present from the laird's daughter, she was
aware that her mother watched her with somber eyes.
Taking no notice, or seeming not to, she fastened the belt of
her green wool gown high under her breasts so that the
fabric billowed out, hiding the swollen waistline below. Then
she drew her shawl about her and asked in commonplace
tones, "Are ye ready, Mother?"

 Andra did not rise immediately from her stool by the fire.
Instead she asked, her voice harsh with apprehension, "Ellen,
do you think I don't know what's going on? What do you
mean to do?"

 Ellen looked her mother up and down and answered with
a toss of her shoulders. `'Whatever I do, it's no butter off
your bread, is it?"

But Andra kept on. "Tell me, is Schoolmaster to blame?"

Ellen narrowed her eyes. "Why do ye say Schoolmaster?"

"He comes to you by night. I have seen him so."

  Ellen smiled coldly. "If ye know so much by yourself," she
said, "ye've no need asking me." She stepped through the
doorway and started off toward Rhinn I louse. Andra sighed,
heaped a dank, slow-burning sod on the fire, and followed,
but not close enough to overtake her daughter.

  It was a wann evening with stars and a crescent moon in
a purple sky and scarce wind enough to stir the leaves of the
rhododendrons and clipped yews by the terrace wall. Most
of the crofters were there ahead of her, Ellen found, though
not so great a company as would have alp peered at a like
occasion a year ago. Too many of the women were at home
minding the children who could not stir forth for any
feasting, and the handful of children able to turn out were
already spoiled and shrill from being made too much of
because there were too few of them left living any more.

  Leitis had made no attempt to set places, but had loaded
the great table with food of such a sort as everyone could
pick up in his fingers and carry away to eat on the terrace or
the broad stairs, the small parlors or the wide hall; oysters,
Pease porridge in earthen cups, haggis, roast chicken and
goose, mutton collops, scones, and all manner of cakes and
fruit pies.

  "Ye're late for the blessing, Ellen," Tam Darran said, as
she came up to where he stood with Ailis, his wife, at the
edge of the crowd drawn around Sim and the whiskey barrel.

  "I'll get no blessing here," Ellen murmured under her
breath. Aloud she said, "There's the laird yonder, pouring
claret, but where be the doctor and Miss l\largery?"

  Tam glanced about him. "They were here a moment back,"
he answered. "She looks bonny tonight. She's the fairest lass
was ever seen on Rona, is Miss Margery."

216 SWEAR BY APOLLO

He and Ailis smiled understandingly at each other.

 "Her mother was fairer," said Widow Gillander, coming by
with a tray of sweetmeats. "She married out of her kind,
too Gillian MacNeill."

 "Peace to her dust then," said Tam, taking a long drink
from the glass of whiskey in his hand.

 "If ye want Margery," said Ailis, smiling at Ellen, "she went
to the terrace wi' the doctor lad. She looked happy as never
so."

"How did he look?" asked Ellen slyly.

 Ailis frowned. "Well enough," she said after a moment. "I
think Edinburgh no agreed wi' his constitution. I am sure it
would not wi' mine."

 Ellen drifted away from the Darrans, talking with one little
group and then another. She saw Andra come in and go up
to Leitis who stood in the kitchen doorway. 'Ihe laird went
over to the two women and offered them claret. Leitis took
the glass and sipped it slowly, but Andra shook her head.
Rona slapped her affectionately between the shoulders,
drank the wine himself, and crossed the room to a row of
high-backed chairs against the wall. The chairs were full of
finely dressed folk, land owners from Harris and Lewis,
maybe from as far off as Skye, all friends of Margery and
her father, Ellen surmised. She turned her head at a sound
from the far end of the room. The sound was the scraping
of Ewen Gow's fiddle, and Johnny Dweeney's bagpipes
joined it almost immediately in a dance tune. It was a round
dance, and soon the crofters had formed in circles of eight
and were turning about sunwise, in time to the high-pitched
music of the two men. Everyone who had been on the
terraces tried to come crowding through the door at once,
eager to join the sport inside. Ellen refused to allow herself
to be pulled into one of the circles. She withdrew to the
edge of the throng and gazed about the room, deciding
where would be the most conspicuous place for her to make
her disclosure. Just in front of the fireplace would be best,
she thought, and she took her way there slowly, sat down on
a bench and watched the dancers, waiting her time.

 Randall and Margery came in together, Margery in a white
dress of some thin Boating material that reminded Ellen of
the mists that gathered on Ardmory after the sun went
down. She was leaning on Randall's arm, smiling up into his
eyes. Randall was not smiling. His dark broadcloth coat
made his face look paler than it had the morning he
returned from Edinburgh, and that was pale enough. He had
his hand over Margery's, and stood as close to her as he
could without an actual embrace. He looked devoted, but he
did not look happy. One of the circles opened to admit
them. Then the music changed. Over the sound of his own
fiddle, Ewen Gow lifted his full, rich voice.

 A Bitter Bad Judge o'Wr~men     ,17

"Green sleeves and pudding pies, Tell me where my mistress lies,
And I'll be with her before she rise  Fiddle and a' together."

Soon everyone was singing.

 Then the dance formation broke up, and folk began
drifting back to the replenished table. Suddenly at a sign
from the laird, Johnny blew one terrible wailing blast on the
pipes and let them grow still. Talking and laughing stopped,
and Rona lifted his voice in the silent hall.

 "Friends, I think ye're all supplied now, with cup in hand,
and I ask ye to drink to the marriage o' my daughter,
Margery, to Randall Woodbury o' Hampton Falls!"

 Ellen crouched tensely by the fire and watched Randall
and Margery step forth and stand together, smiling all about
them at the rush of cheers, the glasses lifted high.

 It was Ellen's moment now. She jumped to her feet and
slipped her belt so that it circled below her waist rather than
above, catching the fabric of her dress in a way that made
her condition plain. Then she gave a shrill, hysteric cry.

"I canna' endure it! I can endure no more!"

 Sure now that all eyes had observed her, she crumpled
down on the bench again. All heads turned her way, but
there rose no sound except for a muffled gasp here and
there. Margery was the first who spoke.

 "Is it the sight, Ellen?" she cried, making her way swiftly
through the crowd to the cattle maid's side, with Randall
and her father close behind her.

 "No," moaned Ellen, stumbling to her feet again so
everyone could see her swollen body. "'Tis no the sight! 'Tis
as I said, I'll endure no more!"

 "I'll talk to ye in private, girl," said Rona sharply. "Get to
my study! Ye mar the feasting!"

 Ellen stared boldly back at him. "No," she said. "I'll no be
thrust aside, sir. I been wronged, as all can see, and it'll no
be righted in your study. Ye didna' do the harm, and ye
canna' set it straight."

 Randall, she noted with satisfaction, had turned as white
as Margery's gown.

 The laird made a sputtering noise like a wet flame, and all
the fine guests and the people of Rona waited, hushed and
still.

Margery spoke again, tremulously.

 "Yes, you have been wronged, Ellen, and whoever has
done it shall set the matter right. I promise you that my
father shall see he sets the

ZI8 SWElAR BY APOr r o

matter right. But now-will you not drink to my wedding with
the others?"

 "No, I willna' drink to your wedding," shrilled Ellen, "when
'tis myself, not ye, should be bride to him " and she
mimicked Rona, "to Randall Woodbury o' Hampton Falls."

 Margery was white now, and her eyes widened and stared
out of her tense face. It was as if the room was empty of all
others, and only the two girls there.

"Are you telling me that Randall ? Are you saying that
he ?"

 "Yes, it was he." Ellen bent her head and began to weep
into her handkerchief. Stealing a quick glance over the edge
of it, she watched Margery turn a stricken look toward
Randall. The look on his face caused the laird's daughter to
put her hand before her eyes. Ellen could see her mother,
too, horror plain on her face, still standing with Leitis by the
kitchen door. Kenneth loomed tall in the midst of the crowd,
and necks were thrust out like those of silly, staring geese all
about him. Kenneth looked as if he would like to take her
in his hands and break her in two, and she was grateful for
all the craning, curious folk between them.

Suddenly she heard Margery's voice lift again.

 "I bid you all good night," said the laird's daughter steadily.
"There will be no more songs and feasting."

 Then Ellen heard the tap of Margery's silver slipper heels
and raised her head. She watched the girl walk proudly from
the room. Straight up the staircase went Margery, not once
looking back at the disordered scene behind her.

Then Rona lifted his own voice.

"Ye heard my daughter!"

 He said no more, but he had no need to. People were
hastening away now, even the strangers in their fine clothes,
whose boats were doubtless waiting. It took only a few
moments to clear the hall and leave the three of them alone.

 When Rona spoke again, his voice was low, but with a
note of rising storm in it.

 "Why did ye no give her the lie, lad? Give her the lie in
front o' my daughter?"

 "I do not know if it be a lie," said Randall harshly, staring
at a tapestry on the far wall.

"It could be your balm she's carrying?"

"It could be."

 Ellen stood sniveling, but they talked on as if she were not
there, with such a terrible intensity in their manner that she
dared not interrupt them.

     A Bitter Ball Judge o' Worsen dig

Rona's voice was full of stony anger as he turned on the
younger man. "So ye gi'ed yourself to that one, and shamed
my lass before her people?"

 "'Tis no shame to your lass, sir," said Randall Woodbury.
"'Tis I that am shameful. I been a knave and a fool, and I
ought to shoot myself in the head for it."

 Suddenly the stiffness of angel left the laird, and his face
turned gray, and he looked tired, and old, and shaky.

 "Dinna' talk o' shooting! Some would say I should be the
one to talk o' shooting or beat ye from my house but
naught would be helped by it. 'Twould no ease my lassie's
1 ain, and that's all I care for. I thought I warned ye o'
Ellen, but I didna' make it strong enough. No, ye're not a
knave or a fool, but ye're a bitter bad judge o' women, lad."

                    xX1
               Wan, Ted Wan

Srm nAD allowed herself seven days one day more than it
had taken God to make the world. All that while she sat in
her room with its white curtains blowing in the fresh wind
that came up from the sea, the scent of early summer
flowers rising from the terrace below. She had allowed no
one to come near her but Leitis with a tray and a whispered
murmur, "Oh dearie, dear!" Not her father, nor Kenneth, nor
Andra. No one else had tried to come. At first she had lain
on her bed weeping till her eyes were so washed with tears
that the whole world looked to be the color of nothing at all.
After a while she had ceased to weep, and sat there watching
the days move westward over the sea and the daisy fields,
the purple heather springing on the hill. At the end of seven
days, she told herself repeatedly, she must go downstairs, the
old, smiling Margery they would all recognize. Perhaps it
might take longer than that to compose herself, but until she
had done it, she would not go.

 In the first night of weeping she had imagined terrible
things while the very darkness seemed to hurt her like a
thorny cloak, wrapping all her body, from which she could
not twist away. Randall and her father were quarreling;
Randall had taken a boat for America; Randall would marry
Ellen out of hand. None of these things had come to pass.
She knew, for she had asked I.eitis while the old woman
hovered about, urging her to take broth that tasted like bog
water and bread that rasped her throat like sawdust when
she tried to force it down. All that first night while she wept,
she learned later, the two men, having finally got rid of
Ellen, remained shut up in her father's study. Soon after
daylight they had sent Leitis to fetch Andra, and she quickly
joined them there, but nobody knew what went on. Only
gradually, from words overheard as she served hot dishes at
the table, did Leitis come by the bits of information she
carried dolefully upstairs. Randall, it seemed, had made no
attempt to deny Ellen's charges. He would provide for her
and for the child, he said, but he meant to go at once to
Edinburgh, and he would

War, Red War '~l

not take her there, he would never take her home. Ellen
conveyed the message through her mother that she had sent
off a note to Master Riddoch, laying her case before the
Kirk. Then the two men at Rhinn House spent another
sleepless night, deciding what to do. Should Randall leave
immediately and provide for Ellen through the laird's good
offices, or should he stay till the minister came and face the
matter out? Randall had decided to stay.

  Margery could not understand his decision, nor much that
had led up to it. What had gone on between him and Ellen,
she wondered, except the irrevocable thing? Had he taken
Ellen with love, or only with desire? If it were with desire,
she could understand. Not understand, perhaps, but forgive.
After all, she had grown up in Paris. She had seen much
evidence before this of the besetting weakness of man. But
if he had taken Ellen with love! And Ellen what had been
her part in the matter? Margery thought she knew, but she
tried to give the cattle maid the benefit of honest doubt, and
failed therein. Why had Ellen chosen to make her outcry in
public, to shame her lover and her friend before all? She
remembered how the girl had stood there by the great
hearth, triumphant in her disgrace.

  Well it had happened, and it was over, she thought, and
what would become of them now? Randall said he would not
marry Ellen, but of that Margery could not feel sure. She
had seen the power of the Kirk before, and she knew what
Master Riddoch would say. Marry Ellen or not, he could not
marry her, Margery. Not while he had marred their betrothal
by getting another girl with child! Her world would not ac-
cept it, and neither would she. But did he still want to marry
her? Had he ever wanted to marry her? He had not come to
comfort her, but then, she had not expected him to come.
And for herself, how did she feel? In a week's time she
could be in Spain or France, on her way to the Stuarts in
Rome. Her father would take her abroad, if she asked him,
she knew. But a MacNeill of Barra could not run away.

  So her mind moved circle-wise in its own misery until the
eighth morning. Then she rose, combed her hair in curls, put
on a sea-shell colored dress and went downstairs to the hall.
Kenneth and Randall sat facing each other across a platter
of bacon and eggs on the wide table. She walked steadily
toward them over the stone floor, just as if the sky had not
fallen and the whole world dissolved away, her head up and
her eyes smiling.

"Good morning," she said.

  But neither of them answered her, looked her way, or
seemed to know she was there. She was about to speak again
and then checked herself, staring at the two men, realising
suddenly that they crouched there like

Z2Z SWEAR BY APOLLO

dogs ready to spring forward in savage encounter. Kenneth's
head and shoulders jutted ahead of his body, and Randall sat
straight, one fist doubled and resting lightly in the palm of
the other hand, his eyes watchful. Surprisingly, he was the
first to speak.

 "Go on, say it," he snapped. "You've looked it at me all the
week. Say I'm a bastard, and have done!"

 Kenneth started to answer him, choked on his own
emotion, cleared his throat, and tried it over.

 "Ye've gone further," he growled, "than can be eased wi'a
bit o' name calling."

 "What do you want pistols at fifty paces?" demanded
Randall. His voice had a jeering quality.

 "I want naught but these," said Kenneth heavily, looking
down at his thick hands clenched before him on the table.

 Randall rose and shoved his chair away. "On the headland,
I suppose? And one of us to come back before breakfast
gets cold? Only one of us!"

"The headland's a brew choice," said Kenneth harshly.

  Randall shrugged his shoulders and turned toward the
door. Margery gave a little gasp, the only sound she was able
to make just then, but nobody heard her. She could see in
her mind the headland, and far below it the grey tides
flooding up from Ireland, pounding on the sharp and cruel
stones. She tried again, but she could not utter a sound. How
was it that two men should go out to fight to the death on
such a morning, out of a room bright with sunlight, full of
the homely smells of peat smoke and crisp bacon!

  Randall turned suddenly. "Kenneth, lad," he said, in quiet
tones, but with no tremor or hint of weakness, "maybe,
before we go 'tis best we settle what we're fighting over.
For I swear, I do not know.H

  Kenneth's eyes stared fiercely from beneath their craggy
brows. "If ye dinna' know what ye're fighting for, I'll show ye
soon."

  "Oh I know what I'm fighting for. I'm fighting to save my
skin," said Randall evenly, "because I've a fondness for it.
But what are you fighting for, sir?"

  "I be fighting because ye come here and wronged a lassie,"
rumbled the Highlander.

  "Aye, I've done that, God help me. But not a lass that was
anything to Kenneth Crary. Ellen's not your sweetheart or
your sister. Are you out to defend the honor of every maid
in Scotland?"

  Kenneth's cheeks turned a dark red. He bent his glance
downward, not meeting Randall's eyes, and thrust his
clenched fists into the pockets of his tartan breeches.

             War, Red War 223

 "She's a lass o'the clachan," he muttered. "There's no man
in her household to make ye pay for what ye done."

 "She's a tenant of the Laird of Rona," answered Randall
smoothly. "The laird takes care of his tenants. He will see
she's paid her due. But I'm surprised at you, sir. 'Twas Miss
Margery you were wooing, and so was I, and now L've
disqualified myself by my own folly and left you a free field
there. You should be drinking me a toast and giving me the
high hand of gratitude. I cannot see why you want to fight."

 Kenneth muttered deep in his throat. Then he lunged
forward. "By God, I'll fight when I choose, with no
explaining," he blustered.

Randall lowered one shoulder and thrust it forward, put his
fists up.

 "Kenneth!" Margery heard herself crying sharply.
"Kenneth why are you fighting? You will tell me!"

 The schoolmaster stopped then, his boot soles grating on
the stone floor, and swung sharply round.

 "Kenneth," she said calmly, staring into his distorted face
and angry blue eyes, "I know why you arc fighting." Suddenly,
inevitably she did know, wondered that she had not known
before, the way things were with him. She was but dimly
aware of Randall watching in the background. Her attention
was all for the other man, the man who had insisted so
stubbornly that she take him for her husband. He made a
gruff sound of surprise and dismay, but she kept relentlessly
on.

 "You are fighting Randall for what he did to Ellen,
because it is Ellen you love. You hate him so because "

 "I hate him because he come here strutting and thinking to
have the pair o' ye," muttered the Highlander. "That he
would ha' done, had he no cooked his own goose, if Ellen
hadna' been so smart to trip him, had "

 "Strutting and thinking to have the pair of us!" cried
Margery, her own anger flaring. "And who's to say ye did not
think to do the same? Will you tell me that you love me and
not Ellen, Kenneth Crary? Will you look me in the eye and
tell me so?"

 Kenneth tried. She watched him, suffering for him,
suffering almost as much as he; watched the convulsive
movements in his throat as he swallowed, watched his tongue
wetting his stiff lips, his eyes fixed on her, the fire in them
slowly dying into dull shade.

 After a brief struggle he hung his head. "I canna' lie to ye,
lass," he whispered painfully, "I ha' loved Ellen long, God
pity me!" He stumbled from the room as if his bones were
hardly able to carry his limp flesh away.

Margery stood staring at Randall.

"Where where is Father?" she asked him faintly.

224 SWEAR BY APOLLO

 "He's gone down to fetch the post from Tam MacVean,"
said Randall steadily. "How do you feel, Margery? I'm sorry
you had to come on us fighting so. I guess 'tis the end of
Schoolmaster. You were right in all you said to him. But I
wonder now what you will say to me "

 "Randall I I want you to know that I am not angry. I
do not think it was your fault. It was something that came
to be."

 Still she could not look at him. She heard his voice
replying, tightly controlled, but she could sense the hurt and
despair in it.

"I am glad you are not angry. You have a right to be so."

 "No. No, I do not have a right. Did it happen after you
were promised to me?"

 "No. It was before that And it was only the once. You
must believe it was only the once, Margery."

 The dreadful stiffness had gone out of his voice, and there
was only pleading there.

 "If you say it was only the once, I will believe it was that.
Have you " and then she looked at him and smiled weakly,
and saw him smiling weakly back " have you no excuse,
Randall? Most men would have an excuse, I think."

"None but the excuse of being a fool. Will you take that,
Margery?"

"Yes, I will take that," she said.

 They were staring at each other now, deeply and somberly,
and all smiles gone. She had accepted his word, but the
acceptance did not put them back on the old footing again.
Both of them tacitly understood that could never be.

 "I could say that Ellen tempted me," he went on. "But
then, I have wronged Ellen more than the one way. I went
to her as her doctor. It was as that I sought her out. And
where did my healing lead?"

 "It led to ill for both of you," said Margery. "For all of
us " she caught her breath.

 "Margery, I broke a great oath when I went in to her a
greater oath than my pledge to you. An oath which is held
among doctors to be the greatest that any man has taken."

 The anguish in his voice sounded more terrible to her
because of his iron control over it. But she was bewildered,
frightened. What was to come now?

"Is there a greater oath than a man's pledge to a woman?"

 "Yes. There is a greater oath than that. I swore the oath
of the physician. I swore by Health and All-heal! I swore by
Apollo!"

 "Why should you swear by Apollo? He was a god of the
old heathen Greeks. We swear by the Bible, when we
swear."

His eyes smiled at her, but his mouth remained a hard line.

             War, Red War 225

  "And you were the one who held fast by old time and told
me I was a new man from a new country and could not
understand tradition. I agreed with you then, but I had
forgotten. Before the MacNeills came out of Scythia if it
was there they came from we doctors swore by Apollo as
we still swear!"

  After a moment she went on, speaking brokenly.
"So what is this great oath you swore by Apollo? What is
it to you and Ellen and me?"

  "I swore to lead my life in purity and holiness and so
practice my art. To abstain from the seduction of any female
that was a patient of mine. Twice I have sworn it. And you
see how well I have done! Margery, I am no fit doctor! I
shall never practice medicine again!"

  "That hurts you," she said wonderingly, her eyes fixed upon
him. "Of course it would. But it hurts you more than losing
me, I think. I shall never understand the ways of a man."

  "Margery," he said, with a gentleness in his voice that was
almost a caress, "you understand so much when you admit
you do not understand them."

  She clasped her hands twisting the fingers in and out
nervously. There was so much to be said, and at any
moment Kenneth and her father might come up the hill.

  "Will it not make it all right for you to be a doctor if
you marry Ellen? Will you be forgiven for breaking your
oath then?"

"I shall not marry Ellen," he said stonily.

"Why?"

  "I do not love her. She does not love me. There was
between us  only such as I would not speak of. I was not
the first to come to her so. If, as your father thinks, she is
common ! No, I cannot marry Ellen. But there is the child.
How can I abandon my child if it be my child  Margery?
When I have none and never will have, now?"

  "Why can you not father a child later on? You will find
some other woman to wed when this is all past and blown
by."

"You think I would want another woman after knowing
you?"

"You wanted Ellen after knowing me."

  "No, I did not want Ellen. I wanted love from a woman.
But I waited too long I waited too long to be sure. It was
not Ellen, I think. It was not I. It was the devils in us that
had their way."

  Oh, thought Margery feeling herself almost dissolve with
anguish, if you wanted love from a woman, why did you not
come to me, my dear, my dear! But he had come ha her, in
a sense, when he asked her to marry him, and she had
chosen to wait for guests and gifts and a fine wedding in
Carruber's Close at Midsummer! Oh it was her fault as
much as his! And then, suddenly, as a stricken swimmer will
catch at what

226 SWTIAI{ BY APOLLO

ever floats on the sea, her mind caught at the significance of
a thing that he had said.

 "You think there might be a doubt ? That it might not be
your child?"

 He answered bitterly. "It would be too great a favor to
hope that it is not mine. For that, I could pray to Apollo, if
I had not foresworn him. It is not a Christian's prayer. I do
not know. I shall watch carefully the time the child is born.
Perhaps Ellen will give it to me for money. Your father
thinks she will. I have not heard of her courting with any
other man."

"Neither have I."

 She heard the scrape ol her father's boots and the click of
the latch as he came in with a sheaf of letters in his hand.
He looked at her anxiously and she managed to smile at
him.

"Do ye feel better, laser Ye're pale yet," was all he said to
her.

 Then he handed the first letter to Randall, tore open the
second, and began to read it with gruff noises of dismay.

 "'Tis from Master Riddoch. He warns me to prepare to
assemble those residing on my policy. He is coming among
us shortly to hold Kirk Session to discipline one Ellen
Deveron and one Randall Woodbury for fornication and the
begetting of a bastard bairn. He warns me to prepare "

 Randall turned white. Margery struggled with herself to try
to comfort him. There was no anger in her now, not even
against Ellen, only weariness and dull, heavy pain.

 "Randall," she said. "You need not endure it. Why do you
not go away?"

 He shook his head, tearing his own letter slowly open with
his tense brown fingers. "No," he said. "I thought to do so.
'Twould be easy to do. But it's time to stand my ground and
take a man's punishment if I have to. In all this business, I
been little enough a man."

"He will make you marry Ellen, Randall."

 Randall shook his head. "No, he cannot make me do that,"
he said, and unfolded his letter on the table.

 Margery watched him as he read, with the thought in her
mind that, like her father's, this letter, too, must have come
from the minister. It was doubtless a summons to appear for
Kirk discipline. He read it slowly without lifting his eyes.

 "By God, they've done it," he muttered. "I didn't think they
would, but they have. It'll be hell to pay and no brimstone
ready now."

 He turned to the beginning and read it through again.
Then he straightened up and threw his head back. All the
shame and bitterness

War, Red War z27

seemed to have dropped away from him like a cloak let fall.
His eyes lighted, and there was a hard little smile on his
mouth.

 "Randall," she faltered, "what is it? Tell me! There's a
difference on you now!"

"A difference? Yes."

 He stared at her with a remote look in his eyes that told
her he was already up and gone. Then he held the letter out.
"Read it," he said grimly, "read it out loud. Your father
better know."

Margery took the letter in a trembling hand.

 "Dear Son," she read with a strained voice that did not
sound like her own. "It has fallen out as 1 feared, and blood
been spilled at last. The British shot eight men this week on
Lexington Green. There was further fighting in Concord, and
how many was killed or wounded, we do not know. When
Captain Burnham heard of it, he ordered the drumbeat to
call the town company, gave the men something to drink,
and started for there, thinking he might be needed. Marched
that day to Ipswich, twenty miles in an afternoon. Later we
heard he and his men were killed, but it was not so. Rumors
fly all about us like hornets now. Word came to Newburyport
that the town was threatened, and folk went fleeing across
the countryside so madly I doubt they have yet got home. It
seems certain we will go to the aid of Massachusetts,
whether with men as well as arms, I do not know. I have
been to meetings in Portsmouth and Exeter, and am told
that the men in the back country are all aflame and
companies forming there. I am tempted to say there is War
in America, but all I can say in truth is that the King's troops
have fired upon and killed our men. If my son were such as
needed to be told, I would tell him he is wanted here at
home "

 There was more, but she did not read it. She let the paper
fall from her grasp and lie unheeded on the floor. After a
moment Randall picked it up and crumpled it in his right
hand. Her father cleared his throat. In the silence after, she
heard the tall clock striking in the hall nine o'clock of a
bright June day.

"Ye're going home?" her father was asking.

 Randall nodded grimly. "Can you see," he asked, "how I
could do another thing?"

 The laird shook his head. "No. There be few young men in
your time or any other gets out of going to a war. It's
expected of ye."

 Randall's lips curved in a hard smile. "Well, Aristotle said
war is the only school for the surgeon, though I've heard he
himself didn't know a vein from an artery." Then the
harshness went out of his voice, and he spoke as evenly as if
he were asking the time of day.

"When will the preacher be here? Did his letter tell you?"

228 S W L] A R B Y A P O L L O

Rona unfolded the page again.

 "Thursday," he said, after consulting it for a moment. "He
says he'll be here Thursday, given a fair wind and a calm
sea."

 Randall nodded. "I'll stay then, and hear what he's got to
say to me. And then 1'11 be off. I won't use this as an
excuse to hide behind. I've done wrong, here, and I'll face
it out like a man. I'll let him shame me. I'll sit on a cutty
stool and stand up in a white sheet before the con-
gregation if that's what he wants. I'll give her everything he
tells me  except marriage. And then I'll be away."

"Randall," faltered Margery, "you're going home to
America?"

 "I'm hallway there now," he said, looking straight at her,
and there was no tenderness in his eyes. "You read it.
There's blood been spilled. They've killed our men."

 Margery turned and walked blindly from the room. She
was thinking what her father had once said of
Culloden that there was more died there than the men
who fell. More than the eight American lads, she thought
brokenly, had likely lost life and hope and future by that
blow on Lexington Green.

                   XXII
           Widen flee Pof Boils

SHIM THOUGHT it was the tramp of marching feet when
she first wakened enough to hear it, but as sleep fell away
and the smoke-blackened walls of her cottage stood out
clear, she knew it for the beat of the northeast rain. Andra
Deveron sighed and turned on her pallet so she could see
only the wall beside her. She was not yet ready to rise and
prepare breakfast, not ready to face her daughter Ellen on
Ellen's great day. The bedraggled hens roosting on the
beams at the far end of the room began to cluck sleepily,
and the smell of herrings and peat smoke hung in the grey
air, the smell of dank woolen, and wet shoe leather, and
mildewed clay. For four days now the folk of Ballyrhinn had
endured the slow, dreadful monotony of a summer rain. No
great winds or tempests, only a grey mist on the hilltops, a
flooding of the burn, a flat, slate-colored sea before their
doors, and the constant tap and drip on the roofs over them.
'Twas enough to drive a man mad, said old Johnny Dweeney,
and played slow and mournful on his bagpipes to shut the
sound away. 'Twas the tears of heaven for all the season's
dead, said Janet Gillander, packing her few trinkets, for she
would soon be going away to take service in Dunvegan, since
she could not bear the Isle of Rona any more with Colin
buried on the hill. Most folk had grumbled about this
untoward weather for the first day of it, and stayed indoors,
hoping that dawn would break with a clear sky, but Andra
had heard whispers among them last night that this must be
a sign and an omen, that this was no common rain.

 To her it was only a vague annoyance. She felt she had
passed beyond feeling anything more. She lay there in the
cold room, in the damp bed, and thought of that night in
Rona's study when she had faced the two men. She had
expected to find the sword's point between them when they
had summoned her there, but instead they had stood
together like father and son.

She had spoken only to Rona, not being able to take a
second look

230 SWEAR BY APOLLO

at the suffering in the young doctor's eyes, and Rona, only,
had spoken with her.

 "Old friend," he told her gruffly, "we're in woeful trouble.
Your lass has dinged my daughter down."

Andra replied as best she could, there being little to say.

 "Nobody could do that," she said. "Nobody could dishonor
Miss Margery. But she has been hurt, and I would give of
my flesh and blood if it were not so."

 "'Twas your flesh and blood did the business," he told her
bluntly. "Do ye ken if it be Ranclall's or no? What moneys
do ye ask?"

 "I do not know whose it be," she answered firmly. "Ellen
has walked with more than one, but I do not know how far
she has walked with any man. I will name no names," and
she thought of Kenneth. "What I do not know, I will not say.
We want no money from either of you."

"Ellen will want money," said Rona harshly.

Andra felt her face turn hot to the very line of her hair.

 "If she asks money, I will beat her," she said. "I will take
her away from here. But she is asking a worse thing, and I
cannot tell her nay."

"What is she asking?"

 "She is up in the schoolroom even now, where there are
quills and paper. She is writing to Master Riddoch to come
here that she may be purged of her sin before the Kirk. That
will mean doctor lad, too, must stand "

 Andra heard Ellen turn in her bed and gave a long sigh.
Her thoughts shifted from that night more than a week ago,
seemed to walk slowly back through grey veils of rain. Ellen
had indeed written to the minister, and he had sent word to
the laird of his coming amongst them to settle the matter.
This was the appointed day.

 She turned her own head, raised up on the pillow, and
looked across the room at her daughter. There in the thin,
shut face Iying in its tawny disordered hair, she seemed to
see her own youth, her own sin. She was back in Belfast, the
ugly town on the beautiful site, crossing the long arm of the
sea on the bridge with its twenty arches, walking along the
mall between the foul ditch and the fine old trees walking
always with a lad. Walking out to the bleach fields and the
daisy fields beyond. "I will name no names," she had told
Rona. In her own time, she had not always known the name.
But now, in her mind, she felt sure that Ellen knew.

 She started from her bed and cried out, "Ellen! Waken
and tell the truth! Tell the truth before all, today!"

 Ellen slowly opened ht r eyes, rubbed the sleep from them
and sat up, shivering, pulling the blankets round her.

          When the Pot Boils 231

 "What are ye yellyhooing for now?" she demanded. "Have
a vision, if ye will! Have a hundred visions! There's none
cares what ye see!"

Andra began to dress herself, but there was hot anger under
her calm.

 "Ellen," she went on, "you've trifled with the sight. It may
be evil or good, but 'tis put upon us from another world, and
we must bear it as we can. You have pretended it and
mocked me. I'll forgive you even that. But not another
thing."

 "What will ye not forgive me)" asked Ellen, yawning and
reaching for the fish spine to comb her hair.

 "You have come between two that love. That's sin enough
if you do it in truth and if you lie "

 "I told no lies," said Ellen smugly. "He has lain with me.
He admitted to it. He thinks to go free, but Master Riddoch
will no countenance sin."

 Andra put the kettle to boil, flung in barley and a handful
of leaks and kale.

 "I suppose you think Master Riddoch will make him wed
you," she taunted. "I saw the lad's face when you cried out
against him. I saw it afterward. I know he'd rather die."

 Ellen smiled and reached for her one silken thing, for
Margery's castoff dress. "He'll find it none so ill," she said.
"It'll go no worse in the bed of marriage than it went in
Puffin Town."

 "Oh, Ellen," said Andra wearily, "there were other lads.
And he belonged to her! Why could you no have let him
alone7"

 "Aye, there's other lads," said Ellen, "but none full of gold
from America. Did ye starch my white kerchief, Mother?
'Twill look well at the neck of this gown."

 In mid-morning they wrapped their heavy cloaks around
them and walked up through the clachan, still in the
drumming rain. The storm mist hid Caldune, and the sea
mist hid Ardmory, but the sea and the Long Island were as
sharp as on any clear, frosty day. Sails flecked the water here
and there, all driving toward the island, and Iver Gall told
them the reason, coming out ol: his house with his wife
beside him as they passed by.

 "'Tis all through the isles," he informed them, waving his
hand at the unwonted traffic on the flood tide, "in Barvas
Parish and beyond. The scandal o' what's happened here has
gone forth, and all as can get a boat to bear them will be
here to see."

 "But how can there be Kirk Session," demanded Lavan as
they toiled over the sodden grass and wet clay, "with only
Minister to preside and no elder to counsel him in ally"

Iver shook his head gloomily. "Aye, Lavan, all can see ye're
trying for a

23z Swr:AR BY APOLLo

way to let the lad off " he looked at Ellen, but she smiled
coldly and walked straight ahead, "--and I dinna' blame ye,
but 'tis no easy to do. Rona be the lone man o' elder's
power here, and he canna' sit in session when it touches so
close to his own. 'Twill be all Master Riddoch's say."

 In silence they walked on. It was less than a mile to Rhinn
House, but it seemed to Andra a; if she had been toiling
upward forever in the rain. The cart track was thronged, for
not a soul in Ballyrhinn had stayed at home, save those with
helpless bairns to mind, and once when she turned her head,
she could see strangers crowding out of their boats on the
wet, weedy shore.

 "Oh, why cannot the power come to me when I would have
it?" she cried in her heart, and then looked about, fearing
that she had cried aloud, but it was only the gulls screaming
above the sand. "I have never made a mock of the sight,
never cursed it, or sold it, or used it for my own ends. I have
taken it when it came! But now !"

 "Oh God, send me a sight of truth," she cried, and it was
as if a voice said within her, no stranger voice, but part of
herself, "What would you see, Andra?" And she made the
desperate answer, "How do I know what I would see?"

 She looked intently ahead of her, her eyes wide, her gaze
fixed, as old taischers had told her she must do when she
willed a vision to come. But she saw only the wet grass and
dripping trees, and the soaked, straggling crofters going
towards Rhinn House through pools of water standing on
the lawn. Borne along in their midst, now close to Ellen,
now losing sight of her, she entered the hall, no longer brave
with feasting and lighted torches, set for no festive season.
A fire blazed on the hearth, but there was no other lighting
save the narrow windows that let in the grey day. All the
furniture had been removed, except for the high backed
chairs and a lectern at one side. In the first chair sat the
Laird of Rona, his head up, staring straight ahead,
acknowledging none of his friends and tenantry. By his side
sat Margery in a somber dress, a thin smile on lips that were
a little too red. Nanny Dweeney caught Andra's arm.

 "Och, who'd ha' thought the poor lass would be here?
There's no need! Where be he?"

 Andra looked around for Randall and saw him standing,
bareheaded, in a black-coat, in the kitchen doorway, between
Leitis and Sim. There was no announcement, no sort of
greeting or any sign. The laird and his daughter sat
wooden-stiff in their chairs, and those who had come out of
curiosity, or pity, or good will, stood about the cleared space
of the great hall. Time went, and sometimes they chatted,
and some moved

When the Boils '33

restlessly from group to group, and then there would be a
hush and everything go still, and in the stillness could be
heard the rain, beating steadily on the slate tiles of the roof
overhead.

 Once Ellen came and stood by her mother's side, and
spoke impatiently. "I'll go mad if the rain doesna' stop," she
said.

Andra stared at her.

"Where is Master Riddochr f las he come:"

 "No. They be waiting him," Ellen twitched her skirts and
looked toward the door. "If I'd ha' known 'twould ha' taken
this long, I'd eaten more barley broth. They've n ~ put out
for us. Not so much as a cup of wine."

"'Tis little they have to dri lk to," Andra said.

"They'll have less," retorted Ellen, and flounced oh.

 Time went, and the grey day vitas turning to black beyond
the long windows, and Master Riddoch had not come.

 Andra could feel a restlessness in the crowd about her,
like the restlessness of cattle in the byre be fore a
thunderstorm. They were awaiting the expected, the arrival
of the minister, and the Kirk had never failed them before.
Tam MacVean, they knew, would take no account of the
downpour. There was a fair wind, and no fog, and nothing
to keep a man from sailing over from Stornaway. The
minister had promised. But the minister did not come. And
still, overhead, went on the terrible, ceaseless throbbing of
the rain.

 Now it was Lavan who paused by her side and looked
upward. "I'll go mad," she said, "if the rain doesna' stop."

 The hush and the tension deepened, and the sky grew ever
more dark outside. Once Andra thought she saw a lightning
flash, but she could not be sure, and there was no burst of
thunder, no change in the relentless pulse of the rain. She
looked at Margery, all still and waxen, and thought that
never outsid/ a coffin had she seen a girl look so. Then her
eyes sought out her own daughter. Ellen was not waxen. She
looked restless and impatient, but her cheeks wore a coarse
bloom.

 "She's mine, I bore her. But she has done this evil thing!
But she's mine, I bore her." The two thoughts were like two
enemies with swords pursuing each other round and round
inside her mind, and she could not tell which one had the
victory, which one mattered more.

 Nanny's lean fingers clutched her sleeve. "Andre, lass, my
legs can no more bear me. I be tiring. Lead me to the
fireside and ease me down."

 Looking around her, Andra saw Ewcn Gow. "Ewen," she
called softly, "go and ask Sim for a stool for Nanny, and
bring it to the fire."

 He nodded and moved away. Andra helped the old woman
to the hearth and stood there, supporting her with one arm.
It took Ewen a

234 SWEAR BY APOLLO

long time, and the two women waited, close to the blazing
logs that had been cut and transported from the coast of
Scotland. Andra glanced at them, and found that she could
not take her eyes away. "They are Highland pine," she found
she was telling herself, "Highland pine, such as I walked
under long ago before ever my sin created sinful flesh and
blood."

 Suddenly she no longer saw the wide black frame of the
hearth, nor the logs, nor the leaping tongues of fire. They
were fading, slowly, slowly fading, and mingling into one
orange tide that flowed past her, one long curving river of
flame.

"In the fire!" she heard a shrill voice screaming. "I see! I
see!"

  The flame dulled to palest yellow, and then to the warm
honey-color of a summer's day.

  "I see a summer's day." She found she was telling herself
the thing as she saw it. "A summer's clay, all blue and gold,
with the heather in July colors, Iying like a purple shadow
on the hill. There is a woman coming a woman, my
daughter. She has a balm in her arms, a darkhaired balm! A
man stands at the left hand of her, and his hair is dark. It is
Schoolmaster!"

  Then the summer day swept away from her into the
whirling river of game. Pale at first, and then deeper. Then
she was looking again into the hearth at Rhinn House, into
the log fire. She put her hand to her eyes. She felt faint and
sick, and there was a terrible thirst in her mouth. Surprised,
she found she was leaning on old Nanny Dweeney, when but
a moment before, Nanny had been leaning on her.

  "Ah, lass," the old woman babbled, "I always said the sight
was from God, and ye showed it plain. When the pot boils,
the scum's cast uppermost! Hark ye to Rona now!"

  Slowly, vaguely, and then with swift apprehension and
alarm, Andra realized what had come to pass. Spent and
shaken, she clutched the old woman's amm.

"Nanny! Did I tell what I saw?"

"Aye, ye told! What better could ye do? Hush ye, lass, so I
can hear!"

  She turned her head slowly, the way Nanny turned hers,
and looked toward the front of the hall. Margery still sat in
the carved chair, but now there was color in her face, and
she leaned forward, watching her father. Rona was on his
feet, and Andra thought she had never seen him stand so
tall or call so loud.

"Ellen, lass!" he roared. "And Schoolmaster! Where be ye?"

  Nobody answered him. There was no sound, only the
endless beat of the rain.

          When the Pot Boils z35

 Then half a dozen gasping folk near the front drew apart
to left and right, away from Ellen till she stood all alone.

"Ellen Deveron," said Rona sternly, "Ellen, ye ha' lied!"

 "No, I ha' na' lied," insisted Ellen weakly. "Ask him?" and
she pointed to Randall where he stood holding to each side
of the kitchen doorway. "Ask him if he didna' lie with me?"

 "We dinna' question that. I put it to ye that when it came
about, ye were already with child before."

"No, I wasna', I wasna'," piped Ellen feebly, beginning to cry.

Rona turned in disgust. "Where be the man?"

 Then Kenneth loomed in the doorway behind Randall. He
muttered something and the American stood aside, slowly,
uncertainly, like one who does what he is told, without
understanding. Kenneth strode forward, ignoring Rona, and
went straight to the girl.

"Ellen," he said, "will ye no tell me the bairn is mine?"

 Ellen kept on weeping noisily and paid no attention to
him. He did not touch her, only stood by her side, scowling
down.

 "Andre!" She heard the laird's appeal over the heads of the
gaping crowd. "Can ye no unravel this thing? Can ye no tell
the meaning of what ye have seen?"

 Andra went slowly forward. Again the two thoughts
pursued each other round and round a circular tower that
grew in the midst of her mind. "She is mine, I bore her! But
she has done this evil thing! But I bore her, she is mine!"

 When she stood at the front of the hall, she found there
was only one way she could speak, one thing to say.

 "Laird o' Rona," she said simply, "Comyn Rhinn, my
friend. I saw my daughter Ellen with her bairn, the bairn she
carries within her now, and that bairn is dark. There is no
darkness in her blood. I am as you see, and my people's hair
was brown. Her own father was saxon fair  as fair as
Randall Woodbury."

 It seemed as if the whole crowd was one man drawing a
sharp breath. Rona bent forward eagerly.

"But her bairn is dark?" he asked.

 "Aye. As dark as Schoolmaster. I saw Schoolmaster at her
left hand. All taischers know that if a man stands thus to a
woman he loves her and would wed her if she will."

 "Ah, lass!" pleaded Kenneth, a look of torment in his dark
face, "are ye needing more?"

 Ellen had stopped crying. She stood irresolute. Her mother
went relentlessly on.

"The bairn will be born when the heather is July high," she
turned

236 swrlAR BY APOLLo

toward the kitchen door. "When did ye lie with her, Randall,
lad? Early enough to get a July bairn?"

 "No," he murmured, slowly at first, and then eagerly, like
a man who has been like to drown and feels firm land under
his feet. "No. It was near December. It was too late for that."

Rona flung out his arms in a wide gesture freeing all.

 "Take Schoolmaster or leave him, lass, but get yourself out
o' here. Will ye tell the truth before ye go?"

 Ellen cowered, weeping again. "Oh forgive me, sir," she
pleaded. "It be Schoolmaster's indeed. But Schoolmaster is
poor. Ye wouldna' know, but 'tis an ill thing, to be poor. We
loved, and I was with child, but I thought the doctor could
give it the better life so I would try "

 "And meanwhilst, Schoolmaster was trying to wed my lass
for her dower," said Rona bitterly, but the triumph in his
face did not dull away.

 "He never loved Margery. He loved me," babbled Ellen,
"but we were poor. I thought in America "

 "Sir," said Rona to Kenneth, "I shallna' tell ye again to
take the lass and go."

 Andra crept back and sank down on the stool that Ewen
had finally brought for Nanny Dweeney. Crouching there,
she watched Kenneth lead Ellen away. Sim was bringing in
torches, and Rona started calling for whiskey and wine. The
men crowded forward to shake Randall's hand. She had not
seen Margery go, but she found herself gazing at Margery's
empty chair. At that moment the front door swung open,
and Master Riddoch burst into the room. His clothes
dripped water, his hat was gone, and his grey hair plastered
down.

 "We was o'erset in a squall," he panted, "and clung to the
keel wi' naught but our hands to make way wi'! But I am
here as I promised, Kirk Session can begin."

 "Have a crap o' whiskey, sir," said Rona happily. "We ha'
no need o' Kirk Session now."

 Hearing him, Andra was not so sure. She had stood for
right and truth and revealed the sight as she saw it, but she
had betrayed her child thereby. It would have been a stern
choice, had she had to make it, but when she stood before
Rona, there was only the one thing she could do.
Nevertheless, she would be standing all the rest of her days,
she thought, before the Kirk Session of her own heart; never
condemned, perhaps, but never absolved and free.

                   XXIII
       This I Lea'232eD in ScoflanD

"DINNA' look so sad, Randall,' said Comyn Rhinn as they
sat at breakfast over mutton collops and ale. "'Twould start
the tears Flowing from Castle Rock to look at ye. There's a
cure for everything but stark dead."

 "By God, sir, I can almost believe it, after the way things
have fallen out," said Randall, draining his glass. "I thought
for a while I was a done man, but it all came clear. If I ve
not got the wife I want, I've not got a wife I don't want, so
things be none so bad."

 He must try, he thought, to keep Rona from seeing how
bad things really were. The laird looked at him keenly.

 "Ye've no heard from Madge? She's sent no word down by
Leitis, given no sign?"

"No."

"I thought she might, before ye went away."

 "She'd better be quick then. In half an hour I'm meeting
Tam. The packet sails a little past noon."

"Ye'll not go to her then?"

"How could I go to her, after I've used her so?"

"Aye, the lass has her pride, and so have ye."

"I've little to be proud of now."

 "And if ye've little to be proud of, ye've no great cause to
be ashamed, either. Ye was hot and young and easy gulfed,
and ye was seven ways a fool but ye played it like a man."

 Randall stood up. "I'd like those words on my gravestone,
sir, when the time comes for that," he said with a smile.
"Will you walk to the dock with me?"

 Together they left Rhinn I louse in the soft grey misty day.
Randall was empty-handed, for his sea chest with the small
deerskin chest inside had already been sent ahead of him to
Skye, where he could take ship for home. It had been a
week since Andra had saved him from Kirk Session, saved
him from her own flesh and blood. He had talked with
Andra

238 swear BY APOLLo

since, tried to thank her, but they had been embarrassed and
constrained with each other, and he had given up, leaving
little said. He had not talked with Margery. Again she had
retreated to her room and stayed there, and sent no message
down. Every ship that put in for fresh meat or drinking water
brought stories of the threatened war with America. There
was nothing now to hold him here, and even if there had
been, he would still have had to go.

 "We'll miss ye, lad," Rona was saying, as they strode down
the hill, "but ye've taught Andra much that will help
us unless she herself should soon be gone."

"Andre? Is she going away?"

 He knew well that Andra was not island bred, but she
seemed as much a part of the place as its very turf and
stone.

 "Aye. With Ellen gone, she'll be free as she hasna' been in
twenty years. She says she has not yet thought about it, but
it may be she herself will go back to the place where she was
young to see if there still be aught of the old times there."

Randall felt his face turn hot and a tightening in his throat.

"And where has Ellen gone?" he asked.

 "She's at home yet, but she'll soon be away. She's to marry
Schoolmaster, ye know."

 "I thought she might. I ve no doubt they were lovers before
she ever heard of me."

 Rona nodded. "That they were, lad. Kenneth came to my
study and asked forgiveness o' me. Ele told me the whole
thing plain. When he came here he did at once the
uncommon thing some lads do."

Rona paused, so Randall put the question. "What was that?"
he asked.

 Both men slowed their steps so as not to reach the clachan
too soon. They had much to say, giving down that hill.

 "He saw two lasses together, and he fell in love with her
that was poor and plain, rather than her that was rich and
fair. The poor lass would lie with him, but she wouldna' wed
him, wanting money. And so things were. Then between
them they raised a plan. He was to wed the rich lass and
spend her dower on the lass that was poor. And ye call
yourself a knave! Why he's a shame to all Scotland, but he's
run himself aground and foundered, and what could I do?"

 "I'll bet I know what you did," said Randall. "I'll bet you
made a place for him somewhere so he could take Ellen
away."

 The laird nodded. "Not with my factor. I wouldna' have
him in my sight no more, but I'm sending him to Glasgow
with letters to friends o' mine in the trade there. I writ the
letters strong. He'll find a place. For all his knavery, I canna'
hate the lad, for 'tis my belief Ellen was most

This I l.earned in Scotland ~39

at fault. Ye have both used my lass ill, but I canna' hate either
o' ye." "I think I know why," said Randall slowly. "I wooed
her to her face and behind her back, I was a fornicator. And
Schoolmaster tried worse. But neither of us have wrought
her any harm. We never could. Next winter she'll be the
belle of Edinburgh, laughing gay, and dancing with better
lads than me and Kemleth were."

 He believed what he was saying. There was something
unbreakable about Margery. She was the supple reed
bending, not the oak that snaps in twain.

 "Aye. My lass will recover. Quicker than ye, I think. But ye
was conspired against, too."

"I?"

 "'Twas with intent that Ellen came by the bairn in her. She
confessed to Kenneth, and he to me. When she missed her
first moon, and knew it was so indeed, then she laid the
snare for ye."

 "By God, I better get me to a monastery," muttered
Randall, "if a woman can make that much a fool of me, I'm
not safe in the world any more."

 "Ye be going to a war, lad. Ye'll have other things to think
of, and ye'll learn."

 "I'm not at all sure of it," said Randall gloomily. "Some
never do, you know. Sir " and his eyes lighted with sudden
interest, " how much of this did Andra know?"

 Rona looked at him in surprise. "Why Andra knew naught
of it, she told me; only that she had seen Kenneth going up
Ardmory in the night. Andra would no help Ellen bamboozle
ye. Why did ye think Andra would know?"

 "Because I still want to find out where the visions come
from. I studied them in Ellen that was what I sought her
for, though it turned out so ill. I wonder why Andra saw just
what she did see. Do you think it was in her mind
somewhere, hid away where even she herself did not realize
it the truth about Ellen and Schoolmaster?"

Rona shook his head and his face darkened.

 "Lad, since ye put it to me, 1 can no more spare your
pride. I got to tell ye, ye been fooled still another way."

"Another way?" groaned Randall.

 "Aye. Ellen's no taischer. What ye thought ye observed in
her, ye didna' observe at all. Ellen neter had a vision in her
life."

 "She never i, Oh, but she did! She must have! How could
she know that in America there would be war? It was before
the ships had brought the news. There had been no talk of
it here. Margery believed in her visions. She said they were
true."

240 SWEAT BY APOLLO

 "Aye, Madge believed at first. Later, she was none so sure.
She caught Ellen in your room once reading a letter. It told
all she needed to know. War, red war! Aye, Ellen gave it
back to ye the way your father writ it down."

 "By God," said Randall, "he did write it down that way!"
He stood still, looking at Rona. "And Ellen she fooled me
in all of it? Pretended to be so ill Emd frightened and
sought my help! Answered my questions when I tried to
study her! And all the time she never had a taisch at all?"

"Never a taisch, lad," said Rona cheerfully.

"Well, God pity me for a fool!" said Randall Woodbury.

 After a moment they began to move slowly down the hill.
When the laird spoke again his tones were stern, but there
was a gentleness there.

 "Ye can be a bigger fool yet, lad, and that's if ye deny all
belief in visions because ye been misled by those that
werena' true. Ye come to Scotland to learn o' Wullie Cullen,
but I think ye ha' learned more than Wullie ever taught. Ye
ha' learned about the shifting ways o' women, and the
difference between an old country and a new one; how to cut
peat, and pull seaware, and speak a wee bit o' the Gaelic
now and then."

"Yes, I learned all that. It's well enough to know."

 "Aye, but if ye was to learn only the one thing here, I'd
say, let it be this. Learn there be things in this world beyond
our understanding, and 'tis best to leave them so and not
inquire. And dinna' think two and two will always be four,
for it sometimes doesna' work out that way.

 "Believe in the mist, lad," and he waved his hand toward
the soft greyness that hid the moorlands of Caldune. "A man
shouldna' expect the universe to be clear to him like it was
matter for bairns in a primer book. Because God has no
revealed a thing, is no proof that it canna' be."

 They were approaching the water now. Randall heard the
lapping of the little waves against the sandy shore and the
crooked timbers, heard Tam MacVean hailing him, and saw
the small boat with sails hoisted, ready to pull away. He
turned and stood for a moment looking up the hill at
Margery's windows, and wondered if she were watching
there. Oh Margery, Margery, his heart cried. But Margery
gave no sign. Margery would let him go, and dance in
Edinburgh next year with better lads than he.

 He swallowed, and looked miserably about the clachan.
The old greyhound ambled down the street, forlorn without
the children who used to play with him, the children,
crippled, or buried on the hill by the Cursing Stones. The
sorrows of his own heart were enough for him, he thought.
He could not bear the world's sorrows too.

       This I learned in Scotland ~4I

 Rona was gripping his hand. "Good-by. Good-by, lad. A
good voyage home, and better weather!"

 One moment the two men looked at each other, there on
the edge of the ancient island and the even more ancient sea.

 "I've no envy for any man on earth except your father, sir,"
said Comyn Rhinn.

"I'd put no man in his place but you, sir," said Randall
Woodbury.

It was a good parting that left nothing more to say.

 All afternoon the packet labored across the grey heaving
waters of the Minch. Randall flung himself down in a corner
of the small crowded cabin and lay there like a heap of old
clothes, asleep more than half the time, worn out with
emotion, prodded now and then by suspicious passengers
who accused him of having taken too much ale. He went
ashore at Portree in the foggy dark, made for the nearby
tavern, and tumbled into bed after a supper of beefsteak pie
and whiskey, only to fall back gratefully into heavy,
untroubled sleep.

 Next morning the sun shone for a little while, pale and
yellow in a watery sky, and he went out and wandered
through the narrow lanes and along the docks. He had
shipped his sea chest to Captain MacClure, master of the
Bonnetta, who was to sail to America sometime soon, Tam
MacVean had told him, and before noon he located both the
man and his vessel. Both appeared to him to be seaworthy,
and he arranged passage, in spite of the fact that they were
bound for Philadelphia, which would leave him with much
ado to get home. But at least, he would be in his own
country. He had had his fill of this one, and he did not in-
tend to stay in it any more.

 As it was, he had to remain for another week, while the
Bonnetta was preparing to sail. Sometimes he roamed over
the long moors behind the town, up to the hills where he
could look west to the Long Island, a blue shadow on the
edge of the farthest sea. He did not think of the Isle of Rona
Iying beyond that, nor of Margery's windows, dark as the
towers of all the dead queens in the fairy tales. He had a sea
to cross and a war to fight, maybe; all Icinds of hell to face,
and he did not dare abandon himself to any more pain.
There was a grove of firs a little way out on the Dunvegan
road, and sometimes he walked there at dusk, and thought
how good it would be after a year in the almost treeless
islands to go hunting again through the tall woods by
Pickpocket Mill.

 And without meaning to, only because he could not quite
turn his back on their wretchedness, he made friends among
the ever-growing group of dispossessed crofters encamped in
the furze and bracken beyond the town. These poor folk,
single men and women mostly, or married men who had
been forced to leave their families behind them, had

242 SWEAT BY APOLLO

sold themselves as indentured servants in return for their
passage to America, where as everyone knew, there were
gowpins of gold and rich free land. They were worn with
hard work and gaunt with hunger; ragged, living on tavern
offal or chance handfuls of barley and boiled whey, but there
was hope in their faces, and courage. They, too, were sailing
on the Bonnetta, and would be his fellows there. So he
treated their aches and illnesses, tried to answer their
questions about his country, and wished he had money
enough to buy every lass a hot meal and every man a bottle
of wine.

 His last night in Portree was a starry one, warm and soft,
with a shimmering phosphorescence on the sea, and a rolling
white mist that always seemed to approach, but never quite
reached the shore. He sat late at his gable window in the
small stone inn, feeling light and free and empty as a broken
eggshell, cautiously looking inside himself to see if there was
anything there.

 "Ye have learned more in Scotland than Wullie Cullen
taught," Rona had told him. He hoped so, for he had not
really learned so much from Wullie Cullen. What he
learned, he had learned alone. And what was that, he asked
himself, there at the top of a strange house in a strange
country in the summer night.

 He did not want the answer to write down in a journal for
his father now. He had not written in the journal for a long
time. Maybe that was the first answer. He still loved and
revered his father, but he did not rely on him any more, now
that he had been out in the world, and succeeded a little,
and failed much, and had a taste of being his own man. He
had learned what it was to break his physician's oath to
Apollo, and seen a whole townful of children die while he
stood helpless before them, reamed that a doctor is but
brittle bail when the hour of reckoning is at hand. And he
had meant it when he told Margery he could not practice
medicine again, yet he had been treating the crofters all the
week and meant to treat them on shipboard, meant to enlist
as surgeon to the Army if there was any army when he
got home.

 Women, too, he had learned about. He had put one away
forever, and sinned with one, and loved one and lost her,
and behaved like a fool with all of them. He had told
Margery he would never be in love again, and he meant it.
And still he was not yet going to make firewood out of his
blue-green cedar tree. For he knew one thing now if he
knew nothing else: that no matter what happened, a man
must go on.

 He woke to the sound of grey rain on the slates overhead,
and a babble of voices in the street below. Looking out he
saw the crofters straggling seaward, burdened with knapsacks
and knotted shawls. One stout fellow

This I l.earnedinScotland 243

carried a kid under his arm, and another had chickens in a
small willow cage. A tall woman with brawny arms bore a
flax wheel strapped across her shoulders. Axes and crooked
hoes were among them, too. There might be gowpins of gold
in America, but even there they would still be poor folk, they
would still have to make their way.

  He went on board the Bonnetta about nine o'clock, and she
sailed soon after, going out on a slate-grey tide in a thin grey
falling rain. Wrapped in a waterproof cloak of oiled silk he
had bought in Edinburgh, Randall stood at the rail and
watched the Isle of Skye fade into the mist behind him, felt
that with it all Scotland faded too, a country that had never
been and never quite could be. "Trust in the mist," Rona had
said. Yes, he would trust in the mist, but he would not let
himself think too much about it. Some day this would all
seem like an unlikely dream he had had one night when he
was a young man. Then a thrust of pain went through his
heart, and he knew that he would not go so easily free.

  Now all land was gone, all the comfort and security of
good ground undemeath, and the uneasy crofters huddled on
the deck about him were beginning to sicken a little, as the
Bonnetta passed out of the sheltering arms of the sea loch
and began the monotonous rolling that would never end till
they reached America, six weeks away. The wet sails billowed
in the light wind, and the tall masts lost themselves in the
greyness overhead. Randall walked to the prow and stood
there, a little apart from the others. There would be no time
now, for a while, and no season. If there was anything more
lost and lone than an island, it was a ship at sea, and if there
was anything more lost and lone than a ship at sea, it was a
man. He had reached the end of unhappiness, he thought,
having gone as far in it as one could go.

And as he thought that, he felt a light touch on his amm.

  "Is this the way to Hampton Falls, sir?" asked a blithe voice
with the suggestion of hidden laughter in it.

  He turned sharply. By his side stood one of the crofter
women in a grey duffle gown and stout brogues, her head
wrapped in a plaid shawl. But under the shawl he saw a swirl
of dark hair, and two hazel eyes, and Margery's sweet smiling
mouth. He found there was nothing he could say, except her
name.

  "Yes, it is Margery," she told him gently. "Did you really
think you could go away from me?"

  How different the words had sounded, he thought, when he
had heard almost the same from Sally Anne.

  "You kept away from me," he told her in injured tones, as
if the fault were hers, and they both knew it.

244 SWEAR BY APOLLO

 "But I thought you would come and find me. I did not
think you would go off to America without saying good-by."

"Is that what you came here to say?"

"You know we will never say good-by, Randall."

 He took her in his arms and kissed her then, feeling that
it was the least that he could do; stood there against the rail,
holding her, as the Bont.tetta began to lift with the swelling
pulse of the deep sea.

 "How did you get here?" he asked after a few moments.
"What did your father say?"

 "Shall I tell you how it was? Of course, for you will want
to know. I looked from my window and saw you go down the
hill, you and my father together, walking so slow. But you
were carrying nothing with you. I thought you were but going
to the clachan. I did not know you were going away. Then I
saw him come back alone."

"And it mattered to you?"

 "Oh, Randall, you know that it did! You only want to hear
me say it, so I will. I ran downstairs then and asked him, and
he told me you were gone.''

 "You could have followed me at once. You could have
caught me in Stornaway.t'

 "Yes, I thought of that. But I did not want to do it. I was
afraid you would send me home, so I came to you another
way. Tam took me to Portree and booked my passage, and
found me lodging in a cottage, and I stayed there out of
sight until it was sailing time. I watched you from my window
when you came aboard, and I followed and hid among the
crofters till we were well at sea. You cannot send me back
now."

 He looked down at the dark salt waters cleft into white by
the plunging keel, the waters going deep fathoms down; he
thought of Rona, every moment slipping further behind them
in the mist. He smiled down into her eyes.

"No," he said. "I cannot send you home now."

Then he asked again, "What did your father say?"

 "He said, 'It's a Whig's country, Madge. Ye want to be
sure ye can live in a Whig's country before ye go.' I said, 'If
it's a Whig's country, it's time somebody went there to breed
up Tories for them, and it might as well be I."'

 He tightened his arm about her, and she stammered a
little, and then recovered herself and went on.

 "We tried to do it gaily and without tears the parting, I
mean since we knew it had to be. But I cried at the end of
it, to think I must leave him all alone."

"What did he say when you cried?"

      This I Learned in Scotland 245

 "He said not to worry for him. That he was none so old,
and maybe he would take him a young lass and raise up
another daughter, perhaps a son. I think he said it to cheer
me."

 Randall was still smiling down at her. "Perhaps he did, but
you cannot tell. He's none so old, not much past fifty. Was
that all he said?"

 "He said a lass who would not leave her father to follow
her lad was no fit woman at all."

"So he let you come?"

 "Aye," said Margery cheerfully. "He wanted to send me
after you in a proper way, with trunks and boxes and a maid
to wait on me. But I came like this, with what I could take
away in my shawl." She pointed to a dank woolen bundle
behind them on the deck.

"It will be enough," said Randall.

She nodded contentedly. "Ihat is what I told him you would
say."

 For a long time they stood there close together. Holding
her in his arms, knowing that he would always hold her so
now, in spite of all that had happened, Randall felt he was
like a man who had been desperately sick and was beginning
to get well. After a while he said, "Margery  does it not
matter to you that Ellen that I ?"

 She shook her head. "We will speak no more of Ellen," she
said. "We are going to America, and she was never heard of
there. We have left Ellen behind. But there is another
thing "

He looked down at her, puzzled and apprehensive. "Another
thing?"

 "Yes. You have told me once, but I want to hear it again.
You will never steal from my bed after we are wedded and
go out calling in the darkness for your Sally Anne?"

 "No, I will not call for Sally Anne. I never would have,
only I wanted to settle the matter, to find out if her spirit
could come back."

 Margery nodded wisely. "Yes, such things have been. There
is an old Scottish song, 'The Crochallan Air.' It is about a
lad who lost his young wife, and afterwards he would
sometimes see her at twilight calling the cattle home."

 "Do not worry, for if she could have come, she would have
done it already. We do not much believe in ghosts in
America."

 "You have much to learn in America," said Margery with
a smile that took the edge off the words as she spoke them.

"So have you," he told her gravely.

 "Yes, I know," she answered. "Oh Randall I never
thought it seemed that everything was broken so-"

 She drew closer into his arms and he held her, soothing
and kissing her. They were gentle kisses, rather than
passionate. There would be passion in him later, when he
had recovered a little more from near

246 SWEAR BY APOLLO

disaster, when he felt himself to be a well man. Yes, he
thought, they had much to learn in America, and he
suddenly remembered one thing.

"Margery," he said, "you are going to marry me, are you
not?"

"Yes, I am going to marry you."

"So will you tell me how to make heather ale now?"

 She bit her lip and looked at him with sober eyes. "You
want very much to know, Randall?"

"Yes, though I do not know why, for no heather grows in
America."

 "But it will. I feared lest I should grow homesick for it, so
I brought some cuttings in my shawl."

 "You must never be homesick. I will not let you be. But
tell me! How is it made?"

 "Well then I suppose--since you want to know so
much it is this way: it is like brewing, but you must take
the tops of the young heather  two-thirds heather and
one-third malt, and add hops."

 He had whipped out a pencil and a tiny ledger, and before
she could finish the words, he was writing them down.

 "You might change your mind," he said smiling, "and never
tell me again. But I have it now.'

"Yes," she answered soothingly, "you have it now."

  Something about her tone or her quick glance downward
made Randall reach out, take her chin in his hand, and hold
her face up.

  "Margery," he said, "you have not told me all. There is
something else that must go in."

  She looked straight at him because she had to. "Yes," she
said slowly, "there is something else."

"What is it? Tell me?"

  But Margery shook her head teasingly and gave him a
look that went deeper than the laughter in her eyes.

"I will tell it to my daughter or my son."

When he took her to him this time, he felt that he was a
well man.

  "Oh, Margery," he murmured against her hair, "you came
to me, and I thought you never would. I'll never let you go
away from me again. I'll never go "

  Behind them sounded the clatter of boots and the rasp of
a gruff throat being cleared with as much noise as possible.
Randall turned quickly about. Captain MacClure stood
there, his face red, urgency and embarrassment showing on
it plain.

  "Excuse me, Doctor," he rumbled, "but there's a crofter
lassie fallen in labor, and no midwife by. They've none such
among them, and this trip we've fetched no doctor. I had her
carried to the hold, and I don't

This I Learned in Scotland 247

like the look o' things, not at all, I don't. If ye could go
down to her now if 'twould no be intermpting ye "

 Slowly Randall took his arms from about Margery and
gazed into her eyes.

 "You'd best find yourself a place out of the rain," he
said. "I may be a long while."

 He turned and left her then, and followed Captain
MacClure across the deck and down the ladder to the
reeking hold. He had sworn by Apollo.

                   ,~
            About the Authon

SHIRLEY BARKER, I orn in Barmington, New
Hampshire, was graduated from the University of New
Hampshire and received her master's degree in English
at Radcliffe. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, she also
gained a master of library science degree from Pratt
Institute Library 'school.

 Miss Barker's first not cl, Pence' My Danghters, was
published in 1949. This was follower!, in 1950, by the
Literary Guild Selection, Rivers Parting, and, in 1957, by
a book of poetry, A Land and a People. EIer most
recent novels were lairs and the Har,7lmer, Tomorrow the
New bloon, ard Li a Woe.

 She has written many short stories, articles, book
reviews and poems; she is mew at we rk on a new novel
at her New Hampshire home.