The Greatest Historical Novels & Stories of D. K. Broster. D. K. Broster

need not go round the point to the flat shore,” pursued Jacqueline. “You know the place this side, with the solitary pine-tree. I have often got ashore there.”

      “It might be difficult for Miss Campbell,” said her brother doubtfully.

      “Why, Mr. Stewart, are you suggesting that I am less nimble than your sister!” cried the guest. “I am no town lady, and I insist on being put ashore where Miss Jacqueline is accustomed to land.”

      Ian yielded, and steered for the nearer side of the island, since to anyone young the place presented no difficulty. A slight spring up to an embedded piece of granite and a tiny scramble thereafter, aided by the tough stems of the tall island heather, and one was there. He got out, and, knee-deep in the heather a little above her, assisted Miss Campbell, half hoping that she would slip, so that he could catch her; but she showed no sign of such a thing.

      It was Ian who slipped, or nearly, though it was not his fault. For, having put one foot on the lump of granite to extend a hand to Grizel in the boat below, he felt the stone, to his astonishment, beginning to give beneath him, and sprang back, clutching the heather, just in time to watch it slowly leave its place, slide down, and disappear sedately into the water.

      “I had no notion that I was so heavy!” called Olivia’s laughing voice from above him. “I am glad you did not follow it, Mr. Stewart!”

      “So am I,” observed Grizel from the boat. “But, Ian, can we land here now?”

      “You cannot,” replied her brother. “Go round the point to the beach. Miss Campbell and I will walk across and meet you there.”

      There was nothing else to be done, so the boat pushed off again and Ian was left alone with Olivia Campbell—alone, though but for a few minutes, in a world apart. His desire was equally to hasten to the other side of the little island . . . and to loiter here; not to speak or listen to her . . . and to detain her for hours. In this state of mind he preceded her from the landing-place, mechanically holding back a bramble or a branch when necessary, but really not conscious of what he was walking on, grass, rock or heather—till all at once he heard her cry:

      “Oh, Mr. Stewart, how beautiful . . . and how very unexpected!”

      And because she had stopped, he stopped too, and found that they were both in a little abandoned meadow full of moon-daisies, all swaying and nodding towards them in welcome. But in a few minutes the boat would have rounded the little green headland on their left, and he would never be alone with her anywhere again . . . thank God, thank God!

      And was that why he took her hand in a cold, unsteady clasp, and without a word raised it to his lips and kissed the palm of it with a long, forsaken kiss? The touch of her fingers was like cool well-water to the burning lips of fever. She did not pull them away. But Ian dropped her hand, and stood looking at her among the knee-high daisies of Eilean Soa so wildly, so desperately, that for a second Olivia Campbell all but recoiled. She did not, however; she said gently, “The sun is very hot, Mr. Stewart; will you not put on your hat?”

      “Do you think I have sunstroke?” Ian spoke so low that she could scarcely catch the words. “You know it is not that! . . . You are going away to-morrow?”

      “Yes,” answered Olivia gravely. “To-morrow, when my brother comes for me.” There was pity in her beautiful eyes; that made it harder still. “I did not mean to do this to you—indeed I did not! . . . There is the boat coming to shore. I will wait here.”

      He still looked at her, for as long as it took a tiny breeze to run from side to side over the daisy heads and set them quivering. Then he turned, and strode through the flowers towards the shore.

      But Olivia stood without moving, pressing her hands tightly together. No, indeed she had not meant to do this! And how had she done it—she had seen him so little, talked with him so seldom! In vain to ask that question of the thousand flower-faces in their white and golden dance; if they knew they would not tell her.

      “Oh dear,” said Olivia, “I wish it had not happened!”

      And this was strange, for conquests were not distasteful to her.

      But Ian continued to stride on, through a tangle of grasses, to the flat strand where the boat had already grounded.

      “You have left Miss Campbell behind, I see,” observed Jacqueline as she sprang to land. “Whatever can those flowers be among which she is standing?”

      “I do not know,” said Ian. “Are there any flowers?”

      “Dear brother, you must be blind! One can see them from here—hundreds of them!” And she ran off.

      Ian helped his elder sister out. “If you will forgive me,” he said in a low voice, “I will stay here by the boat while you go to the cairn with Miss Campbell. I . . . my burnt wrist is paining me somewhat; I should be poor company.”

      “Dear Ian . . .” said Grizel, looking at him in perturbation. He was so oddly pale beneath his sunburn. “Shall I stay with you? Why should your wrist . . .”

      “Because I wrenched it,” he lied, “when that stone gave way. The pain will go off in a little, but I think I will stay here. Go after Jacqueline and explain.”

      She looked at him again dubiously and obeyed; and Ian, after a careless word or two to the rowers, walked to a rock a little way off, sat down there and was very still. If only he could have left the island, and gone home by himself. But he could not take the boat and abandon the ladies, even for a time; and though the swim to land was not beyond his powers it would have seemed the most extraordinary proceeding, calling for investigation, and above all things he wished no one of his family to know what had befallen him.

      For there could be no doubt of it—he loved Olivia Campbell to distraction, and fight against the avowal of that passion as he had done, he was glad in his heart that she knew it. He ought not to have betrayed his love, because of the long and bitter racial feud almost as much as because of the blood which cried from the ground between them, but she was too generous, too noble, to make of that avowal a subject for triumph or for mockery. She might soon forget his mad and wordless confession—he hoped she would—but she would never misuse it.

      And now, a supreme effort, it only remained during the homeward voyage to behave as naturally as he could, and to lay any blame for his recent defection upon yesterday’s now fortunate injury. Olivia, in her divine kindness and comprehension, would support him in that pretence.

      Even if the young man were already attributing to the enchantress all sorts of noble qualities of whose existence he could not possibly have been aware, he was right as far as the homeward voyage was concerned. Miss Campbell made it as easy for him as she could, contriving somehow to change places with Grizel so that the latter, and not she, sat next the tiller; and encouraging Jacqueline to talk, to tell her again, for instance, about the empty cairn and what it had once contained.

      “But the burial chamber was so small,” she objected at one point. “I should have thought a king would have been taller! Were they dwarfs in those days?”

      “It was only the burnt bones of the king—or his ashes, I forget which—that they found,” explained Jacqueline, looking a little surprised, for she had distinctly heard Grizel already informing the visitor of this fact. “Isn’t that so, Ian?—Ian, what are you dreaming about there?”

      “You were talking of ancient kings,” answered her brother slowly, his eyes fixed on the point for which he was steering, “and I was thinking of one, that is all. Yes, I believe that nothing but ashes was found in the cairn. None of us, after all, kings or king’s daughters, can leave behind more of ourselves than that.”

      “What a horrid speech!” cried Jacqueline; and Grizel, also disliking the macabre trend which he had given to the conversation, observed drily, “You certainly made an effort to reduce yourself to that condition yesterday evening;” and began to talk about the prospects of a fine sunset. And at last, as all ordeals must, the voyage came to an end.