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

They came to a halt.

      “And so,” said Olivia slowly, looking at the sparkle of the water, “you will not in future be able to think of me as a friend?”

      Ian caught his breath. “I hope that I shall be able to avoid thinking of you at all,” he said harshly, a man in pain not always measuring his words. Olivia bit her lip and turned her head away; then, not answering, she placed her foot on the first of the stepping-stones. It rocked a little, even beneath her light weight. The next moment she was caught by both elbows and steadied.

      “Step on to the flat stone in the middle,” came Ian’s voice. She obeyed, and he instantly released her.

      “The stone was loose,” she said, excusing herself. “Indeed I can usually cross a burn without falling in.”

      Her companion was standing in the shallow water beside her. “I do not doubt it. But, lest there be other loose stones. . . .” He offered his hand.

      Olivia took it, and next moment was safely on the opposite bank. Before she could make a remark of any kind Ian, still holding her hand, began to speak again, the words tumbling out, and checking, too, like the water-course at their feet.

      “Forgive me . . . forgive me for saying that! It is not true. I shall always think of you, I am afraid. It would be too much to expect you to think of me, sometimes . . . just from kindness . . . as one thinks of the very unhappy. . . . Perhaps I should know it—but perhaps it would be better if I did not. . . . And if you will forgive me, I will leave you, now that you are over the burn; there is your way back plain. . . . I cannot walk any further with you . . . there is a term to what one can endure—and so I will go back the other way.”

      He looked indeed absolutely exhausted, as a man might do after prolonged torture. Olivia’s hand was still in his; after the first, she had not attempted to withdraw it. She tried to say “Good-bye then,” but no words came. And whether Ian drew her unconsciously towards him by that captive hand, or whether she as unconsciously came, or both, next moment her head was on his breast, and remained there.

      Then with his other hand the young man gently turned her face up to his, and she did not resist; she only shut her eyes. So, in the oak copse by the stream, Stewart and Campbell kissed each other without a word; and equally without a word did Ian’s clasp relax. Olivia heard footsteps splashing quickly through water. . . . She put her hands over her face, in a gesture of possession, not of concealment. The air should not so soon obliterate that gift—that gift which she had returned. When she removed them she was alone.

      But the world was changed—how changed! She walked home in a different one, whether a gladder or a sorrier, she hardly knew. Mrs. MacUre, after looking at her once or twice, forbore to ask what had become of her escort.

      § 3

      Twenty minutes after he had kissed Olivia Campbell Ian was standing in dismay before the little forge in the village, to find that the blacksmith had not yet recovered from the effects of his drunken bout of the previous day, that the mare had not in consequence been reshod, but that her shoes, most unfortunately, had been removed in readiness by the smith’s boy, and could not be put on again. So he could not ride her away with the old shoes, as he had intended. There was no other saddle horse in Kilrain, nor could he get home on foot. The smith’s wife, saddened and apologetic, was, however, sure that by sundown her man would have sufficiently recovered. If the gentleman would have a little more patience. . . .

      The gentleman flung away distracted. If he stayed he was lost. With that honey of Olivia’s kiss still on his lips, the touch of her tingling in his veins, nothing but flight would save him. If he went near her again now all his defences would go down with a crash, and he saw himself imploring her to marry him out of hand, by a mere Scots marriage before witnesses, anything. . . . There was no hope for him but to leave this sweet and fatal place at once. Yet because of this ridiculous and vulgar contretemps of a drunken blacksmith he was pinned here.

      Patience! as if he would not have given his right hand to stay! Was Fate plotting against him to drive him into dishonour? For Olivia Campbell could not be indifferent to him, or she would never have allowed him, as she had, that moment by the stream which made his head turn when he thought of it. Now, if he asked her to be his wife, would it, in her eyes, be out of the question? He knew that it would not.

      There was nothing to do but to go striding away up into the hills, too far away to run the risk of coming upon Olivia, till such time as that sun which had seen her lay her head against his heart should put an end, behind the shoulder of Meall na Creige, to this wretched and ecstatic day.

      He did walk, for hours, in the peace of the high hills, but still the sun rode the heavens, though by Ian’s watch it was time to turn. And at last he came once more in sight of Kilrain. The smoke of evening was beginning to rise from the thatched roofs as he descended, steering his course at random. By now he was very tired, for he had scarcely slept the night before, and emotion, joined to fasting (since he had not dined that day) can exhaust even a vigorous young man of six and twenty. And with fatigue a sort of trance came upon him, and he recognised without surprise that his returning steps had somehow led him into the little copse of the morning. It seemed appropriate. That surely was the very spot where he had stood with her when the wonder of the world had happened to him—yes, there were the stepping-stones.

      “Olivia,” said the burn, hurrying gently along. “Olivia . . . O . . . liv . . . i . . . a . . .”

      Ian threw himself down for a moment, to listen to that cool and gliding music.

      Strange! He must actually have fallen asleep! Yes, he did remember, now, changing his posture and stretching himself out under an oak tree for a few minutes’ rest. But by the change in the light it must have been much more than a few minutes’ sleep. It had been long enough to hold a dream, also, one of those particularly vivid and sudden dreams which come with daylight slumber and partake of day’s reality. Ian lay still a moment recalling it, for it was sweet.

      He had dreamt that Olivia was standing there, looking at him, and he had tried to speak to her, to ask her for some memento, since he had none. But the chains of sleep held him fast, and he could not utter the words; he could not even open his eyes; yet he knew that she was there. Nevertheless, being in his dream the King of Lochlann’s daughter out of the old tales as well as Olivia Campbell, she gave him as a token that grey, mottled skin of the seal, her other self, the possession of which enabled her at will to go back to the sea from whence she came. And the gift meant that she renounced her right—for him.

      Ian lay still a moment longer, smiling rather bitterly. Of what odd elements were dreams compounded! It was time to relinquish them, to face reality, and to ride away. With a heavy sigh he raised himself on to his right elbow . . . and remained there motionless, the blood rushing into his face. Between the fingers and the palm of that open right hand lay a freshly plucked sprig of bog-myrtle—bog-myrtle, the only too familiar badge of Clan Campbell.

      * * * * *

      A little later, between sunset and moonrise, Ian checked his mare for a last look at Kilrain before the drop of the road should hide it from his view. Like to like—the sprig of gall was in the folds of Olivia’s letter over his heart. He stayed a moment, wrenched with longing; then tugged the mare round again and rode on down the slope.

      CHAPTER IX

       OTHER PEOPLE’S LOVE AFFAIRS

       Table of Contents

      § 1

      Aug. 14th—19th.

      To every lover his own love affair is naturally the only one in the world. Yet while Ian Stewart, surrounded by goats, was dallying with the foeman’s daughter up in the hills, a young man rather older than himself, whose existence he had temporarily forgotten, was approaching Invernacree with intent to pay