Fiona, having the Urchin securely under her roof, had breakfasted before dawn, and as soon as it was light enough the children launched their little boat. The Urchin had the precious headlight, ready charged, tied up in an old sack which would also serve to bring away theplunder; and round his waist he had twisted a length of cast-off rope. Its use was not apparent, but he thought it looked business-like. They saw that Jeconiah's boat was still drawn up ashore, and in good heart they started on their long pull. They had reached the island before Jeconiah had his boat out; having no glasses, they could not see if it was being launched or not. But off the eastern end of the island, which is low and grassy, they had a fright, for an empty boat was drawn ashore there. However, when they rowed close in to look at it, Fiona recognized it.
"It's Angus MacEachan's boat," she said. "He has come to see after the sheep he has on the island. There he is, I can see him; he has got a sheep that has hurt its foot." And indeed they could see Angus tending a sick sheep.
"Fiona," said the boy, "we are too silly for anything. Of course the footsteps we heard in the cave were Angus's. There is another way in somewhere, and he would be looking for a sheep."
Fiona said nothing. As they neared the cave, the problem of the footsteps kept intruding itself more and more vividly upon her; but the Urchin was happy in his theory, and she did not think it necessary to remind him that the footsteps could not possibly have been those of Angus, who walked with a limp. She began to feel a vague sense of disquiet, which she tried in vain to put aside.
They entered the cave, and the Urchin, with much pride, lit his great lamp. The powerful burner threw a wonderful circle of light on to black water and black walls, making them glow and sparkle with a soft radiance till they looked like the very gateway of fairyland. Outside the circle everything became black as pitch. They paddled quietly up the bright waterway, and grounded on the stones at the end. The Urchin was hot after his long row, and helping to draw the boat up on the stones did not make him any cooler; he took off his jacket and pitched it on to a thwart.
"Yes, it is hot, and stuffy," said Fiona.She recollected some story she had read about a coal mine, and sniffed. "I hope there is no gas here," she said.
The Urchin grinned.
"Oh, you girls!" he said. "Who ever heard of gas in a sea cave. What you are smelling is the lamp."
Fiona took the lamp up.
"I'm going to take charge of this myself," she said. "You can carry the treasure."
The Urchin picked up the sack and threw it over his shoulder.
"Go ahead, lady with the lamp," he said, and grinned again. He felt very adventurous. He would rather have liked to be photographed.
With considerable caution, necessitated by the heavy lamp, they climbed the rock barrier and descended into the darkness of the inner cave. The walking was better here; the rounded slippery boulders had given place to a floor of pebbles and sand. Quite a short way from the barrier the wall of the cave curvedaway in a semicircle on the right, its smooth surface forming a kind of small recess. Fiona swept the recess with her lamp, and on the sandy floor something gleamed back; the Urchin pounced on it and picked it up. It was a gold coin, not the least like any which the children had ever seen. It was, in fact, a doubloon.
"This must be one of them," said the boy exultantly as he pocketed it; "one that got dropped. Come on, it can't be much farther."
But Fiona held the lamp steady and stared at the sand.
"Look at the marks on the sand," she said. "They are like the marks of heavy boxes. The treasure has been here, Urchin, and it's not here now. Someone has been here and taken it, and dropped one piece."
"I don't think so," said the Urchin. "We shall find them a bit farther on."
So they went on, but not very far. For the light of the lamp suddenly fell on a rock wall before them, the end of the cave. And it hadended, not as the other caves do, by the roof growing lower and lower till it meets the floor; it had ended in this huge chamber of high rocky walls.
"So this is the cave that no one has ever reached the end of," said Fiona. "Why, it goes no distance at all."
They retraced their steps to the recess, and then back to the end again, looking on this side and on that for openings, but it seemed quite clear that there were none.
"The boxes must have been carried off by sea," said Fiona.
But the Urchin had an idea.
"No one would try to carry great heavy boxes over the rock barrier," he said. "They'd just take the gold out in sacks."
"The barrier may be a rock-fall," said Fiona. "The treasure may all have been cleared out long ago."
And then there came to the Urchin the realization of the fact that he had lost his gun. He turned very red.
"It's a shame," he said angrily, "an awful shame. It was given to me, and someone has taken it. Can't you think where it could be, Fiona? I'd goanywhereto find it."
Whatever Fiona may have been going to say, her words tailed off into sudden silence. For from beyond the cave wall, as it seemed, sounded again the footsteps which they had heard before; and this time they knew that there was no cave there, and that It was walking through solid rock as if along a road. There was no question this time of any concealment or pretence; both frankly turned tail and made for the rock barrier. Halfway there the Urchin tripped and fell heavily on his head. Fiona put the lamp down and helped him up, dizzy and shaking.
"Can you go on, Urchin?" she said. "If not, I'll try and carry you."
The Urchin looked back into the blackness, unrelieved by any ray of the lamp, which faced the other way. The footsteps were steadily drawing nearer, neither hasting norstaying. What the Urchin may have thought he saw Fiona could not guess; he gave one shriek, slid out of her grasp, and bolted for the rock barrier as fast as his trembling feet would carry him.
For one moment Fiona all but followed him. Then it suddenly came to her that she was responsible for the boy's safety. She never knew afterwards how she managed to do what she did; but she turned, and with the courage of utter desperation—the courage which enables the hen partridge to face the sparrow hawk—stood at bay, swinging up the heavy lamp to see and face whatever should come.
And into the circle of lamplight quietly walked the figure of the old hawker.
The revulsion of feeling was too much for Fiona. She sprang forward and caught the old man's hand and clung to it.
"Oh," she said, "I'm so glad it's you. We heard the footsteps and we were so frightened." The relief of it all was overwhelming; she was almost crying, and went on saying anything,hardly knowing what she said, just for the mere human companionableness of it. "How did you come here? I suppose you came over with Angus in his boat. Of course you would. Then there must be another way into the cave after all, and we couldn't find it."
"And so I frightened you?" said the old man gently, making no effort to withdraw his hand. "Yes, there is another way in." He made no attempt to answer all her questions.
"Urchin," called Fiona, raising her voice. "Urchin, come back; it's all right."
But there was no answer.
"Urchin," she shouted; "Urchin."
But there was no answer save the echoing of the empty cave.
"He was going down to the boat," she said, loyally repressing the fact that the Urchin had bolted. "We must go after him, for he had hurt his head, and I am afraid of his falling again."
They climbed the rock barrier, and made their way to the boat. The boat lay there asit had been left, half ashore, with the swell rippling against the stern, and over one thwart the Urchin's jacket, just as he had thrown it down. And the boat was as empty as the cave.
Into Fiona's eyes came a sudden fear.
"He must have fallen again, and be lying somewhere," she said.
They went back, searching every nook and corner of the cave, turning the light into every crevice, under every rock, making a minute examination of the rock barrier; and there was no sign.
And then Fiona broke down.
"He is drowned," she said, and just sat and sobbed.
After a few moments the old man came and sat down beside her. In his gentle voice he said that the Urchin could not possibly be drowned. The water was quite shallow at the edge, and he was a good swimmer, was he not? And even if he had not been, the swell would have rolled him ashore. He himself had no doubt that all would come right.
Fiona ceased sobbing and turned on him.
"Do you know where he is?" she demanded bluntly.
"How would I know when you do not know?" said the old man. "Could I see what you could not see?" And then "Listen."
Down the waterway came voices, and the sound of oars. It was in fact Jeconiah's boat entering the cave.
Fiona caught at the straw.
"He may have swum out to the other boat," she said.
But there was no one in the other boat but Jeconiah and his two men. They had powerful lanterns, and the boat was full of sacks. Jeconiah himself was purple with suppressed rage and impatience. The moment he could get ashore, he waddled up to Fiona and shook the map of the cave in her face, exclaiming, "Remember, if you have found anything it belongs to me and I claim it."
Fiona had only one thought in her mind at the moment, and the foolish impertinence ofthe little fat man was to her merely so much unnecessary sound. Her answer was "Have you seen the Urchin? We have lost him. Did he not swim out to your boat?" She was almost sobbing again.
"Confound the brat!" said Jeconiah roughly. "I've not come here to play hide-and-seek with a parcel of children. Tell me at once what you've found."
Fiona straightened herself, and looked at Jeconiah as though he were some noxious reptile.
"There was nothing here to find," she said. "And this cave belongs to my father. And anything in it he gave to the Urchin."
"Well, he's not here," said Jeconiah brutally, "and I am. Who finds, keeps."
And calling to his men to bring the lights, he set off, between stumbling and crawling, for the rock barrier. One of the men had the decency to stop a moment and tell Fiona that they had seen nothing of any boy; Jeconiah turned and abused him for a laggard.
With a good deal of difficulty the two men hoisted and shoved Jeconiah over the rock barrier. Once over, he took a light himself, told the men to wait where they were, and after a good look at the map set out for the recess where the Urchin had found the doubloon. Fiona followed him; there was some vague idea in her mind of protecting the Urchin's property; behind that there was still a faint subconscious hope that in some way or other the Urchin would suddenly reappear, and laugh at her terrors.
Jeconiah reached the recess. He saw and understood the marks of the boxes on the sand. He swung round on Fiona with a snarl like that of a hungry wolf.
"You think you're clever, don't you, you and your father," he said. "I suppose you've had the stuff moved. But I'll have it if I go to the middle of the earth for it."
It was the old hawker who shouted. He had stood apart, a silent spectator of the scene. And at this moment he called out,in a voice of surprising power for so frail a body:
"Look out above you. Jump."
Fiona, who had learned to obey, jumped back just in time. But Jeconiah had never learnt to obey any orders but his own. He stood, stupidly staring, as a bit of the roof of the cave bowed downward, gave way, and came cascading about him in a shower of earth and big stones, that filled the air with thick dust. When the dust cleared again, they saw Jeconiah lying on his back in the middle of the cliff fall, motionless, and to all appearance dead.
But Fiona was not looking at Jeconiah. She was looking at the place where the roof of the cave had bowed itself before falling; and into her mind came crowding dim forgotten legends, legends of fear and hope. And she was saying over and over again to herself, as though she might miss its purport, that behind the cliff fall, as if impelling and directing it, she had seen a small brown elfin hand.
It was the old hawker who took charge of the situation. The two men, who at first had looked as if they would run, became amenable when he spoke to them. They carried Jeconiah's body to his boat, and laid it in the stern-sheets. One of the men pointed out that there was no mark at all on his face or head, and that he did not believe he had been struck.
"Died of fright, I expect," he said curtly.
"Lucky we stood out for wages in advance," said his companion. It looked as if this might be Jeconiah's fitting epitaph.
The old man himself went with Fiona in her boat. But he was too feeble to row far, so he landed on the island and went in search of Angus. In due course Angus came down and rowed Fiona home, saying that the old man was going to look after his sheep for him till he returned. It did not occur to Fiona, until they had gone too far to turn back, that it looked as though the old man wished to avoid questions. Her mind was in a helpless whirl in which everything seemed unreal, exceptthe Urchin and that small brown hand. She could not give her father any very coherent account of what had happened; but he went out at once to find a boat and men to search the cave.
Jeconiah was laid on his bed in the big house, and there was much commotion there; this one must go for the doctor and that one for the Student; scared maids stood and whispered in the corridors; the two loafers, heroes of the hour, feasted happily in the kitchen. Then the doctor came, and went upstairs with a grave face, as befitted the occasion; but he did not come down again, and surmise grew. Half an hour passed before the door opened, and the doctor, smiling and rubbing his hands together, came into the library, where the Student had just entered and was talking to the housekeeper.
"He's not dead at all," said the doctor. "It's catalepsy—suspended animation, you know. Like the frog in the marble. Had a shock, you tell me? Just so, just so. Howlong? Oh, he may be an hour, and he may be a month; no one can ever say. Never had the good luck to see a case before. Notveryuncommon, no. Mustn't try to rouse him, you know; might be dangerous. Just wait. Send for me at once if he comes to. Can get two nurses to watch him, if you like; just as well perhaps. Sometimes they are odd when they wake; think they are someone else for a bit, you know, change their habits, and so on. Dual personality? Oh, yes, several well-attested cases; but I don't mean as much as that. Might arise this way, of course; but what I mean is more just queer. But of course he need not be; might wake up as if he'd been asleep. If it lasts long, take away all the almanacs and things, in case he gets a shock. Well, good day, good day."
And the doctor went; and Jeconiah's body lay still on the bed, waiting till his soul, if he had one, should return to it.
So the Student went home again; and on his way he met the old hawker, who stopped andspoke to him; and for a few moments the two walked together, the old man talking rather quickly. Fiona, watching from the window of the bookroom, could see that her father first looked puzzled and then grave and then considerably relieved; in a dim kind of way she found herself thinking that Angus must have rowed back very fast to Scargill, if the old hawker were already landed. She was wondering who he really was and why her father talked to him.
"Tell Anne to get us something to eat—anything," said the Student. "The boat will be here directly."
The Student, by straining what remained of old loyalty as far as he dared, had found half a dozen volunteers, good men, to face the haunted cave, provided he went himself.
"Do you want to come, Fiona?" he said. Of course Fiona meant to come.
And while they waited, the Student questioned Fiona, and had the whole story coherently, except the hand. That part Fionafelt she could not tell; there, in the cheerful bookroom, it seemed so impossible. Once or twice he nodded, and said, "That would be so"; and at the end he pointed out that whatever had happened had happened when her back was turned, as she faced the coming footsteps. She had not thought of that. What puzzled her, and hurt her a little, was that, though her father seemed to feel forher, he did not appear to be particularly concerned about the Urchin. "I believe it will come right," was all he said.
The boat arrived, rowed by strong hands; the men worked with a will, and the distance to the cave seemed short. They had brought good lights, and the Student had a powerful electric torch. High and low they searched the cave, and found nothing. One man, who was a good swimmer, dived several times and found nothing there either. Tracking footsteps was impossible; the sand, where there was any, had been hopelessly trampled.
When nothing more could be done, theStudent said that he wanted to look for a thing himself which he had an idea of. He went down to the end of the cave with his torch and tapped the wall with a geological hammer. Fiona sat on the rock barrier and watched him; what he was seeking she had no idea. He came slowly back down the cave, tapping the wall, till he reached the recess where the Urchin had picked up the doubloon. He went straight to the back of the recess and tapped the wall there; and even as he did so a large piece of stone fell from above, and smashed the electric torch in his hand. He came back to the rock barrier quite unperturbed, looking as if he had found what he sought.
"Not very safe, this cave," he said calmly; and told the men to push off the boat. "There is nothing more we can do," he said; "the boy is certainly not here."
The men's courage was fast ebbing away; they were glad to get out of the haunted place.
Fiona sat in silence all the way home. Itwas dark before they reached the house. She waited while Anne bustled over supper; she thought she would never see her father alone. At last supper was over, and he went into the bookroom and began to light his pipe; she followed him. Her words came out in a torrent.
"Daddy," she said, "what does it all mean? and why are you so strange and unconcerned? What did that old man tell you? If I couldn't see,hemust have seen, for he was facing. What is it you know? And why have you told me nothing?"
"Sit down, little daughter," said the Student. He drew her beside his knee, with her head on his arm. "I will tell you now what I can. The old man gave me a sort of hint. He did not really see, for the lamp was the other way; I fancy he guessed. I wanted to test what he said to me. I have tested it now with my hammer; it all agrees. I am absolutely certain that no harm has come to the Urchin. But I can do nothing for him myself. And I must not even tell you what I think; forif I do it ruins everything. All I may tell you is this, that you are the only person who can do anything. You will have to do it all yourself and by yourself, little daughter. I believe you have ways and means of your own of finding out. Are you going through with it, Fiona?"
"Of course I am, daddy," she said. "How can I do anything else? If only I knew what it is I have to do to find him—how to begin even."
"I cannot even tell you that," said the Student. But his fingers played with the copper bangle on her wrist. And out of some dim corner of subconsciousness she seemed to hear a small voice which said "If you can't get what you want by beginning at the top you must start again at the bottom." Her father, with his learning, was the top; the bottom . . . ?
Fiona went to bed less miserable than she had expected.
Fiona was out long before breakfast next morning, digging furiously in her garden. Not many minutes passed before she was rewarded by a glint of something yellow in a shovelful of earth, and there was the centipede.
"You dear creature," she said, and caught it up quickly before it could wriggle away.
"How polite we are this morning," said the centipede, swelling with conscious pride. "I suppose we want something."
Fiona's mind was far too completely taken up with her one object to notice or resent any insinuations.
"Yes, I do," she said. "You told me that if I could not get what I wanted by beginning at the top I must start again at the bottom.I can do nothing from the top this time, so I've come to you."
"Flattered, to be sure," said the centipede. "How frank we are."
"Please don't be cross," said Fiona, humbly. "I am only doing what you told me to do."
"Bless you, child, I'm not cross," said the centipede. "I'm a philosopher."
"Don't philosophers get cross?" asked the girl.
"Never," said the centipede. "And when they do they call it something else. What's the matter with me is, that I've sprained my seventh ankle on bow side, counting from the tail. Don't say you're sorry, for you're not. Anyone can see you're not."
"You are horrid to-day," said Fiona. "And the other day you were so nice."
"That's what makes me such a charming companion," said the centipede. "You never know what to expect. So I never pall."
"I want to know where the Urchin is, and how I am to find him," said Fiona.
"Is that all?" said the centipede. "Fancy interrupting my breakfast on account of that boy. Well, one question at a time. We'll have the last one first; I'm in that sort of mood to-day."
"How can I find the Urchin, then, please?" asked Fiona.
"Well, you've been toldthatalready," said the centipede. "Haven't you a memory?"
Fiona thought and thought, but could make nothing of it.
"My friend the bookworm was there at the time," said the centipede, "and heard the shore lark tell you that the last man went up a hill. Very well. Go up a hill."
"But that was for something quite different," said Fiona. "That was for my treasure. I am not thinking of any treasure now."
"Silly of you, then," said the centipede. "I would be. Ever studied philosophy?"
"No," said Fiona.
"That's a pity," said the centipede. "Then you've never heard of Hegel and the unity ofopposites? Black and white are only different aspects of the same thing, you know. And as soon as you begin to think about it, you see at once how sensible it is. Well, a treasure-hunt and a boy-hunt are only different aspects of a hunt, aren't they? Therefore they are the same thing. Therefore what does for one does for the other. Therefore you go up a hill. There's logic for you," and once more he swelled proudly.
"Thank you very much," said Fiona. "And now will you please tell me where the Urchin is?"
"Tell you!" exclaimed the centipede. "Why, it was you told me. You prophesied the whole thing."
"I'm sure I don't remember it, then," said Fiona.
"What's the matter withyou," said the centipede, "is that you refuse to exert your intelligence, such as it is. You should take a lesson by me. You humans are all forgetting nowadays that the spoken word is an instrument of great power, and that once it is launched it goes on and on, and can work magic on its own account, quite independently of you. If you say a thing will happen, it frequently does happen."
"But what did I say?" asked Fiona.
"You told the Urchin that if he hurt the shore lark the Little People would take him. Well, they've taken him. That's all."
And the centipede slid down on to the ground, and with something like a chuckle vanished. He had evidently learned from his philosophy to bear with resignation the misfortunes of others.
But Fiona did not set off up a hill at once. After breakfast she went to the bookroom and spoke to her father.
"I have found out where the Urchin is, daddy," she said. "He was carried off by the fairies."
The Student showed no surprise.
"You have not been long finding out,Fiona," he said. "I thought you had ways and means of your own."
"But, daddy," she said, "I don'treallybelieve it, you know. It sounds so absurd nowadays. Do you believe it?"
"I believe it, yes," said the Student. "I knew yesterday. Now that you know, I may talk to you about it, so far."
"I don't know that I do really know," she said. "Things like that don'treallyhappen, do they? Whoever heard of it?"
"You and I have heard of it," he answered. "And that is enough. The proposition that people are not carried off by fairies is a mere working hypothesis, liable to be overthrown by any one case to the contrary. Well, we've got a case to the contrary, and that's the end of the hypothesis."
"I'm arguing against myself, daddy, you know," she said. "I want to believe that we do know where he is."
"No difficulty at all," said the Student, "to anyone with a properly trained mind, likeyours and mine. Take it this way. No one has ever crossed the South Arabian desert or explored the snow ranges of New Guinea, have they? Well, for all anyone can say to the contrary, people may be carried off by fairies every day of the week in New Guinea or South Arabia, mayn't they? It may even be the rule there. It may be a working hypothesis among the pygmies of New Guinea that such a thingalwayshappens—at death, for instance. It would be just as good a working hypothesis as it is that itneverhappens."
"But, daddy, it would be so extraordinary, wouldn't it?"
"Not a bit more extraordinary," he said, "than the inside of a bit of radium, or the inside of an egg, for that matter. It is probably simpler for the Urchin to become a fairy than for an egg to become a bird, or a caterpillar a butterfly. It would not be nearly as strange as it is that there is a water beast which can shed its gills and become a land beast, or that Uranus moons go round thewrong way. You can't knock it out by any reasoning of that kind, Fiona. It's merely a matter of fact; and if we have found a case wehavefound a case."
"Then you knew yesterday, daddy?" she said.
"I had a very fair idea," he answered. "That is why I was tapping in the cave with a hammer. Can you guess why?"
Fiona saw.
"To find the rest of the cave," she said. "That is where he would be."
"Just so," said the Student. "These caves cannot end in a wall, as that one seems to. I thought the wall must ring hollow somewhere, and the hollow is in the recess where the stone nearly fell on me. The apparent end of the cave is not in the line of the true cave at all."
"It is the same place where the stones fell on Mr. Johnson," said Fiona.
"That is strange," said the Student.
And then Fiona told about the hand she had seen.
"Of course, of course," said the Student. "That explains the whole thing. They threw the stone down on me too. They did not wish me to know that the wall was hollow just there. They must use it as a doorway. They will have carried the boy through at the moment that you turned your back, of course. I suppose he invited them in some way; they could have no power otherwise."
"He said he would goanywhereto find his treasure," said Fiona.
"That would be quite sufficient for them to act on," said the Student.
"Then the stories about the cruelty of the Little People are true," asked Fiona.
"Only in part," said the Student. "I take it that they are all sorts, like ourselves. They are, as you know, the vanished débris of all the peoples that have helped to make this planet what it is. Good people, many of them. But they cannot altogether love those who have driven them under the ground."
"And who is the old hawker, daddy," she asked, "and what has he to do with it all?"
"I can't talk about anything except what you already know," said the Student. "Have you found out yet how to start?"
"I am to go up a hill," said Fiona. "And I am going up Heleval now. And I came to see if you would come with me."
"I wish I could; I wish very much I could," said the Student. "I do not know what you may find; but I know well that if I went with you, you would find nothing but grass and rock. I am too old to see the things you can see, you know. You have to do it alone, little daughter."
So Fiona filled her pocket with bread and cheese, and started; and the Student, after a useless attempt to settle down to his inscriptions, set up a little three-inch telescope with which he sometimes entertained Fiona on fine nights, gazing at Jupiter's moons or Saturn's rings, and followed her across the moor as faras he could. It was the only way he could go with her.
There are many worse things in the world than setting out to climb Heleval on a beautiful morning on the first of October, when the grass in unsunned corners is still pearly with the frost of the night, and the whole earth is touched with the wonderful caress of the cool autumn sunshine. Fiona's way lay along the shore road, past the bank of heather and fern which in August had been gay with flowers, napperd and potentilla, blue milkwort and starry eye-bright, and alive with butterflies, blues and small heaths and pearl-bordered fritillaries; but the flowers were faded now, and in their place, in the little burn where the hazelnuts grew, was a tapestry of purple burrs and scarlet hips. The shore road ended at a little burn; here an old stone bridge, grown over with grass, crossed the pool which in times of spate would hold a fat, white sea-trout, and here Fiona and the Urchin had used to come in summer to gather globe flowers. From this point a sheep track led up the valley beside the burn, through great spaces of yellowing bracken, by little swampy springs where late forget-me-nots still lingered and an early snipe might rise with a skeep, and across low-lying wastes of bog-myrtle, perfuming all the air with its dying leaves; then the ground began to rise, and fern and bog-myrtle gave place to short, hard grass tufted with bulrushes, and beds of matted unburnt heather, seamed with rabbit tracks.
After a time Fiona left the valley and began to climb the hillside, rising steeply through heather and red grass and heather again, most of it dying by now, but with patches still in full flower, worked by the wild bees and making the moorland smell like a honey-pot. Then more grass, and limestone ridges, and she stood on the crest of the moor, which billowed away on her right, wave after wave, till it ran down to the low ground andthe sea, and rose up on her left till it ended in the great mass of Heleval, standing up into the cloudless sky. The ground before her was scarred with deep peat-hags, their gray banks touched with the tiny scarlet blossoms of the trumpet-moss, while from their crumbling sides projected bits of the whitened trunks of trees long since dead, last vestiges of the forests that had clothed the island ere ever the Gael first fought his way in. Walking became impossible, and she jumped from gray bank to gray bank, occasionally floundering across a little lake of soft peat, where the wild cotton grass still bloomed, and the mountain hares had left telltale tracks. Now and again a hare itself would scurry away before her up one of the peat ditches, rising to the moor level as soon as he thought he was out of gunshot and sitting up on his haunches to watch; now and again an old grouse, his head and hackles red as a berry in the sunlight, would rise, crow, and swing away over the brow of the moor. And presently from behind Heleval came drifting a gray bird with a long bill who on hovering wings wheeled three times in the air above her and gave his full spring call, the most wonderful sound that the hills ever hear; then he stooped close over her head and with wings spread sickle-wise shot away for the sea. One may see a curlew on the moor in October, but he will not give his spring call; and Fiona felt of good courage, for she knew that the bird had called for her, to tell her she was in the right way.
So she came to the foot of Heleval itself, and started to climb the steep slope of short grass, slippery as polished board, which led up to the rock pinnacle above; the hillside twinkled with the white scuts of rabbits racing up before her to their holes, as round the side of the mountain came their enemy, perhaps the last kite in the island, glittering in the sun as only a glede can, till the beautiful cowardly creature caught sight of Fiona and swept away across the valley. She passed the great cairn where the hill foxes live, and began the last climbto the pinnacle of rock that fronts the flat crest of the mountain. And now something white on the rock, which she had noticed from below without taking account of, began to become insistent. It could not possibly be a patch of snow yet, she thought. Perhaps the shepherd had hung a sheepskin there. But no sheepskin was ever so white.
Then she came up near the pinnacle, and saw. Standing upright against it was a girl, not much older than herself. Her long dark hair blew back over the rock; her white body was half hidden in a trembling veil of white light, which shimmered and played all about her, waving with every breath of the wind. Her face was beautiful and cold, like a frosty moonrise; her eyes shone like the drip of phosphorescent water under the stars.
"You have come at last," said the girl. "Every day for many days I have watched for you."
"Who are you, you beautiful girl?" asked Fiona.
"I am an Oread," said the girl. "I am the spirit of Heleval."
"I have heard," said Fiona, "that long ago people used to believe that everything had a spirit of its own, mountains and rivers and trees. Is it true then?"
"Itwastrue," said the girl. "The world was full of my sisters, once. There were the Naiads in the streams, and the Hamadryads in the woods, and we, the Oreads, in the mountains. Men were wiser and simpler in those days. But now my sisters are nearly all gone. When a tree has become so many cubic feet of timber, how can it shelter a Dryad? When a stream is merely so many units of waterpower, how can a Naiad dwell there? Only the barren mountains, if they contain neither gold nor iron, have been left unappraised and unexploited; and a few Oreads still linger here and there. Once in a while a man fancies that he sees one of us; then he must climb and climb till the day he dies, hoping to see her indeed; downin your world people call him mountain mad."
"How is it then that I have seen you?" asked Fiona.
The Oread touched her bracelet.
"Partly because of this," she said. "But chiefly because you are a child, and can still see. What is it you have come to ask me?"
"How to find the Urchin," said Fiona.
"You know of course where he is?" the girl asked; and Fiona said, "Yes, he is in Fairyland; but I do not know the way to go."
"That is easily told," said the Oread. "The King of the Woodcock will let you in, and any of his people can tell you where to find him. But do you know the danger? If you do arrive, which is very doubtful, the fairies will make you wish a wish; and if your wish be one that does not find favor with them, they will keep you there forever, till you lose your memory and yourself and become even as one of them."
"I will take the risk," said Fiona, "for I must go and try to bring him back."
"Why do you want to bring him back?" asked the Oread. "He is much better where he is. Will he thank you for bringing him back? Not a bit. You will have the labor and the danger, and he will take it all for granted. And then he will become a man, and what use is that? He may be a financier, and cheat somebody; or a politician, and slander somebody; or a learned man, and hinder wisdom. He is much better in Fairyland. Why are you going?"
"I can't help it," said Fiona. "You can't leave people in the lurch, you know."
"Of course you can," said the Oread. "Be sensible and go home; eat, drink, and be merry."
"O, don't you understand?" said Fiona. "Don't you see that there are some things youcan'tdo, whatever anybody says? It's not the reason of the thing; it's only just because I am I, and he is lost. You are so beautiful; haven't you any heart?"
"Neither heart nor soul," said the Oread. "So I ought to be perfectly happy. You have a heart and a soul, and you are not. Which of us is the better off?"
"I wouldn't change, anyhow," said Fiona.
The Oread laughed.
"Of course you wouldn't. It is I who would change if I could. But as I have no soul, and cannot get one, and do not know what it would mean to get one, it is no use worrying; it is best to be happy as I am. In any case, I would not care to be like men and women. I would not mind having a child's heart, like you. I had a heart once, but it is so long ago that I have almost forgotten what it was like. How old do you think I am?"
"Youlookabout seventeen," said Fiona.
"I am exactly as old as Heleval," said the girl. "And that is more hundreds of thousands of years than you or I could ever count. I am older than any of the fishes or birds or beasts; far older than men or fairies. Look at that," and the Oread swept her arm over the gloriousprospect around her; the two great wings of the Isle of Mist stretched far out into the sea, the Atlantic throbbing and sparkling under the blue sky, and across the loch the jagged gray range of the Cuchullins, peak upon peak. "Isn't it all beautiful? We came into being together. Heleval was a giant in those days, a king among other kings; and there was no sea there, and the Cuchullin Hills stood right up into the sky, and twisted and bubbled while the Earth cooled and cracked, and my sisters of the Fire came out of the cracks and taught us mountain spirits the fire dance, and we danced it all night on the great peaks till the stars reeled to watch us. And then the fiery summits cooled and sank down, and my sisters of the Fire sank with them, and a mighty river went foaming out down the valley yonder to a distant sea; and every evening my sisters the Naiads came floating up in a circle with garlands of green on their hair, and they taught us mountain spirits the water dance, and we danced it all night on the moonlit water, whilethe Ocean crept nearer and nearer to gaze. And then the sea came up, and the river carved Heleval out as you see it, and shrank away, and my sisters the Naiads shrank away with it; and the island was covered with great forests, and my sisters the Hamadryads came out of the tree-trunks and taught us mountain spirits the tree dance, and we danced it all night in the forest glades, till one night men saw; and men felled the forests to capture my sisters of the trees and enslave them, but they vanished as the trees vanished. And to-day only the hills are left, and we, the Oreads, a people few and fading away; and we no longer dance, for we have lost all our sisters, and we no longer have hearts."
The girl's face had filled with color as she spoke, and her eyes had become soft, and her voice sounded like the music of waters far away. Fiona looked at her in wonder.
"Indeed, indeed, you have your heart still," she said. "And you are far more beautiful even than I thought you were. Come homewith me, and I will love you as you loved your sisters."
"It is not possible," said the Oread. "It is not free to me to leave Heleval. IamHeleval. And I shall be here till one day men find iron or copper in my mountain, and come up with great engines to carve it and tear its flanks and carry it away; and then I shall go too, as my sisters have gone."
"Will you die?" asked Fiona.
"I do not know what death means," said the girl. "I shall just go back, like a drop of water when it falls into the sea. But do you know what you have done to-day? For a few moments, because you are brave and loyal, you have given me back my heart, which was lost thousands of years ago. It will all fade away again; but before it fades, will you kiss me?"
So Fiona took her in her arms and kissed her, and then turned and went down the hill. Once she faced round, and saw the Oread standing, frosty and white, against the pinnacle of rock, holding out her arms; and she started to go back to her. And even as she moved the whiteness vanished, and there was nothing there but the rocky pinnacle, shining in the slanting sunlight. Rather sadly she went home.
That night Fiona told her father that she believed she had found the way to go. They also discussed the question of catching a woodcock; with the result that Fiona was up at dawn and off to the kennels behind the big house, where the Urchin's father kept his dogs. She understood that she must take advantage both of the night frost and the habits of the keeper, who was apt to lie in bed awhile when no one was about.
The two setters stood on their hind legs to greet her, and pawed at the bars, whining and dancing with joy. Artemis was white and brown and Apollo was white and black. Fiona threw open the door, and they were out in a moment, tumbling over each other as theymade wild rings round the grass, and dashing back in between to lick her hand. She had to sit down and wait till the first exuberance was over, and they came and lay down at her feet with their tongues out.
"It is good to be out so early," said Apollo.
"It's so slow in the kennel," said Artemis. "And we can't even talk to each other, because Apollo was broken in English and doesn't know any Gaelic, and I was broken by another man in Gaelic and don't know any English."
"You'll interpret, won't you?" said Apollo. "Of course we've the international code, but it doesn't take one much further than the passwords."
So for the rest of the morning Fiona had not only to interpret but to make every remark twice over, once in each language. But it will do if the reader takes this for granted.
"What are we going to do?" asked Apollo.
So Fiona explained to them that she wanted to catch a woodcock and ask him a question, and she hoped they would help her.
"Of course we will," said Artemis. "We know all about woodcock. When we go out with himself, we find them for him and stand still, and then he makes a noise and they fall down dead."
"Sometimes," said Apollo.
"Generally," corrected Artemis, loyally. "Will you make them fall down dead?"
Fiona explained that she only wanted to catch one and talk to it.
"We never saw that done," said Apollo. "But we will find one, and then you can catch it."
"It's very early for woodcock," said Artemis. "There won't be any in the heather on the second of October. But there may be an early pair in the ferns."
"The first ones always pitch in the ferns on Glenollisdal," said Apollo.
So to Glenollisdal they went, down the shore road and across the little bridge and then by the shepherd's track along the top of the black cliffs, over grass and stones allrough and white with the frost. The cold morning air was like new wine, and Fiona had to shade her eyes from the low sun. Then the track left the cliffs and began to climb up a sunless valley, across little burns beautiful with fading ferns, till between two great moorland crags it reached the pass, more a watercourse now than a track; and then came the cairn at the summit of the pass, with its glorious view of sea and mountain, and down at one's very feet the deep narrow valley that was Glenollisdal, seamed from crest to foot by its deep burn, which ran half its length through faded brown heather and then out to sea through a huge bed of dying bracken, the whole bathed in the bright morning sun.
"We always come here the first day," said Apollo. "Oh, we are going to have fun."
The three followed the track down to where it passed the top of the fern bed. There was a good deal of grass there, dotted with sheep, and in one place, looking well out to sea, acurious little hard circle in the grass, where no sheep ever came.
"That is the fairy ring," said Artemis. "Where they dance, you know."
"They dance on All Hallows E'en," said Apollo. "But no one ever sees them."
"Because everyone's afraid to go and look," said Artemis.
"Please, may we start?" said Apollo.
"All you have to do is to wait till we point," said Artemis, "and then come to us."
And the two dogs dashed off into the great fern bed, crossing each other backwards and forwards like a pair of scissors as they quartered it.
They were not long about it. Apollo's gallop became a sort of run, a yard or two of stealthy crawl, and he stopped dead, tail stiff and throat distended, like a dog of marble, and looked round for Fiona. Artemis was just crossing him; she whipped round in her stride as if shot and became a second marble image where she stood.
Fiona walked down to Apollo. But the ferns rustled a good deal as she made her way through, and as she reached the dog's side the cock rose, five yards away, with a lazy careless flap as if it felt only the bother of being disturbed. For a moment she had a vivid impression of the white patches at the end of its fan of tail feathers, and then it gradually gathered speed and swept away over the side of the valley; for an instant it showed black as it crossed the sky line, and then it was gone.
Apollo turned to Fiona with unhappy eyes and licked her hand. But Artemis never moved a muscle.
"Come to me," she said in a low whisper.
Very quietly Fiona reached her side.
"The other bird is here," whispered Artemis, "just under my nose. Stoop down."
Fiona bent down between the stalks of the bracken. The woodcock was sitting with its back to her, a little brown bunch of feathers. Very gently she put her hand out, and evenas she did so she became aware of a wise black eye looking at her, though the bird faced the other way. Her hand closed on the empty air, and the woodcock, with a wonderful spring, was well on its way to seek its mate.
"I believe I could have put a foot on it," said Artemis regretfully. "But of course we are not allowed to."
"I don't know how I came to be so foolish," said Fiona. "I ought to have spoken to it instead of trying to catch it. But I forgot."
"Better luck next time," said Apollo; "we must try again."
But though the dogs worked the whole of the ferns carefully, there was no other bird there.
They came back and lay down beside Fiona, tongues out and panting.
"It's no use trying the heather yet, I know," said Artemis. "Birds are never in it at this time of year."
"There are some more ferns two miles on," said Apollo doubtfully. "I saw a bird there once, three years ago."
"I wish I knew what to do," said Fiona.
"We can leave it for a day or two and come back," said Artemis. "Those two birds will be back again to look for each other."
"But they won't be so confiding again," added Apollo.
They were all so preoccupied that they never noticed the shepherd till he was quite close to them. He was striding down the track, a big, raw-boned man with red hair; a plaid was thrown loosely across his shoulder; at his heels followed a jet black collie.
The dogs saw him first. It would seem that they did not like him. Every hair on their necks bristled; they shrank close to Fiona, making little moaning noises in their throats, and flattening themselves as if they were trying to burrow into the ground. Their eyes were full of terror.
"Why, Artemis, Apollo, what's the matter?" said Fiona. Then she looked up and saw the shepherd. "Why, it's only the new shepherd and his collie. There's nothing to be afraid of."
"Collie!" said Apollo. "That thing's not a collie. Can't you see?"
"Shepherd!" echoed Artemis. "That thing's not a shepherd. Oh, can't you see?"
The shepherd came up to Fiona, and said that Miss Fiona was out early and was there anything he could be doing for her. He spoke in the soft correct English of the Gael.
"I came out to catch a woodcock to talk to it," said Fiona, "and we can't catch one."
It occurred to her, even as she spoke, that the statement sounded a little out of the ordinary. But the rough shepherd never let the least sign of this show on his face. He answered in the most matter-of-fact way, with the gentle courtesy of the west coast, that there would not be many woodcock in yet, and would he try to catch one for Miss Fiona?
"Oh, do you think you could?" said Fiona eagerly. "I should be so grateful."
Then the shepherd saw the trouble of the dogs. He said something to them in a language that was neither English nor Gaelic, and waved his own dog to go. The collie went straight off up the moor, and sat down on the top of the nearest rock ledge, an odd little blot of black on the brown and yellow moorland. Apollo and Artemis got up and shook themselves violently.
"It was the international password," said Apollo. "Goodness knows where he got it from. But we have to recognize it."
"I'm not happy," said Artemis. "I was well brought up. I never associated with this sort of thing before."
Fiona, who knew that a new shepherd had been coming, could make nothing of their trouble, and did her best to smooth them down. The shepherd led the way up the hill, and on to a little rough plateau broken with rocks and bits of heather, lying under the main rise of the hill where it rounds away toward the Glenollisdal burn. "I am thinking that there should be a woodcock about here," he said.
"This is one of the earliest places in all the heather," whispered Artemis to Fiona. "He must know this moor very well."
"It's too early yet, all the same, even for here," said Apollo.
It looked as if Apollo were right. For when at the shepherd's request Fiona threw the dogs off, they quartered the whole plateau and found nothing.
But the shepherd stuck to his guns.
"I am thinking that there should be a bird here," he said. "Will Miss Fiona give me leave to try my own dog?"
Fiona nodded and called the setters to heel; the shepherd waved his hand, and the black collie came racing to him. Some collies will work a ground like a spaniel, and some will even do a little pointing, but the black collie troubled himself neither with one nor the other. When the shepherd spoke to him, he just cantered straight forward to a small patch of heather on the sunless side of a rock, where the frost still lingered, and there satdown quite unconcerned, as though the matter in hand were altogether beneath the scope of his talents.
"I think he has a bird," said the shepherd.
"I tried that place," said Apollo. "There's nothing there."
But the shepherd had gone up to his dog and was peering carefully into the heather. Then he beckoned Fiona.
"Does Miss Fiona see the bird?" he asked, pointing.
Fiona looked long before she saw. The woodcock had squeezed himself right into the roots of a frost-covered clump of heather, and even when the heather was parted nothing showed but his little orange tail, with its white and black points.
"Shall I catch him for Miss Fiona?" asked the shepherd; and Fiona said, "Oh yes, please, if you will."
The shepherd knelt down and brought his two great hands slowly to either side of the tuft of heather; then he closed them with asnap, and drew out the largest woodcock Fiona had ever seen. It struggled and thrashed at his wrists with its powerful wings.
"Will Miss Fiona take the bird now?" he said. "Just behind the wings, with her thumbs on its back."
So Fiona took her bird, and as she did so its back-seeing eye caught the glint of her copper bangle. It stopped thrashing with its wings and lay quite still in her hands.
"Oh, I say," he said, "why didn't you say before, instead of employing these people and frightening an honest bird out of his senses?"
"My dogs couldn't find you," said Fiona. "And I think it was so good of the shepherd to find you for me."
"Shepherd!" said the woodcock. "That wasn't a shepherd. And it wasn't a collie either."
Fiona suddenly recollected that she had not yet thanked the shepherd, and turned to do so. But the shepherd and collie were gone.They must have walked very quickly to have turned the corner of the hill already.
"Where did he go?" she asked Artemis. Artemis shivered.
"To his own place, I hope," said Artemis severely. "Well brought up dogs should not be asked to associate with things like that."
"But it was only the new shepherd," said Fiona.
"There's the new shepherd," said Artemis, nodding toward a distant slope, where a figure with a brown collie could be seen gathering sheep.
"What were they, then?" asked Fiona.
"Two of the Little People, of course," said Apollo. "Oh dear, oh dear, I'm afraid you'll have trouble."
"One generally dies," said Artemis, with cheerful consolation.
"But they were very nice to me indeed," said Fiona.
"Of course they were," said the woodcock. "You're privileged, you know.Weall knowit. And don't you mind the dogs, my dear. They are good creatures, but they and their forbears have lived so long with humans that they have forgotten most of the things we know. They are nearly as blind as humans now, saving your presence, my dear. And now what is it you want with me?"
"I want to find the King of the Woodcock," said Fiona.
"Bless your heart," said the bird, "and who do you suppose We are? You never saw a woodcock Our size before, did you?" And indeed Fiona never had; for he was as big as a young grouse.
"Eighteen and a half ounces, if I'm a pennyweight," said the woodcock. "I am the heaviest king that we have ever had. Will you please put me down if you want to talk to me? It is hardly consonant with my royal dignity to be held. I shan't fly away;noblesse oblige, you know."
So Fiona put him down, and he arranged himself like a bunch of feathers on the ground,his head well back between his shoulders and his beady black eyes looking all round him at once.
"Why didn't Apollo find you?" asked Fiona.
"No scent," said the woodcock, proudly. "I am not like a common bird. No dog can find a king woodcock; and no dog ever has. We can be beaten out of a wood, of course; my great-great-grandfather was shot like that when the family lived in Norfolk, many years ago. So we came up here to the open heather, and have been quite safe ever since. And now what do you want, my dear?"
"I was told you could let me into Fairyland," said Fiona.
"I can let you in by the back door," the bird said. "But are you really going to Fairyland? You'll need some courage, you know, if you are going the back way."
"Is there another way?" asked Fiona.
"There's the front door, of course," said the bird. "But no one can go that way without an invitation. Have you an invitation?"
"No," said Fiona.
"A pity," said the woodcock. "There is no danger that way. But without an invitation you could not even find the door. As it is, you'll have to go in by the back way and take your risks."
"I have to go, whatever they are," said Fiona.
"Noblesse oblige," said the woodcock. "Quite so, quite so. Have you been told about the wish?"
"Yes," said Fiona. "I know about that."
"The other thing," continued the bird, "is that you must stick to the main path. Remember that. You must not turn out of it for any reason of any kind. You'll see lots of side paths, and you'll see other things too; but if you once leave the main path by so much as one step you'll never get home again. There are no short cuts to Fairyland."
"Thank you so much," said Fiona. "But how shall I know the main path?"
With his long bill the woodcock tweakedthe point feather out of one of his wings and gave it to her.
"This will take you through," he said. "It will point the right way for you; that's why it is called the point feather. Just follow it. If you are frightened and want to leave your search and come home, tap on the ground with it and you will be back in Glenollisdal. But somehow I don't think you will. And whatever you do, don't lose it. When you reach the fairy grove, show it to the guardian, and he will let you in; and mind you don't go in unless he shows you its fellow. Oh, I'm all right, thank you; I'll have grown others long before they are needed. There is no great rush to Fairyland on the part of people who haven'tgotto go, my dear."
"It all sounds so much more difficult than I thought," said poor Fiona.
"Nothing worth while is ever easy," said the woodcock. "And now I'll show you where to start. By the bye, you can't take the dogs with you."
"This dog wouldn't go," said Artemis, shivering. "That black collie's there somewhere."
"Don't bother about us," said Apollo. "We'll be home long before the keeper is out of bed."
So Fiona took a warm farewell of the two dogs, who lamented her sad fate and wished her luck all in one breath, and then set off homeward with their long swinging gallop.
"And now, if you want to be in time for the great gathering, which you humans call Hallow E'en, you'll have to hurry," said the woodcock.
"But it's nearly a month to Hallow E'en," said Fiona.
"You'll want every minute of it," said the bird. "Come on."
And they started off for the fairy ring, the woodcock pattering along on his little feet at a pace which would have surprised anyone who had never seen a woodcock do it.
"How come you to be doorkeeper?" asked Fiona, as they went.
"Hereditary," said the bird. "We used to go to all the lost lands, you know, like Lyonesse and Lemuria and Bresil and Atlantis. We still cross Ireland once a year and pass on into the Atlantic to salute the site of Plato's island, before we settle in Britain. And Fairyland is only another of the lost lands. Here we are."
They had come to the fairy ring.
"There's nothing more I can do now," said the woodcock. "A straight step and a stout heart, my dear."
Fiona took the feather in her hand and stood in the fairy ring.