CHAPTER II
I only six when Wee Brown Elspeth
was brought to me. Jean and Angus were
as fond of each other in their silent way as they
were of me, and they often went together with
me when I was taken out for my walks. I was
kept in the open air a great deal, and Angus
would walk by the side of my small, shaggy
Shetland pony and lead him over rough or
steep places. Sheltie, the pony, was meant for
use when we wished to fare farther than a child
could walk; but I was trained to sturdy marching
and climbing even from my babyhood.
Because I so loved the moor, we nearly always
rambled there. Often we set out early in the
morning, and some simple food was carried, so
that we need not return to the castle until we
chose. I would ride Sheltie and walk by turns
until we found a place I liked; then Jean and
Angus would sit down among the heather,
Sheltie would be secured, and I would wander
about and play in my own way. I do not
think it was in a strange way. I think I must
have played as almost any lonely little girl
might have played. I used to find a corner
among the bushes and pretend it was my house
and that I had little friends who came to play
with me. I only remember one thing which
was not like the ordinary playing of children.
It was a habit I had of sitting quite still a long
time and listening. That was what I called
it--"listening." I was listening to hear if the
life on the moor made any sound I could understand.
I felt as if it might, if I were very still
and listened long enough.
Angus and Jean and I were not afraid of rain
and mist and change of weather. If we had
been we could have had little outdoor life.
We always carried plaids enough to keep us
warm and dry. So on this day I speak of we
did not turn back when we found ourselves in
the midst of a sudden mist. We sat down in a
sheltered place and waited, knowing it would
lift in time. The sun had been shining when
we set out.
Angus and Jean were content to sit and guard
me while I amused myself. They knew I would
keep near them and run into no danger. I was
not an adventurous child. I was, in fact, in a
more than usually quiet mood that morning.
The quiet had come upon me when the mist
had begun to creep about and inclose us. I
liked it. I liked the sense of being shut in by
the soft whiteness I had so often watched from
my nursery window in the castle.
"People might be walking about," I said to
Angus when he lifted me from Sheltie's back.
"We couldn't see them. They might be
walking."
"Nothing that would hurt ye, bairnie," he
answered.
"No, they wouldn't hurt me," I said. I had
never been afraid that anything on the moor
would hurt me.
I played very little that day. The quiet and
the mist held me still. Soon I sat down and
began to "listen." After a while I knew that
Jean and Angus were watching me, but it did
not disturb me. They often watched me when
they thought I did not know they were doing it.
I had sat listening for nearly half an hour
when I heard the first muffled, slow trampling
of horses' hoofs. I knew what it was even
before it drew near enough for me to be conscious
of the other sounds--the jingling of arms
and chains and the creaking of leather one
notices as troopers pass by. Armed and mounted
men were coming toward me. That was what
the sounds meant; but they seemed faint and
distant, though I knew they were really quite
near. Jean and Angus did not appear to hear
them. I knew that I only heard them because
I had been listening.
Out of the mist they rode a company of
wild-looking men wearing garments such as I
had never seen before. Most of them were
savage and uncouth, and their clothes were
disordered and stained as if with hard travel and
fight. I did not know--or even ask myself--
why they did not frighten me, but they did not.
Suddenly I seemed to know that they were
brave men and had been doing some brave,
hard thing. Here and there among them I
caught sight of a broken and stained sword,
or a dirk with only a hilt left. They were all
pale, but their wild faces were joyous and
triumphant. I saw it as they drew near.
The man who seemed their chieftain was a
lean giant who was darker but, under his
darkness, paler than the rest. On his forehead was
a queer, star-shaped scar. He rode a black
horse, and before him he held close with his
left arm a pretty little girl dressed in strange,
rich clothes. The big man's hand was pressed
against her breast as he held her; but though
it was a large hand, it did not quite cover a
dark-red stain on the embroideries of her dress.
Her dress was brown, and she had brown hair
and soft brown eyes like a little doe's. The
moment I saw her I loved her.
The black horse stopped before me. The
wild troop drew up and waited behind. The
great, lean rider looked at me a moment, and
then, lifting the little girl in his long arms, bent
down and set her gently on her feet on the
mossy earth in the mist beside me. I got up
to greet her, and we stood smiling at each
other. And in that moment as we stood the
black horse moved forward, the muffled trampling
began again, the wild company swept on
its way, and the white mist closed behind it as
if it had never passed.
Of course I know how strange this will seem
to people who read it, but that cannot be
helped and does not really matter. It was in
that way the thing happened, and it did not
even seem strange to me. Anything might happen
on the moor--anything. And there was
the fair little girl with the eyes like a doe's.
I knew she had come to play with me, and
we went together to my house among the
bushes of broom and gorse and played happily.
But before we began I saw her stand and look
wonderingly at the dark-red stain on the
embroideries on her childish breast. It was as if
she were asking herself how it came there and
could not understand. Then she picked a fern
and a bunch of the thick-growing bluebells
and put them in her girdle in such a way that
they hid its ugliness.
I did not really know how long she stayed.
I only knew that we were happy, and that,
though her way of playing was in some ways
different from mine, I loved it and her. Presently
the mist lifted and the sun shone, and we
were deep in a wonderful game of being hidden
in a room in a castle because something strange
was going to happen which we were not told
about. She ran behind a big gorse bush and
did not come back. When I ran to look for her
she was nowhere. I could not find her, and I
went back to Jean and Angus, feeling puzzled.
"Where did she go?" I asked them, turning
my head from side to side.
They were looking at me strangely, and both
of them were pale. Jean was trembling a little.
"Who was she, Ysobel?" she said.
"The little girl the men brought to play
with me," I answered, still looking about me.
"The big one on the black horse put her down--
the big one with the star here." I touched my
forehead where the queer scar had been.
For a minute Angus forgot himself. Years
later he told me.
"Dark Malcolm of the Glen," he broke out.
"Wee Brown Elspeth."
"But she is white--quite white!" I said.
"Where did she go?"
Jean swept me in her warm, shaking arms and
hugged me close to her breast.
"She's one of the fair ones," she said, kissing
and patting me. "She will come again. She'll
come often, I dare say. But she's gone now
and we must go, too. Get up, Angus, man.
We're for the castle."
If we three had been different--if we had
ever had the habit of talking and asking questions--
we might surely have asked one another
questions as I rode on Sheltie's back, with
Angus leading us. But they asked me nothing,
and I said very little except that I once spoke
of the wild-looking horsemen and their pale,
joyous faces.
"They were glad," was all I said.
There was also one brief query from Angus.
"Did she talk to you, bairnie?" he said.
I hesitated and stared at him quite a long
time. Then I shook my head and answered,
slowly, "N-no."
Because I realized then, for the first time,
that we had said no words at all. But I had
known what she wanted me to understand, and
she had known what I might have said to her if
I had spoken--and no words were needed.
And it was better.
They took me home to the castle, and I was
given my supper and put to bed. Jean sat
by me until I fell asleep; she was obliged to sit
rather a long time, because I was so happy with
my memories of Wee Brown Elspeth and the
certainty that she would come again. It was
not Jean's words which had made me sure. I
knew.
She came many times. Through all my
childish years I knew that she would come and
play with me every few days--though I never
saw the wild troopers again or the big, lean
man with the scar. Children who play together
are not very curious about one another, and I
simply accepted her with delight. Somehow I
knew that she lived happily in a place not far
away. She could come and go, it seemed, without
trouble. Sometimes I found her--or she
found me upon the moor; and often she appeared
in my nursery in the castle. When we
were together Jean Braidfute seemed to prefer
that we should be alone, and was inclined to
keep the under-nurse occupied in other parts
of the wing I lived in. I never asked her to do
this, but I was glad that it was done. Wee
Elspeth was glad, too. After our first meeting
she was dressed in soft blue or white, and the
red stain was gone; but she was always Wee
Brown Elspeth with the doelike eyes and the
fair, transparent face, the very fair little face.
As I had noticed the strange, clear pallor of the
rough troopers, so I noticed that she was
curiously fair. And as I occasionally saw other
persons with the same sort of fairness, I thought
it was a purity of complexion special to some,
but not to all. I was not fair like that, and
neither was any one else I knew.
