CHAPTER VII
"The feeling you call The Fear has never
come to me," I said to her. "And if it
had I think it would have melted away because
of a dream I once had. I don't really believe it
was a dream, but I call it one. I think I really
went somewhere and came back. I often wonder
why I came back. It was only a short
dream, so simple that there is scarcely anything
to tell, and perhaps it will not convey anything
to you. But it has been part of my life--that
time when I was Out on the Hillside. That is
what I call The Dream to myself, `Out on the
Hillside,' as if it were a kind of unearthly poem.
But it wasn't. It was more real than anything
I have ever felt. It was real--real! I wish
that I could tell it so that you would know
how real it was."
I felt almost piteous in my longing to make
her know. I knew she was afraid of something,
and if I could make her know how REAL that one
brief dream had been she would not be afraid
any more. And I loved her, I loved her so
much!
"I was asleep one night at Muircarrie," I
went on, "and suddenly, without any preparatory
dreaming, I was standing out on a hillside
in moonlight softer and more exquisite than I
had ever seen or known before. Perhaps I
was still in my nightgown--I don't know. My
feet were bare on the grass, and I wore something
light and white which did not seem to touch
me. If it touched me I did not feel it. My
bare feet did not feel the grass; they only knew
it was beneath them.
"It was a low hill I stood on, and I was only
on the side of it. And in spite of the thrilling
beauty of the moon, all but the part I stood on
melted into soft, beautiful shadow, all below
me and above me. But I did not turn to look
at or ask myself about anything. You see the
difficulty is that there are no earthly words to
tell it! All my being was ecstasy--pure, light
ecstasy! Oh, what poor words-- But I know
no others. If I said that I was happy--HAPPY!
--it would be nothing. I WAS happiness itself,
I WAS pure rapture! I did not look at the
beauty of the night, the sky, the marvelous
melting shadow. I was PART of it all, one with
it. Nothing held me nothing! The beauty
of the night, the light, the air WERE what I was,
and I was only thrilling ecstasy and wonder at
the rapture of it."
I stopped and covered my face with my
hands, and tears wet my fingers.
"Oh, I cannot make it real! I was only there
such a short, short time. Even if you had been
with me I could not have found words for it,
even then. It was such a short time. I only
stood and lifted my face and felt the joy of it,
the pure marvel of joy. I only heard myself
murmuring over and over again: `Oh, how
beautiful! how beautiful! Oh, how BEAUTIFUL!'
"And then a marvel of new joy swept through
me. I said, very softly and very slowly, as if
my voice were trailing away into silence:
`Oh--h! I--can--lie--down--here--on--the
grass--and--sleep . . . all--through--the
night--under--this--moonlight. . . . I can sleep
--sleep--'
"I began to sink softly down, with the
heavenliest feeling of relaxation and repose, as
if there existed only the soul of beautiful rest.
I sank so softly--and just as my cheek almost
touched the grass the dream was over!"
"Oh!" cried Mrs. MacNairn. "Did you
awaken?"
"No. I came back. In my sleep I suddenly
found myself creeping into my bed again
as if I had been away somewhere. I was
wondering why I was there, how I had left the
hillside, when I had left it. That part WAS a
dream--but the other was not. I was allowed
to go somewhere--outside--and come back."
I caught at her hand in the dark.
"The words are all wrong," I said. "It is
because we have no words to describe that. But
have I made you feel it at all? Oh! Mrs.
MacNairn, have I been able to make you know
that it was not a dream?"
She lifted my hand and pressed it passionately
against her cheek, and her cheek, too, was
wet--wet.
"No, it was not a dream," she said. "You
came back. Thank God you came back, just
to tell us that those who do not come back
stand awakened in that ecstasy--in that
ecstasy. And The Fear is nothing. It is only
The Dream. The awakening is out on the
hillside, out on the hillside! Listen!" She
started as she said it. "Listen! The nightingale
is beginning again."
He sent forth in the dark a fountain--a rising,
aspiring fountain--of golden notes which seemed
to reach heaven itself. The night was made
radiant by them. He flung them upward like
a shower of stars into the sky. We sat and
listened, almost holding our breath. Oh! the
nightingale! the nightingale!
"He knows," Hector MacNairn's low voice
said, "that it was not a dream."
When there was silence again I heard him
leave his chair very quietly.
"Good night! good night!" he said, and went
away. I felt somehow that he had left us
together for a purpose, but, oh, I did not even
remotely dream what the purpose was! But
soon she told me, almost in a whisper.
"We love you very much, Ysobel," she said.
"You know that?"
"I love you both, with all my heart," I
answered. "Indeed I love you."
"We two have been more to each other than
mere mother and son. We have been sufficient
for each other. But he began to love you that
first day when he watched you in the railway
carriage. He says it was the far look in your
eyes which drew him."
"I began to love him, too," I said. And
I was not at all ashamed or shy in saying it.
"We three might have spent our lives
together," she went on. "It would have been a
perfect thing. But--but--" She stood up as
if she could not remain seated. Involuntarily I
stood up with her. She was trembling, and she
caught and held me in her arms. "He cannot
stay, Ysobel," she ended.
I could scarcely hear my own voice when I
echoed the words.
"He cannot--stay?"
"Oh! the time will come," she said, "when
people who love each other will not be separated,
when on this very earth there will be no pain,
no grief, no age, no death--when all the world
has learned the Law at last. But we have not
learned it yet. And here we stand! The
greatest specialists have told us. There is some
fatal flaw in his heart. At any moment, when
he is talking to us, when he is at his work, when
he is asleep, he may--cease. It will just be
ceasing. At any moment. He cannot stay."
My own heart stood still for a second. Then
there rose before me slowly, but clearly, a
vision--the vision which was not a dream.
"Out on the hillside," I murmured. "Out
on the hillside."
I clung to her with both arms and held her
tight. I understood now why they had talked
about The Fear. These two who were almost
one soul were trying to believe that they were
not really to be torn apart--not really. They
were trying to heap up for themselves proof
that they might still be near each other. And,
above all, his effort was to save her from the
worst, worst woe. And I understood, too, why
something wiser and stronger than myself had
led me to tell the dream which was not a dream
at all.
But it was as she said; the world had not
learned the Secret yet. And there we stood.
We did not cry or talk, but we clung to each
other--we CLUNG. That is all human creatures
can do until the Secret is known. And as we
clung the nightingale broke out again.
"O nightingale! O nightingale!" she said in
her low wonder of a voice. "WHAT are you
trying to tell us!"
