University of Virginia Library

SCENE IV.

Chorus.

Scene—Isle-Monach. Ina and Kenneth.
Ina.
Thanks, Kenneth. Now, I want to be alone.
Come back for me an hour hence.

Kenneth.
Yes, Miss Ina;
It is good to be here; yes, for there are
Good thoughts among the graves, and in the Islands;
Better than in the towns.

Ina.
What kind of thoughts?

Kenneth.
Well; dreams of peace, and memories of gladness;
And dreams and memories are all we have
To live on in the Highlands.

Ina.
You are sad;
What ails you, Kenneth?

Kenneth.
Oh, these thoughts will come
When nothing ails you, as the clouds do when
The sun is brightest. You will not stay long?

Ina.
No: but an hour is not too long to mourn
For a dead Father.

Kenneth.
Yet it may be, Miss,
Too long to be alone here. For these isles
Are hollowed by sea-caves, and when you sit
Musing alone, and hear the water rushing
Around you, and beneath, it makes your breath
Come quick with fancies. I had once a cousin
Passed but a night on such an isle, and he
Nigh lost his wits ere morning, for he thought
That every streak of mist, and gleam of moonshine
Pointed and mowed and mocked and laughed at him,
So weird-like was the feeling of the place.

Ina.
Oh, nonsense, Kenneth. Are you superstitious
Like all the rest—and you a scholar too?
But I am not like you a poet, born
To see the unseen, and feel a pulse of life
Beating in brooks and rocks and sandy shores.—
You lost a friend in him who now sleeps here.

Kenneth.
I lost my hope in life.

Ina.
Nay, say not so:
We've not so many here among our hills
With the rare gift of genius, and the love
Of letters, and of all things beautiful,
That we should let them pine away for lack
Of needful culture. I am very sure
My uncle will do as my father did,
And send you still to College. How is Mairi?

Kenneth.
Mairi is gone to Doris Cattanach,
And lost to me.

Ina.
Ah! that explains your gloom;
You have fallen out, and hence your thoughts are sad.
But how should she be lost to you because
She's with her cousin?

Kenneth.
Can a maiden be
With Doris, and remain what I have dreamed?
Can the thaw come, and footsteps tread the snow,
And broad wheels grind it down, and leave it still
As when the white flakes trembled down from heaven?

Ina.
Kenneth, I fear that we are hard on Doris,
We judge a stranger by our home-bred ways,
Who, maybe, walks by other rule of right.
I blame myself at times.

Kenneth.
And so did I,
Miss Ina, when I heard that she had taken
Mairi to be with her. I said like you,
Perhaps 'tis we that have not understood her,
And she has ta'en my little maid to make
A lady of her, as you take a wild-flower,
And plant it in a garden to enrich
Its life and beauty. So I went to thank her.

Ina.
And found your Mairi still your pretty wild-flower,
Only with brighter hues.

Kenneth.
I found her not
At all. She is too grand to see me now;
And Doris only mocked me.

Ina.
Nay, in that
You surely are mistaken. She's a lady.

Kenneth.
And I am but a fisher lad. But you
Shall judge yourself. There was a little song—
A trifle like the shilfa's short bright note—
Which I had writ for Mairi once to sing,
And loved it, for my very soul was in it.
Mairi had sung it in the great house there,
And Doris made a comic rhyme of it,
And said it over to me—very clever,
And funny, but there was no heart in it;
Yet it was like my own—oh, very like;
Only the soul was gone.

Ina.
Ah! that was cruel;
But Mairi did not know of it, be sure.

Kenneth.
Do you think so?

Ina.
Nay, I am certain of it.
She is a girl whom neither wealth, nor arts
Will turn from the bent of truth.

Kenneth.
Thank you for that.

Ina.
Let nothing shake your trust in her. Be sure
Suspicion murders love, and from its death
Come anguish and remorse.

Kenneth.
I will remember.

Ina.
And, Kenneth, when you make yourself a name,
As I am sure you will do, for your songs
Are like the murmur of the running brooks,
Or like the wind that breathes upon the woods,
And from each tree evokes a separate note
To make the woodland harmony, and all
So simple and true that they must touch men's hearts—
Then you will do this, Kenneth: you will make
These fishers' homes, which you do know so well,
Dear to the world by your recital of
The patience and the pathos of their lives,
The tragedies enacted on the sea,
And hunger of the body and soul alike
Where bread and books are scarce.

Kenneth.
That I will, Miss;
But you, we looked to you to help us?

Ina.
Nay,
That is all past and gone.

Kenneth.
Why is it gone?

Ina.
This is a man's work; I have been a failure;
And made his last days lonely whom I loved,
And did no good to any one, and now
My way of life must needs be far from these
Grey rocks and lochs and isles.—Ah!

Enter Sir Diarmid.
Sir Diarmid.
How now, Kenneth?
I thought you never left your books, except
To trim the boat, and set the lines.

Kenneth.
To-day, sir,
I had to row Miss Ina to Isle-Monach.—
Was it an hour you said, Miss?

Sir Diarmid.
Going now?
Well, do not trouble to bring back the boat;
I'll see Miss Ina home.

Kenneth.
Yes, sir.

Sir Diarmid.
Good-bye!
[Exit Kenneth.
Ina, forgive me that I followed you
Into your still retreat. I saw the boat
Making the cove behind the musselcrag,
And could not help it. What a wealth of beauty
Gathers around these mouldering abbey walls,
Draped with pale lichens, and with graceful tufts
Of small-leaved ferns, and lovingly embraced
By the ivy, which they once upheld, that now,
With reverence dutiful, sustains and brightens
Their sad and tottering age. What cunning hand
Carved these dark tombstones with their pregnant symbols
That speak a braver faith than skulls and cross-bones
And Time with scythe and hour-glass? You were right;
Our fathers had an Art and a Religion,
A sense of beauty and a hope in God,
Nobler than ours. Do you come often here?

Ina.
Sometimes. Oh yes, the isle is very lovely;
And yet I love it more for what it hides
Than for the grace that hides it.

Sir Diarmid.
Ah! I know.
Forgive me. You would rather be alone.

Ina.
Nay, it is I should beg to be forgiven:
The place is yours; but yet it holds my dead
Along with yours.

Sir Diarmid.
And living as well as dead,
Our races soon shall mingle once again;
Shall they not, Ina? It is not so long
Since the two streams were parted.

Ina.
Yes; I know.

Sir Diarmid.
Yes! may I take that for my answer, then?

Ina.
Nay, do not wrest my words. I only meant
That we were once of the same stock, and still,
After our kindly Highland way, the river
Scorns not the stream that left to turn the mill,
And grind the meal.

Sir Diarmid.
But gladly welcomes back
The mill-race to its bosom, having been
A shallow and a stony brook without it.
O Ina, you will make an empty life
Once more a flowing river full and glad.

Ina.
This is no time or place for thoughts like these;
I blame myself for listening, standing here
Where I should know but sorrow.

Sir Diarmid.
Why should you
Know only sorrow here or anywhere,
Who bring such joy to others! When a wave,
Broken and spent, ebbs back, what should it do
But mingle with the new wave flowing in,
And swell its volume? Should not love for him, then,
Whom you have lost now blend with other love,
And make an undivided absolute bliss,
To fill and glad our life? Yet it is true,
This place is all too sombre; let us hence,
And get the sunshine round us as within.

Ina.
But there's no sunshine in me. I am truly
A most unhappy maid; and what was said
Must be as if it never had been said.

Sir Diarmid.
You cannot mean it. Ina. What is wrong?
Do you not love me still?

Ina.
Do I not love you?

Sir Diarmid.
Yet you can speak thus calmly of unsaying
All you have said.

Ina.
If it is best for you:—
I cannot cease to love you while I live;
Yet I can live, and have no hope in love.

Sir Diarmid.
If it is best for me! But it's not best;
It is the worst and bitterest could befall me.
What is it, Ina? Something troubles you.
You used to be a leal, true-hearted girl,
And frank and brave and not fantastical.
Have I done aught to vex you?

Ina.
No, indeed;
You have not changed to me nor I to you;
I never trusted you as now I do;
Nor felt before how desolate life will be
Without you. Yet I came here now to make,
Over his grave, a vow that we must part,
Which well may be the breaking of one heart.

Sir Diarmid.
Nay, but of two hearts if it come to that.
Yet why should any hearts be broken, Ina?

Ina.
Listen: we had not told him of our Love—

Sir Diarmid.
It was his sudden illness, not my will
That kept me silent.

Ina.
Yes, indeed, I know:
But when he lay a-dying, I bethought me,
Not witting that the end could be so near,
That it might comfort him to know our bliss;—
And it is bliss, whatever come of it.
But oh, instead of comforting, it made
A stormy bar across the river-mouth
Of life to him, and trouble and alarm.

Sir Diarmid.
But why?

Ina.
He muttered, meaning to explain,
Something—but it was half-articulate—
And all I heard was “Doris.”

Sir Diarmid.
Doris, said you?
Well, now my heart is light again, and I
Could laugh like children at a pantomime.
Why, how could Doris come between us two?

Ina.
I cannot tell; only he named her name.

Sir Diarmid.
But what has Doris Cattanach to do
With us, and with our love? And do you mean,
Ina, that you could give me up to her?

Ina.
That would be hard.

Sir Diarmid.
I'd sooner mate me with
A cloud, cram-full of lightning, hail, and thunder,
Or wed a polar bear, and sail away
Upon an iceberg. Think no more of this:
Perhaps he did not hear you right, or else
The mind was wandering, as it often does
On the dim verge of life.

Ina.
Nay, he said plainly,
“It must not be; you must not love him.”

Sir Diarmid.
Well;
But that's past helping, Ina.

Ina.
Yes, I know.
But yet his broken words left this whole thought
Clear in my mind, it would work harm to you,
And that through Doris somehow. I am sure
That was his meaning.

Sir Diarmid.
Well, it is a riddle
That puzzles me to solve. Shall we then shape
Our lives by their hard puzzles?

Ina.
No, indeed;
But yet it would be selfish if I shrank
From a plain duty for the pain it costs,
Or clung to that which would bring hurt to you.

Sir Diarmid.
But what would hurt me most were losing you.

Ina.
Ah, life is very hard.

Sir Diarmid.
Nay, life with love
Is just the very best thing that I know.
Now think no more of this.

Ina.
If I were only
More worthy of you!

Sir Diarmid.
Let me judge of that:
You rate yourself too humbly: it is I
Should have my doubts of being meet for you;
And yet I think Fate meant us for each other.

Ina.
But if I were to be a burden to you.

Sir Diarmid.
I want that very burden, cannot rise
Without it to the heights where I would soar,
More than the kite without its loaded tail.
Come, Ina, cast these fears away, and speak,
As on that happiest day of life to me
When first our lips were framed to tell our love,
And you did paint for us a restful home
Amid a busy life, like this old house,
What time the monks lived in it, and the folk
Learnt of them letters, arts, and piety.
You have a dainty fancy, and it made
A pretty picture.

Ina.
But it was not fancy.
O Diarmid, you may do a great work here
Where work is greatly needed.

Sir Diarmid.
Could I take
To work as much as sport, and had your help,
Perhaps I might.

Ina.
Nay, do not think of me;
You need no help but what their love provides.
The people live in memories of the past,
And all their happiest memories cluster round
Those of your name and you. They may be stiff
To men of alien blood, at times even false;
But you have but to say, and they will do,
For all their hearts are yours. Oh, if you knew them,
And their pathetic faithfulness of love,
Rooted in ages past.

Sir Diarmid.
There, now; 'tis good
To hear you speaking once more like yourself,
A Highland maiden for her clan and Chief.
I love the people, and at first, I think,
I loved you for the love you bore to them.
But yet the task is hard.

Ina.
That I know well,
For I have failed. And yet the hindrances
To good and noble action mostly lie
In our own bosoms.

Sir Diarmid.
May be. But the clergy,
They hold the place which once the Chieftain held,
And what have they made of it?

Ina.
They have made
A patient, orderly, and pious people,
According to their light. But they have not
The place of eminence and influence,
Which love has kept for you. Besides, our age,
The more its spirit is religious, cleaves
The more to secular forms, and will not take
Its shape from priests.

Sir Diarmid.
But you will help me, Ina?
Will be my inspiration if I try it?

Ina.
What other inspiration can you need
Than to redress old wrongs, and help the growth
Of civil polity, and self-control,
And homes made glad by fruitful industry,
And to be compassed round by all men's love?

Sir Diarmid.
There; every word you say but shows me more
How much I need you. I am not a hero;
Only a Highland laird, as indolent
As all men are whose life is passed in sport.

Ina.
And I but a weak woman; I can do
So little. And their life is an old growth
Of time—a heritage of history,
Not shaped by their intention, nor to be
Fashioned, at once, by our new modes of thinking.

Sir Diarmid.
Now, say not you are weak. There's nought so strong
As a clear-sighted woman. You shall even
Do with me as you will, when I may hold
This little hand in mine, and call it mine.

Ina.
O Diarmid, are we right? My father's words—
His last words, mind—

Sir Diarmid.
Were something about Doris:
And would you give me up to her?

Ina.
No truly.

[Exeunt.
Chorus.