Then a long, low gurgle, a lovely head leaning over the back of the settle and dropping to the middle of the pillow like a lark to its nest in the gra.s.s, a long liquid kiss on the soft round baby legs, and then a perfect fit of baby laughter.
It was as pretty a picture as the world had in it on that bleak Christmas Eve. Whatever tumult might reign without, there within was a nest of peace.
Mona was expecting Ewan at Ballamona that night, and now she was waiting for his coming. It was true that when he was there three hours ago it was in something like anger that they had parted, but Mona recked nothing of that. She knew Ewan"s impetuous temper no better than his conciliatory spirit. He would come to-night, as he had promised yesterday, and if there had been anger between them it would then be gone.
Twenty times she glanced at the little clock with the lion face and the pendulum like a dog"s head that swung above the ingle. Many a time, with head aslant, with parted lips, and eyes alight, she cried "Hark!" to the little one when a footstep would sound in the hall But Ewan did not come, and meantime the child grew more and more fretful as her bedtime approached. At length Mona undressed her and carried her off to her crib in the room adjoining, and sang softly to her while she struggled hard with sleep under the oak hood with the ugly beasts carved on it, until sleep had conquered and all was silence and peace. Then, leaving a tallow dip burning on the table between the crib and the bed, lest perchance the little one should awake and cry from fear of the darkness, Mona went back to her sitting-room to finish off the last bunch of the hibbin and hollin.
The last bunch was a bit of p.r.i.c.kly green, with a cl.u.s.ter of the reddest berries, and Mona hung it over a portrait of her brother, which was painted by a great artist from England when Ewan was a child. The Deemster had turned the portrait out of the dining-room after the painful interview at Bishop"s Court about the loan and surety, and Mona had found it, face to the wall, in a lumber-room. She looked at it now with a new interest. When she hung the hollin over it she recognized for the first time a resemblance to the little Aileen whom she had just put to bed. How strange it seemed that Ewan had once been a child like Aileen!
Then she began to feel that Ewan was late in coming, and to make conjectures as to the cause of his delay. Her father"s house was fast becoming a cheerless place to her. More than ever the Deemster was lost to her. Jarvis Kerruish, her stranger-brother, was her father"s companion; and this seemed to draw her closer to Ewan for solace and cheer.
Then she sat on the settle to thread some loose berries that had fallen, and to think of Dan--the high-spirited, reckless, rollicking, headstrong, tender-hearted, thoughtless, brave, stubborn, daring, dear, dear Dan--Dan, who was very, very much to her in her great loneliness.
Let other people rail at Dan if they would; he was wrapped up with too many of her fondest memories to allow of disloyalty like that. Dan would yet justify her belief in him. Oh, yes, he would yet be a great man, all the world would say it was so, and she would be very proud that he was her cousin--yes, her cousin, or perhaps, perhaps--. And then, without quite daring to follow up that delicious train of thought, even in her secret heart, though none might look there and say if it was unmaidenly, Mona came back to the old Manx ballad, and sang to herself another verse of it:
"Who has not heard of Adair, the youth?
Who does not know that his soul was truth?
Woe is me! how smoothly they speak, And Adair was brave, and a man, but weak."
All at once her hand went up to her forehead, and the words of the old song seemed to have a new significance. Hardly had her voice stopped and her last soft note ceased to ring in the quiet room, when she thought she heard her own name called twice--"Mona! Mona!"
The voice was Ewan"s voice, and it seemed to come from her bedroom. She rose from the settle, and went into her room. There was no one there save the child. The little one was disturbed in her sleep at the moment, and was twisting restlessly, making a faint cry. It was very strange.
The voice had been Ewan"s voice, and it had been deep and tremulous, as the voice of one in trouble.
Presently the child settled itself to sleep, all was silent as before, and Mona went back to the sitting-room. Scarcely was she seated afresh when she heard the voice again, and it again called her twice by name, "Mona! Mona!" in the same tremulous tone, but very clear and distinct.
Then tremblingly Mona rose once more and went into her room, for thence the voice seemed to come. No one was there. The candle burned fitfully, and suddenly the child cried in its sleep--that strange night-cry that freezes the blood of one who is awake to hear it. It was very, very strange.
Feeling faint, hardly able to keep on her feet, Mona went back to the sitting-room and opened the door that led into the hall. No one seemed to be stirring. The door of her father"s study opposite was closed, and there was talking--the animated talking of two persons--within.
Mona turned back, closed her door quietly, and then, summoning all her courage, she walked to the window and drew the heavy curtains aside. The hoops from which they hung rattled noisily over the pole. Putting her face close to the gla.s.s, and shading her eyes from the light of the lamp behind her, she looked out. She saw that the snow had fallen since the lamp had been lit at dusk. There was snow on the ground, and thin snow on the leafless boughs of the trees. She could see nothing else. She even pushed up the sash, and called:
"Who is there?"
But there came no answer. The wind moaned about the house, and the sea rumbled in the distance. She pulled the sash down again.
Then, leaving the curtain back, she turned again into the room, and partly to divert her mind from the mysterious apprehensions that had seized it, she sat down at the little harpsichord that stood on the farther side of the ingle against the wall that ran at right angles from the window.
At first her fingers ran nervously over the keys, but they gained force as she went on, and the volume of sound seemed to dissipate her fears.
"It is nothing," she thought. "I have been troubled about what Ewan said to-day, and I"m nervous--that is all."
And as she played her eyes looked not at the finger-board, but across her shoulder toward the bare window. Then suddenly there came to her a sensation that made her flesh creep. It was as if from the darkness outside there were eyes which she could not see looking steadily in upon her where she sat.
Her blood rushed to her head, she felt dizzy, the playing ceased, and she clung by one hand to the candle-rest of the harpsichord. Then once more she distinctly heard the same deep, tremulous voice call her by her name--"Mona! Mona!"
Faint and all but reeling, she rose again, and again made her way to the bedroom. As before, the child was restless in her sleep. It seemed as if all the air were charged. Mona had almost fallen from fright, when all at once she heard a sound that she could not mistake, and instantly she recovered some self-possession.
It was the sound of the window of her sitting-room being thrown open from without. She ran back, and saw Dan Mylrea climbing into the room.
"Dan!" she cried.
"Mona."
"Did you call?"
"When?"
"Now--a little while ago?"
"No."
A great trembling shook Dan"s whole frame. Mona perceived it, and a sensation of disaster not yet attained to the clearness of an idea took hold of her.
"Where is Ewan?" she said.
He tried to avoid her gaze. "Why do you ask for him?" said Dan, in a faltering voice.
"Where is he?" she asked again.
He grew dizzy, and laid hold of the settle for support. The question she asked was that which he had come to answer, but his tongue clave to his mouth.
Very pale and almost rigid from the heaviness of a great fear which she felt but could not understand, she watched him when he reeled like a drunken man.
"He has called me three times. Where is he? He was to be here to-night,"
she said.
"Ewan will not come to-night," he answered, scarcely audibly; "not to-night, Mona, or to-morrow--or ever--no, he will never come again."
The horrible apprehension that had taken hold of her leaped to the significance of his words, and, almost before he had spoken, a cry burst from her.
"Ewan is dead--he is dead; Mona, our Ewan, he is dead," he faltered.
She dropped to the settle, and cried, in the excess of her first despair, "Ewan, Ewan! to think that I shall see him no more!" and then she wept. All the time Dan stood over her, leaning heavily to bear himself up, trembling visibly, and with a look of great agony fixed upon her, as if he had not the strength to turn his eyes away.
"Yes, yes, our Ewan is dead," he repeated in a murmur that came up from his heart. "The truest friend, the fondest brother, the whitest soul, the dearest, bravest, purest, n.o.blest--O G.o.d! O G.o.d! dead, dead! Worse, a hundredfold worse--Mona, he is murdered."
At that she raised herself up, and a bewildered look was in her eyes.
"Murdered? No, that is not possible. He was beloved by all. There is no one who would kill him--there is no one alive with a heart so black."
"Yes, Mona, but there is," he said; "there is one man with a heart so black."
"Who is he?"
"Who! He is the foulest creature on G.o.d"s earth. Oh, G.o.d in heaven! why was he born?"
"Who is he?"
He bowed his head where he stood before her and beads of sweat started from his brow.