Chapter 3: Mysie Macdonald

“O blessed vision, happy child,
Thou art so exquisitely wild,
I thought of thee with many fears
Of what might be thy lot in future years.”
Wordsworth.

THREE days afterwards, Mysie made her appearance again.

Rowena found her very good company. She was full of Highland folk-lore and superstition; and was a combination of childish trust in the improbable, and old-fashioned sagacity and shrewdness.

“Have you ever seen any fairies?” she asked Rowena.

“I’ve heard about them,” answered Rowena.

“Yes,” sighed the child; “but all the nice things happened long ago. People say now that the fairies have gone away; I’m always watching for them. I went to Inverness one day with Nan. We saw two beautiful things there. One was the statue of Flora Macdonald with her dog—only I wish she’d had her kilt on—I believe she used to wear it when she was quite big! And the other was the Tom na hurisch. And when I saw that I said to myself I’d have one for everything that dies.”

“What is it?” asked Rowena. “I have never seen Inverness.”

“Tom na hurisch is the Fairies’ Hill, and they’ve buried people all over it now. I hope the fairies like it. I think they like people’s souls better than their bodies. You know it used to be rather dangerous for people to walk over their hills. They stole their souls out of them. A minister was found one day—at least his body was—and they thought he had had a fit; he wouldn’t speak or look or eat, and they took him home; he had been walking round Tom na hurisch—and the fairies kept him out of his body for three days, and then they brought him back. I can’t think why he couldn’t have remembered what they did with him; he would never talk about it, but he would never go near a Tom na hurisch again—never—all his life long! I wish the fairies would take me one day.”

“I would rather not have the experience,” Rowena said, laughing. “Who tells you all these stories?”

“Oh, Angus—him and me, we walk over the hills together; and he talks and I listen. Nan laughs at his stories. Nan is an unbeliever! I lie down under the bracken sometimes and watch for the little folk, but I never see them. I thought I did once.”

“You will one day! I wonder if you have heard the story of the laird out hunting. He was coming through his glen when he heard the most beautiful pipes playing; and he hid himself behind a tree; and he saw the fairies marching by, and their pipes playing as they went. The pipes shone in the sun, they were silver pipes with glass at the end of them. And the laird suddenly sprang out and threw his bonnet at them, and seized one of the pipes, calling out, ‘Mine to yours, and yours to me!’ And he wrapped the pipes up in his plaid and took them carefully home, and when he opened them there were some wisps of grass and a puff-ball at the end of them!”

Mysie listened breathlessly.

“Of course they wouldn’t have been fairy pipes, if they hadn’t been able to change. Fairies always play tricks like that. Did he never get his bonnet back again? I expect the fairies used it to sleep in. It would keep them warm on a wet night. Do tell me some more stories.”

So Rowena produced all the fairy stories she could think of, and Mysie drank them in like water.

One day she arrived over in a breathless state of excitement.

“Dad is coming to-morrow. He has been ill since the war, and he’s been from one hospital to another; and now he’s well again, only he wants to get away from people, and have a rest and quiet. He told Nan so in a letter. She’s to get the house ready, and she’s not to tell anyone that he’s coming.”

“And here have you told me!”

“So I have! What a pity! But you’re in your prison. I call you the prisoner of Tarlie. You won’t tell anybody, will you? It’s to be a secret. And I’ve quite made up my mind to get into his house and see him one day. I shan’t mind if he points a pistol at me!”

“At his own child! Is he a pirate king?”

“No—but he’s a Macdonald.”

Here the child threw her curls back and raised her head almost haughtily. “Angus tells me stories of all that the Macdonalds have said and done. He is one himself, so he kens well. And they never let anyone defy them or get the better of them, and Dad doesn’t want to see me. He has said it when Nan has asked him. He would like me swept away!” Here she threw out her small arms tragically. “But I mean to know him. I shall make him speak to me. I ought to be living in his house, not with Nan.”

Rowena looked at her with wonder.

“You are growing,” she said; “but you are still a baby in years, and your father knows it. Do you want to be sent to school? I suppose by rights you ought to be there now. I can’t think how you have escaped the school authorities!”

“But I told you; I learn lessons with the schoolmaster.”

“Oh, so you do; I had forgotten. Well, I hope you and your father will have a happy meeting.”

With a little wistfulness in her eyes, Mysie went down on her knees beside Rowena’s couch. Putting her arms round her neck she whispered:

“Do you think it could happen that he might love me?”

“I think it more than likely,” said Rowena, kissing her as she spoke.

And then Mysie sprang up and danced out into the sunshine.

“I have ridden over to tell you, and now I am going back to Nan; for I am going to help her get his house ready.”

Rowena lay on her bed looking out on the still blue and trying to recall the Hugh Macdonald she had once seen at her brother’s table. It was long ago before he had married, and he was then a thin eager-faced youth, with stern features and a very decided will of his own. He had been abroad for a good many years since then. And his marriage had altered him, people said. She had a dim recollection of a walk round the loch after dinner; but she was quite a young girl at the time. He had not impressed her, except perhaps that he had been too old in his ideas her then.

“If he doesn’t own that child, he ought to be ashamed of himself!” she muttered, and then a sudden restless fit took possession of her.

“I am like a mummy. I cannot stay indoors longer. It is breathless to-day. I will write to Noddy and demand release.”

She wrote; and by return received ‘the usual kind letter from the old doctor, saying that he had written to a local practitioner and had asked him to call and see her and give her his advice. The very next day the doctor appeared. He was a young man and arrived in his car, for he lived about fifteen miles away from her.