HERE begins the true story of Isla Heron’s life. She had been a simple creature till now, living the life of half-savage freedom that was the only life she knew, playing among the black rocks, singing with the wind and the sea, loving her parents and her little Jacob almost fiercely. Her thinking life began when her father was brought back to the home-cabin, cold and silent, and laid on his bed by the pitying villagers. One man came first, bringing the bad news; it was Joe Brazybone. He had been hovering about in his boat, as he often did, fishing now and then, but keeping an eye on Giles; had not dared to follow him up the rocks, for Giles had been strange for a long time now, and had kept off the old friend; but after a time Joe grew alarmed, and climbed up, and found him already cold. He came now, and tried in some awkward fashion to break the news. Isla took little note of the strange figure at the time, though she knew it well enough afterward.

“Giles ain’t very well,” said Joe, edging round the corner of the house.

“You tell your ma that, little Heron lady, and I’ll keep out o’ sight, for she don’t like old Joe, your ma don’t. You tell her Giles ain’t very well. And—see here, little lady! When you’ve a-told her that, foller it up, you know! foller it up! tell her he’s bad, and then, kind o’ easy, tell her he’s mortal bad, and they’re fetchin’ of him home.”

Here he broke off short, with a glance behind him; and thrusting the child gently forward, with an earnest gesture, he slunk out of sight as Mary Heron came to the door. Next moment the men were there.

They spoke in whispers, and cast strange glances at the dumb woman, with her gray face and wild eyes of pain. There was no surprise for her; it was only the Thing that lurked so long in corners of her hut, now come out into the light and known for what it was. A kind, white-haired fisherman stayed behind the rest, who were in haste to be gone; he spoke gently to Isla, and she interpreted his words to her mother. There was no minister on the island at that time, but Captain Maynard was used to filling the place of one, and the simple arrangements were made for saying a prayer and laying the tired body to rest.

When the stranger was gone, Isla went to the bed and put her face down by her father’s. She called him, putting forth all the power of her strong young voice; it seemed as if he must hear her. But he gave no sign, and the lids lay white and heavy over his eyes, and when she touched his cheek it was cold, cold. She looked at little Jacob, playing with his shells on the floor; then at her mother. But there was no mother now, only the wife who had seen her child loved better than herself, and who would now guard her sorrow jealously, admitting no sharer in it; and Isla knew that she was alone.

She made no resistance when, after days of brooding, the dumb woman took her by the hand and led her over the rocks, across the brown hill-pastures, to the village school. A little gray building stood apart on a stony hill, and here the children were taught by a young woman who came over from the main for certain months of the year.

Standing in the doorway, Mary Heron beckoned to the school-mistress, who came trembling, afraid of the tall, gipsy figure and the burning eyes; laid the child’s hand in hers, and, with a gesture of grave dignity, turned away. Isla, standing with her hand still in the teacher’s, watched the stately woman as she took her way down the hill and back through the crooked street; her heart yearned to her mother, but Mary Heron never looked back, and soon passed out of sight.

The young teacher was kind, and her fear of the wild girl soon wore away when she found her readiness to learn. Isla pounced upon the simple school-books and studied them fiercely. The children kept their dread of her longer, and huddled together in the play-hour, looking askance at her long russet locks, like tawny rockweed, and her dusky, jewel-like eyes. She had no beauty according to their standard (which was pink and white, and had yellow curls), but all the remoteness of her sea-bound home was in her face and look. Her dress was strange, too, for the homely brown print was sure to be looped and[43]
[44]
[45] decked with fringes of kelp and weed, and she had long strings of shells, sometimes bound round her head, sometimes twined about her wrists.

Soon, however, the children learned to love her, for her heart was gentle, and she loved all little creatures. She brought them sea-urchin shells, delicately cleaned, and showing all their beauty of green and pale purple; chains of gold-shells, or of dried sea-bladders. The children took the gifts eagerly, and at length grew familiar, and questioned Isla about her life at the south end of the island.

“What makes you live there, Isla? Why don’t you never come up to the street, and live in a house like other folks? My mother says decent folks wouldn’t live there in those bogy rocks. What makes you stay there?”

Then Isla would throw her head back, and draw a long breath as she looked about her at the bare, dingy walls of the little schoolroom.

“It isn’t living, here!” she would say. “It’s—I don’t know what it is! there’s no air to breathe. Where I live, the wind blows in from the sea, and it comes from all across the world; and I don’t have to be under a roof,—I hate roofs,—only just at night and in the winter; and I have the rocks, and the sheep, and my little Jacob, and all the things in the woods. Don’t you go in the woods? But what makes you live here, in these houses all near each other? That’s the strange way, not mine; mine is the real way. What makes you do it?”

“’Cause it’s near the boats!” said one.

“’Cause the school’s here, and the store!” said another.

“’Cause there’s folks, and folks like to be where there’s other folks!” said a third; and the rest chimed in, as this sentiment voiced the feelings of all.

“Yes, folks like to be where there’s other folks.”

Then Isla would shake her long locks, and laugh, and begin to sing one of her strange songs, or tell them of the wonderful things in her home, which stretched miles and miles, all her own, all a playground for her and Jacob.

So things went on well enough for a time; but one day Isla took some of the children off, at their urgent request, and kept them a day and a night in some familiar haunt of hers among the hills. Their parents were frantic, and searching parties were sent out in all directions. The dumb woman could or would tell them nothing; she only shrugged her shoulders, and showed them that her own little boy was gone with his sister and the rest. They were ready to burn her cabin over her head, when down the hill came Isla singing, a child in either hand, another leaping and singing beside her. She was seized, threatened with punishment, and warned never to come to the school again.

The little teacher sighed for her best scholar, the only one who had made teaching anything but drudgery; the children looked longingly for the wild girl who spoke so kindly, and sang so sweetly, and told them such beautiful stories; but Isla came no more. Only the boldest of the children, venturing rarely a little way down the beach toward the south end, would hear her song, echoing clear and sweet among the Wild Rocks.

ISLA’S SONG.