Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

“ The ravens had taken note of this child since her babyhood, and found her ways much like their own. Sometimes they would sit on a rock near by and watch her, with bright eyes cocked aside, as she strung berries or shells, or plaited garlands of seaweed. Once or twice they had brushed her hair, floating past on outspread wing; and she rightly interpreted this as a token of friendship.
“You might tame them,” her father said when she told him. “Ravens are easy tamed; I read a book once about one.”
“They would not like me any more if I did,” said Isla. “I should hate any one who tried to tame me.” ”

“ The schooner moved swiftly, sailing along the southern shore. Now they were coming to the South Rocks, her own rocks, where half of her heart must stay, while her body went on, away. They passed the opening of the Dead Valley. It seemed as if the sleeping mammoths must rise from their long slumber and call to her; as if every crag and cliff, every ragged, friendly tree, must see her desertion and cry out upon it. Her eyes strained backward as the schooner flew, the heart seemed torn out of her breast. See! The ravens, rising from a tufted fir, and sailing slowly above the valley. ”

“ It was gone, and for an instant there was stillness again; then once more came the roar, the inward rush, the snowy column tossed aloft, the white seeking hands creeping up along the rock, till now all the water was a white churn of foam, all the air was filled with driving spray, and the reef thundered with wild artillery. The seas hove bodily over it, and broke only in the cove itself; the place where the children had paused and lingered in their upward climb now boiled like a pot, and even on the top of the great boulder the spray beat in their faces, stinging, burning. ”

“ It was time for Isla to come! The red glow had faded from the gold-shells, too, and they looked pale and cold. Cold! and they must stay out here all night, and then it would be very cold indeed! Isla would make him a little fire, and cook his supper, and they would be warm and comfortable at home, but the poor things on the beach would be cold.
And now a bright thought came to Jacob; a thought that made him clap his hands, and make little sounds of pleasure, such as a bird or a young lamb might make.
Why should not he build a fire? ”

“ Yet, if the preacher had been a seer—if she had had powers of vision that could pierce the veil of past as of future years—she might have called up scenes and figures that from century to century should seem to justify some of Joe Brazybone’s ideas, fantastic as they were. She might see, in generation after generation, two figures side by side, one masterful, dominant, the other crouching, serving, loving, [18] coming to heel when called, like a dog, springing like a man to action at the master’s word. ”

“ Sometimes, as the children were sitting at their play on the rocks, there would rise, from the ragged crest of an old fir-tree hard by, a great black bird; would hover an instant, uttering a hoarse croak, which yet had a friendly sound, as of greeting; then, beating his broad wings, would sail out over the water. A second followed him, and the two circled and swung together above the playing children, above the waking, laughing sea. Two ancient ravens, living apart from the noisy crows and the song-sparrows. They knew Isla Heron well, in their age-long wisdom, and loved her in their way. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She was standing still, with her hands folded, looking out to sea; a slender, youthful figure, lonely as the rocks around her. This was Isla Heron. And while Joe Brazybone, in his clumsy way, is presenting the preacher to her, as if the crown he fancied were shining in actual gold on her head, let us go back a little, and see who the child is, and who her father was, the Giles Heron who was so faithfully loved, and who is now gone to his own place. ”

“ Only their bones were left, gleaming pallid and slender among the sleeping mammoths; and soon these old soldiers, too, would lay down their arms and join the sleepers. But still there showed some faint tinge of green in their rusty tops; and, as the preacher looked at them, wondering, a great black bird rose from the ragged branches, and almost brushed past them in his flight.
Isla laughed again, and waved her hand with a friendly gesture.
“Those are our ravens,” she said. “They are friends of ours, Jacob’s and mine. Other folks are afraid of them, but we know them, and they like us. ”

“ He was now behind the door, holding it well between him and the strange visitor, and admonishing his favourite saints, in a terrified gabble, to stand by him now and save him from being pixy-rid. But Joe had no eyes now for James, or anybody his like. He had found a gentleman, and the gentleman was going to take him to his young lady; this was enough to fill Joe’s world very full, and he only fixed, in passing, a vacant stare on the unhappy porter, which sent cold shivers down the latter’s back, and made him feel that he had got the evil eye on him this time, and no mistake. ”

“ She would tether little Jacob to a rock with a long kelp-ribbon, and he would play contentedly at being a horse, that creature he had never seen save in a picture. There are no horses on the Island of the Wild Rocks.
There the girl would float and dream, her body at rest, her mind out and away with the clouds, or the sea-gulls that hovered and wheeled above the blue sparkling water, [33] till there came a low murmur on the outer reef, a white break against the seaward side of the rock, and she knew that the tide was rising. ”

“ The sea breathed deep and gently, and the schooner rolled slowly on its broad bosom, making little progress forward. The captain and Elmer brought out their store of ship biscuit and corned beef, and made coffee in the little forecastle, and, while they were busy over these matters, the same light shape came softly up the stairs, and, passing forward, hid itself among the rigging and piles of rope. Once some small object was displaced, and Captain Ezekiel raised his head at the sound. ”

“ Now and then she turned to smile at Jacob, to flutter to the bed and take him in her arms for a moment; then turned again to her bird-like flight, skimming the ground as a swallow skims the sea. You would have said, [77] a bird imprisoned in human form, shut within walls, and trying with all its wild nature to escape its bonds. Her face turned bright on the little brother, but, when it was away from him, the loneliness, the longing, were pitiful to see. The trustee, standing well back in the shadow, touched his companion on the arm with a glance of inquiry ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 ”

“ Are you happy, Isla? Is it not terribly lonely?”
Isla looked up wondering.
“How should it be lonely?” she said. “It is home. It is the only place where we could live. Some people [52] wanted us to come and live in the village, after mother died. We’d sooner have died, too, both of us. Wouldn’t we, Jacob?”
“Is there no one belonging to you? it seems too—”
“Too dreadful,” the preacher would have said, but something seemed to hold back the words. Perhaps it was the perfect quiet in the two faces.
“Of course I miss Giles, all the time,” Isla went on, presently. ”

“ He was a pretty little fellow, fair-haired and blue-eyed like the Herons; he might be eight years old at this time, and Isla twelve. It was pretty to see the two playing together. Hand in hand they strayed over the Wild Rocks, talking their silent talk, gathering berries or shells. It was all their own, the south end of the island; the people of the village near the farther end never came here. They were superstitious folk, and had their own ideas about the Wild Rocks, and the dumb woman who dwelt there. Some held it was no mortal wife that Giles Heron had brought home with him those years ago ”

“ He turned over each article with laborious care, searching for what might lie under them. Finding nothing, he went to the cupboard, and ransacked it, his face growing more and more troubled. The sweat broke out on his forehead, and he mopped it with the rag of handkerchief; he felt in every corner; he looked under the bed, thinking that the earrings might have fallen and rolled out of sight; but no earrings were to be seen.
He was still searching painfully, when the sound of footsteps was heard in the outer room. A suspicion darted into Joe’s mind, and clung there like a snake. ”

“ A moment ago,—unless those shadowy forms were real indeed,—there was only silence and the falling night, and the child asleep on the shingle. But now, though no voice is heard—for who should cry aloud to the deaf child?—yet the air is full of sound; it palpitates with motion. The light shock of pebbles falling beneath hurrying feet, [63] the patter of those feet, hardly touching the sand as they flit past; then round the point a figure flying, swift and silent, with outstretched arms and hair streaming loose. Isla! Isla is coming! ”

“ Few of them knew him well; there was only Joe Brazybone, Sculpin Joe, who from babyhood had been his humble and loving servant, and who still clung to him, until that strange affair of the marriage. To most of the villagers it seemed “all of a piece,” and “Heron doings,” when Giles brought home from some foreign port a handsome deaf-mute, a “dummy,” as a wife. Joe would have been her servant, too, gladly enough; but, when he came shambling along the rocks to make his first visit, the young woman turned and ran from him; and Giles laughed, and told him he [21] would best keep away for a time. ”

“ THE HERONS. THE child Isla might have been twelve years old when her father died. Giles Heron was the last man of his people, unless you counted the boy, and no one did count him. The Herons had owned the whole island once, but, bit by bit, it had passed away from the name, if not from the blood; they had no gift for keeping, it was said. A roving people, the Herons mostly died at sea, or, if women, married into families on the main, as we call the shore that on fine days can be dimly seen from the Island of the Wild Rocks. ”

“ It held a strange object, which he thrust forward to Isla.
“You take this!” he pleaded. “You take this, Isly, and wear it for old Joe. ’Tain’t what I could wish, but ’t will cover your head, and—and keep you from ketchin’ things. Some say ’tis handsome, but I don’t know how that is. Anyway, ’twas the best I could do.”
The thing he held out was a bonnet, of vast size and ancient fashion. The front was filled with crushed and faded muslin flowers; the crumpled ribbons and tarnished silk showed that it had lain for years in its box. Isla gazed at it in amazement. ”

“ Then she would fling her arms out, with a gesture of distress, of impatience; but next moment would come the downward look, the pause, and then the sweet, patient smile, and the deprecating hand laid on her friend’s arm.
“I declare,” said this young teacher, speaking to the principal one day, “I can hardly believe, sometimes, that Isla does not hear. It is not only that she watches the birds; she certainly seems to listen. Do you think she can catch any vibrations of the air, when they are trilling and twittering so far above her?” ”

“ He had watched passionately for the blossoming of the scarlet sorrel. “That’ll be my time!” he said, talking to himself as he lay rocking in his boat. “I’ve got to wait till then. Some person seems to hold me back from helping myself before then; maybe I’ve got to know what it’s like all along the line; maybe it’ll be some help to some one over yonder, and I hope it may, for it’s small comfort to me. Like as if my mother held me back. But, when the sorrel is red, I guess they’ll give me my pass; they’d be hard folks if they wouldn’t. ”

“ She rang the bell, and the porter appeared, a good-natured looking Irishman, not perhaps too clever.
“James,” said Miss Stewart, “I want you to tell Mr. Upton about the strange man who came here just after I had taken the Heron children up-stairs, the day they first came.”
James looked uneasy, and shuffled on his feet.
“Sure, he was a crazy man, sir!” he said. “There did be no sense in the things he said to me, at all.”
“No matter; let’s hear them, James. If we never heard any remarks but those with sense in them, we might live in silence a good part of our lives. Out with it!” ”

“ Joe Brazybone, or the distracted ghost of him, the trustee, who had thrown over everything else and come with Joe, and the young missionary. The latter had come to visit the school only the day after Isla’s flight; what more natural than that she should join in the search? The trustee had gladly acceded to her petition that she might accompany him. “Yes, yes!” he said; “a woman is the thing. A woman can make her listen; poor lost lamb! Miss Stewart cannot leave her post, and you are the very one we need.” ”

“ These rocks know Herons, I tell you, most as well as old Joe does. They laid soft under Giles, that day he was up yonder.” He nodded upward, toward a huge mass of rock that towered across the narrow bay, the younger sister of the Island of the Wild Rocks.
The preacher, more and more puzzled, followed her strange guide, as he led the way toward a point of rock not far distant.
“She’ll be here, likely!” he said. “She often stops here on her way home, Isly does, to look about her, and see the lay of the land. She thinks, too, Isly does! A power of thinkin’ she keeps up! ”

“ Old Joe ain’t got many handsome things, but what he has ain’t goin’ to no Brazybone. When my little Heron lady wants any of old Joe’s things, she’s only got to speak for ’em, and there they be. So you take the bunnit, Isly, and ’t will do me good to see ye in it.”
Isla knew little about bonnets, but her eyes told her that this was a hideous monstrosity. Nevertheless she took it, and smiled at Joe with friendly eyes. “Thank you, Joe!” she said. “It is ever so kind of you to give me something that belonged to your mother. ”

“ He kneels, a serf, bound for life and for death; he is bidden to rise a free man, with henceforth a name and a station of his own.
“Brave et bon tu t’es montré; Brave-et-Bon sera ton nom, d’ici à jamais!”
The clouds roll forward, the vision is gone. But was this true? and has Tête d’Airain sunk to mere Heron, and has Brave-et-Bon, good and brave, drawled itself away into Brazybone? If this were so, it might account for poor Joe’s attitude, at which all the villagers laugh.
“You’d like to see Isly, preacher? ”