Ewan

“ At ten in the morning Mona muffled herself in a great cloak, and went over to the meadow with Ewan. There a crowd had already gathered, strong men in blue pilots, old men in sheepskin coats, women with their short blue camblet gowns tucked over their linen caps, boys and girls on every side, all coming and going like shadows in the mist. At one end of the meadow several pairs of horses stood yoked to plows, and a few lads were in charge of them. On Ewan's arrival there was a general movement among a group of men standing together, and a respectful salutation to the parson. ”

“ Then Ewan rose from the table, and his eyes flashed and his pale face quivered.
"I'll tell you what it is," he said in a tense, tremulous voice, "there's not a man among you. You're a lot of skulking cowards."
At that he was making for the deck; but Dan, whose face, full of the fire of the liquor he had taken, grew in one moment old and ugly, leaped to his feet in a tempest of wrath, overturned his stool, and rushed at Ewan with eyes aflame and uplifted hand, and suddenly, instantly, like a flash, his fist fell, and Ewan rolled on the floor. ”

“ But if the love of Dan and Mona was more than cousinly, though they knew it not as yet, the love of Ewan for Dan was wonderful and passing the love of women. That pure soul, with its vague spiritual yearnings, seemed to have nothing in common with the jovial roysterer, always fighting, always laughing, taking disgrace as a duck takes water, and losing the trace of it as easily. ”

“ Ewan's features became death-like in their rigidity. A sickening sense came over him. He was struggling to ask a question that his tongue would not utter.
"Mona—do you mean—do you mean that Dan has—has—outrage—Great God! what am I to say? How am I to say it?"
Mona drew herself up.
"I mean that I can hide my feelings no longer," she said. "Do with me as you may; I am not a child, and no brother shall govern me. Dan has been here—outrage or none—call it what you will—yes, and—" she dropped her head over the cot, "I love him." ”

“ But Ewan went on, standing there with a face that was ashy white above his black coat. "Your heart is as dead as your honor. And that is not all, but you must outrage the honor of another."
Now, when Ewan said this, Dan thought of his forged signature, and of the censure and suspension to which Ewan was thereby made liable.
"Go away," Ewan cried again, motioning Dan off with his trembling hand. ”

“ The certainty that Ewan was dead did not at first take hold of them. There was no mark of violence on the body except the wound above the wrist, and suddenly, while the men stood and looked down, the wound bled afresh. Then old Quilleash, who was reputed to possess a charm to stop blood, knelt beside Ewan, and while all looked on and none spoke, he whispered his spell in the deaf ear.
"A few good words can do no harm," said Crennell, the cook, who was a Quaker. ”

“ When the horses reached the far end of the stretch the plowman whipped them round like the turn of a wheel, and in another moment he was toiling back, steadily, firmly, his hand rigid, and his face set hard. When he got back to where Ewan, with his watch in his hand, stood surrounded by the jurors, he was covered with sweat. "Good, very good—six minutes ten seconds," said Ewan, and there were some plaudits from the people looking on, and some banter of the competitors who came up to follow. ”

“ The men listened while the lad's footsteps could be heard on the shingle, above the deep murmur of the sea. Then Dan stepped to the door and threw it open.
"Now," he said.
It was rapidly growing dark. The wind blew strongly into the shed. Dan stepped out, and Ewan followed him.
They walked in silence through the gully that led from the creek to the cliff head. The snow that had begun to fall was swirled about in the wind that came from over the sea, and spinning in the air, it sometimes beat against their faces.
Ewan went along like a man condemned to death. ”

“ As a drowning man is said to see all his life pass before him at the moment of death, so Ewan saw all the past, the happy past—the past of love and of innocence, whereof Dan was a part—rise up before him. ”

“ Ewan went on; "you're a brave lad, and I know what's in your head, but—"
"Then what for do you want to fight him?" Davy broke out. The lad's throat was dry and husky, and his eyes were growing dim.
Ewan paused. Half his passion was spent. Davy's poor dense head had found him a question that he could not answer.
"Davy, if you don't promise, you will ruin Dan—yes, it will be you who will ruin him, you, remember that. He will be a lost man, and my sister, my good sister Mona, she will be a broken-hearted woman." ”

“ From the time of Ewan's marriage and Dan's disgrace the Bishop and the Deemster rarely met, and when they passed on the road they exchanged only the coldest salutation.
But if the fates were now more than ever fostering an unnatural enmity between the sons of old Ewan they were cherishing at the same time the loves of their children. Never were cousins more unlike or more fondly attached. Between Dan, the reckless scapegrace, and Mona, with the big soft eyes and the quiet ways, the affection was such as neither understood. ”

“ Ewan sprang upon him in a moment, and, ere he could recover the use of his sword, he gave him one desperate cut across the temple that brought him to the earth with his face bathed in blood.
“Villain!” cried Ewan, as he stood over his prostrate foe with the point of his sword at his throat. “Traitor that thou art, wouldst thou have been a murderer as well as a thief? ”

“ On the floor of earth, in one corner of the small place, a fire of gorse, turf, and logs burned slowly; and near the fire Dan lay outstretched on a bed of straw, his head pillowed on a coil of old rope, one hand twisted under his head, the other resting lightly on his breast, and he slept peacefully like a child.
Ewan stood for a moment shuddering and dismayed. The sight of Dan, helpless and at his mercy, unnerved his arm and drove the fever from his blood. There was an awful power in that sleeping man, and sleep had wrapped him in its own divinity. ”

“ Aw, yes, woman, woman—liberal, very. None o' yer close-fisted about the captain."
The blood rushed to Ewan's heart. In a moment he found himself asking for Dan and hearing from the old woman with the whiskers, who spoke with a curtsey after every syllable, that Master Dan had been seen to go down toward the creek, the Lockjaw, under Orris Head.
Ewan went out of the pot-house and turned the lane toward the creek. What was the mysterious influence on his destiny, that he of all men must needs overhear two such conversations, and hear them now of all times? ”

“ Twenty times he stood between the scapegrace and the Bishop, twenty times he hid from the good father the follies of the son. He thought for that thoughtless head that never had an ache or a care under its abundant curls; he hoped for that light heart that hoped for nothing; he trembled for the soul that felt no fear. Never was such loyalty between man and man since David wept for Jonathan. And Ewan's marriage disturbed this affection not at all, for the love he bore to Dan was a brotherly passion for which language has yet no name. ”

“ Davy picked it up and carried it out, muttering to himself, "Strange, strange, uncommon!"
Hardly had the boy dropped the latch of the door from without than Ewan took the militia belt from the nail and buckled it about his waist. Dan understood his thought; he was still wearing his own militia belt and dagger. There was now not an instant's paltering between them—not a word of explanation.
"We must get rid of the lad," said Dan.
Ewan bowed his head. It had come to him to reflect that when all was over Mona might hear of what had been done. ”

“ If Mona had been his son, her quiet ways and tractable nature might have counted for something; but a woman was only a woman in the Deemster's eyes, and the Deemster, like the Bedouin chief, would have numbered his children without counting his daughter. As for Ewan, he had falsified every hope of the Deemster. His Spartan training had gone for nothing. He was physically a weakling; a tall spare youth of two-and-twenty, fair-haired, like his sister, with a face as spiritual and beautiful, and hardly less feminine. ”

“ He entertained them gallantly at his castle for many days, and a friendly [19] league was formed that long preserved the peace and tranquillity of those realms. Ewan was greatly assisted in his kingdom by Kenneth, who had become a renowned warrior, and who with his beloved Flora came and resided at Ewan's castle. Ewan married Mary, youngest daughter of Mackenzie lord of Kintail, and by his friendship helped to increase the dominions of that great house, so that the old prophecy about the son of the goat (already referred to) was literally fulfilled ”

“ Dan's sunburnt face whitened under his tawny skin.
"Easy, easy, man veen, easy," he said, struggling visibly for self-command, while he interrupted Ewan's torrent of reproaches.
"You are a disgrace and a by-word. Only the riff-raff of the island are your friends and associates." ”

“ That Ewan was dead was certain. That he came by his death through foul play seemed no less sure and terrible. But that his body had been wrapped in sailcloth once belonging to Dan's fishing-boat was no sufficient ground for the terrible accusation that was taking shape in other minds. Could he accept the idea? Ah, no, no, no. To do so would be to fly in the face of all sound reason, all fatherly love, and all trust in the good Father above. Though the sailcloth came from the "Ben-my-Chree," the fact said nothing of where the body came from. ”

“ As soon as Ewan's pale face had lost the weight of its gloom, Dan's curly poll knew no more trouble. He followed the herrings all through that season, grew brown with the sun and the briny air, and caught the sea's laughter in his rollicking voice. He drifted into some bad habits from which he had hitherto held himself in check. Every morning when the boats ran into harbor, and Teare, the mate, and Crennel, the cook, stayed behind to sell the fish, Dan and old Billy Quilleash trooped up to the "Three Legs of Man" together. ”

“ Stooping over the parapet, Delarry said carelessly, addressing himself to Mr. Ewan:
"Do you see, sir, down yonder by the river, near London Bridge, that light? It is not the light of the moon. It is a fire. Well, we need not be anxious, fires are frequent; it will be nothing. My Lord Craven will be at his best, he never misses a fire. It is said his horse is so used to take him to fires that he knows the smell of it a long distance off, and will gallop to it as soon as he feels his master's foot in the stirrup."
"I have heard that a fire is a very fascinating sight," said Mr. Ewan. ”

“ A tiny church stood with its white turret just under the hill-side; beside it was the vicarage, and there for many a year the Rev. John Ewan had dwelt and ministered to a scattered moorland flock. He had come there as a young man with a young wife. She lay in the little churchyard, and of their three children there remained but one, a girl of sixteen summers, who kept house and served her father with untiring devotion. She had never been beyond the radius of the three counties which bound Westmorland, and she had no ambition to wander. She had no companion save her father ”

“ It was just the sort of activity that Dan wanted at the moment, and in following it up the "Three Legs" saw him something oftener than before, and there the fellows of the baser sort drank and laughed with him, addressing him sometimes as captain, but oftener as Dan, never troubling themselves a ha'p'orth to put a handle to his name.
This was a turn of events which Ewan could not understand. "I have been mistaken in the man," he thought; "there's no heart left in him." ”

“ Ewan Cameron marched us straight away to the hill, which rises above the track that leads from the little place of Tomantoul to the river Don, and there he kept us sitting, for some time, watching, till we espied three men coming along the way. Whilst they were yet afar off I knew one of them to be the very person whom the murderers were in search of. ‘Is that Sir Patrick Stewart that comes first yonder?’ demanded Ewan.—‘I cannot tell at this distance,’ said I; ‘but I think the man I saw in the cave was much taller than that man.’—‘That is a tall man,’ said Ewan ”

“ Ewan saw at a glance that Dan had been drinking, and he forthwith elbowed his way to Dan's side and lifted a brandy bottle from the stove-top into the locker, under pretense of finding a place for his hat. Then all hands sat down to the table. There was a huge dish of potatoes boiled in their jackets, and a similar dish of herrings. Every man dipped into the dishes with his hands, lifted his herring on to his plate, ran his fingers from tail to head, swept all the flesh off the fresh fish, and threw the bare backbone into the crock that stood behind. ”

“ But by the great oath, ye would crack less crouse if ye stood there before me with nothing but your claymore by your side.”
“Ye lie, ye thieving vagabond,” cried Ewan, “I’ll stand at all times before you or a better man with this good sword alone. See here, my gun shall rest against this rock; and on the word and honour of a gentleman, I’ll never touch stock or lock of it till I shall have chastised thee to thy heart’s content, if thou wilt so have it.”
“Be it so,” said the crafty Gilliesh ”