Lora

“ Yet Lora learned enough to know what his one passionate wish was. Full well he knew that the end was not far from him; but before he entered into the silence he might live many months; and he longed to leave Innisròn. Beyond words, he longed to die in that little lonely isle of Ithona which was his sole heritage from his mother, and where he had been born; for his father had brought his fair Eilidh there from his old gloomy castle at Dunvrechan for the travail that was her doom. ”

“ Nearer and nearer he rode, and now, as he reached the foot of the cliff, the Princess Lora saw that he was handsome, for his visor was up, and even from that height she could see that his eyes were dark, and fine. He had seen her portrait that a great artist had painted, and he had vowed that he would win her. ”

“ In deep love there is a living invisible line from soul to soul whereby portent of joy or disaster, or passion of loneliness, or passion of fear, or passion of longing may be conveyed with terrifying surety.
How beyond words dreadful was this remoteness which environed her, as the vast dome of night to a single white flower growing solitary in a waste place.
Inland upon the isle, seaward, skyward, Lora looked with aching eyes. The moonlight wounded her with its peace. The shimmering sea beat to a rhythm atune to a larger throb than that of a petty human life. ”

“ Alastair! Alastair!"
He gave a low laugh, as he turned on his side, and with wandering fingers played idly with the sand.
"Alastair!... my husband!... Beloved ... Alastair!... Oh, say farewell to me at the least.... Do not turn from me!"
"It called—called—called: and she cried to me, Come, my Belovèd: and then I knew Lora was dead. Why do you laugh at me? She is dead, I tell you: dead, dead, dead! She, my beautiful Lora—my dream—my joy—she who to me was Pharais itself: she is dead!"
In the grip of supreme woe, a woman has a heroism of abnegation beyond all words to tell of it. ”

“ Then, suddenly, he sprang away into the darkness, and back into the drowning surge, with all his loyal, loving heart—beautiful love of the dumb animal-soul that God heedeth and cherisheth no less than that other wandering fire He hath placed in the human—eager to baffle with drift and billow till he reached the cavern once more, in time to save Lora, of whose body he had caught a glimpse as he dashed after Alastair. ”

“ VI It was not till many weeks later that the way of Alastair's escape from death became known.
On that dark night when he had lain down to die, the wave which fell across Lora and himself, and tore asunder the bonds she had woven, was followed by no other for a time: otherwise, the end of both would have been attained. But so great was the shock, that his apathy of mind and body was rudely broken. The tired blood stung in his veins; the instinct of life was as a flame of fire that consumed all the stupor due to the sea-fruit he had eaten—an instinct that wrought him to a passion of effort. ”

“ Lora stood as though wrought in marble. She had seen that which made the blood leap from her heart, and surge in her ears, and clamour against her brain.
No pennon flew at the peak of the steamer's foremast. This meant there was neither passenger nor freight to be landed at Innisròn, so that there was no need for the ferry.
She could scarcely believe it possible that the Clansman could come, after all, and yet not bring Alastair back to her. It seemed absurd: some ill-timed by-play; nay, a wanton cruelty. There must be some mistake, she thought, as she peered hungrily into the sea-dusk. ”

“ Lora, her harsh-lined face sagging with confusion, cried, "But, Mother—the Wild Ones!"
"Never again must we prey upon the Wild Ones. Do you not see that the Gods avenged our doing so when they permitted Meg to be captured in one of the pits we dug? ”

“ Not a gleam fell from the veiled moon. Not a thing was visible save a faint phosphorescent line that moved slowly inward. Lora could not see Alastair's face, not even his body, not even the two shaking hands she held over him while she prayed inaudibly, and with a suffocating, bewildering pain at her heart, at her lungs, in her head.
No sound came from the isle. The noise of the falling stream in the glen was merged in the confused clamour of the tide-race. Shoreward, there was that awful tidal whisper. Seaward, the march of wave after wave, of billow after billow, in vast processional array ”

“ And yet, sir, her image is more present to mine eyes than are the faces of these dames, or even your own, though there is naught so dear to me in this world as yourself,—that is to say, if you will bear with my fantasy, there’s naught outside of me so dear as my father; but Lora is within, the life of my life and essence of my being, and how should a man say his own being is dear to him, for to what should his own being belong save to itself and the God who gave it? ”

“ With a sigh, Alastair rose at last. Crossing the room, he went to the east window and stared forth unseeingly, or, at any rate, without sign of any kind. Then, restlessly, he began to pace to and fro. Repressing her tears, Lora seated herself at the table and tried to eat, hopeful that she might thus induce him to do likewise. Mrs. Maclean followed her example, but ate in silence. She had almost ended, when Lora saw that she had abruptly laid down her spoon and was looking intently at Ian.
The old man now followed every motion of the invalid with a look as of one fascinated. ”

“ You [Pg 256] know how tender and how sensitive she is; you know how she clings to love, and seems to draw her life from us as the flowers do from the sun; sure am I, as sure as of to-day’s breath, that parted from home and father and mother and brothers and friends and all she has ever loved and clung to, our Lora would droop and die just as that sea-bird did that the boys caught and tried to tame.”
“And if she did!” cried the captain, flaming again into sudden wrath, the reflex perhaps of a stinging pain driven through his heart by his wife’s last words. ”

“ And when 'Lora asked him why he had never cared to enter into the lists of argument and controversy with other learned philosophers and doctors of his time, and to make himself a name that should have been reverenced among men, he answered mildly, that he had no ambition, or if he had once had any, he had always felt the mysteries of existence too profoundly to make them stepping-stones to worldly honor. ”

“ Look at their rude behaviour at the very beginning—kissing that bold girl Bet Dancey, in the presence of a thousand spectators! Ha! well punished was captain Scarthe for his presumption. He feel regret! I don’t believe it, Lora. That man’s a hypocrite. There’s falsehood written in his face, along with a large quantity of conceit; and as for the cornet—the only thing discernible in his countenance is—stupidity. ”

“ Just beyond where they stood, and at the beginning of those long, flat, inward-sloping ledges which formed the floor of the cavern till the abrupt ending over the dark chasm at the extreme end, was a bed of soft white sand, shelving from one of the ledges past and underneath another, and then among rocks covered with bladder-wrack and adder's-tongues and other sea-weed, with tangled masses of the long, trailing dead-man's-hair.
Still without speech, here Alastair and Lora lay down, side by side.
There is an ebb in the tide of human hope that must reach a limit. ”

“ Three days thence, late on a hot afternoon scarce cooled by the breeze that moved soundlessly though steadily over the upland crags of Innisròn, a company of islanders was met at the little western haven betwixt Ardfeulan and Craig-Ruaidh. Every one on the isle was there, indeed, except the one or two who were weakly or in extreme old age.
On the water, moored to a ledge, a herring-trawler, the Ellù, lay with her brown sail flapping idly. In the stern sat Lora, with her child at her breast, and beside her Mrs. Maclean. ”

“ Time permitting, it would be a pleasant task to depict the many joyous scenes that took place in the precincts of Bulstrode Park, subsequent to the departure of Scarthe and his cuirassiers.
Lora, no longer subject to the tiresome importunities of Stubbs, found little else to do than listen to Walter’s pretty love prattlings—excepting to respond to them.
Near at hand were two hearts equally en rapport with one another—equally brimful of beatitude—trembling under a passion still more intense—the one paramount passion of a life, destined to endure to its ending. ”

“ There’s a rock she’s often rested on. Don’t speak until I gather my thoughts and know what ’tis I mean to say.”
Without reply Bradford, drawing his cloak around him, for the spring night was chill, sat down upon the boulder, where indeed Lora had dreamed away many an hour, gazing across the sea that ever drew her with its vague, sad calling, and waited silently while Standish, with folded arms and head bent upon his breast, paced up and down, up and down, now standing upon the crumbling edge of the cliff near at hand, now pacing back to the little church a bow-shot from the shore. ”

“ LORA (Leon de) , born in 1806, descendant of a noble family of Roussillon, of Spanish origin; penniless son of Comte Fernand Didas y Lora and Leonie de Lora, born Gazonal; younger brother of Juan de Lora, nephew of Mademoiselle Urraca y Lora; he left his native country at an early age. His family, with the exception of his mother, who died, remained at home long after his departure, but he never inquired concerning them. He went to Paris, where, having entered the artist, Schinner's, studio, under the name of Mistigris, he became celebrated for his animation and repartee. ”

“ If we do wrong, we sin believing that we are doing the right, the sole right thing. But sweet it is—O Lora, sweet and dear at the last, after all our dark bewildered pain, to be here and know that all is over now, and that we two go into the Silence together: and if there be any waking, that together we shall wake. Mo ghràidh, mo mùirnean, my dear one, what peace there is for you and me that I die thus: free from that crushing, crushing pain and darkness that has filled my brain."
"Alastair! ”

“ Lora knew what was in her mind when she saw her gaze go seaward and then sweep hither and thither like a hawk ere it settles.
"The boat is not yet in sight, Mary; she is late," she said simply: adding immediately, "I have come back to go up Cnoc-an-Iolair; from there I'll see the smoke of the Clansman sooner. She is often as late as this."
Mrs. Maclean looked compassionately at the girl.
"Mayhap the Clansman will not be coming this way at all to-night, Lora. She may be going by Kyle-na-Sith." ”

“ Nowhere could they discern sign of any human being. Not a soul moved upon the upland moors; not a soul moved upon the boulder-strewn, rowan-studded slopes; not a soul moved by the margin of that dead-calm sea, so still that even the whisper of its lip was inaudible, though the faint aerial echo of the crooning of its primeval slumber-song slipped hushfully into the ear.
They were half-way down toward the shore when Mrs. Maclean, holding up a warning hand, stopped.
"What is it, Mary?" Lora whispered. "Do you see anything? Do you see him?" ”

“ Lora (6 kos—28 kos) .—Road along the bed of the Arghesan; here also are villages and cultivation, and Lora itself is situated at the junction of a stream coming down from above the Mukur with the Arghesan.
6. Sarghaz Kotal (6 kos—34 kos) .—Still up the bed of the stream, the road is broken and rugged; there are a few small villages in the neighbourhood surrounded by small patches of cultivation. The country generally is mountainous and barren; camping-ground at the foot of the Kotal. ”

“ Fingal was sad for Carthon; he commanded his bards to mark the day, when shadowy autumn returned: And often did they mark the day, and sing the hero's praise. "Who comes so dark from ocean's roar, like autumn's shadowy cloud? Death is trembling in his hand! his eyes are flames of fire! Who roars along dark Lora's heath? Who but Carthon, king of swords! The people fall! see! how he strides, like the sullen ghost of Morven! ”

“ The chocolate came and he began to sip it gratefully. Lora was still watching him.
"You're an unusual person," she said. "Bill didn't like you, but he never likes anything different. He's so—so prosaic. Don't you think that when a person gets older he should become—broadened in his outlook?" ”

“ He could not remember. But surely such an attractive girl would be someone's mistress by this time; she would be sixteen or so, by her looks. He might ask her sometime, if they ever met again.
The next day Conger went walking along the one main street of Cooper Creek. He passed the general store, the two filling stations, and then the post office. At the corner was the soda fountain.
He stopped. Lora was sitting inside, talking to the clerk. She was laughing, rocking back and forth.
Conger pushed the door open. Warm air rushed around him. Lora was drinking hot chocolate, with whipped cream. ”

“ And even in the unfamiliar words there was a touch of the Irish brogue, and little merry lights danced in the eyes Larry had so apostrophized.
"I could find fault with your speech, but none with its burden," she said. "What forest pools are I know not, and the dawn has not shone upon the people of Lora these many sais of laya. But I sense what you mean!"
The eyes deepened to blue as she regarded him. I saw Lugur shift impatiently and send a none too pleasant look at O'Keefe. She smiled.
"Are there many like you in the world from which you come?" she asked softly. ”

“ These three phrases were like so many pistol-shots fired point-blank at Montes. He turned white, and the shock was so painful that he rose with difficulty.
"You are a set of blackguards!" cried he. "You have no right to speak the name of an honest woman in the same breath with those fallen creatures—above all, not to make it a mark for your slander!"
He was interrupted by unanimous bravos and applause. Bixiou, Leon de Lora, Vauvinet, du Tillet, and Massol set the example, and there was a chorus. ”