Tarn

“ Was not what she saw, so dim through the mist, the figures of the shepherd who had helped her on Glenollisdal and his black collie? But the mist was wavering again about them, and again all was a blur; and then the mist suddenly cleared, and there was no one there at all but just the old hawker and the little terrier which followed him.
"So you were the King of the Fairies all the time," said Fiona.
"All the time," said the old man gently. "We go about in the world as you see us. And some still entertain angels unaware. Have you come for your treasure, Fiona?" ”

“ It will be better for you."
"It is impossible to take your advice," he said stolidly.
"Why?"
"Because Mala and I are as we were made. We won't argue it."
"Please yourself. I've done my duty. Good-bye, Mr Tarn."
He told me that he was coming with me to the road. The very thin skin of turf on the hard rock of the crest of the hill would be so greasy that the wheels of my car would go round ineffectively and refuse to bite without his weight on the back axle. At the rutty descent on the other side he would get off and walk by the car to lend a hand if the wheels sank too deep in the mud there. ”

“ But, when it is once reached, is there any solitude in the world more solitary than here. The tarn, or lochan rather—for if it is not wide enough to be called a loch it is larger than the ordinary tarn one is familiar with on high moorlands and among the hills—has no outlook save to the lonely reach of sky just above it. ”

“ The Tarn, by reason of its remoteness, its inaccessibility—and, to descend to material considerations, its expensiveness as an excursion—can never, fortunately, become one of the cheap peep-shows of the world. ”

“ How old do you think I am?"
"You look about seventeen," said Fiona.
"I am exactly as old as Heleval," said the girl. "And that is more hundreds of thousands of years than you or I could ever count. I am older than any of the fishes or birds or beasts; far older than men or fairies. Look at that," and the Oread swept her arm over the glorious [Pg 107] prospect around her; the two great wings of the Isle of Mist stretched far out into the sea, the Atlantic throbbing and sparkling under the blue sky, and across the loch the jagged gray range of the Cuchullins, peak upon peak. ”

“ It has been ravaged by the merciless axe of the peasant that has left it bald and desolate. From the summit a superb view is obtained of the tossed and torn ridges of schist mountain, some rounded, but furrowed like the face of one very aged, some starting up into peaks, some stretching out saw-like ridges, some flat-headed, according to the nature of the rock of which composed. To the north rises the Tarnon that passes by Florae, below which it enters the Tarn. A little to the north-east is the Signal de l'Hospitalet, and beyond Barre des Cevennes. ”

“ A white man travelling with a negress cannot go anywhere in England without being noticed. He and the woman had been in Paris before, and the man had admitted to Perrot, under circumstances which might have overcome his usual reticence, that he was going to France. The inspector who saw me felt sure that Tarn would be found, and the whole mystery cleared up, in a very short time.
Tarn and Mala were never found. They had been seen in the car in the very early morning of the 28th. The car itself was found at Melcombe Cliffs, an unimportant place on the coast about five miles from Helmstone. ”

“ Do not trouble me any more, good Tarna, with any of your speeches. Allow me to believe as all my fathers did, and to contemplate not only the sepulchre in which their urns are placed, but the same dim regions in which many dear shades expect the greeting of a descendant.”
“To me,” said the slave modestly, “it still seems, that by the rushing shower of atoms which moves every where through space, the mind is soothed, as by the sound of a great river carrying continually the watery offspring of the mountains into the bosom of ocean. ”

“ HERE AND HEREAFTER MALA I
It was Saturday night at the end of a hard week. I was just finishing my dinner when I was told that a man wished to see me at once in the surgery. The name, Tarn, was unknown to me.
I found a fair-haired man of thirty in a faded and frayed suit of mustard-colour, holding in his hand a broken straw hat. His face was rather fat and roundish; his build powerful but paunchy. The colour of face and hands showed open-air life and work. ”

“ Black and white are only different aspects of the same thing, you know. And as soon as you begin to think about it, you see at once how sensible it is. Well, a treasure-hunt and a boy-hunt are only different aspects of a hunt, aren't they? Therefore they are the same thing. Therefore what does for one does for the other. Therefore you go up a hill. There's logic for you," and once more he swelled proudly.
"Thank you very much," said Fiona. "And now will you please tell me where the Urchin is?"
"Tell you!" exclaimed the centipede. ”

“ He is very old, and I believe that he knows everything that happens in this loch."
"I don't really mean that," said Fiona. "That's half a jest. I mean my own search, the search for the treasure of the Isle of Mist."
"We have all heard of it," said the shore lark, "and we all know that you cannot find it by looking for it. All I can tell you is this: the curlews have a tradition that the last man who found it went up a hill. That is what they tell each other when they call in the spring; and I believe they know."
"They are like the spirits of the hills them [Pg 27] selves," said Fiona. ”

“ And on either side of the throne, on a stool, sat a strange creature, a little wizened elf with a large book on his knee. One wore a white cap, and he bore an inkhorn and a bundle of long quills; the other wore a black cap, and he bore a penknife.
Fiona edged herself as far forward as she could into the ring of strange beings, and found herself next an old Leprechaun with a face like a wrinkled apple, who seemed quite inclined to be friendly.
"A human!" he said. "We do not see as many as we used to. But they say there are two to be tried to-night. ”

“ Only the barren mountains, if they contain neither gold nor iron, have been left unappraised and unexploited; and a few Oreads still linger here and there. Once in a while a man fancies that he sees one of us; then he must climb and climb till the day he dies, hoping to see her indeed; down [Pg 104] in your world people call him mountain mad."
"How is it then that I have seen you?" asked Fiona.
The Oread touched her bracelet.
"Partly because of this," she said. "But chiefly because you are a child, and can still see. What is it you have come to ask me?"
"How to find the Urchin," said Fiona. ”

“ She’s as quiet as a lamb; I want to talk to you a bit. I’m goin’ to buy two or three fillies, and think of any you may have seen down about here. Old Tarnley’s in the kitchen now, is she?”
“I think she is, sir.”
“Well, think of them fillies if you can; there’s business to be done if I can get ’em to suit.”
So in marched Harry, and tapped at the kitchen window, and nodded and smiled to Mrs. Tarnley.
“So you’re all sick down here, I’m told; but sickness is better than sadness. ”

“ Rocks, wood, earth, water, sun, moon, stars, fire, fog, icebergs, plants, all animals, all creeping things, and even hunting implements, have spirits which never die. The Tarnuk, or soul of a man, has the shape of a man, but is about one inch in height, and is to be discovered in the hand of a conjuror or in that of a new-born babe. The soul of a bear is like a bear; that of a walrus like a walrus; but the soul of a deer resembles a spider, and that of a salmon, a man! The souls of rocks are like sturdy, thickset men; the soul of the earth looks like a piece of liver. ”

“ He dimly remembers that he began his evolution, not as a pair, but as a horde; and to the horde he still seeks, forming huge crowds during his working days, and on his holidays merely transferring the same crowds in their totality to some other place, accompanied by a great deal of purposeless noise. Apart from his crowd he apparently feels chilly, and without noise unhappy. Nothing is more striking to the reflective mind than the abdication of civilization in the face of meaningless noises."
"Daddy," said Fiona, "I want your advice on the matter of treasure hunting. ”

“ And the [Pg 175] night itself passed away as a dream that men dream, and its hours seemed to them but as a few minutes—and then across the music and the dance cut the shrill harsh scream of a peacock as he greeted the day. The children saw the King rise from his throne and stretch his sceptre out over the ring; and the ring and the dancers were shrouded in a white mist which rose from the ground and wreathed its arms about them; and the beryl throne dissolved in mist, and the figure of the King above them, pointing, grew dim and huge, and spread and grew, a purple shadow that hung over them, . ”

“ Tracking footsteps was impossible; the sand, where there was any, had been hopelessly trampled.
When nothing more could be done, the [Pg 85] Student said that he wanted to look for a thing himself which he had an idea of. He went down to the end of the cave with his torch and tapped the wall with a geological hammer. Fiona sat on the rock barrier and watched him; what he was seeking she had no idea. He came slowly back down the cave, tapping the wall, till he reached the recess where the Urchin had picked up the doubloon. He went straight to the back of the recess and tapped the wall there ”

“ In front, on a ledge in the cave's roof, it was just [Pg 43] possible to make out a row of blue dots in the growing darkness; as the boat drew nearer, the blue dots fluttered, detached themselves from the cliff, and a swarm of pigeons came whirring over the boat and down the cave toward the sunlight;—"Your ghosts, Urchin," said the girl. Henceforward the cave was void of life, unless some strange, eyeless fish lurked in its inky depths. Darker and darker grew the waterway, and the last gleam of light vanished. Fiona was feeling her way now, aided by the phosphorescent drip from her oar blade ”

“ The Student took the interruption good-humoredly.
"I am in the second century," he said. "Doubloons have not yet been coined. As to these doubloons, I am quite sure they are not there, wherever 'there' may be; but if they are there, I have no objection to the Urchin fighting the Government for them. Urchin, would you like a deed?" ”

“ He never gets them quite clean. They say he has nightmare every night over the things he can't forget altogether."
The King had been talking to one of the officers of his guard. He now rose and held out his sceptre, and there was a great silence round the Fairy ring.
"Before we dance to-night," he said, "we have, as you know, to try two prisoners." He turned to the officer of the guard, and said, "Let them be produced."
The officer at once produced the Urchin from nowhere in particular, as a conjurer produces half-crowns. ”

“ Nevertheless, from time to time, there was a sort of absent look, and twice he went up to the bank above and gazed out over the moor towards Tarningham. At length he went away far enough to climb to the top of the neighbouring barrow or tumulus, after having told the boy not to venture up the path. From the position in which he then stood, he had a fair view of the scene I have already described, and caught the windings of the high road down the hill more distinctly than from below. ”

“ Pan Andrew was busy with his own thoughts when the watch finally marched away with their prisoners.
The Great Tarnov Crystal! The Great Tarnov Crystal! That was what the Tartar said he had come for. Was it possible that the man had been telling the truth? For what other reason could he have surprised him thus in the tower? For what other reason the hurried expedition into the town with the boy, Joseph, and the instructions he had left with his men? If it had been revenge alone that the man was seeking, then he and Joseph would never have remained alive until now. ”

“ He came back to the rock barrier quite unperturbed, looking as if he had found what he sought.
"Not very safe, this cave," he said calmly; and told the men to push off the boat. "There is nothing more we can do," he said; "the boy is certainly not here."
The men's courage was fast ebbing away; they were glad to get out of the haunted place.
Fiona sat in silence all the way home. It [Pg 86] was dark before they reached the house. She waited while Anne bustled over supper; she thought she would never see her father alone. ”

“ And they told me about you."
"Who's they?" asked Fiona, ungrammatically.
"Friends at Court, friends at Court," said the finner. "What a thing to have. 'No need of the old sailorman,' said I. But they said I must go. And I've scraped the barnacles off my precious tail. Will it run to some tobacco?"
"Will what run?" said the girl. "Your tail? What is it you want?"
"Hints are wasted, I see," said the whale. "'One question,' said I. Only one. But magic is magic, you know, even for a tough old sailorman. Come now, one question. I'm too far inshore for my liking."
[Pg 37] Fiona understood. ”

“ Tarnley, to-night I must have perished if it had not been for him; he is always my best friend, and so unselfish and noble.”
“Well that’s good,” said Mildred Tarnley, coldly. “But I’m thinkin’ something ought to be done wi’ that catamountain in there, and strike while the iron’s hot, and they’ll never drive home that nail ye’ll find—more like to go off when all’s done wi’ her pocket full o’ money. ’Tis a sin, while so many an honest soul wants, and I’ll take that just into my own old hands, I’m thinkin’, and sarve her out as she would better women.” ”