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I have heard clever literary people speak of Mrs. MacNairn as a "survival of type." Sometimes clever people bewilder me by the terms they use, but I thought I understood what they meant in her case. She was quite unlike the modern elderly woman, and yet she was not in the least old-fashioned or demodee. She was only exquisitely distinct.
I think he left us alone together because he realized that we should get on better without a companion. Mr. MacNairn sat down near me and began to talk about Muircarrie. There were very few places like it, and he knew about each one of them. He knew the kind of things Angus Macayre knew the things most people had either never heard of or had only thought of as legends.
"There is a thing Jean and I have often talked of telling you," he said. "We have not known what it was best to do. Times we have been troubled because we could not make up our minds. This Mr. Hector MacNairn is no common man. He is one who is great and wise enough to decide things plain people could not be sure of. Jean and I are glad indeed that he and his mother are coming.
"It is the author the world is talking of most in these days, and the talking is no new thing. It's Mr. Hector MacNairn." No one but myself could tell how glad I was. It seemed so right that he should be the man who had understood the deeps of a poor, passing stranger woman's woe. I had so loved that quiet baring of his head! All at once I knew I should not be afraid of him.
When one has heard stories like that all one's life nothing seems very strange." "Nothing really IS strange," said Hector MacNairn. "Again and again through all the ages we have been told the secrets of the gods and the wonders of the Law, and we have revered and echoed but never believed. When we believe and know all is simple we shall not be afraid. You are not afraid, Ysobel.
I had not been miserable about it, and I had not complained to myself; I only accepted the detachment as part of my kind of life. Mr. MacNairn came into the garden later and several other people came in to tea. It was apparently a sort of daily custom that people who evidently adored Mrs. MacNairn dropped in to see and talk to her every afternoon.
I suppose I could never tell any one what strange, wide, bright places seemed suddenly to open and shine before me. Not places to shrink back from oh no! no! One could be sure, then SURE! Feargus had lifted his bonnet with that extraordinary triumph in his look even Feargus, who had been rather dour. "You called them the White People," Hector MacNairn said. Angus and Jean had known all my life.
"The tall, very fair one in the misty, pale-gray dress," I said. "She was near Mr. Le Breton when he was looking at the iris-bed. You were cutting some roses only a few yards away from her. That VERY fair girl?" Mrs. MacNairn paused a moment and looked puzzled. "Mildred Keith is fair," she reflected, "but she was not there then. I don't recall seeing a girl. I was cutting some buds for Mrs.
"Indeed I will come," I answered. "Now we must go and sit among the other people those who don't care about Muircarrie at all." I went to tea under the big apple-tree. It was very big and old and wonderful. No wonder Mr. MacNairn and his mother loved it. Its great branches spread out farther than I had ever seen the branches of an apple-tree spread before.
They had been inseparable companions and she was the delight of his life. That strange, fixed look has been in his eyes ever since. I know you have noticed it." We were walking about among the flower-beds after tea, and Mr. MacNairn was showing me a cloud of blue larkspurs in a corner when I saw something which made me turn toward him rather quickly. "There is one!" I said. "Do look at her!
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