THE FLOATING ISLAND.
A LEGEND OF LOCH DOCHART.
One night in midsummer, a long, long time ago—so long ago that I may not venture to assign the date—the moon shone down, as it might have done last night, over the wild, lone shore of Loch Dochart. Upon a little promontory on its southern margin stood a girl, meanly clad, wasted, and wayworn. In her arms she bore a little babe, wrapped up in the folds of a plaid; and as she bent her thin, pallid face over that of the child, her rich, long, yellow hair fell in a shower around her, unconfined either by snood or curch. One might have taken her for Magdalene, in her withered beauty, her penitence, and her grief; but other than Magdalene, in her passionate despair. She looked around her, and a shudder shook her feeble frame. Was it the chill of the night mist?—it might be; for as her eye wandered away toward the hills beyond, northward, the mists were creeping along their sides, and she saw the moonlight gleaming on a lowly cot, amid a fir grove. 'Twas the home of her parents, the home of her happy childhood, her innocent youth. She looked again at the little one in her bosom; it slept, but a spasm of pain wrung its pale, pinched, sharp features. It appeared to be feeble and pining, for sleepless nights and days of grief and tears had turned the milk of the mother to gall and poison, and the little innocent drank in death—death, the fruit of sin in all climes and ages. Gently she laid the little one by the margent of the water, amid the green rushes; and the breeze of night sweeping by murmured plaintively to them, and caused them to sigh, and rock to and fro around the infant. Then the poor mother withdrew a space from the babe, and sat her down upon a white stone, and covered her face with her long, thin, bloodless hands. She said in her heart, as Hagar said, "Let me not see the death of the child." And she wept sore, for the poor girl loved the babe, as a mother, like her, only can love her babe, with a wild, passionate, absorbing love, for it is her all, her pearl of great price, which she has bought with name and fame, with home and friends, with health and happiness, with earth, and, it may be, with heaven. And she thought bitterly over that happy home, where, a few months since, in the gloaming of the autumn's eve, she sat on the heathery braes, and tripped along the brink of the warbling burn, or milked the kine in the byre, or sang to her spinning-wheel beside her mother, near the ingle. Next came the recollection of one who sat beside her in the braes, and strayed with her down the burn; who won her heart with his false words, and drew her from the holy shelter of her father's roof, to leave her in her desolation among the southern strangers. And now, with the faithfulness—though not with the purity or trustfulness—of the dove, she was returning over the waste of the world's dark waters to that ark which had sheltered her early years—from which no father had sent her forth. The ark is in sight; but the poor bird is weary from her flight, and she would even now willingly fold her wings and sink down amid the waters, for she is full of shame, and fear, and sorrow. Ah! will her father "put forth his hand and take her in, and pull her in unto him into the ark," with the glory of her whiteness defiled, her plumage ruffled and drooping? Ah! will her mother draw her again to nestle within her bosom, when she sees the dark stain upon her breast, once so pure and spotless? The poor girl wept as she thought these things—at first wild and bitterly, but at length her sorrow became gentler, and her soul more calm, for her heavy heart was relieved by the tears that seemed to have gushed straight up from it, as the dark clouds are lightened when the rain pours from them. And so she sobbed and mused in the cold, dreary night, till her thoughts wandered and her vision grew dim, and she sank down in slumber—a slumber like that of childhood, sweet and deep. And she dreamed that angels, pure and white, stood around: and, oh! strange and charming, they looked not on her as the unfallen ones of the world—the pure and the sinless in their own sight—looked upon her through the weary days of her humiliation—scornfully, loathingly, pitilessly; but their sweet eyes were bent upon her full of ruth, and gentleness, and love; and tears like dew-pearls fell from those mild and lustrous orbs upon her brow and bosom, as those beautiful beings hung over her, and those tears calmed her poor wild brain, and each, where it fell upon her bosom, washed away a stain. Then the angels took the little one from her breast, and spread their wings as if for flight; but she put forth her arms to regain her child, and one of the bright beings repressed her gently, and said,
"It may not be—the babe goes with us."
Then said she to the angel, "Suffer me also to go with my child, that I may be with it and tend it ever."
But the angel said, in a voice of sweet and solemn earnestness, "Not yet—not yet. Thou mayest not come with us now, but in a little while shalt thou rejoin us, and this our little sister."
And the dreamer thought that they rose slowly on the moonlit air, as the light clouds float before a gentle breeze at evening; then the child stretched forth its arms toward her with a plaintive cry, and she awoke and sprang forward to where her child lay. The waters of the lake rippled over the feet of the mother, but the babe lay beyond in the rushes at the point of the promontory where she had laid it. The bewildered mother essayed to spring across the stream that now flowed between her and the island, but in vain; her strength failed her, and as she sank to the earth she beheld the island floating slowly away upon the waveless bosom of the lake, while eldritch laughter rang from out the rushes, mingled with sweet tiny voices soothing with a fairy lullaby the cries of the babe that came fainter and fainter on the ears of the bereaved mother, as the little hands of the elfin crew impelled the floating island over the surface of Loch Dochart.
Some herdsmen going forth in the early morning found a girl apparently lifeless lying on the edge of the lake. She was recognized and brought to her early home. When she opened her eyes her parents stood before her. No word of anger passed from the lips of her father, though his eye was clouded and his head was bowed down with sorrow and humiliation. Her mother took the girl's head and laid it on her bosom—as she had done when she was a little guileless child—and wept, and kissed her, and prayed over her. Then after a time she came to know those around her and where she was, and she started up and looked restlessly around, and cried out with a loud and wild cry, "My child! Where is my child!"
Near the spot where she had been discovered was found a portion of a baby's garment. The people feared the child had been drowned, and searched the loch along its shores. Nothing, however, was found which could justify their suspicions; but, to the astonishment of the searchers, they discovered in the midst of the lake a small island, about fifty feet in length, and more than half that in width, covered with rushes and water-plants. No one had ever seen it before, and when they returned with others to show the wonder, they found that it had sensibly changed its position. The home-returned wanderer whispered into her mother's ear all her sin and all her sorrow. Then she pined away day by day. And when the moon was again full in the heavens, she stole forth in the gloaming. She was missed in the morning, and searched for during many days, but no trace could be found of her. At length some fishermen passing by the floating island, scared a large kite from the rushes, and discovered the decaying body of the hapless girl. How she had reached the island none could say—whether it drifted sufficiently near the land to enable her to wade to it in her search for her babe, and then floated out again from the shore; or whether beings of whom peasants fear to speak had brought her there. The latter conjecture was, of course, the one more generally adopted by the people, and there are those who say that at midnight, when the moon shines down at the full upon Loch Dochart, he who has sharp ears may hear the cry of a baby mingling with elfish laughter and sweet low songs from amidst the plants and rushes of the floating island.