Then, changing her tone, Catriona told of the only woman who had ever caught sight of the wee green folk, and how, ever after, riches and wealth were hers, and she had never a wish unsatisfied! It was the going on into the inner caves that had undone the piper! The lass who had seen the fairies was a certain Eilidh Macdonald, and she married a chief, and went to live far away in Oban, and all her days she was clad in green silk. Yes, all her days!
"How did she go?" Ishbel cried.
"In a boat, with a man. It is easy, if the man is strong, and you hef the rowan with you. Last of all, Eilidh died, and she wished to be buried beside Flora Macdonald's granite cross at Kilmuir, and they granted her even that! She lies near the great Flora, who saved the Prince. And all through seeing the wee green folk in the Cave of Gold!"
"Grandmother, would you lend me the rowan branch if—if I were to go?" Ishbel whispered in the dusk. "Would you, grandmother?"
Her own voice seemed to terrify her then, and Rory's face rose up before her; but the old woman got up without a word, and, going to her kist, took something, rolled in a fine kerchief, from it, with the smell of bog-myrtle in its folds, and she laid the brown faded leaves and the red, dry berries on Ishbel's lap.
"There it is! But you will give it me back safe?—or else ill will befall us all!"
"I will give it you back," Ishbel whispered.
She had the rowan in her pocket as she stood with Duncan, tampering with her conscience and her promise now.
"It was a very foolish thing to promise," he said craftily. "Besides, Rory was afraid of the squalls, that is all—and there will be no squalls at all! You can come with me, and see if there is anything, and if my mother's stories are true. If not, there is no harm done. It is a lovely cave whateffer."
Ishbel yielded, as Catriona knew she would yield. Would she see anything? Would the wee folk be there?