The Treasure of the Isle of Mist

by W. W. Tarn

"I can only tell you that, in my case, I went back," the Student answered.

"Why, daddy, have you been in Fairyland too?" cried Fiona. "And you never told me."

"Yes," said the Student. "Even a musty old scholar like myself was young once, you know," and he looked into the fire with eyes which seemed to see things very, very far away. "It was not quite the same as the Fairyland you have been in, Fiona; but we called it Fairyland."

"Can't you come back with me if I go daddy?" asked the girl.

"I'm too old now, little daughter," he said. "For good or for bad, I could never find the way again. I can only see it now through your eyes. I'll come as far as the door with you, and that's all that an old man can do. I suppose you know where the door is?"

"I never felt there was any doubt," said Fiona.

"Then we'll start first thing to-morrow, if it's calm enough," he said.

But that evening was the last of the golden autumn; and when Fiona woke in the morning, the Isle of Mist was justifying its name. The southwest gale was raging round the house like a live animal, seizing it and shaking it, and wailing in the chimneys pitifully, like an unburied ghost; and before the gale the long lead-colored rollers were racing in from the Atlantic, smashing themselves on the crags and shooting up heavenward in columns of spray thrice the height of the cliffs, while the noise of the surf in the Scargill cave came booming across the water like the roar of a battleship's guns. The hills were all shrouded in mist, and the mist was fine salt rain that rolled in from the sea, driving in billows over the moor and across the fields; the gulls were tossed about in it like little bits of waste paper, and every green thing on the island opened its heart to the rain and drank till it could drink no more. Toward evening Fiona and the Student, in oilskins and sou'-westers, went down to the rocks and out seaward as far as was possible, and there stood, unable to speak for the noise. They balanced themselves against the gusts, and felt the tingling drops of salt spray rattle like hail off their coats, while they watched the cliff waterfalls, unable to fall for the wind, go straight up heavenward in clouds of smoke, and the sea foam and tear at the rocks below; and once for a moment the cloud-mist parted, and the hills started out, their dark sides all gashed and seamed with white streaks where every tiny runlet and burn was rushing in spate down toward the sea. Fiona managed to shout, with her clear young voice, "No one can really love this island who only knows it in summer;" and then they went home, out of the dusk and the lashing of the wet wind, to the quiet bookroom and tea things, and lamps, and books; for man may love Nature, but he loves still better the contrast between Nature and the things which he has fashioned for himself.

For three weeks the wind blew; and though there were days when the sea-mist lifted, there was no day on which the sea was calm enough for the launching of their small boat. Then one afternoon came change. The warm air turned chill, and the warm rain became sleet; that night the wind backed to the north, and next day was a blizzard of snow. And the night after the wind fell away, and the snow ceased, and Orion and his two dogs shone huge in a frosty sky; and Fiona woke to the glories of a scarlet sunrise on a great field of white.

"We must hurry, daddy," she said. "It's perfectly calm."