"Oona, my fairy! Oona, my fawn! I didn't mean it! I didn't mean it! The words were in my throat. I couldn't help it. Not a word was true. Oh, my grief, my grief! Oona mùirnean, Oona mo mùirnean—Ochone, ochone, thràisg mo chridhe—darling, darling, oh, 'tis my heart that is parched!"
But the child was obdurate. She made no sign. Nial lay moaning on the branch. The silence was unbroken, save by the sea-like whisper of the wind among the leaves.
Suddenly a cushat crooned. Then the low croodling sound palpitated upon the warm sunlit air that flooded in among the pine-boughs.
The dwarf listened. The gloom in his eyes lifted. He knew how Oona loved his one utterance that was his own, which he had made in imitation of the crooning of a dove. Raising his head, he half mumbled, half sang:
"Oona, Oona, mo ghràidh,
Oona, Oona, mo ghràidh,
Mùirnean, mùirnean, mùirnean,
Oona, Oona, mo ghràidh!"
Surely she would respond: ah, yes, that shrill mocking laugh, elfin sweet in his ears! His gaze leaped along the track of the sound, and then at last he espied her, crouching low in the fork of a rowan, with her bare legs hidden by the bole and only the sparkle of her eyes glinting from behind the screen of leaves.
"Ah," he cried joyously, "I see you, Oona, my dove! Ah, my little white dove, your little black dove sees you!"