The Daughters of Danaus. Mona Caird
of the keep. Less illumination would have sufficed to disclose the ancient character of the garret, with its low ceiling, and the graduated mouldings of the cornice, giving the effect of a shallow dome. The house stood obviously very high, for one could see from the windows for miles over a bleak country, coldly lit by the rays of the moon, which was almost at the full. Into the half light stole presently the sound of some lively instrument: a reel tune played, as it were, beneath one’s breath, but with all the revel and rollicking emphasis of that intoxicating primitive music. And then in correspondingly low relief, but with no less emphasis, the occupants of this singular ball-room began to dance. One might have fancied them some midnight company of the dead, risen from their graves for this secret revelry, so strange was the appearance of the moving figures, with the moonlight catching, as they passed, the faces or the hands. They danced excellently well, as to the manner born, tripping in and out among the shadows, with occasional stamping, in time to the music, and now and again that wild Celtic shout or cry that sets the nerves athrill. In spite of the whole scene’s being enacted in a low key, it seemed only to gain in intensity from that circumstance, and in fantastic effect.
Among the dancers was one who danced with peculiar spirit and brilliancy, and her little cry had a ring and a wildness that never failed to set the others going with new inspiration.
She was a slight, dark-haired girl, with a pale, rather mysterious face, and large eyes. Not a word was spoken, and the reel went on for nearly ten minutes. At length the girl with the dark hair gave a final shout, and broke away from the circle.
With her desertion the dance flagged, and presently came to an end. The first breaking of the silence gave a slight shock, in spite of the subdued tones of the speaker.
“It is no use trying to dance a reel without Hadria,” said a tall youth, evidently her brother, if one might judge from his almost southern colouring and melancholy eyes. In build and feature he resembled the elder sister, Algitha, who had all the characteristics of a fine northern race.
“Old Maggie said the other day, that Hadria’s dancing of the reel was no ‘right canny,’ ” Algitha observed, in the same low tone that all the occupants of the garret instinctively adopted.
“Ah!” cried Fred, “old Maggie has always looked upon Hadria as half bewitched since that night when she found her here ‘a wee bit bairn,’ as she says, at this very window, in her nightshirt, standing on tiptoe to see the moonlight.”
“It frightened the poor old thing out of her wits, of course,” said Algitha, who was leaning with crossed arms, in a corner of the deep-set window. The fine outlines of face and form were shewn in the strange light, as in a boldly-executed sketch, without detail. Pride and determination were the dominant qualities so indicated. Her sister stood opposite, the moonshine making the smooth pallor of her face more striking, and emphasizing its mysterious quality.
The whole group of young faces, crowded together by the window, and lit up by the unsympathetic light, had something characteristic and unusual in its aspect, that might have excited curiosity.
“Tell us the story of the garret, Hadria,” said Austin, the youngest brother, a handsome boy of twelve, with curling brown hair and blue eyes.
“Hadria has told it hundreds of times, and you know it as well as she does.”
“But I want to hear it again—about the attack upon the keep, and the shouting of the men, while the lady was up here starving to death.”
But Algitha shook her head.
“We don’t come up here to tell stories, we must get to business.”
“Will you have the candle, or can you see?” asked Fred, the second brother, a couple of years younger than Hadria, whom he addressed. His features were irregular; his short nose and twinkling grey eyes suggesting a joyous and whimsical temperament.
“I think I had better have the candle; my notes are very illegible.”
Fred drew forth a candle-end from his pocket, stuck it into a quaint-looking stand of antique steel, much eaten with rust, and set the candle-end alight.
Algitha went into the next room and brought in a couple of chairs. Fred followed her example till there were enough for the party. They all took their places, and Hadria, who had been provided with a seat facing them, and with a rickety wooden table that trembled responsively to her slightest movement, laid down her notes and surveyed her audience. The faces stood out strangely, in the lights and shadows of the garret.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she began; “on the last occasion on which the Preposterous Society held its meeting, we had the pleasure of listening to an able lecture on ‘Character’ by our respected member Demogorgon” (the speaker bowed to Ernest, and the audience applauded). “My address to-night on ‘Fate’ is designed to contribute further ideas to this fascinating subject, and to pursue the enquiry more curiously.”
The audience murmured approval.
“We were left at loggerheads, at the end of the last debate. I doubted Demogorgon’s conclusion, while admiring his eloquence. To-night, I will put before you the view exactly contrary to his. I do not assert that I hold this contrary view, but I state it as well as I am able, because I think that it has not been given due consideration.”
“This will be warm,” Fred was heard to murmur with a chuckle, to an adjacent sister. The speaker looked at her notes.
“I will read,” she said, “a passage from Emerson, which states very strikingly the doctrine that I am going to oppose.”
Hadria held her paper aslant towards the candle-end, which threw a murky yellow light upon the background of the garret, contrasting oddly with the thin, clear moonbeams.
“ ‘But the soul contains the event that shall befall it, for the event is only the actualization of its thoughts; and what we pray to ourselves for is always granted. The event is the print of your form. It fits you like your skin. What each does is proper to him. Events are the children of his mind and body.’ ”
Algitha leant forward. The members of the Preposterous Society settled into attitudes of attention.
Hadria said that this was a question that could not fail to be of peculiar interest to them all, who had their lives before them, to make or mar. It was an extremely difficult question, for it admitted of no experiment. One could never go back in life and try another plan. One could never make sure, by such a test, how much circumstance and how much innate ideas had to do with one’s disposition. Emerson insisted that man makes his circumstance, and history seemed to support that theory. How untoward had been, in appearance, the surroundings of those who had made all the great movements and done all the great deeds of the world. Let one consider the poverty, persecution, the incessant discouragement, and often the tragic end of our greatest benefactors. Christ was but one of the host of the crucified. In spite of the theory which the lecturer had undertaken to champion, she believed that it was generally those people who had difficult lives who did the beneficent deeds, and generally those people who were encouraged and comfortable who went to sleep, or actively dragged down what the thinkers and actors had piled up. In great things and in small, such was the order of life.
“Hear, hear,” cried Ernest, “my particular thunder!”
“Wait a minute,” said the lecturer. “I am going to annihilate you with your particular thunder.” She paused for a moment, and her eyes rested on the strange white landscape beyond the little group of faces upturned towards her.
“Roughly, we may say that people are divided into two orders: first, the organizers, the able, those who build, who create cohesion, symmetry, reason, economy; and, secondly, the destroyers, those who come wandering idly by, and unfasten, undo, relax, disintegrate all that has been effected by the force and vigilance of their betters. This distinction is carried into even the most trivial things of life. Yet without that organization and coherence, the existence of the destroyers themselves would become a chaos and a misery.”
The oak table over which Hadria