Chapter II: Part 2

Kelpie kept her own eyes veiled. She knew how much Mina’s promise was worth, but here was hope that Mina might really be going to teach her at last, for her own profit. Kelpie must be very docile, then, and never let Mina suspect what was in her mind.

“Very well so,” she agreed indifferently, it being best to show neither reluctance nor enthusiasm.

“Once more with the crystal, then,” ordered Mina, producing it; and Kelpie obediently sat down in the dew-heavy clumps of long grass. Her face was lowered meekly, to conceal the knowledge that Mina depended on her to see the picture. The gray light was now growing rosy over the bare top of Meall Dubh. The rosiness was reflected in the shining ball and then moved and scattered.

“A battle!” whispered Kelpie, her eyes large and fixed on the scene. But it wasn’t like the other battles she had seen in the crystal—no cavalry charge of armored men on green slopes, but a charge of Highlanders on the steeper, wilder hills of Scotland. She could clearly make out the bright tartans, and the double-handed claymores flashing, and she could almost hear the wailing skirl of the pipes. There was a red-bearded giant in the thick of it, and a slight brown-haired man on a horse, wearing a blue bonnet, and it was he who seemed to be the power behind the charge—though Kelpie couldn’t say how she knew. And now the others were fleeing in the fury of the attack, and it seemed to Kelpie that she saw the blue and green Campbell tartan among the defeated.

Her voice muted and hurried, Kelpie described the scene to Mina, leaving out the name of the tartan and any other details that she guessed Mina might not be able to make out for herself.

And now there was a different scene, and there was the brown-haired man, dressed quite unfittingly as a groom, clasping the hand of the red-bearded one, who was looking altogether astonished and overjoyed, and behind them, on the hillside, was a cheering crowd of Highlanders.

“Well?” demanded Mina.

Kelpie shook her head. “A hillside and a crowd of people,” she murmured, “but ’tis all cloudy.” And then she held her breath.

But Mina didn’t seem to know that Kelpie was deceiving her. “I wanted news of Argyll,” she grumbled and put the crystal away. Then, after a parting cuff, she strode up the hill with Bogle—and not so much as a parting glance from either of them. Och, they had some pressing purpose, the two of them, and whatever could it be?

The eastern sky was apricot now. The sun would be up in a few minutes, and already golden light was pouring across the very tops of the hills on the far side of the glen, but a fitful wind was coming from the west, promising to bring rain clouds over those same bright hills....

What if, after all, Glenfern refused to let her stay? Feeling excited and forlorn at once, Kelpie turned her back on the sunrise and walked slowly down the hill.

* * * * *

She approached the house on lagging feet, suddenly nervous. Ian’s father was outside the door, talking to Lachlan and an old man. Lachlan already disliked her, and Glenfern looked as if he could be stern indeed. Kelpie drooped her mouth into an expression of wistful apology, arranged the sling on her arm so that it showed up well, and hovered tentatively a few feet away.

Glenfern’s face was kindly enough when he looked up and saw her. “Good morning,” he greeted her. “And how are you feeling?”

“Good morning,” replied Kelpie, “and well enough,”—making it sound like a brave lie. “But—” She stopped, looking frightened. “Mina and Bogle came,” she began, and paused.

“Oh. And you’ll be wanting a bit of breakfast before you’re away off with them?” suggested Glenfern with a smile.

“They’re away off without me,” blurted Kelpie, looking helpless. “They’re not wanting me any more.”

“_Dhé!_” said Glenfern. He didn’t seem overjoyed.

“I have nowhere to go,” added Kelpie pathetically, in case he hadn’t got the point.

“Aye,” said Glenfern, who had got it very quickly. “Well, come away in, and we’ll see my wife.”

“_Mise-an-dhui!_” said Lady Glenfern when they told her. She looked even less delighted than her husband.

Eithne looked up from sorting and polishing silver. “Och, what a wicked thing!” she exclaimed, her creamy oval face troubled and sympathetic. “And have you no other relations?”

Kelpie shook her head. Wee Mairi, gathering that something was wrong, ran over and slipped her warm little hand into Kelpie’s, and the twins looked up in surprise, for they had thought everyone had more relations than could be counted.

“Perhaps she had better be staying with us,” they suggested through mouthfuls of buttered scone—an extra breakfast, no doubt. “She could put the Evil Eye on all our enemies, whatever,” added Ronald hopefully.

“You’re not really a witch, are you?” asked Lady Glenfern seriously. A white witch, of course, was a great benefit to have around, since all her powers were used for good; and the Kirk of the Lowlands had not yet reached far enough into the Highlands to make even white powers dangerous. Still, the lass of Old Mina was more likely to be a black witch, than a white one.

“No!” Said Kelpie vehemently, and with perfect truth. (How she wished she were!) “And I would never be wanting to harm anyone,” she added, less truthfully.

Alex, sitting cross-legged on the far window seat, sent her a bright hazel glance of derision, which Kelpie ignored.

Glenfern raised an eyebrow at his wife, sighed, and smiled kindly. “Would you be wanting to stay with us, lassie?” he asked.

“I would so,” replied Kelpie forthrightly. This was easier than she had hoped—if only Alex didn’t spoil it. “I could be working,” she offered meekly. “’Tis little enough I am knowing about the insides of houses, but I learn quickly.”

Alex muffled a snort of laughter. They all glanced at him, but he merely gave Kelpie a look that was both warning and mirthful.

Kelpie, who would have made a good general, seized the offensive boldly. “He is thinking I want to steal things,” she announced, nodding her tangled black head in Alex’s direction.

“And do you not?” asked Glenfern bluntly.

“Of course,” admitted Kelpie candidly. Didn’t everyone? “But I would not be doing it,” she went on, her blue-ringed eyes fixed on Glenfern’s, “because you would be sending me away if I did.”

It was the best thing she could have said. Glenfern lifted his dark head with a shout of delighted laughter. Everyone seemed pleased and amused, and Kelpie made a mental note that truth was sometimes even more effective than a lie. She looked demure and managed at the same time to shoot a triumphant glance at Alex. But, disappointingly, he only grinned.

“Very well so,” decided Lady Glenfern, smiling at her. “It is not many people can claim to having a friendly Kelpie staying with them. And I think you have it in you to be a good lass, and trustworthy.”

Kelpie looked at her, deeply shocked. How could a great lady like this be so foolishly trusting? And all of them seemed the same—excepting Alex, of course, who was sensibly suspicious. Kelpie definitely approved of this, although she hated his uncanny astuteness and his mockery. As for the rest of them, indeed and indeed, it was a wonder they had managed to survive so long. Fooling them was almost too easy, like catching a baby hare with a broken leg.

She felt the same way all over again on that very afternoon, after a most difficult morning.

The difficulties had begun almost immediately after Kelpie’s too easy acceptance into the life of Glenfern. It seemed that Lady Glenfern had peculiar ideas on the subject of cleanliness and propriety. To begin with, there was the bath, the first Kelpie had ever had, supervised by the mistress herself, and executed by Fiona and her formidable mother Catriona. Catriona grumbled constantly, and Fiona crossed herself every time Kelpie looked at her—which she did frequently and maliciously.

Then there was the matter of her name. “Have you not a proper Christian name?” asked Lady Glenfern while Kelpie’s matted hair was being violently combed and plaited into two long, thick tails. Kelpie, unable to shake her head, and with eyes smarting from the pulling, made a sound that meant no.

“My sorrow!” remarked her new mistress. “A strange thing to be naming a lass for a water witch! Would you not rather be called something else? Rena, perhaps, or Morag?”

But Kelpie caught a glimpse of herself just then in the small mirror that stood on a table, and a fleeting shaft of panic shot through her. It wasn’t herself at all! Her face was a stranger, with the dirt off and the hair pulled back wetly to show all of her eyes and forehead and even her fawn-shaped ears. _Dhé!_ If they changed her name as well, perhaps she would cease altogether to be herself and become someone else entirely!

“No!” she said vehemently. And the subject was dropped.

But when they gave her a fine-woven blue woolen dress of Eithne’s for her very own, and even something to wear under it, she began to take a more favorable view of the situation. And when, in the afternoon, she met Ian coming in the front door, he hardly seemed to know her at first. His eyes opened wide as he shook the heavy rain from his plaidie, and then he gave her one of his rare and sudden smiles that was like sunlight out of the drenching sky. Kelpie grinned back, preening herself frankly in her new finery.

“Och, aren’t you grand, just!” Ian said admiringly.

“Oh, aye,” agreed Kelpie, seeing no reason to deny it. “But I should have a pocket and a wee bit of silver to put in it,” she added hopefully.

Ian laughed at her cheekiness. “Perhaps some day,” he said. “But I know that you will not be stealing them, for you have said you won’t, and I trust you.”

There it was again! Kelpie shook her head in wonder. That wasn’t at all the reason she wouldn’t be stealing, and how could he be so daft as to think it? His warm brown eyes and the lovely chiseled, sensitive curve of his mouth quite melted Kelpie, and before she could stop herself she was warning him.

“Och,” she blurted. “You mustn’t be trusting people so easily! It is not safe whatever!”

“Mustn’t I trust you, then?” asked Ian gently. “Are you not wanting to be trusted, Kelpie?”

“Indeed so,” explained Kelpie kindly. “Everyone is wanting to be trusted, because then it is much easier to fool the ones who trust them. And you may be trusting me because you have a stick over me, but it is foolish to do so otherwise.”

They looked at each other pityingly.

“Perhaps people are not so good as I would like to think,” said Ian slowly. “But I think they are not so bad as you have found them, either, Kelpie. And I would liefer trust mistakenly than to mistrust unfairly. Do you understand that?”

“No,” said Kelpie.

5. Bewitchery

It was a strange new life she was in, indeed! Walls and roof were like a trap at first, although it was a grand thing to be warm and dry with all the storm demons howling over the earth. It was strange to have certain tasks at certain times, too, and not easy for a gypsy lass to whom time was nothing. It was strange to eat hot meals three times a day, and at a table, with the heat coming from the huge kitchen fireplace. But it was not so strange to have the servants lowering at her suspiciously. For the clanspeople of the glen, unlike their chief and his family, never trusted this water witch for a moment. An evil sprite she was, and no mistake about it. They watched every move she made.

Still, suspicion was less after her first Sunday there, after she had gathered with the others to hear Glenfern read the service. It was well known that no witch would dare enter a church or hear the Holy Word, lest the roof fall in or some other dire thing happen. Kelpie herself was uneasy about this at first. True, she was not a witch, but she wanted to be, and she had read the crystal with Mina, and she wasn’t altogether certain what might happen. Still, it wasn’t a proper church, with a priest, but only Glenfern reading the Anglican service—and in any case, she dared not refuse. So she went, heart beating faster than usual, and was greatly relieved when nothing dreadful happened.

True to her promise, Kelpie was diligent and learned quickly. Her reward was free time to wander in the encircling hills or to be with the other young people—and this was strangest of all, for they played and chattered and joked in a way quite novel to Kelpie, with laughter among them, and an ease and affection that held no wariness. Under the bewitchment of it, Kelpie found herself dropping her own guard more and more often. She liked being with them! There was more joy in it than in shouting and dancing alone on a hilltop; a different excitement from that she felt when cutting purses. As the days passed, she often had to remind herself of the advice she had given Ian. To be too relaxed could be dangerous—especially with that sharp-minded Alex about.

Still, she couldn’t help enjoying those hours, and presently something clicked in her mind, and she understood the baffling thing they called teasing.

Kelpie, Eithne, Ian, and Alex were sitting nearly waist-deep in the tangle of heather and bog-myrtle that rimmed Loch nan Eilean on a sunny afternoon.

“Are you _sure_ you’re not wanting a proper name besides ‘Kelpie’?” Eithne asked, her soft voice worried and laughing at once. “It seems so insulting, just, that your parents....”

Parents? Suddenly Kelpie remembered what Bogle had said. Suppose she had truly been stolen? Suppose she were really the daughter of a chief? Och, the glory of it! Wealth and importance, lovely gowns and jewels, silver buckles on real leather shoes, and a silver belt around her waist, and oh, the safety of never having to run from angry crowds....

“_Dhé!_” she announced eagerly. “Mina and Bogle will not be my parents, at all.” She paused dramatically and prepared to launch the rest of her news. How startled and respectful they would be! Why hadn’t she thought of it sooner?

“Och, now!” Alex turned twin sparks of laughter upon her. “And haven’t I been waiting, just, for you to be telling us? Kelpie has suddenly remembered,” he explained to the others solemnly, “that she was stolen by the gypsies when a wee bairn and is truly the daughter of a great chief, or perhaps of royal blood.”

“How did you know?” began Kelpie and then stopped. The others were chuckling as at a great joke. Alex had put the blight of ridicule on her story—though it was at least half true. And now no one would ever be believing it at all!

“Beast!” she spat. “It is _true_!”

“As ever was!” agreed Alex jauntily and ducked her angry fist. Then he caught her wrist, put it firmly in her lap, and sat grinning at her. “You’re a wonderful wee liar, aren’t you just?” he observed admiringly.

“Ou, aye,” admitted Kelpie a trifle smugly before she realized that he had tricked her again. “But this time,” she pointed out with indignation, “I am not lying.”

“And would you not be saying the same thing if you were lying?” he persisted.

This time Kelpie saw the trap, but she was already in it. “Of course,” she admitted with forthright logic. “For what would be the good of lying if you did not say it was the truth? But”—she bristled, slanted brows scrambling themselves darkly above her short nose—“_this_ time it _is_ true!”

Alex laughed.

Kelpie tried for at least the twentieth time to put the Evil Eye on him. The result was a poisonous look, if not a blighting one. “Wicked, evil-minded beast!” she told him earnestly.

Ian looked at Alex judiciously. “Och, no; not wicked,” he said. “He’s a bit evil-minded, ’tis true, and surely daft.”

Kelpie blinked.

“Aye, daft enough,” agreed Eithne happily. “Were you knowing, Kelpie, that he’s altogether foolish about an English lass, his cousin Cecily in Oxford? And yet all he can be saying of her is that she is like her own wee kitten, and that he will marry with her some day.”

Alex grinned brazenly. “Well, and with who else?” he demanded. “You would not be having me, _m’eudail_.”

“_Dhé_, no!” agreed Eithne promptly. “I’d as lief marry the twins!”

“Mayhap Kelpie would have him,” suggested Ian lazily, and then he and Eithne shouted with laughter at the looks of sheer horror on both faces.

“Mercy!” begged Alex, getting to his knees and clasping his hands pleadingly. “Anything but that! Curse me all you wish, water witch, but _please_ do not marry me!”

Kelpie looked at him. It was then that something clicked. “Very well so,” she agreed with enthusiasm. “And what sort of curse would you be wanting?”

* * * * *

She went back to the house a little later, looking thoughtful and with a pleasant feeling in the heart of her—not merely because, for once, she had got the better of Alex, but also because of the thing that happened between people when they teased. It was a warm and happy thing that turned insults to joking and the hatred of Alex to something kinder. For surely a body did not tease where he hated! And surely he had been half teasing her from the first.

Kelpie’s blue eyes glinted happily as she hurried into the big stone-floored kitchen, so that Marsali the cook almost smiled at her and Fiona for once forgot to cross herself.

“And about time it is, too!” Marsali grunted, remembering her doubts about Kelpie. “The mistress has been looking for you while you were playing like a fine lady. Here, now, be helping to pluck this fowl, and let Master Donald go tell her that you’re here.”

Kelpie glanced at the half of the twins who was arming himself for an afternoon of fishing, with a huge packet of scones and butter. “That’s Ronald,” she said absently as she picked up the small brown pheasant.

Three pairs of eyes focused on her in sudden sharp attention, for it took far more than a brief glance to tell one twin from the other. In fact, only their mother and Wee Mairi could invariably do it.

“I’m Donald,” asserted the twin, his eyes sparkling at her.

“You’re Ronald.” Kelpie contradicted him serenely, hardly glancing up from her plucking job.

Marsali at once took sides. “Och, now, will you be calling the wee master a liar?” she demanded indignantly, her fists planted against her hips.

“Ou, aye,” said Kelpie. “He will be teasing you,” she added, pleased to recognize it.

Fiona looked shocked. Marsali peered suspiciously from Kelpie to the twin, who giggled. “Och, well, then,” said Marsali, her ruddy face now ruddier with indignation, though she was not quite sure at whom to direct it. “Fine it is that Master Ronald has the wee mole on the back of his neck.” And she strode over to the grinning lad and lifted up the shoulder-length dark hair to look at the neck beneath. Kelpie went on plucking, perfectly sure of herself and feeling rather smug.

“Master Ronald it _is_!” Marsali clucked, and Fiona crossed herself and edged away from Kelpie. “How could you be knowing, save with the Black Power?”

“Aye,” demanded Ronald. “How were you knowing, Kelpie? Was it witchcraft?”

Kelpie grinned and shrugged. She couldn’t really tell how she knew. It wasn’t the look of them, but rather the feel. Donald had a more aggressive and challenging tone, and Ronald more a feel of hungry curiosity. But how could a body explain this kind of knowing? No, they would just have to think it witchcraft.

“_Mise-an-dhui!_” muttered Marsali, regarding her warily. Fiona had backed against the far wall. Donald appeared in search of his twin, and the two went into a conference. Presently they came out of it and presented a solid front to Kelpie, sturdy legs planted wide.

“That is no proof you are a witch,” announced Donald. “Mother and Wee Mairi can tell us apart, and they are no witches, only Mother is knowing us too well and Mairi has Second Sight.”

Kelpie yielded to temptation, made a horrible grimace, and began weaving mysterious signs in the air with her fingers. Fiona screeched, and Marsali turned pale. The twins stood their ground, grinning, belligerent, deeply interested—and just faintly worried.

“Now whatever is all this?” It was Lady Glenfern herself, her full mauve skirts nearly filling the wide doorway, with Eithne, round-eyed, just behind.

“Witchcraft!” squeaked Fiona.

Kelpie flushed guiltily and found a sudden lump in her throat. Och, here was a mess! Why had she done such a foolish thing? All in fun it was, and yet who would believe her for a minute? Now she would be punished and sent away—and, for once, for a thing of which she was innocent! The novelty of the situation was so shattering that for once she lost her glib tongue. She simply stared at her mistress, her eyes growing wide with frustration and despair.

The twins and Marsali broke into simultaneous explanations—all slightly different—with Fiona putting in exclamation points here and there, so that it was some time before Lady Glenfern could get an idea of what had happened. When she did, she turned questioningly to Kelpie, who was still trying to think up some lie that sounded more plausible than the truth. But Eithne spoke first.

“Och, then, Mother!” she said, laughter and distress in her voice. “She was teasing; I am sure of it. Look you how the twins are always at her to cast a spell, and Fiona just begging to be teased by the very look of her. I am sure that was the way of it! Was it not, Kelpie?”

Kelpie nodded a bit sullenly. This was humiliating. She wished she really had power to do a wee magic spell and dared show them, just to see their surprise.

“Well—” Lady Glenfern hesitated, inclined to believe it, but not quite sure. After all....

At that moment Wee Mairi popped into the kitchen, looking, in her full skirts, like a fairy child caught in an overblown rose. And, like a fairy child, she knew instantly that something was wrong, and what to do about it. She pattered across the floor and slipped her small, soft hand into Kelpie’s.

“This is _my_ Kelpie,” she announced, smiling angelically at her mother. “’Tis myself loves her, and you must not be cross at her.”

“There, Mother!” crowed Eithne. “Wee Mairi loves her, and Mairi has the Second Sight; you said yourself that she is never making a mistake about a person!”

Lady Glenfern relaxed. “Aye so,” she agreed and smiled at Kelpie. “I can well see how you were tempted to tease,” she admitted and then became grave. “But you must be careful, lass. To joke about such matters could cause you sore trouble.”

Kelpie hardly heard the warning. Her hand was gripping the small one still protectively clinging to it, and she found herself again seized by an alarming surge of feeling for its owner. Och, the fair, sweet heart of her....

Wee Mairi chose this instant to lean confidingly against Kelpie and peer up with a beguiling smile. “_My_ Kelpie,” she repeated.

And Kelpie was swallowed in a tide of the first real love she had ever known. She found it extremely upsetting. All her training and experience warned her that it was dangerous to be trapped into this sort of feeling. It left one vulnerable, could lead one into foolishness. And here she was, bewitched, unable to help it! She scowled helplessly.

Lady Glenfern, seeing her distress, mercifully took her from the kitchen for the rest of the day and set her to work at a simple bit of weaving. For an hour or so Kelpie sat alone, brooding. Eithne came in for a while to work at her own more complicated length of Cameron tartan, but Kelpie was so unsociable that she left again.

And then the twins arrived, dark heads cocked to one side, eyes dancing at her impishly. “We have found you,” they announced in triumph.

“Fine I know it,” growled Kelpie, refusing to look at them.

Undaunted, they seated themselves on two wee creepie-stools and regarded her with affable curiosity. “There is a thing that we have in our minds,” they told her.

“I am doubting that!” snapped Kelpie.

The twins digested this insult and then chuckled. “I am liking you fine,” said Donald, “even though you are not a witch.”

Kelpie, touched again on that newly sensitive spot, shot the shuttle through the warp with unnecessary violence and said nothing.

“Why were you saying you are a witch when you are not?” asked Ronald with interest. “Why,” he continued, getting warmed up, “do Fiona and the others think you are? Would you like to be? Are you truly Old Mina’s girl? Is she your Grannie Witchie? If you were a witch, Kelpie, what would you do first of all?”

“Put a spell of silence on the tongue of you,” retorted Kelpie and found that her ill humor was beginning to evaporate. It was impossible not to smile back at their cheeky grins, not to chuckle when they said that Mother would probably approve such a spell. The atmosphere became quite congenial.

“I thought you were going fishing,” observed Kelpie.

The twins looked depressed. “We were,” they agreed. “But Father is come back from seeing Lochiel and told us to bide here for our lessons that we missed this morning. I think ’twill take him a wee while to find us in here, whatever,” added Ronald cheerfully, and Kelpie grinned again.

“We are learning about the war between King Charles and Parliament and the Covenant,” volunteered Donald sadly, “and we could do fine _not_ knowing about it. Grownups are gey confusing, so they are, and sometimes I think gey foolish besides, and we are not understanding it all very well.”

“Are you loving King Charles?” demanded Ronald.

“Ou, aye,” murmured Kelpie vaguely and hastened to turn the question. “Are you?” she countered.

“As ever was!” they chorused instantly. “Is he not our King, and a Stewart, besides?”

Well, Kelpie had already known that Glenfern was pro-Royalist. “And so the King is always right?” she pursued, trying to think what else to ask.

“Och, no!” said the twins in surprise. “No one is always right,” they informed her gravely. “Except,” they added, “for Father.”

Kelpie put her shuttle through the wrong way and had to take it out again, her lip twitching ever so slightly. The twins, having settled that subject of conversation, looked at her hopefully. “Can you,” they asked, “tell us a story?”

Now if there was one thing Kelpie could do better than any other, it was to tell stories—pathetic tales to earn sympathy or a copper, outrageous lies to escape impending trouble, embroidered yarns of her own adventures, old gypsy stories, eerie folk tales of the wee people and other uncanny beings, or fanciful bits and snatches that she wove for herself among the hills or beside the campfire. Her eyes sparkled. “Fine I can that!” she asserted and dropped her voice to an eerie pitch.

“Have you ever,” she whispered, “heard of the _uruisg_ of Glenlyon?”

They shook their heads and drew their stools nearer.

“Well, then.” Kelpie paused, shuttle in hand. “It was a farmer’s wife who was making porridge for breakfast on a wet morning, when who should come walking in but an _uruisg_. Och, a slippery, damp, uncouth monster he was, half man and half goat; and wasn’t he just sitting himself down at the fire to dry, and not so much as a wee greeting to her? Well, the farmer’s wife was fair angered at his impertinence, and she having to step over and around him every minute, so presently she just lifted a ladle of the boiling porridge from the pot over the fire, and poured it over him, just. Well, at that he leaped up, howling, and ran out the door and never dared set foot in that house again....”

When Glenfern finally tracked down his elusive twins some time later, Kelpie had got very little weaving done, but she had made a place for herself forever in the hearts of Ronald and Donald.

6. The Picture in the Loch

“’Tis a terrible complicated matter, the war,” objected Eithne doubtfully as she began basting a sleeve into what was to be a fine linen shirt for Ian’s birthday. “I fear I’d only be confusing you.”

Kelpie surveyed the four or five yards of red and green tartan wool which constituted a kilt for a small lad, and wondered how even Donald could have managed to tear such stout weave. “I could not be more confused than I am,” she pointed out, “for I am knowing nothing at all. Tell me at least a little.”

Eithne sighed and obeyed. “Well,” she began hesitantly, “you know that King Charles is King of England and Scotland both?” Kelpie nodded. “But in both countries are representative bodies of men called Parliaments, and they help to rule. They are supposed to agree with the things the King does, and it is the English parliament who must vote to give him things like extra money when he needs it—which he usually does.”

She paused to squint critically at her basting, and Kelpie waited. Somehow she had developed a great eagerness to learn about the matters which had thrown England and Scotland into civil war. “Aye, go on,” she murmured.

“Well, so. Neither King Charles nor his father before him has got along well with Parliament. King and Parliament each said the other will be trying to take more rights and power than they should have, and they became angry. Parliament would refuse to vote money for the King, so the King would dissolve Parliament, which meant that they could not meet any more to vote on anything at all until King Charles called them back, and so everyone was unhappy.”

She bit off her thread and held the shirt closer to the dim light which filtered through the thick diamond-shaped mullion panes of the casement window. “And then”—she sighed—“religion came into it. Father,” she remarked severely, “says that religion should never be mixed with politics, but they do not listen to wise people like Father, and so there is trouble.”

“What has religion to do with it?” asked Kelpie curiously. She had never known anything of religion for herself, only that the stern Kirk of the Lowlands had severe views on all other faiths, on fun and laughter, and most particularly on witches. But the Anglican services here at Glenfern seemed peaceful and vaguely pleasant, even though she did not understand them.

“Och!” protested Eithne, but Kelpie’s face was implacable, so she went on. “Well, the Catholics and Protestants do not like each other, and especially the Protestants of the new Reformed Church, like the Puritans in England and the Calvinist Covenanters in Scotland—and we Anglicans caught in the middle. King Charles is Anglican, but the Parliament is mostly Puritan, I think. At any rate, they were very angry when the King married Queen Henrietta, who is a Roman Catholic and said she would turn the country all Catholic and burn Protestants at the stake. And the Catholics said the Protestants were trying to rule the country and force their religion on everyone, and so it was a fine braw quarrel for years, with religion and politics all mixed together.”

Kelpie carefully selected a strand of wool to match the soft, dull red of the Cameron tartan. This was the most difficult bit of mending she had yet been trusted with. “Mmm,” she murmured after a minute, turning her mind back to the conversation. “And then?”

It was Eithne’s turn to pause, while the rain beat against the casement windows. Wee Mairi turned from her doll to lift a merry smile in the direction of “her Kelpie,” who felt a new pang of affection. Och, the bonnie wee thing!

Eithne scowled at the shirt and then glanced up at Kelpie with a rueful shrug. “Ou, I cannot mind me of all the details.” She sighed again. “But the quarrel turned into fighting.”

“But what of Scotland?” demanded Kelpie. “What had it to do with us at all?”

“Why,” interrupted the dry voice of Alex, “King Charles himself must be bringing that on!” They looked up to see him standing in the doorway, a shirt in his hand and a wry grin on his angular face. “Scotland might have been loyal to him, even though all the Lowlands are Calvinist, and even more rigid than the Puritans, but he had the bright idea of forcing the Anglican prayer book on Scotland. And the next thing he knew, there was a Solemn League and Covenant formed against him, and Scotland divided as England was, with Lowlands against the King, and most of the Highlands loyal to him.”

Eithne looked both relieved and worried, while Kelpie studied Alex’s expression in the dim light, not quite certain if he were teasing or not. She decided not—for once. There was a faint note of bitterness in his voice. “I thought you were a King’s man!” she challenged him.

“I am so,” he returned promptly and unpropped himself from the doorway. “Look you, Eithne,” he went on, crossing the room to her. “I have ripped my shirt sorely and am needing a bonnie sweet lass to mend it for me.”

Eithne tilted her chestnut curls at him and wrinkled up her nose in an impish grin. “If I do,” she said, bargaining, “will you be explaining the rest of the war to Kelpie?”

“_Dhé!_” said Alex and raised both eyebrows at Kelpie.

“She is truly wanting to know,” said Eithne sternly, “so do not be teasing her, Alex. And I am gey muddled about it, and you knowing so much more, with having been at Oxford and even seeing the King and his family yourself. Will you?”

“’Tis a hard bargain,” complained Alex, “and I am thinking I pity the man who will one day marry you, Eithne _m’eudail_.” He perched on the corner of the massive table, his kilt falling in heavy folds about his lean knees. “Well, then, and what bit of my great knowledge should I be sharing with you first?”

Kelpie gave him a wicked pointed smile. “Tell me,” she said softly, “in one word, just, _what are they fighting for?_”

“My sorrow!” exclaimed Alex, straightening up as if he had sat on a thistle. “Is that all?”

“Don’t you know?” asked Kelpie tauntingly. “I will tell you, then. They’re fighting for power. Is it not so?”

Alex resumed his perch and surveyed her ruefully. “Och, and are you not the young cynic!” he observed. “And you have shocked my foster sister, too.” For Eithne was looking both dismayed and indignant. Both girls had forgotten their sewing for the moment and sat staring at Alex challengingly, waiting for his opinion.

He laughed. “I fear me I shall anger you both,” he remarked, “and go through the rest of my life with an evil spell on my head and a tom sleeve in my shirt.”

“Well?” demanded Kelpie.

Alex gave her a crooked grin. “Sorry I am to agree with you even in part,” he confessed, “but no doubt some men are fighting for power. No, no, Eithne,” he added as she opened her mouth. “Do not deny it too quickly. What about Argyll?”

Eithne subsided.

“On the other hand, Alex _avic_, there is Montrose.” It was Ian. He pulled up a hassock and ranged himself quietly but firmly on Eithne’s side.

“Montrose?” asked Kelpie.

“Aye,” said Ian, turning his warm smile upon her. “James Graham of Montrose, and he one of the finest, truest men under the sun. He it is who is named to fight for the King’s cause in Scotland, even to form and organize the army. And he is fighting for no selfish reason whatever, but only for what he believes to be right. Alex cannot deny it, for we both met and talked to him last winter in Oxford.”

“Indeed and I’ll not deny it,” agreed Alex amiably, “though Kelpie might. My point was just that all men are not like Montrose, and my proof of it is still Argyll. Och, and have you done, my sonsie Eithne?” he added as she held up the mended shirt. “Come away, then, Ian, and let’s be outside. I believe the sun is going to come out.”

And they were gone before Kelpie could ask about Argyll. Perhaps it was as well, she decided, going back to her mending. For she really thought she had heard quite as much as she could absorb all in one lump.

Eithne flickered a mischievous sideways glance at her. “And wasn’t I warning you ’twas complicated?” she murmured.

* * * * *

As if by tacit agreement, no one brought up matters like war and politics for some time. After all, it was easy enough, in that peaceful, secluded glen, to put such things far out of mind. Kelpie’s free hours were full enough, as spring days became longer, with other things. Wee Mairi tagged along with her, a self-appointed guardian, and the glenspeople had learned to hide their hostility when Mairi was there. The twins were insatiably hungry for more stories—and so, for that matter, were the older young people. Books were rare and precious, and mostly devoted to serious and difficult subjects. And, as Ian generously remarked on a sunny afternoon by the loch, Kelpie was a master at telling tales.

Alex grinned impishly. “She is that!” he agreed with a wicked twinkle in his eye and a double meaning to his voice which Kelpie chose to ignore.

“Next time I will tell you about the _sithiche_ (fairies) of Loch Maree—_if_ you are all very kind to me,” she said blandly and glanced impudently at Alex.

She sat on alone by the loch for a little while after the others had left, thinking about things. How Alex had changed since she first met him! He was much nicer than she had thought. And she had begun to like his teasing and mockery, for it was all good-humored.... Or was it perhaps herself had changed? And if so—She rolled over to lie full-length on her face in the fragrant long grasses and pondered. Then, lazily, she stretched until her head was over the edge of the loch.

What was her real self like? Had that changed? Could it?

The bank at this point rose abruptly about two feet above the glassy surface of the water, with tough curling roots of heather overhanging the edge. Kelpie reached down skillfully, scooped up a handful of the cold water, and drank it from her palm before it could run through her fingers. The surface rippled slightly and returned to its mirror stillness, with sky, hills, and trees reflected so clearly that it would be hard to tell the reflection from the real. Or was one, perhaps, as real as the other?

She stared down at her own face, still looking indecently bare with all the thick dark hair pulled back into plaits. Was that any less real—or more—than the scenes she saw in Mina’s crystal?

And then it was no longer her own face she was seeing, but a town street and an ugly-tempered crowd surging down it. Not merely annoyed, that crowd, but murderous. Kelpie shivered a little, for she knew too well how bestial a mob could be. And this one had a victim, for there was savage satisfaction in the grim Lowland faces above their sober Covenanter garments, pressing closer and closer.... And there was Ian! Whatever could he be doing in the Lowlands? Pushing through the crowd, he was; and Alex came after, shouting at him, his angular face all twisted with fury. And now they were closer, and Alex was catching up to Ian.... Alex was lifting his sword, and through the crowd Kelpie could see him bring it down savagely.... _Dhé!_ Ian had fallen, his dark head vanished in the throng! And Alex’s sword with blood on it!

Kelpie jerked with horror, and a bit of dry heather plopped into the water—and the picture was gone. Nor did it return, though she waited, staring at the still water and brooding bitterly.

_Dhé!_ That serpent Alex! She had never liked him from the beginning! And now he was going to turn on his foster brother, strike him down from behind, perhaps kill him—for the Sight never lied.

She tried to tell herself that it didn’t matter to her, but it was too late. Ian had crept into her heart, and Wee Mairi, and the rest of them. Even Alex, deceitful scoundrel that he was, had somehow tricked her into liking him—for a while, anyway. But now she knew better. Och, she must try to warn Ian! Even if he could not prevent it, perhaps he could be on his guard, could put off the evil day of it, could duck in time to save his life.

Dismayed, angry, resolute, Kelpie got to her feet, smoothed down the full folds of her blue dress, and started back up the loch.

* * * * *

Now what, wondered Alex, had got under the skin of their wolf cub lately? For there was a new venom toward himself—and after he had been thinking her nearly tamed, too. Aye, a wolf cub: belligerent, cunning, snarling, biting, thieving, destructive—and yet innocent, as a wolf cub is innocent because it knows nothing else.

But she had been changing. She had been learning trust and affection, even to play and tease. And now, suddenly, there was a new and deadly hatred smoldering at him from those ringed eyes. It was puzzling, it was, and rather less amusing than her old spitting indignation had been; and even though it could hardly be a tragedy to him, still it was disconcerting. Alex kept a wary eye on her, lest she should decide to take her _sgian dhu_ to his back.

As for Kelpie, she found the business of warning Ian a bit harder than it had seemed. For one thing, it was none so easy to find him alone, for he and Alex were usually together and about their own affairs, while Kelpie had her tasks in the house. In the evenings the family sat together in the withdrawing room, which was not Kelpie’s place. The big warm kitchen, or her wee cot in Marsali’s room, was where she belonged, or—more often—away by herself outside, in the pale half-light of the long northern gloaming. For summer was drawing near, and darkness now merely brushed down late upon the world and, like a gull’s wing, quickly lifted.

So she glared at Alex and did her tasks and kept her eyes and ears open and bided her time. And at last Alex went off for a few days to visit his brother in Ardochy. And the next evening Kelpie, on one of her rambles, saw Ian on the hill above her, quietly looking down over the glen.

Kelpie drew near, and then paused. Och, a braw lad he was! But how might she be approaching him best? It might be he wanted to be alone. Before she could decide, Ian saw her, smiled, beckoned, his face oddly blurred in the half-light that turned all things gray. She sat beside him and for a minute followed his gaze over the long shadowed cup of the glen, lit by the silver gleam of Loch nan Eilean.

Finally Ian stirred and spoke. “I wish I might never need to leave it again,” he said wistfully.

Did he love it so? Kelpie dimly sensed that he did; but she did not understand, for she herself had no roots to her heart, but only a wanderlust to her feet. “And must you, then?” she asked. Why could Ian not be doing as he pleased, since he was the heir to Glenfern?

“Aye so,” he said, a bit more briskly. “For I must finish my schooling if I am to be a fit chieftain and leader to my people. However”—he brightened considerably—“I think we’ll not be able to return to Oxford for some time, with the war moving northward and becoming more serious, and Argyll endangering all the Highlands.”

Now was the moment for her to warn him about Alex. But it was also a chance to ask about Argyll and put off the more difficult thing. “Tell me about Argyll!” she urged.

Ian turned to look at her with friendly interest. “You’ve a good head on you, haven’t you, Kelpie? Mother says you’re quick to learn and that you speak English as well as Gaelic. Are you truly interested in national affairs, then?” Kelpie nodded.

“Well, then,” began Ian, “you know who Argyll is, do you not? Mac Cailein Mor, Chief of Clan Campbell in the Highlands, and also head of the Covenant Army of the Lowlands. So he has that power added to the power of his own clan, and he uses it ill, Kelpie. He is a vicious man, cruel, ambitious, and vindictive.”

Kelpie could not resist a gibe. “And is he not also a Campbell, and his clan at feud with yours?” she remarked.

Ian flushed. Even in the dusk she could see it. “’Tis not that!” he protested. “I am not one to hate a man for his name, Kelpie! And in any case, my own uncle married a Campbell lass; and the son of Lochiel, our own clan chief, married Argyll’s sister, and we are anxious to be at peace. But Argyll, devil that he is, wishes to dictate his own terms entirely. Do you know what he has done, Kelpie? He has taken his nephew Ewen—Lochiel’s own grandson, who will be chief of the Camerons some day—and is keeping him at his own castle of Inverary. He says he wishes to see to his education—and I can guess what kind of education ’twill be—but do you see that Ewen is hostage for Lochiel’s actions? And if Lochiel dares to take the side of the King against Argyll—”

“Mmmm,” said Kelpie, seeing.

“Nor is it just our clan,” Ian went on, deep anger in his voice. “He was commissioned to secure the Highlands for the Covenant, which is bad enough, for we have not tried to inflict our politics or religion on them. But Argyll has used his commission and the Lowland army to settle his private grudges. He burned the great house of Airly, with no enemy there but a helpless woman. And he burned and ravaged the lands of MacDonald of Keppoch, and is even now laying waste the lands of Gordon of Huntly. They say he would make himself King Campbell, and a black day for Scotland if he should.”

Kelpie remembered the face she had seen once in the crystal, which Mina had called Mac Cailein Mor, Marquis of Argyll. A cold, cruel face it had been, with twisted sneering mouth, a heavy and pendulous nose, and a squint in the crafty eyes of him, so that one couldn’t be just sure what he was looking at.

“Aye,” she agreed suddenly. “He is a red-haired _uruisg_. I have been seeing him helping with his own hands to fire the homes and burn people too.” She didn’t add that the people burned were accused of witchcraft, as this might not be a tactful thing to mention.

“You’ve seen that?” exclaimed Ian.

“In the crystal, only,” confessed Kelpie. “I was also seeing him mounting the scaffold to be hanged,” she remembered with relish. “But,” she added regretfully, “he was looking much older then.”

“_Dhé!_” exclaimed Ian, deeply impressed. “I did not know you were having the Second Sight, Kelpie.”

“Aye,” said Kelpie. And here was her opening. “Ian!” she blurted, quite forgetting to give him a respectful title. “You must not be trusting Alex MacDonald.”

“Not trust Alex?” Ian turned a dumfounded face to hers. And then he laughed. “Och, Kelpie, there is no one in the world I trust better! We are sworn brothers, and if my life were to rest in the two hands of him, there is no place I would sooner have it.”

“And you would lose it, then,” said Kelpie flatly. “For I had a Seeing, and his sword fell upon you from behind, and you fell. And there was anger on his face and blood upon his sword.”

Ian’s face was a pale blob in the dusk, and she could not see it turn white—and yet she knew, somehow, that it did. For the Second Sight never lied.

And in spite of that, Ian shook his head. “I cannot believe it, Kelpie,” he said quietly. “It is a mistake, for the sun would fall from the sky before Alex could be untrue.”

Kelpie thrust an angry face, long eyes glittering, close to his. “You think I am lying, but I am not. I would have been warning you, even though it is of no profit to me, whatever. But it is a spell he has cast upon you! And,” she added bitterly, “you will be discovering it too late.”

7. The Return of Mina and Bogle

Summer was upon the Highlands. The serene curves of the hills glowed with a hundred shades of green and tawny and rose, all with a faintly unreal, spirit-of-opal quality, so that the distances looked no more solid than a rainbow.

Kelpie breathed the salt wind as she climbed higher above the glen, and stared hungrily at the distant hills. For she was beginning to feel restless. A wee glen was not space enough, and there were too many people, too much routine, and she must away to the hills to be alone. Here were only the mild shaggy cattle peering mournfully from behind long fringes of hair, and the hares and red deer, the hill larks and whaups and gulls, and an eagle—high and alone in the free air.

Her acute senses had been lulled by the months of security at Glenfern, and she was startled to see the bent, wiry figure of Mina rise unexpectedly from behind a clump of juniper.

They looked at each other, and Kelpie’s expression could not possibly have been mistaken for delight. Mina took one good look at it, swung back her strong, scrawny arm, and aimed it at Kelpie.

It seemed that Kelpie’s reactions as well as her senses had become rusty. She didn’t duck in time. And, since Mina had fully expected her to, the resounding smack startled and pained them both.

Mina shook her stinging hand and glared at Kelpie as if the girl had done it on purpose. Kelpie, her head ringing, glared back. And Black Bogle, who had appeared as silently as his eerie namesake, shook with malicious laughter.

“_Amadain!_” grumbled Mina sourly. “Forgotten everything you ever knew! Fine-lady clothes and clean face, and hands that will have lost all their cunning—such as it was. Blind and deaf and slow as a sleeping snail. _Amadain!_”

“Sssss!” remarked Kelpie, looking and sounding like a wrathful snake. She had forgotten how ugly and mean and dirty Mina was. Och, how she hated her!

Mina looked pleased. She enjoyed Kelpie’s impotent hatred. And Kelpie, knowing this, controlled her feelings and hooded her eyes and made her sharp-jawed small mouth curl upward. She had been a fool to show her feelings at all at all!

“Come away, then,” ordered Mina, suddenly becoming brisk. “You have kept us waiting long enough! Why weren’t you coming as soon as you got my message?”

“What message?” asked Kelpie blankly. Mina’s eyes blazed with fury and humiliation. Bogle laughed aloud, and Kelpie knew that Mina had tried to send her a message by magic—and it hadn’t worked. Och, but she must say something quickly, or no telling what Mina might do!

“It would be yon red-haired serpent down there,” she said improvising hastily. “He was no doubt setting up a spell to prevent your message from reaching me. Teach me to say spells, Mina,” she wheedled, “so that I may set one on him.”

It worked. Mina’s pride was saved, and her wrath turned from Kelpie to Alex. “I will be cursing him myself,” she growled. “He is the same one who would not pay me enough when you were hurt, and who would not let you steal? Very well so! He will pay, and the others as well. We will go now and demand your wages before you leave.”

Leave? Kelpie’s heart sank. Back to the old life of fear, hatred, beatings? Away from Wee Mairi and Ian and the companionship and teasing? She backed up a step and braced herself.

“What for should I want to leave?” She stuck out her jaw rebelliously, and Mina slapped it.