Chapter II

The White People

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

I only six when Wee Brown Elspeth was brought to me. Jean and
Angus were as fond of each other in their silent way as they were of
me, and they often went together with me when I was taken out for my
walks. I was kept in the open air a great deal, and Angus would walk
by the side of my small, shaggy Shetland pony and lead him over rough
or steep places. Sheltie, the pony, was meant for use when we wished
to fare farther than a child could walk; but I was trained to sturdy
marching and climbing even from my babyhood. Because I so loved the
moor, we nearly always rambled there. Often we set out early in the
morning, and some simple food was carried, so that we need not return
to the castle until we chose. I would ride Sheltie and walk by turns
until we found a place I liked; then Jean and Angus would sit down
among the heather, Sheltie would be secured, and I would wander about
and play in my own way. I do not think it was in a strange way. I
think I must have played as almost any lonely little girl might have
played. I used to find a corner among the bushes and pretend it was
my house and that I had little friends who came to play with me. I
only remember one thing which was not like the ordinary playing of
children. It was a habit I had of sitting quite still a long time
and listening. That was what I called it--"listening." I was
listening to hear if the life on the moor made any sound I could
understand. I felt as if it might, if I were very still and listened
long enough.

Angus and Jean and I were not afraid of rain and mist and change
of weather. If we had been we could have had little outdoor life.
We always carried plaids enough to keep us warm and dry. So on this
day I speak of we did not turn back when we found ourselves in the
midst of a sudden mist. We sat down in a sheltered place and waited,
knowing it would lift in time. The sun had been shining when we set
out.

Angus and Jean were content to sit and guard me while I amused
myself. They knew I would keep near them and run into no danger. I
was not an adventurous child. I was, in fact, in a more than usually
quiet mood that morning. The quiet had come upon me when the mist
had begun to creep about and inclose us. I liked it. I liked the
sense of being shut in by the soft whiteness I had so often watched
from my nursery window in the castle.

"People might be walking about," I said to Angus when he lifted
me from Sheltie's back.

"We couldn't see them. They might be walking."

"Nothing that would hurt ye, bairnie," he answered.

"No, they wouldn't hurt me," I said. I had never been afraid
that anything on the moor would hurt me.

I played very little that day. The quiet and the mist held me
still. Soon I sat down and began to "listen." After a while I knew
that Jean and Angus were watching me, but it did not disturb me.
They often watched me when they thought I did not know they were
doing it.

I had sat listening for nearly half an hour when I heard the
first muffled, slow trampling of horses' hoofs. I knew what it was
even before it drew near enough for me to be conscious of the other
sounds--the jingling of arms and chains and the creaking of leather
one notices as troopers pass by. Armed and mounted men were coming
toward me. That was what the sounds meant; but they seemed faint and
distant, though I knew they were really quite near. Jean and Angus
did not appear to hear them. I knew that I only heard them because I
had been listening.

Out of the mist they rode a company of wild-looking men wearing
garments such as I had never seen before. Most of them were savage
and uncouth, and their clothes were disordered and stained as if with
hard travel and fight. I did not know--or even ask myself-- why they
did not frighten me, but they did not. Suddenly I seemed to know
that they were brave men and had been doing some brave, hard thing.
Here and there among them I caught sight of a broken and stained
sword, or a dirk with only a hilt left. They were all pale, but
their wild faces were joyous and triumphant. I saw it as they drew
near.

The man who seemed their chieftain was a lean giant who was
darker but, under his darkness, paler than the rest. On his forehead
was a queer, star-shaped scar. He rode a black horse, and before him
he held close with his left arm a pretty little girl dressed in
strange, rich clothes. The big man's hand was pressed against her
breast as he held her; but though it was a large hand, it did not
quite cover a dark-red stain on the embroideries of her dress. Her
dress was brown, and she had brown hair and soft brown eyes like a
little doe's. The moment I saw her I loved her.

The black horse stopped before me. The wild troop drew up and
waited behind. The great, lean rider looked at me a moment, and
then, lifting the little girl in his long arms, bent down and set her
gently on her feet on the mossy earth in the mist beside me. I got
up to greet her, and we stood smiling at each other. And in that
moment as we stood the black horse moved forward, the muffled
trampling began again, the wild company swept on its way, and the
white mist closed behind it as if it had never passed.

Of course I know how strange this will seem to people who read
it, but that cannot be helped and does not really matter. It was in
that way the thing happened, and it did not even seem strange to me.
Anything might happen on the moor--anything. And there was the fair
little girl with the eyes like a doe's.

I knew she had come to play with me, and we went together to my
house among the bushes of broom and gorse and played happily. But
before we began I saw her stand and look wonderingly at the dark-red
stain on the embroideries on her childish breast. It was as if she
were asking herself how it came there and could not understand. Then
she picked a fern and a bunch of the thick-growing bluebells and put
them in her girdle in such a way that they hid its ugliness.

I did not really know how long she stayed. I only knew that we
were happy, and that, though her way of playing was in some ways
different from mine, I loved it and her. Presently the mist lifted
and the sun shone, and we were deep in a wonderful game of being
hidden in a room in a castle because something strange was going to
happen which we were not told about. She ran behind a big gorse bush
and did not come back. When I ran to look for her she was nowhere.
I could not find her, and I went back to Jean and Angus, feeling
puzzled.

"Where did she go?" I asked them, turning my head from side to
side.

They were looking at me strangely, and both of them were pale.
Jean was trembling a little.

"Who was she, Ysobel?" she said.

"The little girl the men brought to play with me," I answered,
still looking about me.

"The big one on the black horse put her down-- the big one with
the star here." I touched my forehead where the queer scar had
been.

For a minute Angus forgot himself. Years later he told me.

"Dark Malcolm of the Glen," he broke out. "Wee Brown
Elspeth."

"But she is white--quite white!" I said.

"Where did she go?"

Jean swept me in her warm, shaking arms and hugged me close to
her breast.

"She's one of the fair ones," she said, kissing and patting me.
"She will come again. She'll come often, I dare say. But she's gone
now and we must go, too. Get up, Angus, man. We're for the
castle."

If we three had been different--if we had ever had the habit of
talking and asking questions-- we might surely have asked one another
questions as I rode on Sheltie's back, with Angus leading us. But
they asked me nothing, and I said very little except that I once
spoke of the wild-looking horsemen and their pale, joyous faces.

"They were glad," was all I said.

There was also one brief query from Angus.

"Did she talk to you, bairnie?" he said.

I hesitated and stared at him quite a long time. Then I shook
my head and answered, slowly, "N-no."

Because I realized then, for the first time, that we had said no
words at all. But I had known what she wanted me to understand, and
she had known what I might have said to her if I had spoken--and no
words were needed. And it was better.

They took me home to the castle, and I was given my supper and
put to bed. Jean sat by me until I fell asleep; she was obliged to
sit rather a long time, because I was so happy with my memories of
Wee Brown Elspeth and the certainty that she would come again. It
was not Jean's words which had made me sure. I knew.

She came many times. Through all my childish years I knew that
she would come and play with me every few days--though I never saw
the wild troopers again or the big, lean man with the scar. Children
who play together are not very curious about one another, and I
simply accepted her with delight. Somehow I knew that she lived
happily in a place not far away. She could come and go, it seemed,
without trouble. Sometimes I found her--or she found me upon the
moor; and often she appeared in my nursery in the castle. When we
were together Jean Braidfute seemed to prefer that we should be
alone, and was inclined to keep the under-nurse occupied in other
parts of the wing I lived in. I never asked her to do this, but I
was glad that it was done. Wee Elspeth was glad, too. After our
first meeting she was dressed in soft blue or white, and the red
stain was gone; but she was always Wee Brown Elspeth with the doelike
eyes and the fair, transparent face, the very fair little face. As I
had noticed the strange, clear pallor of the rough troopers, so I
noticed that she was curiously fair. And as I occasionally saw other
persons with the same sort of fairness, I thought it was a purity of
complexion special to some, but not to all. I was not fair like
that, and neither was any one else I knew.