They spoke in whispers, and cast strange glances at the dumb woman, with her gray face and wild eyes of pain. There was no surprise for her; it was only the Thing that lurked so long in corners of her hut, now come out into the light and known for what it was. A kind, white-haired fisherman stayed behind the rest, who were in haste to be gone; he spoke gently to Isla, and she interpreted his words to her mother. There was no minister on the island at that time, but Captain Maynard was used to filling the place of one, and the simple arrangements were made for saying a prayer and laying the tired body to rest.
When the stranger was gone, Isla went to the bed and put her face down by her father’s. She called him, putting forth all the power of her strong young voice; it seemed as if he must hear her. But he gave no sign, and the lids lay white and heavy over his eyes, and when she touched his cheek it was cold, cold. She looked at little Jacob, playing with his shells on the floor; then at her mother. But there was no mother now, only the wife who had seen her child loved better than herself, and who would now guard her sorrow jealously, admitting no sharer in it; and Isla knew that she was alone.
She made no resistance when, after days of brooding, the dumb woman took her by the hand and led her over the rocks, across the brown hill-pastures, to the village school. A little gray building stood apart on a stony hill, and here the children were taught by a young woman who came over from the main for certain months of the year.
Standing in the doorway, Mary Heron beckoned to the school-mistress, who came trembling, afraid of the tall, gipsy figure and the burning eyes; laid the child’s hand in hers, and, with a gesture of grave dignity, turned away. Isla, standing with her hand still in the teacher’s, watched the stately woman as she took her way down the hill and back through the crooked street; her heart yearned to her mother, but Mary Heron never looked back, and soon passed out of sight.
The young teacher was kind, and her fear of the wild girl soon wore away when she found her readiness to learn. Isla pounced upon the simple school-books and studied them fiercely. The children kept their dread of her longer, and huddled together in the play-hour, looking askance at her long russet locks, like tawny rockweed, and her dusky, jewel-like eyes. She had no beauty according to their standard (which was pink and white, and had yellow curls), but all the remoteness of her sea-bound home was in her face and look. Her dress was strange, too, for the homely brown print was sure to be looped and decked with fringes of kelp and weed, and she had long strings of shells, sometimes bound round her head, sometimes twined about her wrists.