Still there was no response. His gaze lanced hither and thither like a swallow. If a bee crawled from a foxglove bell, he noted it: if a spider swung on a glistening thread, he saw her as, spinning, she sank. If a woodlark stirred, he saw the shadow of its wing flit from frond to frond. But of Oona, no trace. "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!" Oona drew herself up, leaped to a lower branch, and sprang to the ground. "Cha'n ann de mo chuideachd thù, cha'n ann de mo chuideachd thù, ars an colman," she cried mockingly: "You are not of my flock, not of my flock, said the dove!"[6] [6] A pretty and common onomatopœic saying, which I remember first hearing as a lullaby, when I was a child of three or four. And with that she spread out her yellow hair with her hands, and went dancing and leaping through the bracken. Onward she flickered like a sunbeam, till she came to a rocky declivity, where she stopped abruptly, and stared intently into the hollow beyond her. Turning, she looked to see if Nial were watching her, and when she saw that he was still on the swaying pine-branch, she cried eagerly: "Look, Nial! Look!" "What is it?" he cried, nearly toppling from the bough in his eagerness. "What is it, Oona? What is it?" "It must be your soul, Nial! It's black and wriggling about, in case you catch it! _Bi ealamh! Bi ealamh!_ Be quick, be quick!" Then, with a spring, she leaped out of sight. Nial stared after her for a moment, caught his breath spasmodically, crawled swiftly back to the tree, half clambered, half fell to the ground, and then ran like a leaping goat toward the place where Oona had disappeared.