THE SIN-EATER
 
 The Sin-Eater 
 
 And Other Tales and Episodes 
 
 
 
 BY 
 
 FIONA MACLEOD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 1907
 
 COPYRIGHT, I8g5, BY 
 STONE AND KIMBALL 
 
 This edition publithtd in May, i<)O7, 
 by Duffield & Company
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 TO 
 
 GEORGE MEREDITH 
 
 IN GRATITUDE AND HOMAGE : AND BECAUSE 
 HE IS PRINCE OF CELTDOM
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 Contents 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 A * *~ 
 
 (FROM IONA) 
 i 
 
 THE SIN-EATER X 5 
 
 THE NINTH WAVE &5 
 
 THE JUDGMENT O' GOD 8l 
 
 II 
 THE HARPING OF CRAVETHEEN 97 
 
 III 
 TRAGIC LANDSCAPES 
 
 I. THE TEMPEST J1 5 
 
 II. MIST *33 
 
 III. SUMMER-SLEEP *37 
 
 IV 
 
 THE ANOINTED MAN *45 
 
 THE DAN-NAN-R6N J S4 
 
 GREEN BRANCHES 2O 4 
 
 V 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUN *33 
 
 THE BIRDEEN 
 
 SILK O' THE KINE *79
 
 FROM ION A. 
 
 To George Meredith. 
 
 Here, where the sound of the falling wave is faintly 
 to be heard, and rather as in the spiral chamber of a 
 shell than in the windy open, I write these few dedica- 
 tory words. I am alone here, betwixt sea and sky, for 
 there is no other living thing for the seeing on this 
 touldered height of Dun-I except a single blue shadow 
 that dreams slowly athwart the hillside. The bleating 
 of lambs and ewes, the lowing of kine, these come up 
 from the Machar that lies between the west slopes and 
 the shoreless sea to the west ; these ascend as the 
 very smoke of sound. All round the island there is a 
 continuous breathing : deeper and more prolonged on 
 the west, where the sea-heart is; but audible every- 
 where. This moment, the seals on Sou are putting 
 their breasts against the running tide: for I see a 
 flashing of fins here and there in patches at the north 
 end of the Sound, and already frotn the ruddy granite 
 shores of the Ross there is a congregation of seafowl, 
 gannets and guillemots, skuas and herring-gulls, the 
 long-necked northern-diver, the tern, the cormorant. 
 I
 
 2 From lona. 
 
 In this sunfiood, the waters of the Sound dance their 
 blue bodies and swirl their flashing white hair o' foam ; 
 and, as I look, they seem to me like children of the 
 wind and the sunshine, leaping and running in these 
 sungold pastures, with a laughter as sweet against the 
 ears as the voices of children at play. 
 
 The joy of life vibrates everywhere. Yet the Weaver 
 doth not sleep, but only dreams. He loves the sun- 
 drowned shadows. They are invisible thus, but they 
 are there, in the sunlight itself. Sure, they may be 
 heard: as, an hour ago, when on my way hither by 
 the Stairway of the Kings for so sometimes they call 
 here the ancient stones of the mouldered princes of long 
 ago / heard a mother moaning because of the son 
 that had had to go over-sea and leave her in her old 
 age ; and heard also a child sobbing, because of the 
 sorrow of childhood, that sorrow so mysterious, so 
 unfathomable, so for ever incommunicable. 
 
 To the little one I spoke. But all she would say, 
 looking up through dark, tear-wet eyes, already filled 
 with the shadow of the burden of woman, was: " Ha 
 mee duvachiis." 
 
 " Tha mi Dubhachas 1 / have the gloom." 
 
 Ah, that saying! How often I have heard it in the 
 remote Isles! " The Gloom." It is not grief, nor 
 any common sorrow, nor that deep despondency of 
 weariness that comes of accomplished things, too soon, 
 too literally fulfilled. But it is akin to each of these,
 
 From lona. 3 
 
 and involves each. It is, rather, the unconscious know- 
 ledge of the lamentation of a race, the unknowing 
 surety of an inheritance of woe. 
 
 On the lips of the children of -what people, save in 
 the last despoiled sanctuaries of the Gael, could be heard 
 these all too significant sayings : " Tha mi Dubhachas 
 / have the gloom ; " " Ma tha sin an Dan If that 
 be ordained, If it be Destiny " ? Never shall I forget 
 the lisping of this phrase, common from The Seven 
 Hunters, that aiv the extreme of the Hebrid Isles, to 
 the Rhinns of Islay, and from the Ord of Sutherland 
 to the Mull of Cantyre, never shall I forget the lisp- 
 ing of this phrase in the mouth of a little birdikin of 
 a lass, not more than three years old, a phrase 
 caught, no doubt, as the jay catches the storm-note of the 
 missel-thrush, but not the less significant, not the less 
 piteous : " Ma tha sin an Dan If it be Destiny ! " 
 
 This is so. And yet not a stone's throw from where 
 I lie, half hidden beneath an overhanging rock, is a 
 Pool of Healing. To this small, black-brown tarn, 
 pilgrims of every generation, for hundreds upon hun- 
 dreds of years, have come. Solitary, these: not only 
 because the pilgrim to the Fount of Eternal Youth 
 which, as all Gaeldom knows, is beneath this tarn on 
 Dun-I of lona must fare hither alone, and at dawn, 
 so as to touch the healing water the moment the first 
 sunray quickens it, but solitary, also, because those 
 who go in quest of this Fount of Youth are the dream-
 
 4 From lona. 
 
 ers and the Children of Dream, and these are not many, 
 and few come to this lonely place. Yet, an Isle of 
 Dream, lona is, indeed. Here the last sun-worship- 
 pers bowed before the Rising of God ; here Columba and 
 his hymning priests laboured and brooded ; and here 
 Oran dreamed beneath the monkish cowl that pagan 
 dream of his. Here, too, the eyes of Fionn and Oisin t 
 and of many another of the heroic men and women of 
 the Fianna, lingered often; here the Pict and the 
 Celt bowed beneath the yoke of the Norse pirate, who, 
 too, left his dreams, or rather his strangely beautiful 
 soul-rainbows, as a heritage to the stricken ; here, for 
 century after century, the Gael has lived, suffered, 
 joyed, dreamed his impossible, beautiful dream ; as 
 here, now, he still lives, still suffers patiently, still 
 dreams, and through all and over all, broods deep 
 against the mystery of things. He is an elemental, 
 among the elemental forces. They have the voices of 
 wind and sea ; he has these words of the soul of the 
 Celtic race : " Tha mi Dubhachas Ma tha sin 
 an Dan." // is because the Fount of Youth that is 
 upon Dun-I of lona is not the only Wellspring of 
 Peace, that the Gael can front " an Dan " as he does, 
 and can endure his " Dubhachas." Who knows where 
 its tributaries are ? They may be in your heart, or in 
 mine, and in a myriad others. 
 
 I would that the birds of Angus Ogue might, for 
 once, be changed, not into the kisses of love, but into
 
 From lona. 5 
 
 doves of peace ; that they might fly forth into the green 
 world, and be nested there awhile, crooning their 
 incommunicable song that would yet bring joy and 
 hope. 
 
 Why, you may think, do I -write these things? It 
 is because I -wish to say to you, and to all -who may 
 read this book, that in what I have said lies the Secret 
 of the Gael. The beauty of the World, the pathos of 
 Life, the gloom, the fatalism, the spiritual glamour 
 it is out of these, the inheritance of the Gael, that I 
 have wrought these tales. 
 
 Well I know that they do not give " a rounded and 
 complete portrait of the Celt." It is more than likely 
 that I could not do so if I tried, but I have not tried; 
 not even to give " a rounded and complete portrait " of 
 the Gael, who is to the Celtic race what the Franco-Breton 
 is to the French, a creature not without blitheness and 
 humour, laughter-loving, indolent, steadfast, gentle, 
 fierce, but above all attuned to elemental passions, to the 
 poetry of nature, and wrought in every nerve and fibre 
 by the gloom and mystery of his environment. 
 
 Elsewhere I may give such delineation as I can, and 
 is within my own knowledge, of the manysidedness 
 of the Celt, and even of the insular Gael. But in this 
 book, as in Pharais and The Mountain Lovers, I give 
 the life of the Gael in what is, to me, in accord with my 
 cnun observation and experience, its most poignant char- 
 acteristics, that is, of course, in certain circumstances,
 
 6 From lona. 
 
 in a particular environment. Almost needless to say, 
 I do not present such mere sport of Destiny as Neil 
 Ross, the Sin-Eater, or Neil MacCodrum (" The Dan- 
 nan-Rbn ") as typical Gaels, any more than I would 
 have Gloom Achanna, whose sombre personality colours 
 the three tales of the fourth section, accepted as typical 
 of the perverted Celt. They are true in their degree ; 
 that is all. But I do aver that Alasdair Achanna, 
 the Anointed Man; and the fishermen of lona of 
 whom I speak ; and Ian Mor of the Hills ; and others 
 akin to these t are typical. This, obviously, may be 
 said without affirming that they are " rounded mnd 
 complete" types of the Gaelic Celt. Of course they are 
 nothing of the kind. This, also, may be said : that 
 they are not typical to the exclusion of other types. 
 Could Ian Mor be common anywhere ? Are thtre so 
 many poet-dreamers ? Could Ethlenn Stuart or Eilidh 
 Me fan be met with in each strath, on every hillside ? 
 Is the beautiful and one inevitable phrase to be found 
 on any lips ? All men speak of love ; but only you 
 have said the supreme thing of the passion of love ; 
 namely, that Passion is noble strength on fire. You, 
 only have said this. It is individually characteristic ; 
 it is racially typical ; and yet a thousand poets have 
 come and gone, a million million hearts have beat to this 
 chord, and the phrase has wailed, isolate, for you. Is 
 it therefore not indicative ? Whether with phrase, or 
 the lilt of a free music, or with man, there should be
 
 From lona. 7 
 
 no saying that he or it does not exist because invisible 
 through the dust of the common highway. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that " the Celtic Fringe " 
 is of divers colours. The Armorican, the Cymric, the 
 Gael of Ireland, and the Scottish Gael are of the same 
 stock, but are not the same people. Even the crofter 
 of Donegal or the fisherman of Clare is no more than 
 an older or younger brother of the Hebridean or the 
 Highlander ; certainly they are not twins, of an indis- 
 tinguishable likeness. Some of my critics, heedless of 
 the complex conditions which differentiate the Irish 
 and the Scottish Celt, complain of the Celtic gloom that 
 dusks the life of the men and women I have tried to 
 draw. That may be just. I wish merely to say that 
 I have not striven to depict the blither Irish Celt. I 
 have sought mainly to express something of what I 
 have seen as paramount, something of "the Celtic 
 Gloom " which, to many Gaels if not to all, is so dis- 
 tinctive in the remote life of a doomed and passing 
 race. Possibly, though of course it is unlikely they 
 should write save out of fulness of knowledge, those of 
 my critics to whom I allude have dwelt for years 
 among these distant isles, intimate with the speech and 
 mind and daily life and veiled, secretive inner nature 
 of the men and women who inhabit them. I cannot 
 judge, for I do not profess to know every glen in the 
 Highlands, or to have set foot on every one of the 
 Thousand Isles.
 
 8 From lona. 
 
 A doomed and passing race. Yes, but not wholly 
 so. The Celt has at last reached his horizon. There 
 is no shore beyond. He knows it. This has been the 
 burden of his song since Malvina led the blind Oisln 
 to his grave by the sea. " Even the Children of Light 
 must go down into darkness." But this apparition of 
 a passing race is no more than the fulfilment of a 
 glorious resurrection before our very eyes. For the 
 genius of the Celtic race stands out now with averted 
 torch, and the light of it is a glory before the eyes, and 
 the flame of it is blown into the hearts of the mightier 
 conquering people. The Celt falls, but his spirit rises 
 in the heart and the brain of the Anglo-Celtic peoples, 
 with whom are the destinies of the generations to 
 come. 
 
 Well, this is a far cry, from one small voice on the 
 hill-slope of Dun-I of lona, to the clarion-call of the 
 future ! But, sure, even in this Isle of Joy, as it seems 
 to-day in this dazzle of golden light and splashing 
 wave, there is all the gloom and all the mystery which 
 lived in the minds of the old seers and bards. Yonder, 
 where that thin spray quivers against the thyme-set 
 cliff, is the Spouting Cave, where to this day the Mar- 
 Tarbh, dread creature of the sea, swims at the full of 
 the tide. Beyond, out of sight behind these heights, is 
 Port-na-Churaich, where, a thousand years ago, Co- 
 lumba landed in his coracle. Here, eastward, is the
 
 From lona. 9 
 
 landing-place for the dead of old, brought hence, out of 
 Christendom, for sacred burial in the Isle of the Saints. 
 All the story of Albyn is here. lona is the microcosm 
 of Gaeldom. 
 
 Last night, about the hour of the sun's going, I lay 
 upon the heights near the Cave, overlooking the Ma- 
 char, the sandy, rock-frontiered plain of duneland 
 on the west side of lona, exposed to the Atlantic. There 
 was neither man nor beast, no living thing to see, save 
 one solitary human creature. This brown, bent, aged 
 man toiled at kelp-burning. I watched the smoke till 
 it merged into the sea-mist that came creeping swiftly 
 out of the north, and down from Dun-I eastward. At 
 last nothing was visible. The mist shrouded every- 
 thing. I could hear the dull, rhythmic beat of the 
 waves. That was all. No sound, nothing visible. 
 
 It was, or seemed, a long while before a rapid thud- 
 thud trampled the heavy air. Then I heard the rush, 
 the stamping and neighing, of some young mares, pas- 
 turing there, as they raced to and fro, bewildered or 
 mayhap only in play. A glimpse I caught of three, 
 with flying manes and tails ; the others were blurred 
 shadows only. A swirl, and the mist disclosed them : 
 a swirl, and the mist enfolded them again. Then, 
 silence once more. 
 
 All at once, though not for a long time thereafter, 
 the mist rose and drifted seaward. 
 
 All was as before. The Kelp-Burner still stood,
 
 IO From lona. 
 
 straking the smouldering seaweed. Above him a col- 
 umn ascended, bluely spiral, dusked with gloom of 
 shadow. 
 
 The Kelp-Burner: who is he but the Gael of the 
 Isles ? Who but the Celt in his sorrow ? The mist 
 falls and the mist rises. He is there all the same, 
 behind it, part of it : and the column of smoke is the 
 incense out of his longing heart that desires Heaven 
 and Earth, and is dowered only with poverty and pain, 
 hunger and weariness, a little isle of the seas, a great 
 hope, and the love of love. 
 
 In that mist I had dreamed a dream. When I 
 woke, these strange, unfamiliar words were upon my 
 lips: Am Dia beo, an Domhan basacha,' an Diom- 
 hair Cinne'-Daonna. 
 
 Am Dia beo, an Domhan basacha, an Diomhair 
 Cinne'-Daonna : " The Living God, the dying World, 
 and the mysterious Race of Men." 
 
 I know not what obscure and remote ancestral mem- 
 ory rose, there, to the surface ; but I imagined for a 
 moment that the Spirit of the race, and not a solitary 
 human being, found utterance in this so typical saying. 
 It is the sense of an abiding spiritual Presence, .of a 
 waning, a perishing World, and of the mystery and 
 incommunicable destiny of Man, which distinguishes 
 the ethical life of the Celt. 
 
 " The Three Powers" I murmured, as I rose to leave
 
 From lona. H 
 
 the place where I was. " These are the three powers : 
 the Living God, the evanescent World, and Man. 
 And somewhere in the darkness, an Dan, Destiny" 
 Yes, Ma tha sin an Dan ; that is where we come to 
 again. It is Destiny, then, that is the Protagonist in 
 the Celtic Drama, the most moving, the most poig- 
 nant of all that make up the too tragic Tragi-Comedy 
 of human life. And it is Destiny, that sombre Demo- 
 gorgon of the Gael, whose boding breath,whose menace, 
 whose shadow, glooms so much of the remote life I 
 know, and hence glooms also this book of interpreta- 
 tions, for pages of life must either be interpretative 
 or merely documentary, and these following pages have 
 for the most part been written as by one who repeats, 
 with curious insistence, a haunting, familiar, yet ever 
 wild and remote air, whose obscure meanings he would 
 fain reiterate, interpret. 
 
 You, of all living writers, can best understand this ; 
 for in you the Celtic genius burns a pure flame. True, 
 the Cymric blood that is in you moves to a more light- 
 some measure than tliat of the Scottish Gael, and the 
 accidents of temperament and life have combined to 
 make you a writer for great peoples rather than for a 
 people. But though England appropriate you as her 
 son, and all the Anglo-Celtic peoples are the heritors of 
 your genius, we claim your brain. Now, we are a 
 scattered band. The Breton's eyes are slowly turning
 
 12 From lona. 
 
 from the sea, and slowly his ears are forgetting the whis- 
 per of the wind around Menhir and Dolmen. The 
 Cornishman has lost his language, and there is now no 
 bond between him and his ancient kin. The Manx- 
 man has ever been the mere yeoman of the Celtic chiv- 
 \alry; but even his rude dialect perishes year by year. 
 I I In Wales, a great tradition survives ; in Ireland, a 
 ! supreme tradition fades through sunset-hued horizons 
 to the edge o' dark ; in Celtic Scotland, a passionate 
 regret, a despairing love and longing, narrows yearly 
 before a bastard utilitarianism which is almost as 
 great a curse to our despoiled land as Calvinistic 
 theology has been and is. 
 
 But with you, and others not less enthusiastic if less 
 brilliant, we need not despair. " The Englishman may 
 trample down the heather," say the shepherds of Argyll, 
 " but he cannot trample down the wind." 
 
 ;
 
 THE SIN-EATER. 
 
 THE NINTH WAVE. 
 
 THE JUDGMENT O* GOD.
 
 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 SIN. 
 
 Taste this bread, this substance ; tell me 
 Is it bread or flesh ? 
 
 [The SENSES approach. 
 THE SMELL. 
 Its smell 
 Is the smell of bread, 
 
 SIN. 
 
 Touch, come. Why tremble ? 
 Say what ' s this thou tou chest ? 
 
 THE TOUCH. 
 Bread. 
 
 SIN. 
 
 Sight, declare what thou discerned 
 In this object. 
 
 THE SIGHT. 
 Bread alone. 
 
 CALDKRON : Los Encantos de la Culpa. 
 
 A WET wind out of the south mazed and 
 moaned through the sea-mist that hung over the 
 Ross. In all the bays and creeks was a contin-
 
 16 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 uous weary lapping of water. There was no 
 other sound anywhere. 
 
 Thus was it at daybreak ; it was thus at noon ; 
 thus was it now in the darkening of the day. 
 A confused thrusting and falling of sounds 
 through the silence betokened the hour of the 
 setting. Curlews wailed in the mist ; on the 
 seething limpet-covered rocks the skuas and 
 terns screamed, or uttered hoarse rasping cries. 
 Ever and again the prolonged note of the oyster- 
 catcher shrilled against the air, as an echo flying 
 blindly along a blank wall of cliff. Out of 
 weedy places, wherein the tide sobbed with long 
 gurgling moans, came at intervals the barking 
 of a seal. 
 
 Inland by the hamlet of Contullich, there is a 
 reedy tarn called the Loch-a-chaoruinn. 1 By 
 the shores of this mournful water a man moved. 
 It was a slow, weary walk that of the man Neil 
 Ross. He had come from Duninch, thirty 
 miles to the eastward, and had not rested foot, 
 nor eaten, nor had word of man or woman since 
 his going west an hour after dawn. 
 
 1 Contullich i. e., Ceann-nan-tulaich, " the end of the 
 hillocks." Loch-a-chaoruinn means the loch of the rowan- 
 trees.
 
 The Sin-Eater. 17 
 
 At the bend' of the loch nearest the clachan 
 he came upon an old woman carrying peat. To 
 his reiterated question as to where he was, and if 
 the tarn were Feur-Lochan above Fionnaphort, 
 that is, on the strait of lona on the west side of 
 the Ross of Mull, she did not at first make any 
 answer. The rain trickled down her withered 
 brown face, over which the thin grey locks hung 
 limply. It was only in the deep-set eyes that the 
 flame of life still glimmered, though that dimly. 
 
 The man had used the English when first he 
 spoke, but as though mechanically. Supposing 
 that he had not been understood, he repeated his 
 question in the Gaelic. 
 
 After a minute's silence the old woman 
 answered in the native tongue, but only to put a 
 question in return. 
 
 " I am thinking it is a long time since you have 
 been in lona ? " 
 
 The man stirred uneasily. 
 
 " And why is that, mother ? " he asked, in a 
 weak voice hoarse with damp and fatigue ; " how 
 is it you will be knowing that I have been in 
 lona at all ? " 
 
 " Because I knew your kith and kin there, Neil 
 Ross." 
 
 a
 
 1 8 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 " I have not been hearing that name, mother, 
 for many a long year. And as for the old face 
 o' you, it is unbeknown to me." 
 
 " I was at the naming of you, for all that. 
 Well do I remember the day that Silis Macallum 
 gave you birth ; and I was at the house on the 
 croft of Ballyrona when Murtagh Ross, that was 
 your father, laughed. It was an ill laughing, 
 that." 
 
 " I am knowing it. The curse of God on 
 him ! " 
 
 " 'T is not the first, nor the last, though 
 the grass is on his head three years agone 
 now." 
 
 " You that know who I am will be knowing 
 that I have no kith or kin now on lona?" 
 
 "Ay, they are all under grey stone or run- 
 ning wave. Donald your brother, and Murtagh 
 your next brother, and little Silis, and your 
 mother Silis herself and your two brothers of 
 your father, Angus and Ian Macallum, and your 
 father Murtagh Ross, and his lawful childless 
 wife Dionaid, and his sister Anna, one and all 
 they lie beneath the green wave or in the brown 
 mould. It is said there is a curse upon all who 
 live at Ballyrona. The owl builds now in the
 
 The Sin-Eater. 19 
 
 rafters, and it is the big sea-rat that runs across 
 the fireless hearth." 
 
 " It is there I am going." 
 
 " The foolishness is on you, Neil Ross." 
 
 " Now it is that I am knowing who you are. 
 It is old Sheen Macarthur I am speaking to." 
 
 " Tha mise it is I." 
 
 " And you will be alone now, too, I am think- 
 ing, Sheen ? " 
 
 " I am alone. God took my three boys at the 
 one fishing ten years ago, and before there was 
 moonrise in the blackness of my heart my man 
 went. It was after the drowning of Anndra 
 that my croft was taken from me. Then I 
 crossed the Sound, and shared with my widow 
 sister, Elsie McVurie, till she went ; and then 
 the two cows had to go ; and I had no rent ; and 
 was old." 
 
 In the silence that followed, the rain dribbled 
 from the sodden bracken and dripping loneroid. 
 Big tears rolled slowly down the deep lines on 
 the face of Sheen. Once there was a sob in her 
 throat, but she put her shaking hand to it, and 
 it was still. 
 
 Neil Ross shifted from foot to foot. The ooze 
 in that marshy place squelched with each rest-
 
 2O The Sin-Eater. 
 
 less movement he made. Beyond them a plover 
 wheeled a blurred splatch in the mist, crying its 
 mournful cry over and over and over. 
 
 It was a pitiful thing to hear ; ah, bitter lone- 
 liness, bitter patience of poor old women. That 
 he knew well. But he was too weary, and his 
 heart was nigh full of its own burthen. The 
 words could not come to his lips. But at last 
 he spoke. 
 
 " Tha mo chridhe goirt" he said with tears 
 in his voice, as he put his hand on her bent 
 shoulder ; " my heart is sore." 
 
 She put up her old face against his. 
 
 " 'S tha e ruidhinn mo chridhe" she whis- 
 pered, "it is touching my heart you are." 
 
 After that they walked on slowly through the 
 dripping mist, each dumb and brooding deep. 
 
 "Where will you be staying this night?" 
 asked Sheen suddenly, when they had traversed 
 a wide boggy stretch of land ; adding, as by an 
 afterthought " ah, it is asking you were if the 
 tarn there were Feur-Lochan. No ; it is Loch- 
 a-chaoruinn, and the clachan that is near is 
 Contullich." 
 
 "Which way?" 
 
 " Yonder ; to the right."
 
 The Sin-Eater. 21 
 
 " And you are not going there ? " 
 
 " No. I am going to the steading of Andrew 
 Blair. Maybe you are for knowing it? It is 
 called Le-Baile-na-Chlais-nambuidheag." 1 
 
 " I do not remember. But it is remembering 
 a Blair I am. He was Adam the son of Adam 
 the son of Robert. He and my father did many 
 an ill deed together." 
 
 " Ay, to the Stones be it said. Sure, now, 
 there was even till this weary day no man 
 or woman who had a good word for Adam 
 Blair." 
 
 " And why that why till this day ? " 
 
 " It is not yet the third hour since he went 
 into the silence." 
 
 Neil Ross uttered a sound like a stifled curse. 
 For a time he trudged wearily on. 
 
 " Then I am too late," he said at last, but as 
 though speaking to himself. " I had hoped to 
 see him face to face again, and curse him be- 
 tween the eyes. It was he who made Murtagh 
 Ross break his troth to my mother, and marry 
 that other woman, barren at that, God be praised ! 
 And they say ill of him, do they ? " 
 
 1 The farm in the hollow of the yellow flowers.
 
 22 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 " Ay, it is evil that is upon him. This crime 
 and that, God knows : and the shadow of mur- 
 der on his brow and in his eyes. Well, well, 
 'tis ill to be speaking of a man in corpse, and 
 that near by. 'T is Himself only that knows, 
 Neil Ross." 
 
 " Maybe ay, and maybe no. But where is 
 it that I can be sleeping this night, Sheen 
 Macarthur ? " 
 
 " They will not be taking a stranger at the 
 farm this night of the nights, I am thinking. 
 There is no place else, for seven miles yet, when 
 there is the clachan before you will be coming 
 to Fionnaphort. There is the warm byre, Neil 
 my man, or if you can bide by my peats you 
 may rest and welcome, though there is no bed 
 for you, and no food either save some of the 
 porridge that is over." 
 
 " And that will do well enough for me, Sheen, 
 and Himself bless you for it." 
 
 And so it was. 
 
 After old Sheen Macarthur had given the way- 
 farer food poor food at that, but welcome to 
 one nigh starved, and for the heartsome way it 
 was given, and because of the thanks to God
 
 The Sin-Eater. 23 
 
 that was upon it before even spoon was lifted 
 she told him a lie. It was the good lie of tender 
 love. 
 
 " Sure now, after all, Neil my man," she said, 
 " it is sleeping at the farm I ought to be, for 
 Maisie Macdonald, the wise-woman, will be sit- 
 ting by the corpse, and there will be none to 
 keep her company. It is there I must be going, 
 and if I am weary, there is a good bed for me 
 just beyond the dead-board, which I am not 
 minding at all. So if it is tired you are sitting 
 by the peats, lie down on my bed there, and 
 have the sleep, and God be with you." 
 
 With that she went, and soundlessly, for Neil 
 Ross was already asleep, where he sat on an 
 upturned claar with his elbows on his knees and 
 his flame-lit face in his hands. 
 
 The rain had ceased; but the mist still hung 
 over the land, though in thin veils now, and 
 these slowly drifting seaward. Sheen stepped 
 wearily along the stony path that led from her 
 bothy to the farm-house. She stood still once, 
 the fear upon her, for she saw three or four 
 blurred yellow gleams moving beyond her east- 
 ward along the dyke. She knew what they 
 were, the corpse-lights that on the night of
 
 24 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 death go between the bier and the place of 
 burial. More than once she had seen them 
 before the last hour, and by that token had 
 known the end to be near. 
 
 Good Catholic that she was, she crossed her- 
 self and took heart. Then, muttering 
 
 " Crois nan naoi aingeal leant 
 'O mhullach mo chinn 
 Gu craican mo 6Aontt," 1 
 
 she went on her way fearlessly. 
 
 When she came to the White House she 
 entered by the milk-shed that was between the 
 byre and the kitchen. At the end of it was 
 a paved place, with washing-tubs. At one of 
 these stood a girl that served in the house ; an 
 ignorant lass called Jessie McFall, out of Oban. 
 She was ignorant, indeed, not to know that to 
 wash clothes with a newly dead body near by was 
 an ill thing to' do. Was it not a matter for the 
 knowing that the corpse could hear, and might 
 rise up in the night and clothe itself in a clean 
 white shroud ? 
 
 l M The cross of the nine angels be about me, 
 From the top of my head 
 To the soles of my feet."
 
 The Sin-Eater. 25 
 
 She was still speaking to the lassie when 
 Maisie Macdonald, the deid-watcher, opened the 
 door of the room behind the kitchen, to see who 
 it was that was come. The two old women 
 nodded silently. It was not till Sheen was in 
 the closed room, midway in which something 
 covered with a sheet lay on a board, that any 
 word was spoken. 
 
 "Duit s\th tnor, Beann Macdonald." 
 
 " And deep peace to you, too, Sheen ; and to 
 him that is there." 
 
 " Oc/t, ocftone, mise ' diughj 't is a dark hour 
 this." 
 
 " Ay, it is bad. Will you have been hearing 
 or seeing anything ? " 
 
 " Well, as for that, I am thinking I saw lights 
 moving betwixt here and the green place over 
 there." 
 
 " The corpse-lights ? " 
 
 " Well, it is calling them that they are." 
 
 " I thought they would be out. And I have 
 been hearing the noise of the planks, the 
 cracking of the boards, you know, that will be 
 used for the coffin to-morrow." 
 
 A long silence followed. The old women 
 had seated themselves by the corpse, their
 
 26 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 cloaks over their heads. The room was fire- 
 less, and was lit only by a tall wax death-candle, 
 kept against the hour of the going. 
 
 At last Sheen began swaying slowly to and 
 fro, crooning low the while. " J would not be 
 for doing that, Sheen Macarthur," said the 
 deid-watcher, in a low voice, but meaningly ; 
 adding, after a moment's pause, " the mice have 
 all left the house." 
 
 Sheen sat upright, a look half of terror half 
 of awe in her eyes. 
 
 " God save the sinful soul that is hiding," she 
 whispered. 
 
 Well she knew what Maisie meant. If the 
 soul of the dead be a lost soul it knows its 
 doom. The house of death is the house of 
 sanctuary. But before the dawn that follows 
 the death-night the soul must go forth, whoso- 
 ever or whatsoever wait for it in the homeless, 
 shelterless plains of air around and beyond. If 
 it be well with the soul, it need have no fear ; 
 if it be not ill with the soul, it may fare forth 
 with surety ; but if it be ill with the soul, ill will 
 the going be. Thus is it that the spirit of 
 an evil man cannot stay and yet dare not go ; 
 and so it strives to hide itself in secret places
 
 The Sin-Eater. 27 
 
 anywhere, in dark channels and blind walls. 
 And the wise creatures that live near man 
 smell the terror, and flee. Maisie repeated the 
 saying of Sheen ; then, after a silence, added : 
 
 " Adam Blair will not lie in his grave for a 
 year and a day, because of the sins that are 
 upon him. And it is knowing that, they are, 
 here. He will be the Watcher of the Dead for 
 a year and a day." 
 
 " Ay, sure, there will be dark prints in the 
 dawn-dew over yonder." 
 
 Once more the old women relapsed into 
 silence. Through the night there was a sigh- 
 ing sound. It was not the sea, which was too 
 far off to be heard save in a day of storm. 
 The wind it was, that was dragging itself across 
 the sodden moors like a wounded thing, moan- 
 ing and sighing. 
 
 Out of sheer weariness, Sheen twice rocked 
 forward from her stool, heavy with sleep. At last 
 Maisie led her over to the niche-bed opposite, 
 and laid her down there, and waited till the deep 
 furrows in the face relaxed somewhat, and the 
 thin breath laboured slow across the fallen jaw. 
 
 " Poor old woman," she muttered, heedless 
 of her own grey hairs and greyer years; "a
 
 28 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 bitter bad thing it is to be old, old and weary. 
 'T is the sorrow that ; God keep the pain of it." 
 
 As for herself she did not sleep at all that 
 night, but sat between the living and the dead, 
 with her plaid shrouding her. Once, when 
 Sheen gave a low, terrified scream in her sleep, 
 she rose, and in a loud voice cried " Sheeach-adl 
 Away with you ! " And with that she lifted the 
 shroud from the dead man, and took the pen- 
 nies off the eyelids, and lifted each lid ; then, 
 staring into these filmed wells, muttered an 
 ancient incantation that would compel the soul 
 of Adam Blair to leave the spirit of Sheen 
 alone, and return to the cold corpse that was its 
 coffin till the wood was ready. 
 
 The dawn came at last. Sheen slept, and 
 Adam Blair slept a deeper sleep, and Maisie 
 stared out of her wan weary eyes against the 
 red and stormy flares of light that came into 
 the sky. 
 
 When, an hour after sunrise, Sheen Mac- 
 arthur reached her bothy, she found Neil 
 Ross, heavy with slumber, upon her bed. The 
 fire was not out, though no flame or spark was 
 visible, but she stooped and blew at the heart
 
 The Sin-Eater. 29 
 
 of the peats till the redness came, and once it 
 came it grew. Having done this, she kneeled 
 and said a rune of the morning, and after that a 
 prayer, and then a prayer for the poor man Neil. 
 She could pray no more because of the tears. 
 She rose and put the meal and water into the 
 pot, for the porridge to be ready against his 
 awaking. One of the hens that was there came 
 and pecked at her ragged skirt. " Poor beastie," 
 she said, " sure, that will just be the way I am 
 pulling at the white robe of the Mother o' God. 
 *T is a bit meal for you, cluckie, and for me a 
 healing hand upon my tears O, och, ochone, 
 the tears, the tears ! " 
 
 It was not till the third hour after sunrise of 
 that bleak day in the winter of the winters that 
 Neil Ross stirred and arose. He ate in silence. 
 Once he said that he smelt the snow coming out 
 of the north. Sheen said no word at all. 
 
 After the porridge, he took his pipe, but there 
 was no tobacco. All that Sheen had was the 
 pipeful she kept against the gloom of the Sab- 
 bath. It was her one solace in the long weary 
 week. She gave him this, and held a burning 
 peat to his mouth, and hungered over the thin, 
 rank smoke that curled upward.
 
 30 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 It was within half an hour of noon that, after 
 an absence, she returned. 
 
 " Not between you and me, Neil Ross," she 
 began abruptly, " but just for the asking, and 
 what is beyond. Is it any money you are 
 having upon you ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Nothing?" 
 
 Nothing." 
 
 " Then how will you be getting across to 
 lona? It is seven long miles to Fionnaphort, 
 and bitter cold at that, and you will be need- 
 ing food, and then the ferry, the ferry across 
 the Sound, you know." 
 
 "Ay, I know." 
 
 " What would you do for a silver piece, Neil 
 my man ? " 
 
 " You have none to give me, Sheen Mac- 
 arthur, and if you had, it would not be taking it 
 I would." 
 
 "Would you kiss a dead man for a crown- 
 piece, a crown-piece of five good shillings ? " 
 
 Neil Ross stared. Then he sprang to his feet. 
 
 " It is Adam Blair you are meaning, woman ! 
 God curse him in death now that he is no 
 longer in life!"
 
 The Sin-Eater. 31 
 
 Then, shaking and trembling, he sat down 
 again, and brooded against the dull red glow of 
 the peats. 
 
 But, when he rose, in the last quarter before 
 noon, his face was white. 
 
 " The dead are dead, Sheen Macarthur. 
 They can know or do nothing. I will do it. 
 It is willed. Yes, I am going up to the house 
 there. And now I am going from here. God 
 Himself has my thanks to you, and my bless- 
 ing too. They will come back to you. It is 
 not forgetting you I will be. Good-bye." 
 
 " Good-bye, Neil, son of the woman that was 
 my friend. A south wind to you ! Go up by 
 the farm. In the front of the house you will 
 see what you will be seeing. Maisie Mac- 
 donald will be there. She will tell you what 's 
 for the telling. There is no harm in it, sure ; 
 sure, the dead are dead. It is praying for you 
 I will be, Neil Ross. Peace to you ! " 
 
 " And to you, Sheen." 
 
 And with that the man went. 
 
 When Neil Ross reached the byres of the 
 farm in the wide hollow, he saw two figures 
 standing as though awaiting him, but each
 
 32 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 separate and unseen of the other. In front of 
 the house was a man he knew to be Andrew 
 Blair ; behind the milk- shed was a woman he 
 guessed to be Maisie Macdonald. 
 
 It was the woman he came upon first. 
 
 "Are you the friend of Sheen Macarthur?" 
 she asked in a whisper, as she beckoned him to 
 the doorway. 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " I am knowing no names, or anything. And 
 no one here will know you, I am thinking. So 
 do the thing, and begone." 
 
 " There is no harm to it ? " 
 
 " None." 
 
 4< It will be a thing often done, is it not ? n 
 
 "Ay, sure." 
 
 " And the evil does not abide ? " 
 
 " No. The the person the person 
 takes them away, and " 
 
 "Them?" 
 
 "For sure, man! Them the sins of the 
 corpse. He takes them away, and are you for 
 thinking God would let the innocent suffer for 
 the guilty ? No the person the Sin-Eater, 
 you know takes them away on himself, and 
 one by one the air of heaven washes them away
 
 The Sin-Eater. 33 
 
 till he, the Sin-Eater, is clean and whole as 
 before." 
 
 " But if it is a man you hate if it is a corpse 
 that is the corpse of one who has been a curse 
 and a foe if " 
 
 "Sst! Be still now with your foolishness. 
 It is only an idle saying, I am thinking. Do it, 
 and take the money, and go. It will be hell 
 enough for Adam Blair, miser as he was, if he is 
 for knowing that five good shillings of his money 
 are to go to a passing tramp, because of an old 
 ancient silly tale." 
 
 Neil Ross laughed low at that. It was for 
 pleasure to him. 
 
 " Hush wi' ye ! Andrew Blair is waiting 
 round there. Say that I have sent you round, 
 as I have neither bite nor bit to give." 
 
 Turning on his heel Neil walked slowly 
 round to the front of the house. A tall man 
 was there, gaunt and brown, with hairless face 
 and lank brown hair, but with eyes cold and 
 grey as the sea. 
 
 " Good day to you an' good faring. Will 
 you be passing this way to anywhere ? " 
 
 " Health to you. I am a stranger here. It 
 is on my way to lona I am. But I have the 
 
 3
 
 34 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 hunger upon me. There is not a brown bit in 
 my pocket. I .asked at the door there, near the 
 byres. The woman told me she could give me 
 nothing not a penny even, worse luck, nor, 
 for that, a drink of warm milk. 'Tis a sore 
 land this." 
 
 "You have the Gaelic of the Isles. Is it 
 from lona you are ? " 
 
 " It is from the Isles of the West I come." 
 
 " From Tiree ? from Coll ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "From the Long Island or from Uist 
 or maybe from Benbecula ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Oh well, sure it is no matter to me. But 
 may I be asking your name ? " 
 
 " Macallum." 
 
 "Do you know there is a death here, Macal- 
 lum?" 
 
 " If I did n't, I would know it now, because 
 of what lies yonder." 
 
 Mechanically, Andrew Blair looked round. 
 As he knew, a rough bier was there, that was 
 made of a dead-board laid upon three milk- 
 ing-stools. Beside it was a claar, a small tub 
 to hold potatoes. On the bier was a corpse,
 
 The Sin-Eater. 35 
 
 covered with a canvas sheeting that looked like 
 i sail. 
 
 "He was a worthy man, my father," began 
 the son of the dead man, slowly; "but he had 
 his faults, like all of us. I might even be saying 
 that he had his sins, to the Stones be it said. 
 You will be knowing, Macallum, what is thought 
 among the folk that a stranger, passing by, 
 may take away the sins of the dead, and that too 
 without any hurt whatever any hurt whatever." 
 
 " Ay, sure." 
 
 " And you will be knowing what is done ? " 
 
 " Ay." 
 
 " With the Bread and the Water " 
 
 " Ay." 
 
 " It is a small thing to do. It is a Christian 
 thing. I would be doing it myself, and that 
 gladly ; but the the passer-by who " 
 
 " It is talking of the Sin-Eater you are?" 
 
 " Yes, yes, for sure. The Sin-Eater as he is 
 railed and a good Christian act it is, for all 
 that the ministers and the priests make a frown- 
 ing at it the Sin-Eater must be a stranger. 
 He must be a stranger, and should know noth- 
 ing of the dead man, above all bear him no 
 jjrudge."
 
 36 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 At that, Neil Ross's eyes lightened for a 
 moment. 
 
 " And why that ? " 
 
 " Who knows ? I have heard this, and I have 
 heard that. If the Sin-Eater was hating the 
 dead man he could take the sins and fling them 
 into the sea and they would be changed into 
 demons of the air that would harry the flying 
 soul till Judgment-Day." 
 
 " And how would that thing be done ?" 
 The man spake with flashing eyes and parted 
 lips, the breath coming swift. Andrew Blair 
 looked at him suspiciously, and hesitated, be- 
 fore in a cold voice he spoke again. 
 
 " That is all folly, I am thinking, Macallum. 
 Maybe it is all folly, the whole of it. But see 
 here, I have no time to be talking with you. 
 If you will take the bread and the water you 
 shall have a good meal if you want it, and 
 and yes, look you, my man, I will be giving 
 you a shilling too, for luck." 
 
 " I will have no meal in this house, Anndra 
 Mhic Adam ; nor will I do this thing unless you 
 will be giving me two silver half-crowns. Tha\ 
 is the sum I must have, or no other." 
 
 " Two half-crowns ! Why, man, for one half- 
 crown "
 
 The Sin-Eater. 37 
 
 " Then be eating the sins o' your father your- 
 self, Andrew Blair ! It is going I am." 
 
 " Stop, man ! Stop, Macallum. See here : I 
 will be giving you what you ask." 
 
 " So be it. Is the are you ready ? " 
 
 " Ay, come this way." 
 
 With that the two men turned, and moved 
 slowly towards the bier. 
 
 In the doorway of the house stood a man and 
 two women ; farther in, a woman ; and at the 
 vindow to the left the serving-wench, Jessie 
 McFall, and two men of the farm. Of those 
 in the doorway, the man was Peter, the half- 
 witted youngest brother of Andrew Blair; the 
 taller and older woman was Catreen, the widow 
 of Adam the second brother; and the thin 
 slight woman, with staring eyes and drooping 
 mouth, was Muireall, the wife of Andrew. 
 The old woman, behind these, was Maisie 
 Macdonald. 
 
 Andrew Blair stooped and took a saucer out 
 of the claar. This he put upon the covered 
 breast of the corpse. He stooped again, and 
 brought forth a thick square piece of new-made 
 bread. That also he placed upon the breast of 
 the corpse. Then he stooped again, and with
 
 38 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 that he emptied a spoonful of salt alongside the 
 bread. 
 
 "I must see the corpse," said Neil Ross, 
 simply. 
 
 " It is not needful, Macallum." 
 
 "I must be seeing the corpse, I tell you, 
 and for that, too, the bread and the water should 
 be on the naked breast." 
 
 "No, no, man, it " 
 
 But here a voice, that of Maisie the wise- 
 woman, came upon them, saying that the man 
 was right, and that the eating of the sins should 
 be done in that way and no other. 
 
 With an ill grace the son of the dead man 
 drew back the sheeting. Beneath it the corpse 
 was in a clean white shirt, a death-gown long 
 ago prepared, that covered him from his neck to 
 his feet, and left only the dusky, yellowish face 
 exposed. 
 
 While Andrew Blair unfastened the shirt, 
 and placed the saucer and the bread and the 
 salt on the breast, the man beside him stood 
 staring fixedly on the frozen features of the 
 corpse. The new laird had to speak to him 
 twice before he heard. 
 
 " I am ready. And you, now ? What is it
 
 The Sin-Eater. 39 
 
 you are muttering over against the lips of the 
 dead?" 
 
 " It is giving him a message I am. There is 
 no harm in that, sure ? " 
 
 " Keep to your own folk, Macallum. You 
 are from the West you say, and we are from 
 the North. There can be no messages between 
 you and a Blair of Strathmore, no messages for 
 you to be giving." 
 
 " He that lies here knows well the man to 
 whom I am sending a message " and at this 
 response Andrew Blair scowled darkly. He 
 would fain have sent the man about his busi- 
 ness, but he feared he might get no other. 
 
 " It is thinking I am that you are not a Ma- 
 callum at all. I know all of that name in Mull, 
 lona, Skye, and the near isles. What will the 
 name of your naming be, and of your father, 
 and of his place?" 
 
 Whether he really wanted an answer, or 
 whether he sought only to divert the man from 
 his procrastination, his question had a satis- 
 factory result. 
 
 " Well, now, it's ready I am, Anndra Mhic 
 Adam." 
 
 With that, Andrew Blair stooped once more,
 
 4O The Sin-Eater. 
 
 and from the c laar brought a small jug of water. 
 From this he filled the saucer. 
 
 " You know what to say and what to do, 
 Macallum." 
 
 There was not one there who did not have a 
 shortened breath because of the mystery that 
 was now before them, and the fearfulness of it. 
 Neil Ross drew himself up, erect, stiff, with 
 white, drawn face. All who waited, save An- 
 drew Blair, thought that the moving of his lips 
 was because of the prayer that was slipping 
 upon them, like the last lapsing of the ebb-tide. 
 But Blair was watching him closely, and knew 
 that it was no prayer which stole out against the 
 blank air that was around the dead. 
 
 Slowly Neil Ross extended his right arm. 
 He took a pinch of the salt and put it in the 
 saucer, then took another pinch and sprinkled 
 it upon the bread. His hand shook for a mo- 
 ment as he touched the saucer. But there was 
 no shaking as he raised it towards his lips, or 
 when he held it before him when he spoke. 
 
 "With this water that has salt in it, and has 
 lain on thy corpse, O Adam Mhic Anndra Mhic 
 Adam M6r, I drink away all the evil that is 
 upon thee " there was throbbing silence while
 
 The Sin-Eater. 41 
 
 he paused "and may it be upon me, and not 
 upon thee, if with this water it cannot flow 
 away." 
 
 Thereupon he raised the saucer and passed 
 it thrice round the head of the corpse sunways, 
 and having done this, lifted it to his lips 
 and drank as much as his mouth would hold. 
 Thereafter he poured the remnant over his left 
 hand, and let it trickle to the ground. Then 
 he took the piece of bread. Thrice, too, he 
 passed it round the head of the corpse sunways. 
 
 He turned and looked at the man by his side, 
 then at the others who watched him with beat- 
 ing hearts. 
 
 With a loud clear voice he took the sins. 
 
 " Thoir dhomh do ciontachd, O Adam Mhic 
 Anndra Mhic Adam Mor! Give me thy sins 
 to take away from thee ! Lo, now, as I stand 
 here, I break this bread that has lain on thee in 
 corpse, and I am eating it, I am, and in that eat- 
 ing I take upon me the sins of thee, O man that 
 was alive and is now white with the stillness ! " 
 
 Thereupon Neil Ross broke the bread and 
 ate of it, and took upon himself the sins of Adam 
 Blair that was dead. It was a bitter swallowing, 
 that. The remainder of the bread he crumbled
 
 42 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 in his hand, and threw it on the ground, and 
 trod upon it. Andrew Blair gave a sigh of 
 relief. His cold eyes lightened with malice. 
 
 " Be off with you, now, Macallum. We are 
 wanting no tramps at the farm here, and per- 
 haps you had better not be trying to get work 
 this side lona, for it is known as the Sin-Eater 
 you will be, and that won't be for the help- 
 ing, I am thinking ! There : there are the two 
 half-crowns for you and may they bring you 
 no harm, you that are Scapegoat now ! " 
 
 The Sin-Eater turned at that, and stared like 
 a hill-bull. Scapegoat! Ay, that's what he 
 was. Sin-Eater, scapegoat ! Was he not, too, 
 another Judas, to have sold for silver that which 
 was not for the selling ? No, no, for sure Maisie 
 Macdonald could tell him the rune that would 
 serve for the easing of this burden. He would 
 soon be quit of it. 
 
 Slowly he took the money, turned it over, 
 and put it in his pocket. 
 
 " I am going, Andrew Blair," he said quietly ; 
 " I am going, now. I will not say to him that 
 is there in the silence, A chuid do Pharos da / 
 nor will I say to you, Gu'n gleidheadh Dia 
 thu, nor will I say to this dwelling that is the
 
 The Sin-Eater. 43 
 
 home of thee and thine, Gu'n beannaicheadh 
 Dia an tigh / " 1 
 
 Here there was a pause. All listened. An- 
 drew Blair shifted uneasily, the furtive eyes of 
 him going this way and that like a ferret in the 
 grass. 
 
 "But, Andrew Blair, I will say this; when 
 you fare abroad, Droch caoidh ort.' and when 
 you go upon the water, Gaoth gun direadh ort! 
 Ay, ay, Anndra Mhic Adam, Dia ad aghaidh 
 's ad aodann agus has dunach ort ! Dhonas 
 's dholas ort, agus leat-sa / " 8 
 
 The bitterness of these words was like snow 
 in June upon all there. They stood amazed. 
 None spoke. No one moved. 
 
 Neil Ross turned upon his heel, and with a 
 bright light in his eyes walked away from the dead 
 
 1 (i) A chuid do Pharos da .' " His share of heaven be 
 his." (2) Gu'n gleidheadh Dia thu .' " May God pre- 
 serve you." (3) Gu'n beannaicheadh Dia an tigh! 
 " God's blessing on this house." 
 
 2 (i) Droch caoidh ort! " May a fatal accident happen 
 to you" (lit. " Bad moan on you"). (2) Gaoth gun direadh 
 ort ! " May you drift to your drowning " (lit." Wind without 
 direction on you "). (3) Dia ad aghaidh, etc .' " God 
 against thee and in thy face and may a death of woe be 
 yours. Evil and sorrow to thee and thine ! "
 
 44 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 and the living. He went by the byres, whence he 
 had come. Andrew Blair remained where he 
 was, now glooming at the corpse, now biting his 
 nails and staring at the damp sods at his feet. 
 
 When Neil reached the end of the milk-shed 
 he saw Maisie Macdonald there, waiting. 
 
 " These were ill sayings of yours, Neil Ross," 
 she said in a low voice, so that she might not be 
 overheard from the house. 
 
 " So, it is knowing me you are." 
 
 " Sheen Macarthur told me." 
 
 " I have good cause." 
 
 " That is a true word. I know it." 
 
 "Tell me this thing. What is the rune that 
 is said for the throwing into the sea of the sins 
 of the dead? See here, Maisie Macdonald. 
 There is no money of that man that I would 
 carry a mile with me. Here it is. It is yours, 
 if you will tell me that rune." 
 
 Maisie took the money hesitatingly. Then, 
 stooping, she said slowly the few lines of the 
 old, old rune. 
 
 " Will you be remembering that ? " 
 
 " It is not forgetting it I will be, Maisie." 
 
 " Wait a moment. There is some warm 
 milk here."
 
 The Sin-Eater. 45 
 
 With that she went, and then, from within, 
 beckoned to him to enter. 
 
 " There is no one here, Neil Ross. Drink 
 the milk." 
 
 He drank : and while he did so she drew a 
 leather pouch from some hidden place in her 
 dress. 
 
 " And now I have this to give you." 
 
 She counted out ten pennies and two farth- 
 ings. 
 
 " It is all the coppers I have. You are wel- 
 come to them. Take them, friend of my friend. 
 They will give you the food you need, and the 
 ferry across the Sound." 
 
 " I will do that, Maisie Macdonald, and 
 thanks to you. It is not forgetting it I will be, 
 nor you, good woman. And now, tell me : Is 
 it safe that I am ? He called me a 'scape- 
 goat,' he, Andrew Blair! Can evil touch me 
 between this and the sea?" 
 
 " You must go to the place where the evil 
 was done to you and yours ; and that, I know, 
 is on the west side of lona. Go, and God pre- 
 serve you. But here, too, is a sian that will be 
 for the safety." 
 
 Thereupon with swift mutterings she said
 
 46 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 this charm : an old, familiar sian against Sud- 
 den Harm : 
 
 Sian a chuir Moire air Mac art, 
 
 Sian ro* marbhadh, sian ro' lot art, 
 
 Sian eadar a' chlioch 's a' ghlun, 
 
 Sian nan Tri ann an aon art, 
 
 O mhullach do chinn gu bonn do choii art: 
 
 Sian seachd eadar a h-aon ort, 
 
 Sian seachd eadar a dha art, 
 
 Sian seachd eadar a tri art, 
 
 Sian seachd eadar a ceithir art, 
 
 Sian seachd eadar a coig art, 
 
 Sian seachd eadar a sia art, 
 
 Sian seachd paidir nan seach paidir dol deiseil n 
 diugh narach art, ga do ghleidheadh bho bheud 's bho 
 mhi-thafadh ! 
 
 Scarcely had she finished before she heard 
 heavy steps approaching. 
 
 " Away with you," she whispered ; repeating 
 in a loud angry tone, " Away with you ! Sea- 
 chad ! Seachad! " 
 
 And with that Neil Ross slipped from the 
 milk-shed and crossed the yard, and was be- 
 hind the byres, before Andrew Blair, with sullen 
 mien and swift wild eyes, strode from the house. 
 
 It was with a grim smile on his face that Neil 
 tramped down the wet heather till he reached
 
 The Sin-Eater. 47 
 
 the high road, and fared thence as through a 
 marsh because of the rains there had been. 
 
 For the first mile he thought of the angry 
 mind of the dead man, bitter at paying of the 
 silver. For the second mile he thought of the 
 evil that had been wrought for him and his. 
 For the third mile he pondered over all that he 
 had heard, and done, and taken upon him that 
 day. 
 
 Then he sat down upon a broken granite-heap 
 by the way, and brooded deep, till one hour 
 went, and then another, and the third was upon 
 him. 
 
 A man driving two calves came towards him 
 out of the west. He did not hear or see. The 
 man stopped, spoke again. Neil gave no an- 
 swer. The drover shrugged his shoulders, 
 hesitated, and walked slowly on, often looking 
 back. 
 
 An hour later a shepherd came by the way he 
 himself had tramped. He was a tall, gaunt 
 man with a squint. The small pale-blue eyes 
 glittered out of a mass of red hair that almost 
 covered his face. He stood still opposite Neil, 
 and leaned on his cromak. 
 
 " Latha math leaf" he said at last, " I wish 
 you good day."
 
 48 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 Neil glanced at him, but did not speak. 
 
 " What is your name, for I seem to know 
 you?" 
 
 But Neil had already forgotten him. The 
 shepherd took out his snuff-mull, helped himself, 
 and handed the mull to the lonely wayfarer. 
 Neil mechanically helped himself. 
 
 " Am bheil thu 'dol do Fhionphort f " cried 
 the shepherd again, " are you going to Fion- 
 naphort ? " 
 
 " Tha mise 'dot a dK 1 I-challum-chitter Neil 
 answered in a low, weary voice, and as a man 
 adream, " I am on my way to lona." 
 
 "I am thinking I know now who you are. 
 You are the man Macallum." 
 
 Neil looked, but did not speak. His eyes 
 dreamed against what the other could not see 
 or know. The shepherd called angrily to his 
 dogs to keep the sheep from straying; then, 
 with a resentful air, turned to his victim. 
 
 " You are a silent man for sure, you are. I 'm 
 hoping it is not the curse upon you already." 
 
 "What curse ? " 
 
 " Ah, that has brought the wind against the 
 mist ! I was thinking so ! " 
 
 " What curse ? "
 
 The Sin-Eater. 49 
 
 "You are the man that was the Sin-Eater 
 over there?" 
 
 " Ay." 
 
 " The man Macallum ? " 
 
 " Ay." 
 
 " Strange it is, but three days ago I saw you 
 in Tobermory, and heard you give your name as 
 Neil Ross, to an lona man that was there." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Oh, sure, it is nothing to me. But they say 
 the Sin- Eater should not be a man with a hidden 
 lump in his pack." 1 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " For the dead know, and are content. There 
 is no shaking off any sins, then : for that man." 
 
 " It is a lie." 
 
 " Maybe ay, and maybe no." 
 
 " Well, have you more to be saying to me? 
 I am obliged to you for your company, but it is 
 not needing it I am, though no offence." 
 
 " Och, man, there 's no offence between you 
 and me. Sure, there 's lona in me, too, for the 
 father of my father married a woman that was 
 
 1 *. e. With a criminal secret, or an undiscovered 
 crime.
 
 50 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 the granddaughter of Tomais Macdonald, who 
 was a fisherman there. No, no, it is rather 
 warning you I would be." 
 
 " And for what ? " 
 
 " Well, well, just because of that laugh I heard 
 about." 
 
 "What laugh?" 
 
 " The laugh of Adam Blair that is dead." 
 
 Neil Ross stared, his eyes large and w\ld. 
 He leaned a little forward. No word came from 
 him. The look that was on his face was the 
 question. 
 
 " Yes : it was this way. Sure, the telling of it 
 is just as I heard it. After you ate the sins of 
 Adam Blair, the people there brought out the 
 coffin. When they were putting him into it, he 
 was as stiff as a sheep dead in the snow, 
 and just like that, too, with his eyes wide open. 
 Well, some one saw you trampling the heather 
 down the slope that is in front of the house, and 
 said, ' It is the Sin-Eater ! ' With that, Andrew 
 Blair sneered, and said, ' Ay, 'tis the scapegoat 
 he is ! ' Then, after a while, he went on : ' The 
 Sin-Eater they call him ; ay, just so ; and a bitter 
 good bargain it is, too, if all 's true that 's thought 
 true ! ' and with that he laughed, and then
 
 The Sin-Eater. 51 
 
 his wife that was behind him laughed, and 
 then " 
 
 "Well, what then?" 
 
 " Well, 'tis Himself that hears and knows if 
 it is true ! But this is the thing I was told : 
 After that laughing there was a stillness, and a 
 dread. For all there saw that the corpse had 
 turned its head and was looking after you as you 
 went down the heather. Then, Neil Ross, if 
 that be your true name, Adam Blair that was 
 dead put up his white face against the sky, and 
 laughed." 
 
 At this, Ross sprang to his feet with a gasping 
 sob. 
 
 " It is a lie, that thing, " he cried, shaking his 
 fist at the shepherd, " it is a lie." 
 
 " It is no lie. And by the same token, Andrew 
 Blair shrank back white and shaking, and his 
 woman had the swoon upon her, and who knows 
 but the corpse might have come to life again 
 had it not been for Maisie Macdonald, the deid- 
 watcher, who clapped a handful of salt on his 
 eyes, and tilted the coffin so that the bottom of 
 it slid forward and so let the whole fall flat on 
 the ground, with Adam Blair in it sideways, and 
 as likely as not cursing and groaning as his wont
 
 52 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 was, for the hurt both to his old bones and his 
 old ancient dignity." 
 
 Ross glared at the man as though the mad- 
 ness was upon him. Fear, and horror, and 
 fierce rage, swung him now this way and now 
 that. 
 
 " What will the name of you be, shepherd ? " 
 he stuttered huskily. 
 
 " It is Eachainn Gilleasbuig I am to ourselves, 
 and the English of that for those who have no 
 Gaelic is Hector Gillespie ; and I am Eachainn 
 mac Ian mac Alasdair, of Srathsheean, that is 
 where Sutherland lies against Ross." 
 
 " Then take this thing, and that is, the curse 
 of the Sin-Eater ! And a bitter bad thing may 
 it be upon you and yours ! " 
 
 And with that Neil the Sin-Eater flung his 
 hand up into the air, and then leaped past the 
 shepherd, and a minute later was running 
 through the frightened sheep, with his head low, 
 and a white foam on his lips, and his eyes red 
 with blood as a seal's that has the death-wound 
 on it 
 
 On the third day of the seventh month from 
 that day, Aulay Macneill, coming into Bailie-
 
 The Sin-Eater. 53 
 
 more of lona from the west side of the island, 
 said to old Ronald MacCormick, that was the 
 father of his wife, that he had seen Neil Ross 
 again, and that he was " absent" for though he 
 had spoken to him, Neil would not answer, but 
 only gloomed at him from the wet weedy rock 
 where he sat. 
 
 The going back of the man had loosed every 
 tongue that was in lona. When, too, it was 
 known that he was wrought in some terrible way, 
 if not actually mad, the islanders whispered 
 that it was because of the sins of Adam Blair. 
 Seldom or never now did they speak of him by 
 his name, but, simply, " The Sin-Eater." The 
 thing was not so rare as to cause this strange- 
 ness, nor did many (and perhaps none did) think 
 that the sins of the dead ever might or could abide 
 with the living who had merely done a good 
 Christian, charitable thing. But there was a 
 reason. 
 
 Not long after Neil Ross had come again to 
 lona, and had settled down in the ruined roofless 
 house on the croft of Ballyrona, just like a fox 
 or a wild-cat, as the saying was, he was given 
 fishing-work to do by Aulay Macneill, who lived 
 at Ard-an-teine, at the rocky north end of the
 
 54 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 McLchar or plain that is on the west Atlantic 
 coast of the island. 
 
 One moonlit night, either the seventh or 
 the ninth after the earthing of Adam Blair at 
 his own place in the Ross, Aulay Macneill saw 
 Neil Ross steal out of the shadow of BaJlyrona 
 and make for the sea. Macneill was there, by 
 the rocks, mending a lobster-creel. He had 
 gone there because of the sadness. Well, when 
 he saw the Sin-Eater he watched. 
 
 Neil crept from rock to rock till he reached 
 the last fang that churns the sea into yeast when 
 the tide sucks the land, just opposite. 
 
 Then he called out something that Aulay 
 Macneill could not catch. With that he springs 
 up, and throws his arms above him. 
 
 " Then," says Aulay, when he tells the tale, 
 " it was like a ghost he was. The moonshine 
 was on his face like the curl o' a wave. White! 
 there is no whiteness like that of the human face. 
 It was whiter than the foam about the skerry it 
 was, whiter than the moonshining, whiter than 
 well, as white as the painted letters on the black 
 boards of the fishing-cobles. There he stood, 
 for all that the sea was about him, the slip-slop 
 waves leapin' wild, and the tide making too at
 
 The Sin-Eater. 55 
 
 that. He was shaking like a sail two points off 
 the wind. It was then that all of a sudden he 
 called in a womany screamin' voice : 
 
 " ' I am throwing the sins of Adam Blair into 
 the midst of ye, white dogs o' the sea ! Drown 
 them, tear them, drag them away out into the 
 black deeps ! Ay, ay, ay, ye dancin' wild waves, 
 this is the third time I am doing it ; and now 
 there is none left, no, not a sin, not a sin. 
 
 ' O-hi, O-ri, dark tide o' the sea, 
 
 I am giving the sins of a dead man to thee ! 
 
 By the Stones, by the Wind, by the Fire, by the Tree, 
 
 From the dead man's sins set me free, set me free 1 
 
 Adam mhic Anndra mhic Adam and me, 
 
 Set us free ! Set us free ! ' 
 
 " ' Ay, sure, the Sin- Eater sang that over and 
 over. And after the third singing he swung his 
 arms and screamed, 
 
 1 And listen to me, black waters an' running tide, 
 That rune is the good rune told me by Maisie the wise, 
 And I am Neil, the son of Silis Macallum, 
 By the black-hearted evil man Murtagh Ross, 
 That was the friend of Adam Mac Anndra, God against 
 him 1 ' 
 
 " And with that he scrambled and fell into the 
 sea. But, as I am Aulay Mac Luais and no
 
 56 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 other, he was up in a moment, an' swimmin' 
 like a seal, and then over the rocks again, an* 
 away back to that lonely roofless place once 
 more, laughing wild at times, an' muttering an' 
 whispering." 
 
 It was this tale of Aulay Macneill's that stood 
 between Neil Ross and the islefolk. There 
 was something behind all that, they whispered 
 one to another. 
 
 So it was always the Sin-Eater he was called 
 at last. None sought him. The few children 
 who came upon him, now and again, fled at his 
 approach, or at the very sight of him. Only 
 Aulay Macneill saw him at times, and had word 
 of him. 
 
 After a month had gone by, all knew that the 
 Sin-Eater was wrought to madness, because of 
 this awful thing; the burden of Adam Blair's 
 sins would not go from him ! Night and day 
 he could hear them laughing low, it was said. 
 
 But it was the quiet madness. He went to 
 and fro like a shadow in the grass, and almost 
 as soundless as that, and as voiceless. More 
 and more the name of him grew as a terror. 
 There were few folk on that wild west coast of
 
 The Sin-Eater. 57 
 
 lona, and these few avoided him when the 
 word ran that he had knowledge of strange 
 things, and converse, too, with the secrets of 
 the sea. 
 
 One day Aulay Macneill, in his boat, but 
 dumb with amaze and terror for him, saw him 
 at high-tide swimming on a long rolling wave 
 right into the hollow of the Spouting Cave. In 
 the memory of man, no one had done this and 
 escaped one of three things : a snatching away 
 into oblivion, a strangled death, or madness. 
 The islanders know that there swims into the 
 cave at full tide a Mar-Tarbh, a dreadful crea- 
 ture of the sea that some call a kelpie ; only it 
 is not a kelpie, which is like a woman, but 
 rather is a sea-bull, offspring of the cattle that 
 are never seen. Ill indeed for any sheep or 
 goat, ay or even dog or child, if any happens to 
 be leaning over the edge of the Spouting Cave 
 when the Mar-Tarbh roars ; for, of a surety, it 
 will fall in and straightway be devoured. 
 
 With awe and trembling Aulay listened for 
 the screaming of the doomed man. It was full 
 tide, and the sea-beast would be there. 
 
 The minutes passed, and no sign. Only the 
 hollow booming of the sea, as it moved like a
 
 58 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 baffled blind giant round the cavern-bases; only 
 the rush and spray of the water flung up the 
 narrow shaft high into the windy air above the 
 cliff it penetrates. 
 
 At last he saw what looked like a mass of 
 sea-weed swirled out on the surge. It was the 
 Sin-Eater. With a leap, Aulay was at his oars. 
 The boat swung through the sea. Just before 
 Neil Ross was about to sink for the second 
 time, he caught him, and dragged him into the 
 boat. 
 
 But then, as ever after, nothing was to be got 
 out of the Sin-Eater save a single saying : " Tha 
 e lamhatt fuarf Tha e lamhan fuar!" "It 
 has a cold, cold hand ! " 
 
 The telling of this and other tales left none 
 free upon the island to look upon the "scape- 
 goat " save as one accursed. 
 
 It was in the third month that a new phase of 
 his madness came upon Neil Ross. 
 
 The horror of the sea and the passion for the 
 sea came over him at the same happening. 
 Oftentimes he would race along the shore, 
 screaming wild names to it, now hot with hate 
 and loathing, now as the pleading of a man 
 with the woman of his love. And strange
 
 The Sin-Eater. 59 
 
 chants to it, too, were upon his lips. Old, old 
 lines of forgotten runes were overheard by 
 Aulay Macneill, and not Aulay only, lines 
 wherein the ancient sea-name of the island, 
 loua, that was given to it long before it was 
 called lona, or any other of the nine names that 
 are said to belong to it, occurred again and 
 again. 
 
 The flowing tide it was that wrought him 
 thus. At the ebb he would wander across the 
 weedy slabs or among the rocks, silent, and 
 more like a lost duinshee than a man. 
 
 Then again after three months a change in 
 his madness came. None knew what it was, 
 though Aulay said that the man moaned and 
 moaned because of the awful burden he bore. 
 No drowning seas for the sins that could not be 
 washed away, no grave for the live sins that 
 would be quick till the Day of the Judgment ! 
 
 For weeks thereafter he disappeared. As to 
 where he was, it is not for the knowing. 
 
 Then at last came that third day of the sev- 
 enth month when, as I have said, Aulay Mac- 
 neill told old Ronald MacCormick that he had 
 seen the Sin-Eater again. 
 
 It was only a half-truth that he told, though.
 
 60 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 For after he had seen Neil Ross upon the rock, 
 he had followed him when he rose and wandered 
 back to the roofless place which he haunted now 
 as of yore. Less wretched a shelter now it 
 was, because of the summer that was come, 
 though a cold wet summer at that. 
 
 " Is that you, Neil Ross?" he had asked, as 
 he peered into the shadows among the ruins of 
 the house. 
 
 " That 's not my name," said the Sin-Eater ; 
 and he seemed as strange then and there, as 
 though he were a castaway from a foreign ship. 
 
 " And what will it be then, you that are my 
 friend, and sure knowing me as Aulay Mac 
 Luais, Aulay Macneill that never grudges you 
 bit or sup ? " 
 
 "I am Judas." 
 
 "And at that word," says Aulay Macneill, 
 when he tells the tale, "at that word the pulse 
 in my heart was like a bat in a shut room. But 
 after a bit I took up the talk. 
 
 "'Indeed,' I said, 'and I was not for know- 
 ing that. May I be so bold as to ask whose 
 son, and of what place ? ' 
 
 " But all he said to me was, ' / am Judas.''
 
 The Sin-Eater. 6l 
 
 "Well, I said, to comfort him, 'Sure, it's 
 not such a bad name in itself, though I am 
 knowing some which have a more homelike 
 sound.' But no, it was no good. 
 
 " ' I am Judas. And because I sold the Son 
 of God for five pieces of silver 'But here I 
 interrupted him and said, 'Sure now, Neil, I 
 mean, Judas, it was eight times five.' Yet 
 the simpleness of his sorrow prevailed, and I 
 listened with the wet in my eyes. 
 
 " ' I am Judas. And because I sold the Son 
 of God for five silver shillings, He laid upon me 
 all the nameless black sins of the world. And 
 that is why I am bearing them till the Day of 
 Days.' " 
 
 And this was the end of the Sin-Eater, for 
 I will not tell the long story of Aulay Macneill, 
 that gets longer and longer every winter, but 
 only the unchanging close of it. 
 
 I will tell it in the words of Aulay. 
 
 " A bitter wild day it was, that day I saw him to 
 see him no more. It was late. The sea was red 
 with the flamin' light that burned up the air be- 
 twixt lona and all that is west of West. I was
 
 62 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 on the shore, looking at the sea. The big green 
 waves came in like the chariots in the Holy 
 Book. Well, it was on the black shoulder of 
 one of them, just short of the ton o' foam that 
 swept above it, that I saw a spar surgin' by. 
 
 " ' What is that ? ' I said to myself. And the 
 reason of my wondering was this. I saw that a 
 smaller spar was swung across it. And while I 
 was watching that thing another great billow 
 came in with a roar, and hurled the double-spar 
 back, and not so far from me but I might have 
 gripped it. But who would have gripped that 
 thing if he were for seeing what I saw ? 
 
 " It is Himself knows that what I say is a 
 true thing. 
 
 " On that spar was Neil Ross, the Sin-Eater. 
 Naked he was as the day he was born. And 
 he was lashed, too, ay, sure he was lashed to it 
 by ropes round and round his legs and his 
 waist and his left arm. It was the Cross he was 
 on. I saw that thing with the fear upon me. 
 Ah, poor drifting wreck that he was ! Judas 
 on the Cross ! It was his eric / 
 
 " But even as I watched, shaking in my limbs, 
 I saw that there was life in him still. The lips 
 were moving, and his right arm was ever for
 
 The Sin-Eater. 63 
 
 swinging this way and that. 'Twas like an oar 
 working him off a lee shore ; ay, that was what 
 I thought. 
 
 " Then all at once he caught sight of me. 
 Well, he knew me, poor man, that has his share 
 of heaven now, I am thinking ! 
 
 " He waved, and called, but the hearing could 
 not be, because of a big surge o' water that 
 came tumbling down upon him. In the stroke 
 of an oar he was swept close by the rocks where 
 I was standing. In that flounderiri', seethin' 
 whirlpool I saw the white face of him for a 
 moment, an', as he went out on the resurge like 
 a hauled net, I heard these words fallin' against 
 my ears : 
 
 "'An eirig m? anama! In ransom for 
 my soul ! ' 
 
 " And with that I saw the double-spar turn over 
 and slide down the back-sweep of a drowning 
 big wave. Ay, sure, it went out to the deep sea 
 swift enough then. It was in the big eddy that 
 rushes between Skerry-M6r and Skerry-Beag. 
 I did not see it again, no, not for the quarter of 
 an hour, I am thinking. Then I saw just the 
 whirling top of it rising out of the flying yeast 
 of a great black, blustering wave that was rush-
 
 64 The Sin-Eater. 
 
 ing northward before the current that is called 
 the Black-Eddy. 
 
 " With that you have the end of Neil Ross : 
 ay, sure, him that was called the Sin-Eater. 
 And that is a true thing, and may God save us 
 the sorrow of sorrows ! 
 
 " And that is all."
 
 The Ninth Wave. 
 
 THE wind fell as we crossed the Sound. 
 There was only one oar in the boat, and we 
 lay idly adrift. The tide was still on the ebb, and 
 so we made way for Soa, though well before the 
 island could be reached the tide would turn, and 
 the sea-wind would stir, and we be up the Sound, 
 and at Balliemore again almost as quick as the 
 laying of a net. 
 
 As we and by "us" I am meaning Phadric 
 Macrae and Ivor McLean, fishermen of lona, 
 and myself beside Ivor at the helm as we 
 slid slowly past the ragged islet known as 
 Eilean-na-h' Aon-Chaorach, torn and rent by the 
 tides and surges of a thousand years, I saw a 
 school of seals basking in the sun. One by one 
 slithered into the water, and I could note the 
 dark forms, like moving patches of sea-weed, 
 drifting in the green underglooms. 
 5
 
 66 The Ninth Wave. 
 
 Then after a time we bore down upon Sgeir- 
 na-Oir, a barren rock. Three great cormorants 
 stood watching us. Their necks shone in the 
 sunlight like snakes mailed in blue and green. 
 On the upper ledges were eight or ten northern 
 divers. They did not seem to see us, though I 
 knew that their fierce light-blue eyes noted every 
 motion we made. The small sea-ducks bobbed 
 up and down, first one flirt of a little black- 
 feathered rump, then another, then a third, till 
 a score or so were under water, and half a hun- 
 dred more were ready at a moment's notice to 
 follow suit. A skua hopped among the sputter- 
 ing weed, and screamed disconsolately at inter- 
 vals. Among the myriad colonies of close-set 
 mussels, which gave a blue bloom, like that of the 
 sloe, to the weed-covered boulders, a few kitti- 
 wakes and dotterels flitted to and fro. High over 
 head, white against the blue as a cloudlet, a gan- 
 net hung motionless, seemingly frozen to the sky. 
 
 Below the lapse of the boat the water was pale 
 green. I could see the liath and saith fanning 
 their fins in slow flight, and sometimes a little 
 scurrying cloud of tiny fluckies and inch-long 
 codling. For two or three fathoms beyond the 
 boat the waters were blue. If blueness can be
 
 The Ninth Wave. 67 
 
 alive, and have its own life and movement, it 
 must be happy on these western seas, where it 
 dreams into shadowy Lethes of amethyst and 
 deep, dark oblivions of violet. 
 
 Suddenly a streak of silver ran for a moment 
 along the sea to starboard. It was like an 
 arrow of moonlight shot along the surface of the 
 blue and gold. Almost immediately afterward, 
 a stertorous sigh was audible. A black knife cut 
 the flow of the water : the shoulder of a pollack. 
 
 " The mackerel are coming in from the sea," 
 said Macrae. He leaned forward, wet the palm 
 of his hand, and held it seaward. " Ay, the tide 
 has turned 
 
 Ohrone achree an Sruth-mara ! 
 Ohrone achree an Lionadh ! " 
 
 he droned monotonously, over and over with 
 few variations. 
 
 " An' it 's Oh an' Oh for the tides o' the sea, 
 An' it 's Oh for the flowing tide," 
 
 I sang at last in mockery. 
 
 " Come, Phadric," I cried, " you are as bad as 
 Peter McAlpin's lassie, Fiona, with the pipes ! " 
 
 Both men laughed lightly. On the last Sab- 
 bath, old McAlpin had held a prayer-meeting
 
 68 The Ninth Wave. 
 
 in his little house in the "street," in Balliemore 
 of lona. At the end of his discourse he told 
 his hearers that the voice of God was terrible 
 only to the evil-doer but beautiful to the right- 
 eous man, and that this voice was even now 
 among them, speaking in a thousand ways and 
 yet in one way. And at this moment, that elfin 
 granddaughter of his, who was in the byre close 
 by, let go upon the pipes with so long and weary 
 a whine that the collies by the fire whimpered, 
 and would have howled outright but for the 
 Word of God that still lay open on the big stool 
 in front of old Peter. For it was in this way 
 that the dogs knew when the Sabbath readings 
 were over ; and there was not one that would dare 
 to bark or howl, much less rise and go out, till 
 the Book was closed with a loud, solemn bang. 
 Well, again and again that weary quavering moan 
 went up and down the room, till even old Mc- 
 Alpin smiled, though he was fair angry with 
 Fiona. But he made the sign of silence, and 
 began : " My brethren, even in this trial it may 
 be the Almighty has a message for us " when 
 at that moment Fiona was kicked by a cow, 
 and fell against the board with the pipes, and 
 squeezed out so wild a wail that McAlpin started
 
 The Ninth Wave. 69 
 
 up and cried, in the Lowland way that he had 
 won out of his wife, " Hoots, havers, an* a' / 
 come oot o 1 that, ye DeiFs spunkie / " 
 
 So it was this memory that made Phadric and 
 Ivor smile. Suddenly Ivor began with a long 
 rising and falling cadence, an old Gaelic rune 
 of the Faring of the Tide. 
 
 Athair, A mhic, A Spioraid Naoimh, 
 
 Biodh an Tri-aon leinn, a la's a dK oidhche ; 
 
 S' air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh natn beann! 
 
 O Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 
 
 Be the Three-in-One with us day and night, 
 
 On the crested wave, when waves run high 1 
 
 And out of the place in the West 
 
 Where Tir-nan-6g, the Land of Youth 
 
 Is, the Land of Youth everlasting, 
 
 Send the great Tide that carries the sea-weed 
 
 And brings the birds, out of the North : 
 
 And bid it wind as a snake through the bracken, 
 
 As a great snake through the heather of the sea, 
 
 The fair blooming heather of the sunlit sea. 
 
 And may it bring the fish to our nets, 
 And the great fish to our lines : 
 And may it sweep away the sea-hounds 
 That devour the herring :
 
 7O The Ninth Wave. 
 
 And may it drown the heavy pollack 
 
 That respect not our nets 
 
 But fall into and tear them and ruin them wholly. 
 
 And may I, or any that is of my blood, 
 
 Behold not the Wave-Haunter who comes in with the Tide, 
 
 Or the Maighdeann-mara who broods in the shallows, 
 
 Where the sea-caves are, in the ebb : 
 
 And fair may my fishing be, and the fishing of those near 
 
 to me, 
 
 And good may this Tide be, and good may it bring : 
 And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Sruth-mara, 
 And may there be no burden in the Ebb I Ochone ! 
 
 An ainm an Affiar, j' an Mhic, s 1 an Spioraid Naoimh, 
 Biodh an Tri-aon leinn, a la's a dh? oidhc/ie, 
 S 1 air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nant beann .' 
 
 Oc/ione! arone! 
 
 Both men sang the closing lines with loudly 
 swelling voices and with a wailing fervour which 
 no words of mine could convey. 
 
 Runes of this kind prevail all over the isles, 
 from the Butt of Lewis to the Rhinns of Islay : 
 identical in spirit, though varying in lines and 
 phrases, according to the mood and tempera- 
 ment of the rannaiche or singer, the local or 
 peculiar physiognomy of nature, the instinctive 
 yielding to hereditary wonder-words, and other
 
 The Ninth Wave. 71 
 
 compelling circumstances of the outer and 
 inner life. Almost needless to say, the sea- 
 maid or sea-witch and the Wave- Haunter occur 
 in many of those wild runes, particularly in 
 those that are impromptu. In the Outer Heb- 
 rides, the runes are wild natural hymns rather 
 than Pagan chants ; though marked distinctions 
 prevail there also, for in Harris and the Lews 
 the folk are Protestant almost to a man, while in 
 Benbecula and the Southern Hebrides the Cath- 
 olics are in a like ascendancy. But all are at 
 one in the common Brotherhood of Sorrow. 
 
 The only lines in Ivor McLean's wailing song 
 which puzzled me were the two last which came 
 before "the good words," "in the name of the 
 Father, the Son, and the Spirit," etc. 
 
 "Tell me, in English, Ivor," I said, after a 
 silence, wherein I pondered the Gaelic words, 
 "what is the meaning of 
 
 ' And may there be no calling in the Flow, this Sruth-mara, 
 And may there be no burden in the Ebb ? ' " 
 
 " Yes, I will be telling you what is the meaning 
 of that. When the great tide that wells out of 
 the hollow of the sea, and sweeps towards all the 
 coasts of the world, first stirs, when she will be
 
 72 The Ninth Wave. 
 
 knowing that the Ebb is not any more moving 
 at all, she sends out nine long waves. And I 
 will be forgetting what these waves are : but 
 one will be to shepherd the sea-weed that is for 
 the blessing of man, and another is for to wake 
 the fish that sleep in the deeps, and another is 
 for this, and another will be for that, and the 
 seventh is to rouse the Wave-Haunter and all 
 the creatures of the water that fear and hate 
 man, and the eighth no man knows, though the 
 priests say it is to carry the Whisper of Mary, 
 and the ninth " 
 
 " And the ninth, Ivor?" 
 
 " May it be far from us, from you and from me 
 and from those of us ! An' I will be sayin' noth- 
 ing against it, not I ; nor against anything that 
 is in the sea! An' you will be noting that! 
 
 " Well, this ninth wave goes through the water 
 on the forehead of the tide. An' wherever it will 
 be going it calls. An' the call of it is, ' Come 
 away, come away, the sea waits ! Follow / . . . 
 Come away, come away, the sea waits/ Fol- 
 low ! ' * An' whoever hears that must arise and 
 go, whether he be fish or pollack, or seal or otter, 
 
 l Ivor of course gave these words in the Gaelic.
 
 The Ninth Wave. 73 
 
 or great skua or small tern, or bird or beast of 
 the shore, or bird or beast of the sea, or whether 
 it be man or woman or child, or any of the 
 others." 
 
 " Any of the others, Ivor ? " 
 
 "I will not be saying anything about that," 
 replied McLean, gravely ; " you will be knowing 
 well what I mean, and if you do not it is not for 
 me to talk of that which is not to be talked 
 about. 
 
 " Well, as I was for saying : that calling of the 
 ninth wave of the Tide is what lan-M&r of the 
 hills speaks of as ' the whisper of the snow that 
 falls on the hair, the whisper of the frost that 
 lies on the cold face of him that will never be 
 waking again.' " 
 
 "Death?" 
 
 " It is you that will be saying it. 
 
 " Well," he resumed after a moment's hush, 
 " a man may live by the sea for five score years 
 and never hear that ninth wave call in any Srilth- 
 mdra, but soon or late he will hear it. An* 
 many is the Flood that will be silent for all of 
 us : but there will be one Flood for each of us 
 that will be a dreadful Voice, a voice of terror 
 and of dreadfulness. And whoever hears that
 
 74 The Ninth Wave. 
 
 Voice, he for sure will be the burden in the 
 Ebb." 
 
 " Has any heard that Voice, and lived ? " 
 
 McLean looked at me, but said nothing. 
 Phadric Macrae rose, tautened a rope, and 
 made a sign to me to put the helm alee. Then, 
 looking into the green water slipping by, for 
 the tide was feeling our keel, and a stronger 
 breath from the sea lay against the hollow that 
 was growing in the sail, he said to Ivor : 
 
 " You should be telling her of Ivor Maclvor 
 Mhic Niall." 
 
 " Who was Ivor MacNeil ? " I said. 
 
 " He was the father of my mother," answered 
 McLean, " and was known throughout the north 
 isles as Ivor Carminish, for he had a farm on 
 the eastern lands of Carminish which lie between 
 the hills called Strondeval and Rondeval, that 
 are in the far south of the northern Hebrides, 
 and near what will be known to you as the Obb 
 of Harris. 
 
 " And I will now be telling you about him in 
 the Gaelic, for it is more easy to me, and more 
 pleasant for us all. 
 
 "When Ivor MacEachainn Carminish, that 
 was Ivor's father, died, he left the farm to his
 
 The Ninth Wave. 75 
 
 elder son and to his second son, Sheumais. 
 By this time, Ivor was married, and had the 
 daughter who is my mother. But he was a 
 lonely man, and an islesman to the heart's core. 
 So ... but you will be knowing the isles that 
 lie off the Obb of Harris, the Saghay, and 
 Ensay, and Killegray, and farther west, Bern- 
 eray and, north-west, Pabaidh, and beyond that 
 again, Shillaidh ? " 
 
 For the moment I was confused, for these 
 names are so common : and I was thinking of 
 the big isle of Berneray that lies in huge Loch 
 Roag that has swallowed so great a mouthful of 
 Western Lewis, to the seaward of which also are 
 the two Pabbays, Pabaidh Mor and Pabaidh 
 Beag. But when McLean added, " and other 
 isles of the Caolas Harrish " (the Sound of 
 Harris), I remembered aright ; and indeed I 
 knew both, though the nor' isles better, for I 
 had lived near Callernish on the inner waters 
 of Roag. 
 
 " Well, Carminish had sheep-runs upon some 
 of these. One summer the gloom came upon 
 him, and he left Sheumais to take care of 
 the farm and of Morag his wife, and of Sheen 
 their daughter ; and he went to live upon Pab-
 
 76 The Ninth Wave. 
 
 bay, near the old castle that is by the Rua Dune 
 on the south-east of the isle. There he stayed 
 for three months. But on the last night of each 
 month he heard the sea calling in his sleep; 
 and what he heard was like ' Come away, come 
 away, the sea waits I Follow . . . Come away, 
 come away, the sea waits ! Follow ! ' And he 
 knew the voice of the ninth wave ; and that it 
 would not be there in the darkness of sleep if it 
 were not already moving towards him through 
 the dark ways of An Dan (Destiny). So, think- 
 ing to pass away from a place doomed for him, 
 and that he might be safe elsewhere, he sailed 
 north to a kinsman's croft on Aird- Vanish in 
 the island of Taransay. But at the end of that 
 month he heard in his sleep the noise of tidal 
 waters, and at the gathering of the ebb he heard 
 ' Come away, come away, the sea waits ! Fol- 
 low!' Then once more, when the November 
 heat-spell had come, he sailed farther northward 
 still. He stopped a while at Eilean Mhea- 
 lastaidh, which is under the morning shadow 
 of high Griomabhal on the mainland, and at 
 other places, till he settled, in the third week, 
 at his cousin Eachainn MacEachainn's bothy, 
 near Callernish, where the Great Stones of old
 
 The Ninth Wave. 77 
 
 stand by the sea, and hear nothing forever but 
 the noise of the waves of the North Sea and the 
 cry of the sea-wind. 
 
 " And when the last night of November had 
 come and gone, and he had heard in his sleep no 
 calling of the ninth wave of the Flowing Tide, 
 he took heart of grace. All through that next 
 day he went in peace. Eachainn wondered 
 often with slant eyes when he saw the morose 
 man smile, and heard his silence give way now 
 and again to a short, mirthless laugh. 
 
 "The two were at the porridge, and Eachainn 
 was muttering \usBu? cheas dha'n Ti, the Thanks 
 to the Being, when Carminish suddenly leaped to 
 his feet, and, with white face, stood shaking like 
 a rope in the wind. 
 
 " ' In the name of the Son, what is it, Ivor 
 Mhic Ivor? What is it, Carminish?' cried 
 Eachainn. 
 
 " But the stricken man could scarce speak. At 
 last, with a long sigh, he turned and looked 
 at his kinsman, and that look went down into 
 the shivering heart like the polar wind into a 
 crofter's hut. 
 
 " ' What -will be that f ' said Carminish, in a 
 hoarse whisper.
 
 78 The Ninth Wave. 
 
 " Eachainn listened, but he could hear no wail- 
 ing beann-sith, no unwonted sound. 
 
 " ' Sure, I hear nothing but the wind moaning 
 through the Great Stones, an' beyond them the 
 noise of the Flowin' Tide.' 
 
 " ' The Flowing Tide ! The Flowing Tide ! ' 
 cried Carminish, and no longer with the hush in 
 the voice. 'An' what is it you hear in the 
 Flowing Tide ? ' 
 
 " Eachainn looked in silence. What was the 
 thing he could say ? For now he knew. 
 
 "Ah, och, och, ochone, you may well sigh, 
 Eachainn Mhic Eachainn ! For the ninth wave 
 o' the Flowing Tide is coming out o' the North 
 Sea upon this shore, an' already I can hear it 
 calling, ' Come away, come away, the sea waits / 
 Follow! . . . Come away, come away, the sea 
 waits ! Follow / * 
 
 "And with that Carminish dashed out the light 
 that was upon the table, and leaped upon Each- 
 ainn, and dinged him to the floor and would 
 have killed him, but for the growing noise of 
 the sea beyond the Stannin' Stones o' Callanish, 
 and the woe-weary sough o' the wind, an' the 
 calling, calling, ' Come, come away / Come, 
 come away ! '
 
 The Ninth Wave. 79 
 
 " And so he rose and staggered to the door, and 
 flung himself out into the night, while Eachainn 
 lay upon the floor and gasped for breath, and 
 then crawled to his knees, an' took the Book 
 from the shelf by his fern-straw mattress, an' 
 put his cheek against it, an' moaned to God, an' 
 cried like a child for the doom that was upon 
 Ivor Maclvor Mhic Niall, who was of his own 
 blood, and his own dall at that. 
 
 " And while he moaned, Carminish was stalk- 
 ing through the great, gaunt, looming Stones of 
 the Druids, that were here before St Colum 
 and his Shona came, and laughing wild. And 
 all the time the tide was coming in, and the 
 tide and the deep sea and the waves of the 
 shore and the wind in the salt grass and the 
 weary reeds and the black-pool gale made a 
 noise of a dreadful hymn, that was the death- 
 hymn, the going-rune, of Ivor the son of Ivor 
 of the kindred of Niall. 
 
 " And it was there that they found his body 
 in the grey dawn, wet and stiff with the salt 
 ooze. For the soul that was in him had heard 
 the call of the ninth wave that was for him. 
 So, and may the Being keep back that hour for
 
 8o The Ninth Wave. 
 
 us, there was a burden upon that Ebb on the 
 morning of that day. 
 
 " Also, there is this thing for the hearing. 
 In the dim dark before the curlew cried at dawn, 
 Eachainn heard a voice about the house, a voice 
 going like a thing blind and baffled, 
 
 ' Gut till, cha till, C/M till mi tuille .' ' " 
 (I return, I return, I return never more !)
 
 The Judgment o' God. 
 
 THE wind that blows on the feet of the dead 
 came calling loud across the Ross, as we put 
 about the boat off the Rudhe Callachain. The 
 ebb sucked at the keel, while, like a cork, we 
 were swung lightly by the swell. For we were 
 in the strait between Eilean Dubh and the Isle 
 of the Swine ; and that is where the current has 
 a bad pull, the current that is made of the in- 
 flow and the outflow. I have heard that a 
 weary woman of the olden days broods down 
 there in a cave, and that day and night she 
 weaves a web of water, which a fierce spirit in 
 the sea tears this way and that as soon as 
 woven. 
 
 So we put about, and went before the east 
 
 wind ; and below the dip of the sail alee I 
 
 watched Soa grow bigger and gaunter and 
 
 blacker against the white wave. As we came 
 
 6
 
 82 The Judgment o' God. 
 
 so near that it was as though the wash of the 
 sea among the hollows bubbled in our ears, I 
 saw a large bull-seal lying half-in, half-out of 
 the water, and staring at us with an angry, 
 fearless look. Phadric and Ivor caught sight 
 of it almost at the same moment. 
 
 To my surprise Macrae suddenly, rose and 
 put a rosad upon it. I could hear the wind 
 through his clothes as he stood by the mast. 
 
 The rosad or spell was, of course, in the Gae- 
 lic ; but its meaning was something like this : 
 
 Ho, ro, O Ron dubh, O Ron dubh ! 
 
 An ainm an Atkar, Ron .' 
 
 'S an mhic, O Ron .' 
 
 'S an Sfioraid Naoimh, 
 
 O Ron-a'-mhara, O Ron dubk ! 
 
 Ho, ro, O black Seal, O black Seal I 
 
 In the name of the Father, 
 
 And of the Son, 
 
 And of the Holy Ghost, 
 
 O Seal of the deep sea, O black Seal I 
 
 Hearken the thing that I say to thee, 
 I, Phadric MacAlastair MhicCrae, 
 Who dwell in a house on the Island 
 That you look on night and day from Soa 1 
 For I put rosad upon thee,
 
 The Judgment o' God. 83 
 
 And upon the woman-seal that won thee, 
 
 And the women-seal that are thine, 
 
 And the young that thou hast, 
 
 Ay, upon thee and all thy kin 
 
 I put rosad, O Ron dubh, O Ron-a-mhara ! 
 
 And may no harm come to me or mine, 
 
 Or to any fishing or snaring that is of me, 
 
 Or to any sailing by storm or dusk, 
 
 Or when the moonshine fills the blind eyes of the dead, 
 
 No harm to me or mine 
 
 From thee or thine I 
 
 With a slow, swinging motion of his head 
 Phadric broke out again into the first words of 
 the incantation, and now Ivor joined him ; and 
 with the call of the wind and the leaping and 
 the splashing of the waves was blent the chant 
 of the two fishermen : 
 
 ffo, ro, O Ron dubh .' O Ron. dubh .' 
 
 An ainm an Athar, 's an M/iic, 's an Sfioraid Naoimh, 
 
 O Ron-b'-mhkra, O Ron dubh .' 
 
 Then the men sat back, with that dazed look 
 in the eyes I have so often seen in those of men 
 or women of the Isles who are wrought. No 
 word was spoken till we came almost straight 
 upon Eilean-na-h' Aon-Chaorach. Then at the
 
 84 The Judgment o' God. 
 
 rocks we tacked, and went splashing up the 
 Sound, like a pollack on a Sabbath noon. 1 
 
 " What was wrong with the old man of the 
 sea?" I asked Macrae. 
 
 At first he would say nothing. He looked 
 vaguely at a coiled rope ; then, with hand-shaded 
 gaze across to the red rocks at Fhionnaphort. 
 I repeated my question. He took refuge in 
 English. 
 
 " It wass ferry likely the Clansman would be 
 pringing ta new minister-body. Did you pe 
 knowing him, or his people, or where he came 
 from?" 
 
 But I was not to be put off thus ; and at last, 
 while Ivor stared down the green shelving 
 lawns of the sea below us, Phadric told me this 
 thing. His reluctance was partly due to the 
 shyness which with the Gael almost invariably 
 follows strong emotion; and partly to that 
 strange, obscure, secretive instinct which is also 
 
 1 The lona fishermen, and indeed the Gaelic and Scot- 
 tish fishermen generally, believe that the pollack (porpoise) 
 knows when it is the Sabbath ; and on that day will come 
 closer to the land, and be more wanton in its gambols on 
 the sun-warmed surface of the sea, than on the days when 
 the herring-boats are abroad.
 
 The Judgment o' God. 85 
 
 so characteristically Celtic, and often prevents 
 Gaels of far apart isles, or of different clans, 
 from communicating to each other stories or 
 legends of a peculiarly intimate kind. 
 
 " I will tell you what my father told me, and 
 what, if you like, you may hear again from the sis- 
 ter of my father, who is the wife of Ian Finlay, 
 who has the farm on the north side of Dun I. 
 
 " You will have heard of old James Achanna 
 of Eilanmore, off the Ord o' Sutherland ? To 
 be sure, for have you not stayed there ? Well, 
 I need not tell you how he came there out of 
 the south ; but it will be news to you to learn 
 that my elder brother Murdoch was had by him 
 as a shepherd, and to help on the farm. And 
 the way of that thing was this. Murdoch had 
 gone to the fishing north of Skye, with Angus 
 and William Macdonald, and in the great gale 
 that broke up their boat, among so many others, 
 he found himself stranded on Eilanmore. 
 Achanna told him that as he was ruined, and 
 so far from home, he would give him employ- 
 ment, and though Murdoch had never thought 
 to serve under a Galloway man, he agreed. 
 
 "For a year he worked on the upper farm, 
 Ardoch-beag, as it was called. There the gloom
 
 86 The Judgment o' God. 
 
 came upon him. Turn which way he would, 
 the beauty that is in the day was no more. In 
 vain, when he came out into the air in the morn- 
 ing, did he cry Deasiul / and keep by the sun- 
 way. At night he heard the sea calling in his 
 sleep. So, when the lambing was over, he told 
 Achanna that he must go, for he hungered for 
 the sea. True, the wave ran all around Eilan- 
 more, but the farm was between bare hills and 
 among high moors, and the house was in a 
 hollow place. But it was needful for him to go. 
 Even then, though he did not know it, the mad- 
 ness of the sea was upon him. 
 
 " But the Galloway man did not wish to lose 
 my brother, who was a quiet man, and worked for 
 a small wage. Murdoch was a silent lad, but he 
 had often the light in his eyes, and none knew 
 of what he was thinking; maybe it was of a 
 lass, or a friend, or of the ingle-neuk where his 
 old mother sang o' nights, or of the sight and 
 sound of lona that was his own land ; but I 'm 
 considerin' it was the sea he was dreamin' of, 
 how the waves ran laughin' an' dancin' against 
 the tide, like lambkins comin' to meet the shep- 
 herd, or how the big green billows went sweepin' 
 white an' ghostly through the moonless nights.
 
 The Judgment o' God. 87 
 
 "So the troth that was come to between them 
 was this : that Murdoch should abide for a year 
 longer, that is, till Lammastide ; then that he 
 should no longer live at Ardoch-beag, but instead 
 should go and keep the sheep on Bac-M6r." 
 
 " On Bac-M6r, Phadric," I interrupted, " for 
 sure, you do not mean our Bac-M6r ? " 
 
 " For sure I mean no other : Bac-M6r, of the 
 Treshnish Isles, that is eleven miles north of 
 lona and a long four north-west of Staffa ; an* 
 just Bac-M6r an' no other." 
 
 " Murdoch would be near home, there." 
 
 "Ay, near, an' farther away; for 'tis to be 
 farther off to be near that your heart loves bu' 
 ye can't get. 
 
 "Well, Murdoch agreed to this, but he did 
 not know there was no boat on the island. It 
 was all very well in the summer. The herrin'- 
 smacks lay off Bac-M&r or Bac-Beag many a 
 time; and he could see them mornin', noon, an' 
 night; an' nigh every day he could watch the 
 big steamer comin' southward down the Morn- 
 ish and Treshnish coasts of Mull, and stand by 
 for an hour off Staffa, or else come northward
 
 88 The Judgment o' God. 
 
 out of the Sound of lona round the Eilean Ra- 
 bach; and once or twice a week he saw the 
 Clansman coming or going from Bunessan in the 
 Ross to Scarnish in the Isle of Tiree. Maybe, 
 too, now and again a foreign sloop or a coast- 
 ing schooner would sail by ; and twice, at least, 
 a yacht lay off the wild shore, and put a boat in 
 at the landing-place, and let some laughing folk 
 loose upon that quiet place. The first time, it was 
 a steam-yacht, owned by a rich foreigner, either 
 an Englishman or an American, I misremember 
 now: an' he spoke to Murdoch as though he 
 were a savage, and he and his gay folk laughed 
 when my brother spoke in the only English he 
 had (an' sober good English it was), an' then 
 he shoves some money into his hand, as though 
 both were evil-doers and were ashamed to be 
 seen doing what they did. 
 
 "'An' what is this for?' said my brother. 
 
 " ' O it 's for yourself, my man, to drink our 
 health with,' answered the English lord, or 
 whatever he was, rudely. 
 
 "Then Murdoch looked at him and his quietly; 
 an' he said, ' God has your health an' my health in 
 the hollow of His hand. But I wish you well. 
 Only I am not being your man any more than I
 
 The Judgment o' God. 89 
 
 am for calling you #/y man ; an' I will ask you to 
 take back this money to drink with ; nor have I 
 any need for money, but only for that which is 
 free to all, but that only God can give.' And 
 with that the foreign people went away, and 
 laughed less. But when the second yacht came, 
 though it was a yawl and owned by a Glasgow 
 man who had folk in the west, Murdoch would 
 not come down to the shore, but lay under the 
 shadow of a rock amid his sheep, and kept his 
 eyes upon the sun that was moving west out of 
 the south. 
 
 " Well, all through the fine months Murdoch 
 stayed on Bac-M6r, and thereafter through the 
 early winter. The last time I saw him was at 
 the New Year. On Hogmanay night my father 
 was drinking hard, and nothing would serve him 
 but he must borrow Alec Macarthur's boat, and 
 that he and our mother and myself, and Ian Fin- 
 lay and his wife, my sister, should go out before 
 the quiet south-wind that was blowing, and see 
 Murdoch where he lay sleeping or sat dream- 
 ing in his lonely bothy. And truth, we went. 
 It was a white sailing, that I remember. The 
 moonshinings ran in and out of the wavelets like 
 herrings through salmon nets. The fire-flauchts,
 
 90 The Judgment o' God. 
 
 too, went speeding about. I was but a laddie 
 then, an' I noted it all ; an' the sheet-lightning 
 that played behind the cloudy lift in the nor'- 
 west. 
 
 " But when we got to Bac-M6r there was no 
 sign of Murdoch at the bothy ; no, not though 
 we called high and low. Then my father and 
 Ian Finlay went to look, and we stayed by the 
 peats. When they came back, an hour later, I 
 saw that my father was no more in drink. Hr 
 had the same look in his eyes as Ronald 
 McLean had that day last winter when they told 
 him his bit girlie had been caught by the small- 
 pox in Glasgow. 
 
 " I could not hear, or I could not make out 
 what was said; but I know that we all got into the 
 boat again, all except my father. And he stayed. 
 And next day, Ian Finlay and Alec Macarthur 
 went out to Bac-M6r and brought him back. 
 
 "And from him and from Ian I knew all there 
 was to be known. It was a hard New Year for 
 all, and since that day till a night of which I will 
 tell you, my father brooded and drank, drank and 
 brooded, and my mother wept through the winter 
 gloamings and spent the night starin' into the 
 peats wi 1 her knittin' lyin' on her lap.
 
 The Judgment o' God. 91 
 
 "For when they had gone to seek Murdoch 
 that Hogmanay night, they came upon him away 
 from his sheep. But this was what they saw. 
 There was a black rock that stood out in the 
 moonshine, with the water all about it. And on 
 this rock Murdoch lay naked, and laughing wild. 
 An' every now and then he would lean forward, 
 and stretch his arms out, an' call to his dearie. 
 An' at last, just as the watchers, shiverin' wi' 
 fear an' awe, were going to close in upon him, 
 they saw a a thing come out o' the water. 
 It was long an' dark, an' Ian said its eyes were 
 like clots o' blood ; but as to that no man can 
 say yea or nay, for Ian himself admits it was a 
 seal. 
 
 " An' this thing is true, an ainm an Athar / they 
 saw the dark beast o' the sea creep on to the 
 rock beside Murdoch, an' lie down beside him, 
 and let him clasp an' kiss it. An' then he stood 
 up, and laughed till the skin crept on those who 
 heard, and cried out on his dearie and on a' the 
 dumb things o' the sea, an' the Wave-Haunter an' 
 the grey shadow ; an' he raised his hands, an' 
 cursed the world o' men, and cried out to God, 
 ' Turn your face to your own airidk, O God, art 1 
 may rain an 1 storm an 1 snow be between us ! '
 
 92 The Judgment o* God. 
 
 " An' wi' that Deirg, his collie, could bide no 
 more, but loupit across the water, and was on 
 the rock beside him, wi' his fell bristling like a 
 hedge-rat. For both the naked man an' the wet 
 gleamin' beast, a great she-seal out o' the north, 
 turned upon Deirg, an' he fought for his life. 
 But what could the puir thing do? The seal 
 buried her fangs in his shoulder, at last, an' 
 pinned him to the ground. Then Murdoch 
 stooped, an' dragged her off, an' bent down an' 
 tore at the throat o' Deirg wi' his own teeth. 
 Ay, God's truth it is ! An' when the collie was 
 stark, he took him up by the hind legs an' the 
 tail, an' swung him round an' round his head, 
 an' whirled him into the sea, where he fell black 
 in a white splatch o' the moon. 
 
 " An' wi' that, Murdoch slipped, and reeled 
 backward into the sea, his hands gripping at 
 the whirling stars. An' the thing beside him 
 louped after him, an' my father an' Ian heard 
 a cry an' a cryin' that made their hearts sob. 
 But when they got down to the rock they saw 
 nothing, except the floating body o' Deirg. 
 
 " Sure it was a weary night for the old man, 
 there on Bac-M6r by himself, with that awful 
 thing that had happened. He stayed there to
 
 The Judgment o' God. 93 
 
 see and hear what might be seen and heard. 
 But nothing he heard, nothing saw. It was 
 afterwards that he heard how Donncha Mac- 
 Donald was on Bac-M6r three days before this, 
 and how Murdoch had told him he was in love 
 wi' a maighdeannmhara, a sea-maid. 
 
 " But this thing has to be known. It was a 
 month later, on the night o' the full moon, that 
 Ian Finlay and Ian Macarthur and Sheumais 
 Macallum were upset in the calm water inside 
 the Sound, just off Port-na-Frang, and were nigh 
 drowned, but that they called upon God and the 
 Son, and so escaped and heard no more the 
 laughter of Murdoch from the sea. 
 
 " And at midnight my father heard the voice of 
 his eldest son at the door ; but he would not let 
 him in; and in the morning he found his boat 
 broken and shred in splinters, and his one net 
 all torn. An' that day was the Sabbath ; so 
 being a holy day he took the Scripture with him, 
 an' he and Neil Morrison the minister, having 
 had the Bread an' Wine, went along the Sound 
 in a boat, following a shadow in the water, till 
 they came to Soa. An' there Neil Morrison 
 read the Word o' God to the seals that lay baskin' 
 in the sun ; and one, a female, snarled and
 
 94 The Judgment o' God. 
 
 showed her fangs ; and another, a black one, 
 lifted its head, and made a noise that was not 
 like the barking of any seal, but was as the 
 laughter of Murdoch when he swung the dead 
 body of Deirg. 
 
 " And that is all that is to be said. And silence 
 is best now between you and any other. And 
 no man knows the judgments o* God. 
 
 " And that is all."
 
 II 
 
 THE HARPING OF CRAVETHEEN.
 
 THE 
 
 Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 WHEN Cormac, that was known throughout 
 all Northern Eire* as Cormac Conlingas, Cormac 
 the son of Concobar the son of Nessa, was one 
 of the ten hostages to Conairy Mor for the lealty 
 of the Ultonians, he was loved by men and 
 women because of his strength, his valor, and 
 his beauty. 
 
 He was taller than the tallest of his nine com- 
 rades by an inch, and broader by two inches 
 than the broadest; though that fellowship of 
 nine was of the tallest and broadest men among 
 the Ultonians, who were the greatest warriors 
 that green Banba, as Eire" or Erin was called by 
 the bards who loved her, has ever seen. 
 
 The shenachies sang of him as a proud 
 champion, with eyes full of light and fire, his 
 countenance broad above and narrow below, 
 7
 
 98 The Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 ruddy-faced, with hair as of the gold of the 
 September moon. 
 
 The commonalty spoke of his mighty spear- 
 thrust, of his deft sword-swing, the terror of his 
 wrath, of the fury of his battle-lust, of his laugh- 
 ter and light joy, and the singing that was on 
 his lips when his sword had the silence upon it. 
 No man dared touch " Blue-Green," as Cormac 
 Conlingas called it, the "Whispering Sword," 
 as it was named among his fellows. "Blue- 
 Green," for in its sweep it gleamed blue-green 
 as the leaping levin, whispered whenever it was 
 athirst, and a red draught it was that would 
 quench that thirst, and no other draught for the 
 drinking; and it whispered when there was a fer- 
 ment of the red blood among men who hated 
 while they feared the Ultonians; and it whis- 
 pered whenever a shadow dogged the shadow of 
 Cormac, the son of Concobar the son of Nessa. 
 Therefore it was that of all who desired his death, 
 there was none that did not fear the doom-whis- 
 per of the sword that had been forged by Len, 
 the Smith, where he sits and works forever amid 
 his mist of rainbows. Women spoke of his 
 strength as though it were their proud beauty. 
 He had the way of the sunlight with him, they
 
 The Harping of Cravetheen. 99 
 
 said. And of the sunfire, added one ever, be- 
 low her breath ; and that was Eilidh, the daughter 
 of Conn Mac Art and of Dearduil, the daughter 
 of Somhairle, the Prince of the Isles, Eilidh, 
 the daughter of Dearduil the daughter of Morna, 
 the three queens of beauty in the three genera- 
 tions of the generations. 
 
 She was not of the Ultonians, this fair Eilidh ; 
 but of the people who were subject to Conairy 
 M6r. It was when the ten hostages abode with 
 the Red Prince that she grew faint and wan 
 with the love-sickness. Her mother, Dearduil, 
 knew who the man was. She put a mirror of 
 polished steel against the mouth of the girl while 
 she slept, and then it was that she saw the flames 
 of love burning a red heart on which was written 
 in white fire, "I am the heart of Cormac, the 
 son of Concobar." The gladness was hers, as 
 well as the fear. Sure, there was no greater 
 hero than Cormac Conlingas ; but then he was 
 an Ultonian, and would soon be for going away ; 
 and ill-pleased would Conairy M6r be that the 
 beautiful Eilidh, who was his ward since the 
 death of Conn, should be the wife of one of 
 the men of Concobar Mac Nessa whoui : n his 
 heart he hated.
 
 IOO The Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 There was a warrior there called Art Mac Art 
 M6r. Conairy Mor loved him, and had promised 
 him Eilidh. One day this man came to the 
 overlord, and said this thing, 
 
 " Is she, Eilidh, to be hearing the lowing of 
 the kine that are upon my hills ? " 
 
 " That is so, Art Mac Art." 
 
 " I have spoken to the girl. She is like the 
 wind in the grass." 
 
 "It is the way of women. Quest, and trace, 
 and you shall not find. But say ' Come,' and 
 they will come ; and say ' Do,' and they obey." 
 
 " I have put the word upon her, and she has 
 laughed at me. I have said ' Come,' and she 
 asked me if the running wave heard the voice 
 of yesterday's wind. I have said ' Do,' and she 
 called to me, 'Do the hills nod when the fox 
 barks?'" 
 
 " What is the thing that is behind your lips, 
 Art Mac Art M6r?" 
 
 " This. That you send the man away that is 
 the cause of the mischief that is upon Eilidh." 
 
 " Who is the man ? " 
 
 " He is of the Hostages." 
 
 Conairy M6r brooded awhile. Then he 
 stroked his beard, brown-black as burn- water 
 in shadow; and laughed.
 
 The Harping of Cravetheen. 101 
 
 " Why is there laughter upon you, my king ?" 
 
 " Sure, I laugh to think of the blood of a 
 white maid. They say it is of milk, but I am 
 thinking it must be the milk of the hero-women 
 of old that was red and warm as the stream the 
 White Hound that courses through the night 
 swims in. And that blood that is in Eilidh leads 
 to the blood of heroes. She would have the 
 weight of Cormac, the Yellow-haired, on her 
 breast ! " 
 
 " His blood or mine." 
 
 The king kept silence for a time. Then he 
 smiled, and that boded ill. Then, after a while, 
 he frowned, and that was not so ill. 
 
 "Not thine, Art." 
 
 " And if not mine, what of Cormac Mac 
 Concobar ? 
 
 " He shall go." 
 
 " Alone ? " 
 
 Alone." 
 
 And, sure, it was on the eve of that day that 
 Dearduil went to warn Cormac Conlingas, and 
 to beg him to leave the whiteness of the snow 
 without a red stain. 
 
 But when she entered his sleeping-place Eilidh 
 was there, upon the deer-skins.
 
 IO2 The Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 Dearduil looked for long before she spoke. 
 
 " By what is in your eyes, Eilidh my daughter 
 this is not the first time you have come to Cor- 
 mac Conlingas ? " 
 
 The girl laughed low. The white arms of 
 her moved through the gold of her hair like 
 sickles among the corn. She looked at Cormac. 
 The flame that was in her eyes was bright in 
 his. The wife of Conn turned to him. 
 
 "No," he said gravely, "it is not the first 
 time." 
 
 " Has the seed been sown, O husbandman ? " 
 
 " The seed has been sown." 
 
 " It is death." 
 
 "The tide flows, the tide ebbs." 
 
 " Cormac, there will be two dead this night 
 if Conairy M6r hears this thing. And even 
 now his word moves against you. Do you love 
 Eilidh?" 
 
 Cormac smiled slightly, but made no answer. 
 
 "If you love her, you would not see her 
 slain." 
 
 41 There is no great evil in being slain, Dear- 
 duil-nic-Somhairle." 
 
 "She is a woman, and she has your child 
 below her heart."
 
 The Harping of Cravetheen. 103 
 
 " That is a true thing." 
 
 "Will you save her?" 
 
 If she will." 
 
 " Speak, Eilidh." 
 
 Then the terror that was in the girl's heart 
 arose and moved about like a white bewildered 
 bird in the dark. She knew that Dearduil had 
 spoken out of her heart. She knew that Art 
 Mac Art M6r was in this evil. She knew that 
 death was near for Cormac, and near for her. 
 The limbs that had trembled with love, trembled 
 now with the breath of the fear. Suddenly she 
 drew a long sobbing sigh. 
 
 " Speak, Eilidh." 
 
 She turned her face to the wall. 
 
 " Speak, Eilidh." 
 
 " I will speak. Go, Cormac Conlingas." 
 
 The chief of the Ultonians started. This 
 doom to life was worse to him than the death- 
 doom. An angry flame burned in his eyes. 
 His lip curled. 
 
 " May it not be a man-child you will have, 
 Eilidh of the gold hair," he said scornfully, " for 
 it would be an ill thing for a son of Cormac 
 Mac Concobar to be a coward, as his mother 
 was, and to fear death as she did, though never 
 before her any of her race."
 
 IO4 The Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 And with that he turned upon his heel, and 
 went out. 
 
 Cormac Conlingas had not gone far when he 
 met Art Mac Art Mor, with the others. 
 
 " It is the king's word," said Art, simply. 
 
 " I am ready," answered Cormac. " Is it 
 death ? " 
 
 " Come ; the king shall tell you." 
 
 But there was to be no blood that night. 
 Only, on the morrow the hostages were nine. 
 The tenth man rode slowly north eastward, 
 against the graying of the dawn. 
 
 If, in the heart of Cormac Conlingas, there 
 was sorrow and a bitter pain, because of Eilidh, 
 whom he loved, and from whom he would fain 
 have taken the harshness of his word, there was, 
 in the heart of Eilidh, the sound as of trodden 
 sods. 
 
 That day it was worse for her. 
 
 Conairy Mor came to her himself. Art was 
 at his right hand. The king asked her if she 
 would give her troth to the son of Art-M6r, and, 
 that being given, if she would be his wife. 
 
 "That cannot be," she said. The fear that 
 had been in the girl's heart was dead now. The
 
 The Harping of Cravetheen. 105 
 
 saying of Cormac had killed it. She knew 
 that, like her ancestor, the mother of Somhairle, 
 she could, if need be, have a log of burning 
 wood against her breast and face the torture as 
 though she were no more than holding a dead 
 child there. 
 
 " And for why cannot it be ? " asked Conairy 
 Mor. 
 
 " For it is not Art's child that I carry in my 
 womb," answered Eilidh, simply. 
 
 The king gloomed. Art Mac Art put his 
 right hand to the dagger at his silver-bossed 
 leathern belt. 
 
 " Is it a wanton that you are ? " 
 
 " No : by my mother's truth, and the mother 
 of my mother. I love another man than Art 
 Mac Art Mor, and that man loves me, and I am 
 his." 
 
 " Who is this man ? " 
 
 " His name is in my heart only." 
 
 " I will ask you three things, Eilidh, daughter 
 of Dearduil. Is the man one of your race? is 
 he of noble blood ? is he fit to wed the king's 
 ward ? " 
 
 " He is more fit to wed the king's ward 
 than any man in Eire 1 . He is of noble blood,
 
 106 The Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 and himself the son of a king. But he is an 
 Ultonian." 
 
 " Thou hast said. It is Cormac Mac Conco- 
 bar Mac Nessa." 
 
 " It is Cormac Conlingas." 
 
 With a loud laugh Art Mac Art strode for- 
 ward. He raised his hand and flung it across 
 the face of the girl. 
 
 " Art thou his tenth or his hundredth ? Well, 
 I would not have you now as a serving-wench." 
 
 Once more the king gloomed. It went ill 
 with him, that sight of a man striking a woman, 
 howsoever lightly. 
 
 " Art, I have slain a better man than you, for 
 a thing less worthy than that. Take heed." 
 
 The man frowned, with the red light in his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Will you do as you said, O king? " 
 
 No, not now. Eilidh, that blow has saved 
 you. I was going to let Art have his way of 
 you, and then do with you what he willed, servi- 
 tude or death. But now you are free of him. 
 Only this thing I say; no Ultonian shall ever 
 take you in his arms. You shall wed Crave- 
 theen, the step-brother of Art." 
 
 " Cravetheen the Harper?"
 
 The Harping of Cravetheen. 107 
 
 " Even so." 
 
 "He is old, and is neither comely nor gra- 
 cious." 
 
 " There is no age upon him that a maid need 
 mock at ; and he is gracious enough to those 
 who do not cross him ; and he has the mouth of 
 honey, he has, and, if not as comely as Cormac 
 Conlingas, is yet fair to see." 
 
 "But " 
 
 " I have said." 
 
 And so it was. Cravetheen took Eilidh to 
 wife. But he left the great Dun of Conairy 
 Mor and went to live in his own dun in the 
 forest that clothed the frontiers of the land of 
 the Ultonians. 
 
 He took his harp that night when for the 
 first time she lay upon the deerskins in his dun. 
 and he played a wild air. Eilidh listened, 
 The tears came into her eyes. Then deep 
 shadows darkened them. Then she clenched 
 her hands till the nails drew blood. At last she 
 lay with her face to the wall, trembling. 
 
 For Cravetheen was a harper that had been 
 taught by a Green Hunter on the slopes of
 
 io8 The Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 Sliav-Sheean. He could say that in music that 
 other men could scarce say aright in words. 
 
 And when he had ended that night he went 
 up to his wife. 
 
 " No, Eilidh, for all you are so white and soft, 
 and for all the sweet ways of you, I shall not be 
 laying my heart upon yours this night, nor for 
 many nights. But a day shall come when I 
 will be playing you a marriage song. But be- 
 fore that day I will play to you twice." " And 
 beware the third playing " said his old mother, 
 who sat before the smouldering logs, crooning 
 and muttering. 
 
 As for the second playing ; that was not till 
 months later. It was at the set of the sun that 
 had shone on the birthing of the child of Eilidh 
 and Cormac Conlingas. 
 
 All through the soundless labour of the woman, 
 for she had the pride of pride, Cravetheen the 
 Harper played. What he played was that the 
 child might be born dead. Eilidh knew this, 
 and gave it the breath straight from her heart. 
 " My pulse to you," she whispered between her 
 low sobs. Then Cravetheen played that it 
 might be born blind and deaf and dumb. But 
 Eilidh knew this, and she whispered to the soul
 
 The Harping of Cravetheen. 109 
 
 that was behind her eyes, Give it light; and to 
 the soul that was listening behind her ears, 
 Give it hearing : and to the soul whose silence 
 was beneath her silence, Give it speech. 
 
 And so the child was born ; and it was a 
 man-child, and fair to see. ^ 
 
 When the swoon was upon Eilidh, Grave- 
 theen ceased from his harping. He rose, and 
 looked upon the woman. Then he lifted the 
 child, and laid it on a doeskin in the sunlight, 
 on a green place, that was the meeting-place 
 of the moonshine dancers. Then he lifted his 
 harp again, and again played. 
 
 At the first playing, the birds ceased from 
 singing: there was silence amid the boughs. 
 At the second, the leaves ceased from rustling : 
 there was silence on the branches. At the 
 third, the hare leapt no more, the fox blinked 
 with sleep, the wolf lay down. At the fourth, 
 and fifth, and sixth, the wind folded its wings 
 like a great bird, the wood-breeze crept beneath 
 the bracken and fell asleep, the earth sighed 
 and was still. There was silence there, for 
 sure, silence everywhere, as of sleep. 
 
 At the seventh playing the quiet people came 
 out upon the green place. They were small
 
 no The Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 and dainty, clad in green with small, white 
 faces ; just like lilies-of-the-valley they were. 
 
 They laughed low among themselves, and 
 some clapped their hands. One climbed a 
 thistle, and swung round and round till he fell 
 on his back with a thud, like the fall of a dew- 
 drop, and cried pitifully. There was no peace 
 till a duinshee took him by a green leg and 
 shoved him down a hole in the grass and 
 stopped it with a dandelion. 
 
 Then one among them, with a scarlet robe 
 and a green cap with a thread of thistledown 
 waving from it like a plume, and with his wee, 
 wee eyes aflame, stepped forward, and began to 
 play on a little harp made of a bird-bone with 
 three gossamer-films for strings. And the wild 
 air that he played and the songs that he sang 
 were those fonnsheen that few hear now, but 
 that those who do hear know to be sweeter than 
 the sorrow of joy. 
 
 Suddenly Cravetheen ceased playing, and 
 then there was silence with the Green Harper 
 also. 
 
 All of the hillside-folk stood still. When an 
 eddy of air moved along the grass they wavered 
 to and fro like reeds with the coolness at 
 their feet
 
 The Harping of Cravetheen. in 
 
 Then the Green Harper threw aside his scarlet 
 cloak and his green cap, and the hair of him 
 was white and flowing as the canna. He broke 
 the three threads of gossamer, and flung away 
 the bird-bone harp. Then he drew a wee bit 
 reed from his waist-band that was made of 
 beaten gold, and put it to his lips, and began 
 to play. And what he played was so passing 
 sweet that Cravetheen went into a dream, and 
 played the same wild air, and he not knowing 
 it, nor any man. 
 
 It was with that that the soul of the child 
 heard the elfin-music, and came out. Sure, it 
 is a hard thing for the naked spirit to come 
 away from its warm home of the flesh, with the 
 blood coming and going forever like a mother's 
 hand, warm and soft. But to the playing of 
 Cravetheen and the Green Harper there was no 
 denying. The soul came forth, and stood with 
 great frightened eyes. 
 
 "Shrink! Shrink/ Shrink /" cried all the 
 quiet people, and, as they cried, the human 
 spirit shrank so as to be at one with them. 
 
 Then, as it seemed, two shining white flowers 
 for they were bonnie, bonnie stepped for- 
 ward and took the human by the hand, and led
 
 112 The Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 it away. And as they went, the others followed, 
 all singing a glad song, that fell strange and 
 faint upon the ear of Cravetheen. All passed 
 into the hillside, save the Green Harper, who 
 stopped awhile, playing and playing and play- 
 ing, till Cravetheen dreamed he was Alldai, the 
 God of Gods, and that the sun was his bride, 
 and the moon his paramour, and the stars his 
 children and the joys that were before him. 
 Then he, too, passed. 
 
 With that, Cravetheen came out of his 
 trance, and rubbed his eyes as a man startled 
 from sleep. 
 
 He looked at the child. It would be a 
 changeling now, he knew. But when he looked 
 again he saw that it was dead. 
 
 So he called to Gealcas, that was his mother, 
 and gave her the body. 
 
 " Take that to Eilidh," he said, "and tell her 
 that this is the second playing ; and that I will 
 be playing once again, before it's breast to 
 breast with us." 
 
 And these were the words that Gealcas said 
 to Eilidh, who in her heart cursed Cravetheen, 
 and mocked his cruel patience, and longed for 
 Cormac of the Yellow Hair, and cared not
 
 The Harping of Cravetheen. 113 
 
 for all the harping that Cravetheen could da 
 now. 
 
 It was in the Month of the White Flowers 
 that Cormac Conlingas came again. 
 
 He was in the Southland when news reached 
 him that his father, Concobar Mac Nessa, was 
 dead. He knew that if he were not speedily in 
 Ulster, the Ultonians might not grant him the 
 Ard-Reeship. He, surely, and no other, should 
 be Ard-Ree after Concobar ; yet there was one 
 other who might well become overlord of the 
 Ultonians in his place, were he not swift with 
 word and act. 
 
 So swift was he that he mounted and rode 
 away from his fellows without taking with him 
 the famous Spear of Pisarr, which was a terror 
 in battle. This was that fiery, living spear, 
 wrought by the son of Turenn, and won out of 
 Eire" by the god Lu Lam-fdda. In battle it 
 flew hither and thither, a live thing. 
 
 He rode from noon to within an hour of the 
 setting of the sun. Then he saw a long, green 
 hill rise like a pine-cone out of the wood, bossed 
 with still-standing stones of an ancient ruined 
 dun. Against it a blue column of smoke trailed. 
 8
 
 114 The Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 Cormac knew now where he was. Word had 
 come to him recently from Eilidh herself. 
 
 He drew rein, and stared awhile. Then he 
 smiled; then once more he gloomed, and his 
 eyes were heavy with the shadow of that gloom. 
 
 It was then that he drew " Blue-Green " from 
 its sheath, and listened. There was a faint 
 murmur along the blade, as of gnats above a 
 pool ; but there was no whispering. 
 
 Once more he smiled. 
 
 " It will be for the happening," he murmured. 
 Then, leaning back, he sang this Rune to 
 Eilidh. 
 
 Oime 1 , Oim6, Woman of the white breasts, Eilidh ; 
 Woman of the golden hair, and lips of the red, red rowan 1 
 Dime, O-rJ, Oim6 1 
 
 Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast more soft, 
 Or the wave on the sea that moves as thou movest 
 Eilidh 
 
 Oime', a-ro; Oim6, a-rb! 
 
 It is the marrow in my bones that is aching, aching, 
 
 Eilidh; 
 It is the blood in my body that is a bitter, wild tide 
 
 Oime! 
 
 O-ri, O-hion, O-ri, arone I
 
 The Harping of Cravetheen. 115 
 
 Is it the heart of thee calling that I am hearing, Eilidh, 
 Or the wind in the wood, or the beating of the sea, Eilidh, 
 Or the beating of the sea ? 
 
 Shttle, shule agrbh, shule agrhh, shule agrbh, Shule ! 
 Heart of me, move to me 1 move to me ' heart of me, Eilidh, 
 Eilidh, 
 
 Move to me ! 
 
 Ah, let the wild hawk take it, the name of me, Cormac 
 
 Conlingas, 
 Take it and tear at thy heart with it, heart that of old was 
 
 so hot with it, 
 
 Eilidh, Eilidh, o-ri, Eilidh, Eilidh 1 
 
 And the last words of that song were so loud 
 and clear loud and clear as the voice of the 
 war-horn that Eilidh heard. The heart of 
 her leapt, the breast of her heaved, the pulses 
 danced in the surge of the blood. Once more 
 it was with her as though she were with child 
 by Cormac Conlingas. She bade the old mo- 
 ther of Cravetheen and all who abode in the 
 dun to remain within, and not one to put the 
 gaze upon the grtanan, her own place there, or 
 upon whom she should lead to it. Then she 
 went forth to meet Cormac, glad to think of 
 Cravetheen far thence on the hunting, and not 
 to be back again till the third day.
 
 Il6 The Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 It was a meeting of two waves, that. Each 
 was lost in the other. Then, after long looking 
 in the eyes, and with the words aswoon on the 
 lips, they moved hand in hand towards the dun. 
 
 And as they moved, the Whispering of the 
 Sword made a sound like the going of wind 
 through grass. 
 
 " What is that ? " said Eilidh, her eyes large. 
 
 " It is the wind in the grass," Cormac answered. 
 
 And as they entered the dun the Whispering 
 of the Sword made a confused murmur as of the 
 wind among swaying pines. 
 
 "What is that?" Eilidh asked, fear in her 
 eyes. 
 
 " It is the wind in the forest," said Cormac. 
 
 But when, after he had eaten and drunken, 
 they went up to the Grianan, and lay down upon 
 the deer-skins, the Whispering of the Sword 
 was so loud that it was as the surf of the sea in 
 a wild wind. 
 
 "What is that ? " cried Eilidh, with a sob in 
 her throat. 
 
 " It is the wind on the sea," Cormac said, his 
 voice hoarse and low. 
 
 " There is no sea within three days' march," 
 whispered Eilidh, as she clasped her hands.
 
 The Harping of Cravetheen. 117 
 
 But Cormac said nothing. And, now, the 
 Sword was silent also. 
 
 It was that night that Cravetheen returned. 
 He was playing one of the fonnsheen he knew, 
 as he came through the wood in the moonlight ; 
 for in the hunting of a stag he had made a great 
 circle and was now near Dunchraig again, Dun- 
 chraig that was his dun. But he had left his 
 horse with his kindred in the valley, and had 
 come afoot through the wood. 
 
 He stopped as he was nigh upon the rocks 
 against which the dun was built. He saw the 
 blackness of the shadow of a living thing. 
 
 " Who is that ? " he cried. 
 
 " It is I, Murtagh Lam-Rossa," and with 
 that a man out of the dun came forward slowly 
 and hesitatingly. He was a man who hated 
 Eilidh, because she had put him to shame. 
 
 Cravetheen looked at him. 
 
 " I am waiting," he said. 
 
 Still the man hesitated. 
 
 "I am waiting, Murtagh Lam-Rossa." 
 
 " This is a bitter thing I have to say. I was 
 on my way for the telling." 
 
 " It is of Eilidh that is my wife ? "
 
 Ii8 The Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 " You have said it. M 
 
 " Speak." 
 
 " She does not sleep alone in the Grianan, and 
 there is no one of the dun who is there with 
 her." 
 
 "Who is there?" 
 
 " A man." 
 
 Cravetheen drew a long breath. His hand 
 went to the dagger at his belt. 
 
 " What man ? " 
 
 " Cormac mac Concobar, that is called 
 Cormac Conlingas." 
 
 Again Cravetheen drew a deep breath, and 
 the blood was on his lip. 
 
 " You are knowing this thing for sure ? " 
 
 " I am knowing it." 
 
 " That is what no other man shall do," and 
 with that Cravetheen flashed the dagger in the 
 moonshine, and thrust it with a surging sound 
 into the heart of Murtagh Lam-Rossa. 
 
 With a groan the man sank. His white hands 
 wandered among the fibrous dust of the pine- 
 needles. His face was as a livid wave with the 
 foam of death on it. 
 
 Cravetheen looked at the froth on his lips ; it 
 was like that of the sped deer. He looked at
 
 The Harping of Cravetheen. 119 
 
 the bubbles about the hilt of the knife ; they 
 were as the yeast of cranberries. 
 
 " That is the sure way of silence," he said ; 
 and he moved on, and thought no more of the 
 man. 
 
 When he came nigh the dun he stood a long 
 while in thought. He could not reach the 
 Grianan, he knew. Swords and spears for 
 Eilidh, before then, mayhap ; and, if not, there 
 was Cormac Conlingas, and not Cormac only, 
 but the Sword " Blue-Green," and the Spear 
 " Pisarr." 
 
 But a thought drove into his mind as a wind 
 into a corrie. He put back his sword, and took 
 his harp again. " It is the third playing," he 
 muttered with a grim smile. Then once more 
 he stood on the green rath of the quiet people, 
 and played \hzfonnsheen till they heard. And 
 when the old elfin harper was come, Cravetheen 
 played the Tune of the Asking. 
 
 " What will you be wanting, Cravetheena Mac 
 Rory," asked the Green Harper. 
 
 " The Tune of the Trancing Sleep, green prince 
 of the hill." 
 
 " Sure, you shall have it : " and with that the 
 Green Harper gave the magic melody, so that not
 
 I2O The Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 a leaf stirred, not a bird moved, and even the 
 dew ceased to fall. 
 
 Then Cravetheen took his harp and played. 
 
 The dogs in the dun rose, but none howled. 
 Then all lay down nosing their outstretched 
 paws. Thrice the stallions in the rear of the 
 dun put back their ears, but no neighing was 
 on their curled lips. The mares whimpered, and 
 then stood with heads low, asleep. The armed 
 men did not awake, but slumbered deep. The 
 women dreamed into the darkness where no 
 dream is. The old mother of Cravetheen 
 stirred, crooned wearily, bowed her gray head 
 and was in Tir-nan-og again, walking with 
 Rory mac Rory that loved her, him that was 
 slain with a spear and a sword long, long ago. 
 
 Only Eilidh and Cormac Conlingas were 
 waking. Sweet was that wild harping against 
 their ears. 
 
 " It will be the Green Harper himself,' 
 whispered Cormac, drowsy with the sleep that 
 was upon him. 
 
 " It will be the harping of Cravetheen I am 
 thinking," said Eilidh, with a low sigh, yet as 
 though that thing were nothing to her. But 
 Cormac did not hear, for he was asleep.
 
 The Harping of Cravetheen. 121 
 
 "I see nine shadows leaping upon the wall," 
 murmured Eilidh, while her heart beat and her 
 limbs lay in chains. 
 
 "' . . . Move to me, heart of me, Eilidh, Eilidh, 
 Move to mej " 
 
 sang Cormac, in a slow, chanting whisper. 
 
 " I see nine hounds leaping into the dun, " 
 Eilidh cried, though none heard. 
 
 Cormac smiled in his sleep. 
 
 " Ah, ah, I see nine red phantoms leaping 
 into the room ! " screamed Eilidh ; but none 
 heard. 
 
 Cormac smiled in his sleep. 
 
 And then it was that the nine red flames grew 
 ninefold, and the whole dun was wrapt in flame. 
 
 For this was the doing of Cravetheen the 
 Harper. All there died in the flame. That was 
 the end of Eilidh, that was so fair. She laughed 
 the pain away, and died. And Cormac smiled, 
 and as the flame leapt on his breast he muttered, 
 " Ah, hot heart of Eilidh ! heart to me 
 move to me / " And he died. 
 
 There was no dun, and there were no folk, 
 and no stallions and mares, and no baying
 
 122 The Harping of Cravetheen. 
 
 hounds, when Cravetheen ceased from the 
 playing, but only ashes. 
 
 He looked at them till dawn. Then he rose, 
 and he broke his harp. Northward he went, to 
 tell the Ultonians that thing, and to die the 
 death. 
 
 And this was the end of Cormac the Hero, 
 Cormac the son of Concobar the son of Nessa, 
 that was called Cormac Conlingas.
 
 Ill 
 
 TRAGIC LANDSCAPES.
 
 Tragic Landscapes, 
 i. 
 
 THE TEMPEST. 
 
 THE forest undulated across the land in 
 vast black-green billows. Their sombre soli- 
 tudes held no light. The sky was of a uniform 
 grey, a dull metallic hue such as the sea takes 
 when a rainy wind comes out of the east. 
 There was not a break in the appalling mo- 
 notony. 
 
 To the north rose a chain of mountains. 
 Connecting one to another, were serrated 
 scaurs, or cleft, tortured, and precipitous ridges. 
 The wild-stag had his sanctuary here ; here were 
 reared the young of the osprey, the raven, the 
 kestrel, and the corbie. On the extreme heights 
 the eagles called from their eyries at sunrise ; at
 
 126 Tragic Landscapes. 
 
 sundown they might be seen whirling like mi- 
 nute discs around the flaming peaks. 
 
 An absolute silence prevailed. At long 
 intervals there was the restless mewing of a 
 wind-eddy, baffled among the remote corries. 
 Sometimes, far beneath and beyond, in the mid- 
 most depths of the forest, a sound, as of the 
 flowing tide at an immeasurable distance, rose, 
 sighed through the grey silences, and sank into 
 their drowning depths. 
 
 At noon, a slight stir was, visible here and 
 there. Two crows drifted inky-black against 
 the slate-grey firmament. A} kestrel, hovering 
 over a rocky wilderness, screamed, and with 
 a sudden slant cut the heavy air, skimmed 
 the ground, breasted the extreme summits of 
 the pines, and sailed slowly westward, silent, 
 apparently motionless, till absorbed into the 
 gloom. A slight mist rose from a stagnant 
 place. On a black moorland tract, miles away 
 from where the forest began, two small, gaunt 
 creatures, human males, stooped continually, 
 tearing at the peaty soil. 
 
 By the fourth hour from noon, there was 
 nothing audible ; not a thing visible, save the 
 black-gloom overhead, the green-gloom of the
 
 Tragic Landscapes. 127 
 
 vast pine-forest, the grey sterility of the hills, to 
 the north. 
 
 Towards the fifth hour, a sickly white flame 
 darted forkedly out of the slate-hued sky to the 
 northwest. There was no wind, no stir of any 
 kind, following. The same breathless silence 
 brooded everywhere. 
 
 Close upon the sixth hour a strange shivering 
 went through a portion of the forest. It was as 
 though the flank of a monster quivered. A con- 
 fused rustling arose, ebbed, died away. Thrice 
 at long intervals, the narrow, jagged flame 
 lunged and thrust, as a needle thridding the two 
 horizons. At a vast distance a wail, a murmur, 
 a faint vanishing cry, might be heard, like the 
 humming of a gnat. It was the wind, tearing 
 and lashing the extreme frontiers, and screaming 
 in its blind fury. 
 
 A raven came flying rapidly out of the west. 
 Again and again in its undeviating flight its 
 hoarse croak re-echoed as though it fell clanging 
 from ledge to brazen ledge. At an immense 
 height, three eagles, no larger than three pin- 
 points, winging their way at terrific speed, 
 seemed to crawl like ants along the blank 
 slope of a summitless and endless wall.
 
 128 Tragic Landscapes. 
 
 In the southwest the greyness became 
 involved. Dark masses bulged forward. A 
 gigantic hand appeared to mould them from 
 behind. The ponderous avalanches of rain 
 were suspended, lifted, whirled this way and 
 that, fused, divided, and swung low over the 
 earth like horrible balloons of death. 
 
 Furtive eddies of wind moved stealthily among 
 the forest-trees. The pines were motionless, 
 though a thin song ascended spirally the colum- 
 nar boles ; but the near beeches were flooded with 
 innumerable green wavelets of unquiet light. 
 A constant tremor lived suspensive in ever- 
 birk, in every rowan. On the hither frontier of 
 the pines a few scattered oaks lifted their 
 upper boughs, lifted and lapsed, slowly lifted 
 again and slowly lapsed. These were silent, 
 though a confused murmur as of bewildered 
 bees came from the foliage midway and beneath. 
 Wan green tongues of air licked the fronds of 
 the myriad bracken. Swift arrows of wind, 
 narrow as reeds, darted through the fern and 
 over the patches of grass, leaving for a moment 
 a wake of white light. By a pool the bulrushes 
 seemed to strain their tufty heads one way, 
 listening ; the tall, slim fairy-lances beside them 
 continually trembled.
 
 Tragic Landscapes. 129 
 
 Suddenly there was an obscure noise upon the 
 hills. Far off, a linn roared hoarsely, whose 
 voice had been muffled before. Many streams 
 and hill-torrents called. Then the mountain- 
 wind came rushing down the strath, with inco- 
 herent shouts and a confused tumult of tidings. 
 Every green thing moved one way, or stood 
 back upon itself as a javelin-thrower. In the 
 tragic silence of the forest and the moorland 
 the pulse of the earth beat slowly, heavily. A 
 suffocating grip was at the brown heart. 
 
 But the moment the hill-wind dashed through 
 the swaying rowans and beeches, and leaped into 
 the forest, a hurricane of cries arose. Every 
 tree called to its neighbour; each pine shouted, 
 screamed, moaned, or chanted a wild song ; the 
 more ancient lifted a deep voice, mocking and 
 defiant. For now they knew what was coming. 
 
 The sea-tempest was climbing up over the 
 back of the sun, and had already, with rolling 
 thunders and frightful sulphurous blasts, with 
 flame of many lightnings and vast volumes of 
 cloud holding seas of rain and gravelly aval- 
 anches of hail, attacked, prostrated, trampled 
 upon, mutilated, slain and twice slain, the far- 
 off battalions of the forest ! This was what the 
 9
 
 130 Tragic Landscapes. 
 
 herald of the hills proclaimed, as with panic 
 haste he leaped through the woods screaming 
 wild warnings as he went. 
 
 For leagues and leagues he swept onward, 
 then, suddenly swerving, raced up a rock- 
 bastioned height that rose in the forest For 
 a while he swung suspensive, then, swaying 
 blindly, fell back stumbling, and, as one delir- 
 ious, staggered to the forest again, and once 
 more flew like a flying deer, though no longer 
 forward but by the way he had come. 
 
 " The Tempest ! The Tempest ! " he 
 screamed: "The Tempest conies!" 
 
 Soon all the forest knew what he had seen. 
 Distant lines of great trees were being mowed 
 down as by a scythe ; gigantic pines were being 
 torn from the ground and hurled hither and 
 thither ; the Black Loch had become a flood ; 
 the river had swollen into a frightful spate, and 
 raged and ravened like a beast of prey. He had 
 seen cattle fall, slain by lightning ; a stag had 
 crashed downwards as he leapt from boulder to 
 boulder; the huts of some humans had been 
 laid low, and the sprawling creatures beneath 
 been killed or mutilated; sheep had been 
 dashed up against stone-dykes and left lifeless-
 
 Tragic Landscapes. 131 
 
 The air in places was thick and dark with 
 whirling grouse, snipe, wild-doves, lapwings, 
 crows, and a dust of small birds. 
 
 A moan went up from the forest, a new 
 sound, horrible, full of awe, of terror, of despair. 
 In the blank grey hollows of the mountains to 
 the north the echo of this was as though the 
 Grave were opened, and the Dead moaned. 
 
 Young and old moved near to each other, 
 with clinging boughs, and tremulous sprays and 
 branches. The fluttering leaves made a con- 
 fused babble of tongues. The males swirled 
 their upper boughs continuously, inclining their 
 bodies now this way and now that. The ancient 
 pines spread their boles as far as they could 
 reach, murmuring low to their green offspring, 
 and to the tender offspring of these. Sighs and 
 sobs, swift admonitions, and sudden, passionate 
 heart-break cries resounded. Death would be 
 among them in a few moments ; all could not 
 survive, many must perish, patriarch and sap- 
 ling, proud bridegroom and swaying bride, the 
 withered and the strong. 
 
 From the extreme edge there was a constant 
 emigration of living things. The birds sank 
 among the bracken.
 
 132 Tragic Landscapes. 
 
 Some deer, three human males and a female, 
 some foxes and stoats came out into the open, 
 hesitated, and slowly retreated. 
 
 The first thunder-chariot now hurtled over- 
 head. The charioteer leaned low, and thrust 
 hither and thither with his frightful lance. A 
 deer was killed, also the human female and one 
 of the males. A scorching smell came from a 
 spruce-fir ; the next moment it hung in tongues 
 of flame. 
 
 Then silence: awful, appalling. Suddenly, 
 the heaven opened in fire ; the earth became a 
 hollow globe of brass wherein an excruciating 
 tumult whirled ruin against ruin. The howl of 
 desolation seemed to belch at once from the 
 entrails of the mountains and from the bowels 
 of the bursting sky. 
 
 The Tempest was come !
 
 Tragic Landscapes. 133 
 
 II. 
 
 MIST. 
 
 A DENSE white mist lay upon the hills, cloth- 
 ing them from summit to base in a dripping 
 shroud. The damp spongy peat everywhere 
 sweated forth its overwelling ooze. Not a living 
 thing seemed to haunt the desolation, though 
 once or twice a faint cry from a bewildered 
 curlew came stumblingly through the sodden 
 atmosphere. 
 
 There was neither day nor night, but only 
 the lifeless gloom of the endless, weary rain, 
 thin, soaking, full of the chill and silence of 
 the grave. 
 
 Hour lapsed into hour, till at last the gradual 
 deepening of the mists betokened the dreary 
 end of the dreary day. Soaked, boggy, treacher- 
 ous as were the drenched and pool-haunted 
 moors, no living thing, not even the restless 
 hill-sheep, fared across them. But towards the 
 late afternoon a stooping figure passed from
 
 134 Tragic Landscapes. 
 
 gloom to gloom, wan, silent, making the awful- 
 ness of the hour and the place take on a new 
 desolation. 
 
 As the shadow stole slowly across the moor, 
 it stopped ever and anon. It was a man. The 
 heavy moisture on his brow from the rain pass- 
 ing through his matted hair mixed with the 
 great drops of sweat that gathered there contin- 
 ually. For as often as he stopped he heard 
 footsteps anigh, footsteps in that lonely deserted 
 place, sometimes following, sometimes beyond 
 him, sometimes almost at his side. Yet it was 
 not for the sound of those following feet that 
 he stopped, but because on the rain-matted 
 cranberry-bushes or upon the glistening thyme 
 or on the sodden grass, he saw now bloody 
 foot-marks, now marks of bloody fingers. When 
 he looked, there was nothing below or beyond 
 him but the dull sheen of the rain-soaked herb- 
 age ; when he looked again, a bloody footstep, 
 a bloody finger-mark. 
 
 But at last the following feet were heard no 
 more, the bloody imprints were no more seen. 
 The man stood beside a deep tarn, and was 
 looking into it, as the damned in hell look into 
 their souls.
 
 Tragic Landscapes. 135 
 
 At times a faint, almost inaudible sigh 
 breathed behind the mist in one direction. It 
 was the hill-wind stirring among the scaurs and 
 corries at a great height on a mountain to the 
 north. Here and there, a slight drifting of 
 the vapour disclosed a shadowy boulder : then 
 the veils would lapse and intervolve, and the 
 old impermeable obscurity prevail. 
 
 It was in one of these fugitive intervals that 
 a stag, standing upon an overhanging rock, 
 beheld another, a rival with whom it had fought 
 almost to the death the day before. This second 
 stag stood among the wet bracken, his ears now 
 laid back, now extended quiveringly, his nos- 
 trils vibrating, as he strove to smell the some- 
 thing that moved through the dense mist by 
 the tarn. 
 
 The upper stag tautened his haunches. His 
 lips and nostrils curled, and left his yellow teeth 
 agleam. The next moment he had launched 
 himself upon his enemy. There was a crash, a 
 sound as of a wind-lashed sea, sharp cries and 
 panting breaths, groans. Then a long silence. 
 Later, a single faint, perishing bleat came through 
 the mist from the fern far up upon the hill. 
 
 The restless wind that was amid the summits
 
 136 Tragic Landscapes. 
 
 died. Night crept up from glen and strath; 
 the veils of mist grew more and more obscure, 
 more dark. At last, from the extreme peaks 
 to where the torrent crawled into hollows in 
 the sterile valley, there was a uniform pall of 
 blackness. 
 
 In the chill, soaking silence not a thing 
 stirred, not a sound was audible.
 
 Tragic Landscapes, 137 
 
 III. 
 
 SUMMER-SLEEP. 
 
 THE high-road sinuated like a white snake, 
 along the steeper slope of the valley. The vast 
 expanse of the lowland lay basking in the July 
 sunlight. In all directions woodlands, mostly 
 of planes and oaks, swelled or lapsed in green 
 billows. 
 
 The cuckoo had gone ; the thrush was silent ; 
 blackbird and shilfa and linnet were now song- 
 less. But every here and there a lark still filled 
 the summer air, as with the cool spray of aerial 
 music ; in the grain the corncrakes called ; and, 
 in shadowy places, in the twilight, the churring 
 of a belated fern-owl was still a midsummer 
 sweetness upon the ear. 
 
 The gloom of July was upon the trees. The 
 oaks dreamed of green water. The limes were 
 already displaying fugitive yellow banners. A 
 red flush dusked the green-gloom of the syca- 
 mores. But by far the greater mass of the
 
 138 Tragic Landscapes. 
 
 woodlands consisted of planes ; and these were 
 now of a black green darker than that of north- 
 wind waves on a day of storm. The meadows, 
 too, lay in the shadow, as it were, even when 
 the sun-flood poured upon them. 
 
 From the low ranges to the south a faint 
 wind drifted leisurely northward. The sky was 
 of a vivid blue, up whose invisible azure ledges 
 a few rounded clouds, dazzling white or grey as 
 swan's-down, climbed imperceptibly. 
 
 In the air was a pleasant murmur of the 
 green world. The wild-bee and the wasp, the 
 dragon-fly and the gnat, wrought everywhere a 
 humming undertone. From copse and garth 
 and water-meadow suspired an audible breath. 
 
 The lowing of kine from many steadings 
 blended with the continuous murmur of a weir, 
 where the river curved under ancient alders and 
 slipped into a dense green shaw of birches 
 beyond an old water-mill, whose vast black 
 wheel, jagged and broken, swung slowly, fan- 
 ning the hot air so that it made a haze as of 
 faint-falling rain. 
 
 Peace was upon the land, and beauty. The 
 languor of dream gave the late summer a love- 
 liness that was all its own, as of a fair woman,
 
 Tragic Landscapes. 139 
 
 asleep, dreaming of the lover who has not long 
 left her, and the touch of whose lips is still 
 warm upon her mouth and hair. 
 
 Along the high-road, where it made a sweep 
 southwestward, and led to a small hamlet 
 of thatched, white-walled cottages, three men 
 walked. The long fantastic shadows which 
 they cast were pale blue upon the chalky dust 
 of the road, and leaped and contracted and slid 
 stealthily forward with wearisome, monotonous 
 energy. Two of the men were tall and fair; 
 one dark, loosely built, and of a smaller and 
 slighter build. 
 
 " There is my home," said the tallest way- 
 farer suddenly, after what had been a long 
 silence ; and as he spoke he pointed to a small 
 square house set among orchard-trees, a stone's 
 throw from the hamlet. 
 
 " It is a beautiful place," replied his comrade, 
 slowly, " and I envy you." 
 
 " Yes, indeed," added the other. 
 
 " I am glad you think so," the owner of the 
 house answered quietly. 
 
 But the three shadows leapt to one side, 
 moved with fantastic steps, and seemed con- 
 vulsed with laughter.
 
 140 Tragic Landscapes. 
 
 Perhaps the tall shiver-grass that rose by the 
 wayside out of the garth of campions and pur- 
 ple scabious could catch the attenuated sounds 
 and understand the speech of the shadows. If 
 so, it would know that the taller of the two 
 strangers said in his heart : 
 
 " There is something of awe, of terror about 
 that house ; nay, the whole land here is under a 
 tragic gloom. I should die here, stifled. I am 
 glad I go on the morrow." 
 
 It would know that the smaller and darker of 
 the two strangers said in his heart : 
 
 " It may all be beautiful and peaceful, but 
 something tragic hides behind this flooding sun- 
 light, behind these dark woodlands, down by 
 the water-course there, past the water-mill, up 
 by that house among the orchard-trees." 
 
 It would know that the tallest of the three 
 men, he who lived in that square cottage by the 
 pleasant hamlet, said in his heart : 
 
 " It may be that the gate of hell is hidden 
 there among the grass, or beneath the founda- 
 tions of my house. Would God I were free ! 
 O my God, madness and death ! " 
 
 Then, after another long silence, as the three 
 wayfarers drew near, the dark man murmured
 
 Tragic Landscapes. 141 
 
 his pleasure at the comely hamlet, at the quiet 
 land lying warm in the afternoon glow. And 
 his companion said that rest and coolness would 
 be welcome, and doubly so in so fair and peace- 
 ful a home. And the tallest of the three, he 
 who owned the house in the orchard, laughed 
 blithely. And all three moved onward, with 
 quickened steps, through the hot, sweet, dusty 
 afternoon, golden now with the waning sun-glow.
 
 IV 
 
 THE ANOINTED MAN. 
 THE DAN-NAN-R6N. 
 GREEN BRANCHES.
 
 The Anointed Man. 
 
 OF the seven Achannas sons of Robert 
 Achanna of Achanna in Galloway, self-exiled in 
 the far north because of a bitter feud with his 
 kindred who lived upon Eilanmore in the 
 Summer Isles, there was not one who was not, 
 in more or less degree, or at some time or other, 
 fey. 
 
 Doubtless I shall have occasion to allude to 
 one and all again, and certainly to the eldest 
 and youngest ; for they were the strangest folk I 
 have known or met anywhere in the Celtic 
 lands, from the sea-pastures of the Solway 
 to the kelp-strewn beaches of Lewis. Upon 
 James, the seventh son, the doom of his people 
 fell last and most heavily. Some day I may 
 tell the full story of his strange life and tragic 
 undoing, and of his piteous end. As it hap-
 
 146 The Anointed Man. 
 
 pened, I knew best the eldest and youngest 
 of the brothers, Alison and James. Of the 
 others, Robert, Allan, William, Marcus, and 
 Gloom, none save the last-named survives, 
 if peradventure he does, or has been seen of 
 man for many years past. Of Gloom (strange 
 and unaccountable name, which used to terrify 
 me, the more so as by the savagery of fate it 
 was the name of all names suitable for Robert 
 Achanna's sixth son) I know nothing beyond 
 the fact that ten years or more ago he was 
 a Jesuit priest in Rome, a bird of passage, 
 whence come and whither bound no inquiries 
 of mine could discover. Two years ago a rela- 
 tive told me that Gloom was dead, that he had 
 been slain by some Mexican noble in an old 
 city of Hispaniola beyond the seas. Doubtless 
 the news was founded on truth, though I have 
 ever a vague unrest when I think of Gloom, as 
 though he were travelling hitherward, as 
 though his feet, on some urgent errand, were 
 already white with the dust of the road that 
 leads to my house. 
 
 But now I wish to speak only of Alison 
 Achanna. He was a friend whom I loved, 
 though he was a man of close on forty and I a
 
 The Anointed Man. 147 
 
 girl less than half his years. We had much in 
 common, and I never knew any one more com- 
 panionable, for all that he was called " Silent 
 Ally." He was tall, gaunt, loosely-built. His 
 eyes were of that misty blue which smoke takes 
 when it rises in the woods. I used to think 
 them like the tarns that lay amid the canna and 
 gale-surrounded swamps in Uist, where I was 
 wont to dream as a child. 
 
 I had often noticed the light on his face 
 when he smiled, a light of such serene joy as 
 young mothers have sometimes over the cradles 
 of their firstborn. But, for some reason, I had 
 never wondered about it, not even when I heard 
 and understood the half-contemptuous, half- 
 reverent mockery with which not only Alison's 
 brothers but even his father at times used 
 towards him. Once, I remember, I was puzzled 
 when, on a bleak day in a stormy August, I 
 overheard Gloom say, angrily and scoffingly, 
 " There goes the Anointed Man ! " I looked ; 
 but all I could see was, that, despite the dreary 
 cold, despite the ruined harvest, despite the 
 rotting potato-crop, Alison walked slowly on- 
 ward, smiling, and with glad eyes brooding 
 upon the grey lands around and beyond him.
 
 148 The Anointed Man. 
 
 It was nearly a year thereafter I remember 
 the date, because it was that of my last visit to 
 Eilanmore that I understood more fully. I 
 was walking westward with Alison, towards 
 sundown. The light was upon his face as 
 though it came from within ; and when I 
 looked again, half in awe, I saw that there was 
 no glamour out of the west, for the evening 
 was dull and threatening rain. He was in sor- 
 row. Three months before, his brothers, Allan 
 and William, had been drowned ; a month later, 
 his brother Robert had sickened, and now sat 
 in the ingle from morning till the covering 
 of the peats, a skeleton almost, shivering, and 
 morosely silent, with large staring eyes. On 
 the large bed, in the room above the kitchen, 
 old Robert Achanna lay, stricken with paralysis 
 It would have been unendurable for me, but for 
 Alison and James, and, above all, for my loved 
 girl-friend, Anne Gillespie, Achanna's niece and 
 the sunshine of his gloomy household. 
 
 As I walked with Alison I was conscious of 
 a well-nigh intolerable depression. The house 
 we had left was so mournful ; the bleak, sodden 
 pastures were so mournful ; so mournful was 
 the stony place we were crossing, silent but for
 
 The Anointed Man. 149 
 
 the thin crying of the curlews ; and above all 
 so mournful was the sound of the ocean as, un- 
 seen, it moved sobbingly round the isle, so 
 beyond words distressing was all this to me that 
 I stopped abruptly, meaning to go no farther, 
 but to return to the house, where, at least, there 
 was warmth, and where Anne would sing for me 
 as she spun. 
 
 But when I looked up into my companion's 
 face I saw in truth the light that shone from 
 within. His eyes were upon a forbidding 
 stretch of ground, where the blighted potatoes 
 rotted among a wilderness of round skull-white 
 stones. I remember them still, these strange 
 far-blue eyes ; lamps of quiet joy, lamps of 
 peace, they seemed to me. 
 
 " Are you looking at Achnacarn ? " (as the 
 tract was called), I asked, in what I am sure 
 was a whisper. 
 
 " Yes," replied Alison, slowly ; " I am look- 
 ing. It is beautiful, beautiful; O God, how 
 beautiful is this lovely world ! " 
 
 I know not what made me act so, but I threw 
 myself on a heathery ridge close by, and broke 
 out into convulsive sobbings. 
 
 Alison stooped, lifted me in his strong arms,
 
 150 The Anointed Man. 
 
 and soothed me with soft caressing touches and 
 quieting words. 
 
 " Tell me, my fawn, what is it ? What is the 
 trouble ? " he asked again and again. 
 
 " It is you it is you, Alison," I managed to 
 say coherently at last ; " it terrifies me to hear 
 you speak as you did a little ago. You must be 
 fey. Why, why, do you call that hateful, hideous 
 field beautiful on this dreary day and, 
 and after all that has happened, oh, Alison ? ' 
 
 At this, I remember, he took his plaid and 
 put it upon the wet heather, and then drew me 
 thither, and seated himself and me beside him. 
 
 " Is it not beautiful, my fawn ? " he asked, 
 with tears in his eyes. Then, without waiting 
 for my answer, he said quietly, " Listen, dear, 
 and I will tell you." 
 
 He was strangely still, breathless he seemed 
 to me, for a minute or more. Then he spoke : 
 
 " I was little more than a child, a boy just in 
 my teens, when something happened, something 
 that came down the Rainbow- Arches of Cathair- 
 Slth." He paused here, perhaps to see if I 
 followed, which I did, familiar as I was with all 
 fairy-lore. " I was out upon the heather, in the 
 time when the honey oozes in the bells and
 
 The Anointed Man. 151 
 
 cups. I had always loved the island and the 
 sea. Perhaps I was foolish, but I was so glad 
 with my joy that golden day that I threw myself 
 on the ground and kissed the hot, sweet-ling, and 
 put my hands and arms into it, sobbing the 
 while with my vague, strange yearning. At last 
 I lay still, nerveless, with my eyes closed. Sud- 
 denly I was aware that two tiny hands had come 
 up through the spires of the heather, and were 
 pressing something soft and fragrant upon my 
 eyelids. When I opened them, I could see 
 nothing unfamiliar. No one was visible. But 
 I heard a whisper : ' Arise and go away from 
 this place at once ; and this night do not ven- 
 ture out, lest evil befall you.' So I rose, trem- 
 bling, and went home. Thereafter I was the 
 same, and yet not the same. Never could I see, 
 as they saw, what my father and brothers or 
 the islefolk looked upon as ugly or dreary. 
 My father was wroth with me many times, and 
 called me a fool. Whenever my eyes fell upon 
 those waste and desolated spots, they seemed to 
 me passing fair, radiant with lovely light. At 
 last my father grew so bitter that, mocking me 
 the while, he bade me go to the towns, and see 
 there the squalor and sordid hideousness wherein
 
 152 The Anointed Man. 
 
 men dwelled. But thus it was with me : in the 
 places they call slums, and among the smoke of 
 factories, and the grime of destitution, I could 
 see all that other men saw, only as vanishing 
 shadows. What I saw was lovely, beautiful 
 with strange glory, and the faces of men and 
 women were sweet and pure, and their souls 
 were white. So, weary and bewildered with 
 my unwilling quest, I came back to Eilanmore. 
 And on the day of my home-coming, Morag 
 was there, Morag of the Falls. She turned to 
 my father, and called him blind and foolish. 
 ' He has the white light upon his brows,' she 
 said of me ; ' I can see it, like the flicker-light 
 in a wave when the wind 's from the south in 
 thunder-weather. He has been touched with 
 the Fairy Ointment. The Guid Folk know 
 him. It will be thus with him till the day of 
 his death, if a duinshee can die, being already 
 a man dead yet born anew. He upon whom 
 the Fairy Ointment has been laid must see all 
 that is ugly and hideous and dreary and bitter 
 through a glamour of beauty. Thus it hath 
 been since the Mhic-Alpine ruled from sea to 
 sea, and thus is it with the man Alison your 
 Son.'
 
 The Anointed Man. 153 
 
 " That is all, my fawn, and that is why my 
 brothers, when they are angry, sometimes call 
 me the Anointed Man." 
 
 "That is all." Yes perhaps. But oh, Alison 
 Achanna, how often have I thought of that 
 most precious treasure you found in the 
 heather, when the bells were sweet with honey- 
 ooze ! Did the wild bees know of it ? Would 
 that I could hear the soft hum of their gauzy 
 wings ! 
 
 Who of us would not barter the best of all 
 our possessions and some there are who 
 would surrender all to have one touch laid 
 upon the eyelids, one touch of the Fairy Oint- 
 ment? But the place is far, and the hour is 
 hidden. No man may seek that for which there 
 can be no quest. 
 
 Only the wild bees know of it, but I think 
 they must be the bees of Magh-Mell. And 
 there no man that liveth may wayfare yet.
 
 The D&n-nan-Ron. 
 
 WHEN Anne Gillespie, that was my friend in 
 Eilanmore, left the island after the death of her 
 uncle, the old man Robert Achanna, it was to 
 go far west. 
 
 Among the men of the Outer Isles who for 
 three summers past had been at the fishing off 
 Eilanmore there was one named Manus Mac- 
 Codrum. He was a fine lad to see, but though 
 most of the fisher-folk of the Lewis and North 
 Uist are fair, either with reddish hair and grey 
 eyes, or blue-eyed and yellow-haired, he was of 
 a brown skin with dark hair and dusky brown 
 eyes. He was, however, as unlike to the dark 
 Celts of Arran and the Inner Hebrides as to 
 the northmen. He came of his people, sure 
 enough. All the MacCodrums of North Uist
 
 The Dan-nan-Ron. 155 
 
 had been brown-skinned and brown-haired and 
 brown-eyed: and herein may have lain the 
 reason why, in by-gone days, this small clan 
 of Uist was known throughout the Western 
 Isles as the Sliochd nan Rdn t the offspring of 
 the Seals. 
 
 Not so tall as most of the North Uist and 
 Long Island men, Mknus MacCodrum was 
 of a fair height, and supple and strong. No 
 man was a better fisherman than he, and he 
 was well liked of his fellows, for all the morose 
 gloom that was upon him at times. He had a 
 voice as sweet as a woman's when he sang, and 
 he sang often, and knew all the old runes of the 
 islands, from the Obb of Harris to the Head of 
 Mingulay. Often, too, he chanted the beautiful 
 orain spioradail of the Catholic priests and 
 Christian Brothers of South Uist and Barra, 
 though where he lived in North Uist he was 
 the sole man who adhered to the ancient faith. 
 
 It may have been because Anne was a Catho- 
 lic too, though, sure, the Achannas were so also, 
 notwithstanding that their forebears and kindred 
 in Galloway were Protestant (and this because 
 of old Robert Achanna's love for his wife, who 
 was of the old Faith, so it is said), it may have
 
 156 The Dan-nan-R6n. 
 
 been for this reason, though I think her lover's 
 admiring eyes and soft speech and sweet sing 
 ing had more to do with it, that she pledged 
 her troth to Manus. It was a south wind 
 for him as the saying is ; for with her rippling 
 brown hair and soft, grey eyes and cream- 
 white skin, there was no comelier lass in the 
 isles. 
 
 So when Achanna was laid to his long rest, 
 and there was none left upon Eilanmore save 
 only his three youngest sons, Manus MacCodrum 
 sailed north-eastward across the Minch to take 
 home his bride. Of the four eldest sons, Ali- 
 son had left Eilanmore some months before his 
 father died, and sailed westward, though no one 
 knew whither or for what end or for how long, 
 and no word had been brought from him, nor 
 was he ever seen again in the island which had 
 come to be called Eilan-nan-Allmharachain, the 
 Isle of the Strangers ; Allan and William had 
 been drowned in a wild gale in the Minch ; and 
 Robert had died of the white fever, that deadly 
 wasting disease which is the scourge of the 
 isles. Marcus was now " Eilanmore," and lived 
 there with Gloom and Sheumais, all three un- 
 married, though it was rumoured among the
 
 The Dn-nan-R6n. 157 
 
 neighbouring islanders that each loved Marsail 
 nic Ailpean, 1 in Eilean-Rona of the Summer Isles 
 hard by the coast of Sutherland. 
 
 When Manus asked Anne to go with him she 
 agreed. The three brothers were ill-pleased at 
 this, for apart from their not wishing their cousin 
 to go so far away, they did not want to lose her, 
 as she not only cooked for them and did all that 
 a woman does, including spinning and weaving, 
 but was most sweet and fair to see, and in the 
 long winter nights sang by the hour together, 
 while Gloom played strange wild airs upon his 
 feadan, a kind of oaten pipe or flute. 
 
 She loved him, I know; but there was this 
 reason also for her going, that she was afraid of 
 Gloom. Often upon the moor or on the hill 
 she turned and hastened home, because she 
 heard the lilt and fall of that feadan. It was 
 an eerie thing to her, to be going through the 
 twilight when she thought the three men were 
 in the house, smoking after their supper, and 
 suddenly to hear beyond and coming towards 
 her the shrill song of that oaten flute, playing 
 
 1 Marsail nic Ailpean is the Gaelic of which an En- 
 glish translation would be Marjory MacAlpine. Nic is a 
 contraction for nighean mhic, " daughter of the line of."
 
 158 The D^n-nan-R6n, 
 
 " The Dance of the Dead," or " The Flow and 
 Ebb," or " The Shadow-Reel." 
 
 That, sometimes at least, he knew she was 
 there was clear to her, because, as she stole 
 rapidly through the tangled fern and gale, she 
 would hear a mocking laugh follow her like a 
 leaping thing. 
 
 Mknus was not there on the night when she 
 told Marcus and his brothers that she was going. 
 He was in the haven on board the Luath, with 
 his two mates, he singing in the moonshine as 
 all three sat mending their fishing gear. 
 
 After the supper was done, the three brothers 
 sat smoking and talking over an offer that had 
 been made about some Shetland sheep. For a 
 time, Anne watched them in silence. They were 
 not like brothers, she thought. Marcus, tall, 
 broad-shouldered, with yellow hair and strangely 
 dark blue-black eyes and black eyebrows ; stern, 
 with a weary look on his sun-brown face. The 
 light from the peats glinted upon the tawny curve 
 of thick hair that trailed from his upper lip, for 
 he had the caisean-feusag of the Northmen. 
 Gloom, slighter of build, dark of hue and hair, but 
 with hairless face ; with thin, white, long-fingered 
 hands that had ever a nervous motion, as though
 
 The Dan-nan-R6n. 159 
 
 they were tide-wrack. There was always a frown 
 on the centre of his forehead, even when he 
 smiled with his thin lips and dusky, unbetraying 
 eyes. He looked what he was, the brain of the 
 Achannas. Not only did he have the English 
 as though native to that tongue, but could and 
 did read strange unnecessary books. Moreover, 
 he was the only son of Robert Achanna to whom 
 the old man had imparted his store of learning, 
 for Achanna had been a schoolmaster in his 
 youth, in Galloway, and he had intended Gloom 
 for the priesthood. His voice, too, was low and 
 clear, but cold as pale-green water running under 
 ice. As for Sheumais, he was more like Marcus 
 than Gloom, though not so fair. He had the 
 same brown hair and shadowy hazel eyes, the 
 same pale and smooth face, with something of 
 the same intent look which characterised the 
 long-time missing, and probably dead, eldest 
 brother, Alison. He, too, was tall and gaunt 
 On Sheumais' face there was that indescribable, 
 as to some of course imperceptible look, which 
 is indicated by the phrase, "the dusk of the 
 shadow," though few there are who know 
 what they mean by that, or, knowing, are fain to 
 say.
 
 160 The D^n-nan-R6n. 
 
 Suddenly, and without any word or reason for 
 it, Gloom turned and spoke to her. 
 
 " Well, Anne, and what is it ? " 
 
 " I did not speak, Gloom." 
 
 " True for you, mo cailinn. But it 's about to 
 speak you were." 
 
 " Well, and that is true. Marcus, and you 
 Gloom, and you Sheumais, I have that to tell 
 which you will not be altogether glad for the 
 hearing. 'T is about about me and and 
 Manus." 
 
 There was no reply at first. The three broth- 
 ers sat looking at her like the kye at a stranger 
 on the moorland. There was a deepening of the 
 frown on Gloom's brow, but when Anne looked 
 at him his eyes fell and dwelt in the shadow at 
 his feet. Then Marcus spoke in a low voice. 
 
 " Is it Manus MacCodrum you will be mean- 
 ing?" 
 
 "Ay, sure." 
 
 Again, silence. Gloom did not lift his eyes, 
 and Sheumais was now staring at the peats. 
 Marcus shifted uneasily. 
 
 " And what will Manus MacCodrum be 
 wanting ? " 
 
 " Sure, Marcus, you know well what I mean.
 
 The Dan-nan-Ron. 161 
 
 Why do you make this thing hard for me ? 
 There is but one thing he would come here 
 wanting. And he has asked me if I will go 
 with him; and I have said yes; and if you are 
 not willing that he come again with the minis- 
 ter, or that we go across to the kirk in Berneray 
 of Uist in the Sound of Harris, then I will not 
 stay under this roof another night, but will go 
 away from Eilamore at sunrise in the Luath, 
 that is now in the haven. And that is for the 
 hearing and knowing, Marcus and Gloom and 
 Sheumais ! " 
 
 Once more, silence followed her speaking. It 
 was broken in a strange way. Gloom slipped 
 his feadan into his hands, and so to his mouth. 
 The clear, cold notes of the flute filled the flame- 
 lit room. It was as though white polar birds 
 were drifting before the coming of snow. 
 
 The notes slid into a wild, remote air: cold 
 moonlight on the dark o' the sea, it was. It 
 was the " D&n-nan-Rbn" 
 
 Anne flushed, trembled, and then abruptly 
 rose. As she leaned on her clenched right hand 
 upon the table, the light of the peats showed 
 that her eyes were aflame. 
 
 " Why do you play that, Gloom Achanna ? "
 
 162 The Dan-nan-R6n. 
 
 The man finished the bar, then blew into the 
 oaten pipe, before, just glancing at the girl, he 
 replied : 
 
 " And what harm will there be in that, Anna- 
 ban?" 
 
 " You know it is harm. That is the ' Dan- 
 nan-R&n'!" 
 
 " Ay, and what then, Anna-ban ? " 
 
 " What then ? Are you thinking I don't 
 know what you mean by playing the ' Song o' 
 the Seals'?" 
 
 With an abrupt gesture Gloom put fatfeadan 
 aside. As he did so, he rose. 
 
 "See here, Anne," he began roughly, when 
 Marcus intervened. 
 
 " That will do just now, Gloom. Anne-a- 
 ghraidh, do you mean that you are going to do 
 this thing ? " 
 
 " Ay, sure." 
 
 " Do you know why Gloom played the ' Dan- 
 nan-R&n'?" 
 
 " It was a cruel thing." 
 
 " You know what is said in the isles about 
 about this or that man, who is under gheasan, 
 who is spell-bound and and about the 
 seals and "
 
 The Dn-nan-R6n. 163 
 
 "Yes, Marcus, it is knowing it that I am: 
 * Tha iad a? cantuinn gur h-e daoine fo gheasan 
 a th 1 antts no rein.'" 
 
 " ' They say that seals? " he repeated slowly, 
 " ' They say that seals are men under magic 
 spells' And have you ever pondered that thing, 
 Anne, my cousin ? " 
 
 " I am knowing well what you mean." 
 
 " Then you will know that the MacCodrums 
 of North Uist are called the Sliochd-nan-Rdn f " 
 
 " I have heard." 
 
 " And would you be for marrying a man that 
 is of the race of the beasts, and that himself 
 knows what geas means, and may any day go 
 back to his people ? " 
 
 " Ah, now, Marcus, sure it is making a mock 
 of me you are. Neither you nor any here 
 believes that foolish thing. How can a man 
 born of a woman be a seal, even though his 
 sinnsear were the offspring of the sea-people, 
 which is not a saying I am believing either, 
 though it may be ; and not that it matters much, 
 whatever, about the far-back forbears." 
 
 Marcus frowned darkly, and at first made 
 no response. At last he answered, speaking 
 sullenly.
 
 164 The Dn-nan-R6n. 
 
 "You may be believing this or you maybe 
 believing that, Anna-nic-Gilleasbuig, but two 
 things are as well known as that the east wind 
 brings the blight and the west wind the rain. 
 And one is this : that long ago a Seal-man 
 wedded a woman of North Uist, and that he or 
 his son was called Neil MacCodrum ; and that 
 the sea-fever of the seal was in the blood of his 
 line ever after. And this is the other: that 
 twice within the memory of living folk, a Mac- 
 Codrum has taken upon himself the form of a 
 seal, and has so met his death, once Neil Mac- 
 Codrum of Ru' Tormaid, and once Anndra 
 MacCodrum of Berneray in the Sound. There's 
 talk of others, but these are known of us all. 
 And you will not be forgetting now that Neil- 
 donn was the grandfather, and that Anndra 
 was the brother of the father of Manus Mac- 
 Codrum?" 
 
 " I am not caring what you say, Marcus. It 
 Is all foam of the sea." 
 
 " There 's no foam without wind or tide, 
 Anne, an' it 's a dark tide that will be bearing 
 you away to Uist, and a black wind that will be 
 blowing far away behind the East, the wind that 
 will be carrying his death-cry to your ears."
 
 The Dan-nan-R6n. 165 
 
 The girl shuddered. The brave spirit in her, 
 however, did not quail. 
 
 " Well, so be it. To each his fate. But, seal 
 or no seal, I am going to wed Manus MacCo- 
 drum, who is a man as good as any here, and a 
 true man at that, and the man I love, and that 
 will be my man, God willing, the praise be 
 His!" 
 
 Again Gloom took up the feadan, and sent a 
 few cold, white notes floating through the hot 
 room, breaking, suddenly, into the wild, fantastic, 
 opening air of the " Dan-nan-R6n. " 
 
 With a low cry and passionate gesture Anne 
 sprang forward, snatched the oat-flute from his 
 grasp, and would have thrown it in the fire. 
 Marcus held her in an iron grip, however. 
 
 " Don't you be minding Gloom, Anne," he 
 said quietly, as he took the feadan from her 
 hand and handed it to his brother: "sure he's 
 only telling you in his way what I am telling 
 you in mine." 
 
 She shook herself free, and moved to the 
 other side of the table. On the opposite wall 
 hung the dirk which had belonged to old Ach- 
 anna. This she unfastened. Holding it in her 
 right hand, she faced the three men.
 
 166 The Dcin-nan-R6n. 
 
 " On the cross of the dirk I swear I will be 
 the woman of Manus MacCodrum." 
 
 The brothers made no response. They 
 looked at her fixedly. 
 
 " And by the cross of the dirk I swear that 
 if any man come between me and Manus, this 
 dirk will be for his remembering in a certain 
 hour of the day of the days." 
 
 As she spoke, she looked meaningly at 
 Gloom, whom she feared more than Marcus or 
 Sheumais. 
 
 " And by the cross of the dirk I swear that if 
 evil come to Manus, this dirk will have another 
 sheath, and that will be my milkless breast ; 
 and by that token I now throw the old sheath 
 in the fire." 
 
 As she finished, she threw the sheath on to 
 the burning peats. Gloom quietly lifted it, 
 brushed off the sparks of flame as though they 
 were dust, and put it in his pocket. 
 
 "And by the same token, Anne," he said, 
 " your oaths will come to nought." 
 
 Rising, he made a sign to his brothers to fol- 
 low. When they were outside he told Sheumais 
 to return, and to keep Anne within, by peace if 
 possible, by force if not Briefly they discussed
 
 The Dan-nan-R6n. 167 
 
 their plans, and then separated. While Sheu- 
 mais went back, Marcus and Gloom made their 
 way to the haven. 
 
 Their black figures were visible in the moon- 
 light, but at first they were not noticed by 
 the men on board the Luath, for Manus was 
 singing. 
 
 When the isleman stopped abruptly, one of 
 his companions asked him jokingly if his song 
 had brought a seal alongside, and bid him be- 
 ware lest it was a woman of the sea-people. 
 
 He gloomed morosely, but made no reply. 
 When the others listened, they heard the wild 
 strain of the " Dan-nan-Ron " stealing through 
 the moonshine. Staring against the shore, they 
 could discern the two brothers. 
 
 "What will be the meaning of that?" asked 
 one of the men, uneasily. 
 
 " When a man comes instead of a woman," 
 answered Manus, slowly, " the young corbies 
 are astir in the nest." 
 
 So, it meant blood. Aulay MacNeil and 
 Donull MacDonull put down their gear, rose, ' 
 and stood waiting for what Manus would do. 
 
 " Ho, there ! " he cried. 
 
 " Ho-ro ! "
 
 1 68 The D4n-nan-R6n. 
 
 " What will you be wanting, Eilanmore ? " 
 
 " We are wanting a word of you, Manus Mac- 
 Codrum. Will you come ashore ? " 
 
 " If you want a word of me, you can come 
 to me." 
 
 " There is no boat here." 
 
 "I'll send the bbta-beag." 
 
 When he had spoken, Manus asked Donull, 
 the younger of his mates, a lad of seventeen, 
 to row to the shore. 
 
 "And bring back no more than one man," 
 he added, "whether it be Eilanmore himself 
 or Gloom-mhic-Achanna." 
 
 The rope of the small boat was unfastened, 
 and Donull rowed it swiftly through the moon- 
 shine. The passing of a cloud dusked the 
 shore, but they saw him throw a rope for the 
 guiding of the boat alongside the ledge of 
 the landing-place ; then the sudden darkening 
 obscured the vision. Donull must be talking, 
 they thought, for two or three minutes elapsed 
 without sign, but at last the boat put off again, 
 and with two figures only. Doubtless the lad 
 had had to argue against the coming of both 
 Marcus and Gloom. 
 
 This, in truth, was what Donull had done.
 
 The Dan-nan-R6n. 169 
 
 But while he was speaking Marcus was staring 
 fixedly beyond him. 
 
 Who is it that is there ?" he asked, " there, 
 in the stern ? " 
 
 " There is no one there." 
 
 " I thought I saw the shadow of a man." 
 
 " Then it was my shadow, Eilanmore." 
 
 Achanna turned to his brother. 
 
 " I see a man's death there in the boat." 
 
 Gloom quailed for a moment, then laughed 
 low. 
 
 " I see no death of a man sitting in the 
 boat, Marcus, but if I did I am thinking it 
 would dance to the air of the ' Dan-nan-Ron,' 
 which is more than the wraith of you or me 
 would do." 
 
 " It is not a wraith I was seeing, but the 
 death of a man." 
 
 Gloom whispered, and his brother nodded sul- 
 lenly. The next moment a heavy muffler was 
 round Donull's mouth ; and before he could 
 resist, or even guess what had happened, he was 
 on his face on the shore, bound and gagged. 
 A minute later the oars were taken by Gloom, 
 and the boat moved swiftly out of the inner 
 haven.
 
 170 The Dan-nan-R6n. 
 
 As it drew near through the gloom Manus 
 stared at it intently. 
 
 " That is not Donull that is rowing, Aulay ! " 
 
 " No : it will be Gloom Achanna, I 'm think- 
 ing." 
 
 MacCodrum started. If so, that other figure 
 at the stern was too big for Donull. The cloud 
 passed just as the boat came alongside. The 
 rope was made secure, and then Marcus and 
 Gloom sprang on board. 
 
 "Where is Donull MacDonull?" demanded 
 Manus sharply. 
 
 Marcus made no reply, so Gloom answered 
 for him. 
 
 " He has gone up to the house with a mes- 
 sage to Anne-nic-Gilleasbuig." 
 
 " And what will that message be? " 
 
 " That Manus MacCodrum has sailed away 
 from Eilanmore, and will not see her again." 
 
 MacCodrum laughed. It was a low, ugly 
 laugh. 
 
 " Sure, Gloom Achanna, you should be tak- 
 ing that feadan of yours and playing the Cod- 
 hail-nan-Pairtean, for I 'm thinkin' the crabs 
 are gathering about the rocks down below us, 
 an' laughing wi' their claws."
 
 The Dn-nan-R6n. 171 
 
 " Well, and that is a true thing," Gloom replied 
 slowly and quietly. " Yes, for sure I might, 
 as you say, be playing the 'Meeting of the 
 Crabs.' Perhaps," he added, as by a sudden 
 afterthought, "perhaps, though it is a calm 
 night, you will be hearing the comh-thonn. The 
 ' slapping of the waves ' is a better thing to be 
 hearing than the ' Meeting of the Crabs.' " 
 
 " If I hear the comh-thonn it is not in the way 
 you will be meaning, Gloom 'ic Achanna. 'T is 
 not the ' up sail and good-bye ' they will be 
 saying, but ' Home wi' the Bride.' " 
 
 Here Marcus intervened. 
 
 "Let us be having no more words, Mknus 
 MacCodrum. The girl Anne is not for you. 
 Gloom is to be her man. So get you hence. 
 If you will be going quiet, it is quiet we will 
 be. If you have your feet on this thing, then 
 you will be having that too which I saw in the 
 boat." 
 
 " And what was it you saw in the boat, 
 Achanna ? " 
 
 " The death of a man." 
 
 "So . And now" (this after a prolonged 
 silence, wherein the four men stood facing each 
 other) " is it a blood-matter if not of peace ? "
 
 172 The Dan-nan-Ron. 
 
 " Ay. Go, if you are wise. If not, 't is your 
 own death you will be making." 
 
 There was a flash as of summer lightning. A 
 bluish flame seemed to leap through the moon- 
 shine. Marcus reeled, with a gasping cry ; then, 
 leaning back, till his face blanched in the moon- 
 light, his knees gave way. As he fell, he turned 
 half round. The long knife which Mknus had 
 hurled at him had not penetrated his breast more 
 than two inches at most, but as he fell on the 
 deck it was driven into him up to the hilt. 
 
 In the blank silence that followed, the three 
 men could hear a sound like the ebb-tide in sea- 
 weed. It was the gurgling of the bloody froth 
 in the lungs of the dead man. 
 
 The first to speak was his brother, and then 
 only when thin reddish-white foam-bubbles be- 
 gan to burst from the blue lips of Marcus. 
 
 " It is murder." 
 
 He spoke low, but it was like the surf of 
 breakers in the ears of those who heard. 
 
 " You have said one part of a true word, 
 Gloom Achanna. It is murder that you 
 and he came here for ! " 
 
 "The death of Marcus Achanna is on you, 
 Mknus MacCodrum."
 
 The Dan-nan-R6n. 173 
 
 " So be it, as between yourself and me, or 
 between all of your blood and me ; though 
 Aulay MacNeil as well as you can witness that 
 though in self-defence I threw the knife at 
 Achanna, it was his own doing that drove it 
 into him." 
 
 "You can whisper that to the rope when it is 
 round your neck." 
 
 "And what will you be doing now, Gloom 
 Nic Achanna?" 
 
 For the first time Gloom shifted uneasily. 
 A swift glance revealed to him the awkward 
 fact that the boat trailed behind the Luath, so 
 that he could not leap into it, while if he turned 
 to haul it close by the rope he was at the mercy 
 of the two men. 
 
 " I will go in peace," he said quietly. 
 
 " Ay," was the answer, in an equally quiet 
 tone, "in the white peace." 
 
 Upon this menace of death the two men 
 stood facing each other. 
 
 Achanna broke the silence at last. 
 
 "You'll hear the ' Dan-nan-R6n ' the night 
 before you die, Manus MacCodrum, and lest 
 you doubt it you '11 hear it again in your death- 
 hour."
 
 The Dn-nan-R6n. 
 
 " Ma tha sin an Ddn, if that be ordained.* 1 
 Manus spoke gravely. His very quietude, how- 
 ever, boded ill. There was no hope of clemency ; 
 Gloom knew that. 
 
 Suddenly he laughed scornfully. Then, 
 pointing with his right hand as if to some one 
 behind his two adversaries, he cried out : "Put 
 the death-hand on them, Marcus ! Give them 
 the Grave ! " Both men sprang aside, the heart 
 of each nigh upon bursting. The death-touch 
 of the newly slain is an awful thing to incur, 
 for it means that the wraith can transfer all its 
 evil to the person touched. 
 
 The next moment there was a heavy splash. 
 In a second Manus realised that it was no more 
 than a ruse, and that Gloom had escaped. With 
 feverish haste he hauled in the small boat, 
 leaped into it, and began at once to row so as 
 to intercept his enemy. 
 
 Achanna rose once, between him and the 
 Luath. MacCodrum crossed the oars in the 
 thole-pins and seized the boat-hook. 
 
 The swimmer kept straight for him. Sud- 
 denly he dived. In a flash, Manus realised 
 that Gloom was going to rise under the boat, 
 seize the keel, and upset him, and thus probably
 
 The Dan-nan- R6n. 175 
 
 be able to grip him from above. There was 
 time and no more to leap ; and, indeed, scarce 
 had he plunged into the sea ere the boat swung 
 right over, Achanna clambering over it the next 
 moment. 
 
 At first Gloom could not see where his foe 
 was. He crouched on the upturned craft, and 
 peered eagerly into the moonlit water. All at 
 once a black mass shot out of the shadow be- 
 tween him and the smack. This black mass 
 laughed, the same low, ugly laugh that had 
 preceded the death of Marcus. 
 
 He who was in turn the swimmer was now 
 close. When a fathom away he leaned back 
 and began to tread water steadily. In his right 
 hand he grasped the boat-hook. The man in 
 the boat knew that to stay where he was meant 
 certain death. He gathered himself together 
 like a crouching cat. Manus kept treading the 
 water slowly, but with the hook ready so that 
 the sharp iron spike at the end of it should 
 transfix his foe if he came at him with a leap. 
 Now and again he laughed. Then in his low 
 sweet voice, but brokenly at times between his 
 deep breathings, he began to sing :
 
 176 The Dan-nan-R6n. 
 
 The tide was dark, an' heavy with the burden that it bore ; 
 I heard it talkin', whisperin', upon the weedy shore ; 
 Each wave that stirred the sea-weed was like a closing 
 
 door; 
 
 'T is closing doors they hear at last who hear no more, no 
 more, 
 
 My Grief, 
 No more ! 
 
 The tide was in the salt sea-weed, and like a knife it tore ; 
 The wild sea-wind went moaning, sooing, moaning o'er 
 
 and o'er ; 
 The deep sea-heart was brooding deep upon its ancient 
 
 lore, 
 
 I heard the sob, the sooing sob, the dying sob at its core, 
 
 My Grief, 
 Its core ! 
 
 The white sea-waves were wan and grey its ashy lips before, 
 The yeast within its ravening mouth was red with stream- 
 ing gore ; 
 
 O red sea-weed, O red sea-waves, O hollow baffled roar, 
 Since one thou hast, O dark dim Sea, why callest thou for 
 
 more, 
 
 My Grief, 
 For more ! 
 
 In the quiet moonlight the chant, with its long, 
 slow cadences, sung as no other man in the isles 
 could sing it, sounded sweet and remote beyond
 
 The Dan-nan-R6n. 177 
 
 the water of the haven, and moved in waving 
 words to tell. The glittering shine was upon 
 lines of fire along the stone ledges. Sometimes 
 a fish rose, and spilt a ripple of pale gold ; or a 
 sea-nettle swam to the surface, and turned its 
 blue or greenish globe of living jelly to the moon 
 dazzle. 
 
 The man in the water made a sudden stop in 
 his treading, and listened intently. Then once 
 more the phosphorescent light gleamed about 
 his slow-moving shoulders. In a louder chant- 
 ing voice came once again, 
 
 Each wave that stirs the sea-weed is like a closing door; 
 'Tis closing doors they hear at last who hear no more, no 
 more, 
 
 My Grief, 
 No more ! 
 
 Yes, his quick ears had caught the inland 
 strain of a voice he knew. Soft and white as 
 the moonshine came Anne's singing as she 
 passed along the corrie leading to the haven. 
 In vain his travelling gaze sought her ; she was 
 still in the shadow, and, besides, a slow drifting 
 cloud obscured the moonlight. When he looked 
 back again a stifled exclamation came from his 
 
 12
 
 178 The D&n-nan-R6n. 
 
 lips. There was not a sign of Gloom Achanna. 
 He had slipped noiselessly from the boat, and 
 was now either behind it, or had dived beneath it, 
 or was swimming under water this way or that. 
 If only the cloud would sail by, muttered Manus, 
 as he held himself in readiness for an attack 
 from beneath or behind. As the dusk lightened, 
 he swam slowly towards the boat, and then 
 swiftly round it. There was no one there. He 
 climbed on to the keel, and stood, leaning for- 
 ward, as a salmon-leisterer by torchlight, with 
 his spear-pointed boat-hook raised. Neither 
 below nor beyond could he discern any shape. 
 A whispered call to Aulay MacNeil showed that 
 he, too, saw nothing. Gloom must have swooned, 
 and sank deep as he slipped through the water. 
 Perhaps the dog-fish were already darting about 
 him. 
 
 Going behind the boat Manus guided it back 
 to the smack. It was not long before, with 
 MacNeil's help, he righted the punt. One oar 
 had drifted out of sight, but as there was a 
 sculling-hole in the stern that did not matter. 
 
 "What shall we do with it?" he muttered, 
 as he stood at last by the corpse of Marcus. 
 " This is a bad night for us, Aulay ! "
 
 The Dan-nan-R6n. 179 
 
 " Bad it is ; but let us be seeing it is not 
 worse. I 'm thinking we should have left the 
 boat." 
 
 "And for why that?" 
 
 "We could say that Marcus Achanna and 
 Gloom Achanna left us again, and that we saw 
 no more of them nor of our boat." 
 
 MacCodrum pondered a while. The sound of 
 voices, borne faintly across the water, decided 
 him. Probably Anne and the lad Donull were 
 talking. He slipped into the boat, and with a 
 sail-knife soon ripped it here and there. It 
 filled, and then, heavy with the weight of a 
 great ballast-stone which Aulay had first handed 
 to his companion, and surging with a foot-thrust 
 from the latter, it sank. 
 
 "We'll hide the the man there behind 
 the windlass, below the spare sail, till we're out 
 at sea, Aulay. Quick, give me a hand ! " 
 
 It did not take the two men long to lift the 
 corpse, and do as Manus had suggested. They 
 had scarce accomplished this, when Anne's voice 
 came hailing silver-sweet across the water. 
 
 With death-white face and shaking limbs, 
 MacCodrum stood holding the mast, while with 
 a loud voice, so firm and strong that Aulay
 
 180 The Dan-nan-Rdn. 
 
 MacNeil smiled below his fear, he asked if the 
 Achannas were back yet, and if so for Donull 
 to row out at once, and she with him if she 
 would come. 
 
 It was nearly half an hour thereafter that 
 Anne rowed out towards the Luath. She 
 had gone at last along the shore to a creek 
 where one of Marcus' boats was moored and 
 returned with it. Having taken Donull on 
 board, she made way with all speed, fearful 
 lest Gloom or Marcus should intercept her. 
 
 It did not take long to explain how she had 
 laughed at Sheumais' vain efforts to detain her, 
 and had come down to the haven. As she ap- 
 proached, she heard Manus singing, and so had 
 herself broken into a song she knew he loved. 
 Then, by the water-edge she had come upon 
 Donull lying upon his back, bound and gagged. 
 After she had released him they waited to see 
 what would happen, but as in the moonlight they 
 could not see any small boat come in, bound to 
 or from the smack, she had hailed to know if 
 Manus were there. 
 
 On his side he said briefly that the two Achan- 
 nas had come to persuade him to leave without 
 her. On his refusal they had departed again,
 
 The Dan-nan-Ron. 181 
 
 uttering threats against her as well as himself. 
 He heard their quarrelling voices as they rowed 
 into the gloom, but could not see them at last 
 because of the obscured moonlight. 
 
 " And now, Ann-mochree," he added, " is it 
 coming with me you are, and just as you are ? 
 Sure, you '11 never repent it, and you '11 have all 
 you want that I can give. Dear of my heart, 
 say that you will be coming away this night of 
 the nights ! By the Black Stone on Icolmkill I 
 swear it, and by the Sun, and by the Moon, 
 and by Himself ! " 
 
 " I am trusting you, Manus dear. Sure it is 
 not for me to be going back to that house after 
 what has been done and said. I go with you, 
 now and always, God save us." 
 
 " Well, dear lass o' my heart, it's farewell to 
 Eilanmore it is, for by the Blood on the Cross 
 I '11 never land on it again ! " 
 
 "And that will be no sorrow to me, Manus 
 my home ! " 
 
 And this was the way that my friend Anne 
 Gillespie left Eilanmore to go to the isles of the 
 west. 
 
 It was a fair sailing, in the white moonshine,
 
 1 82 The D4n-nan-R6n. 
 
 with a whispering breeze astern. Anne leaned 
 against Manus, dreaming her dream. The lad 
 Donull sat drowsing at the helm. Forward, 
 Aulay MacNeil, with his face set against the 
 moonshine to the west, brooded dark. 
 
 Though no longer was land in sight, and 
 there was peace among the deeps of the quiet 
 stars and upon the sea, the shadow of fear was 
 upon the face of Manus MacCodrum. 
 
 This might well have been because of the as 
 yet unburied dead that lay beneath the spare 
 sail by the windlass. The dead man, however, 
 did not affright him. What went moaning in his 
 heart, and sighing and calling in his brain, was 
 a faint falling echo he had heard, as the Luath 
 glided slow out of the haven. Whether from 
 the water or from the shore he could not tell, 
 but he heard the wild, fantastic air of the " Dan- 
 nan-R6n," as he had heard it that very night 
 upon the feadan of Gloom Achanna. 
 
 It was his hope that his ears had played him 
 false. When he glanced about him, and saw 
 the sombre flame in the eyes of Aulay Mac- 
 Neil, staring at him out of the dusk, he knew 
 that which Oism the son of Fionn cried in his 
 pain. His soul swam in mist.
 
 The Dan-nan-Ron. 183 
 
 II. 
 
 For all the evil omens, the marriage of Anne 
 and Manus MacCodrum went well. He was 
 more silent than of yore, and men avoided 
 rather than sought him ; but he was happy with 
 Anne, and content with his two mates, who 
 were now Callum MacCodrum and Ranald 
 MacRanald. The youth Donull had bettered 
 himself by joining a Skye skipper who was a 
 kinsman, and Aulay MacNeil had surprised 
 every one, except Manus, by going away as a 
 seaman on board one of the Loch line of ships 
 which sail for Australia from the Clyde. 
 
 Anne never knew what had happened, though 
 it is possible she suspected somewhat. All 
 that was known to her was that Marcus and 
 Gloom Achanna had disappeared, and were 
 supposed to have been drowned. There was 
 now no Achanna upon Eilanmore, for Sheu- 
 mais had taken a horror of the place and his 
 loneliness. As soon as it was commonly ad- 
 mitted that his two brothers must have drifted
 
 1 84 The Dan-nan-Ron. 
 
 out to sea, and been drowned, or at best picked 
 up by some ocean-going ship, he disposed of 
 the island-farm, and left Eilanmore forever. All 
 this confirmed the thing said among the island- 
 ers of the west, that old Robert Achanna had 
 brought a curse with him. Blight and disaster 
 had visited Eilanmore over and over in the 
 many years he had held it, and death, some- 
 times tragic or mysterious, had overtaken six of 
 his seven sons, while the youngest bore upon 
 his brows the "dusk of the shadow." True, 
 none knew for certain that three out of the six 
 were dead, but few for a moment believed in the 
 possibility that Alison and Marcus and Gloom 
 were alive. On the night when Anne had left 
 the island with Manus MacCodrum, he, Sheu- 
 mais, had heard nothing to alarm him. Even 
 when, an hour after she had gone down to the 
 haven, neither she nor his brothers had returned, 
 and the Luath had put out to sea, he was 
 not in fear of any ill. Clearly, Marcus and 
 Gloom had gone away in the smack, perhaps 
 determined to see that the girl was duly married 
 by priest or minister. He would have per- 
 turbed himself little for days to come, but for a 
 strange thing that happened that night He
 
 The Dan-nan-R6n. 185 
 
 had returned to the house because of a chill 
 that was upon him, and convinced too that 
 all had sailed in the Luath. He was sitting 
 brooding by the peat-fire, when he was startled 
 by a sound at the window at the back of the 
 room. A few bars of a familiar air struck pain- 
 fully upon his ear, though played so low that 
 they were just audible. What could it be but 
 the " Dan-nan-Ron," and who would be playing 
 that but Gloom ? What did it mean ? Perhaps 
 after all, it was fantasy only, and there was no 
 feadan out there in the dark. He was ponder- 
 ing this when, still low but louder and sharper 
 than before, there rose and fell the strain which 
 he hated, and Gloom never played before him, 
 that of the Ddvsa-na-mairv, the " Dance of 
 the Dead." Swiftly and silently he rose and 
 crossed the room. In the dark shadows cast 
 by the byre he could see nothing, but the music 
 ceased. He went out, and searched everywhere, 
 but found no one. So he returned, took down 
 the Holy Book, with awed heart, and read slowly 
 till peace came upon him, soft and sweet as the 
 warmth of the peat-glow. 
 
 But as for Anne, she had never even this hint 
 that one of the supposed dead might be alive, or
 
 1 86 The Dn-nan-R6n. 
 
 that, being dead, Gloom might yet touch a shad- 
 owy feadan into a wild remote air of the grave. 
 
 When month after month went by, and no 
 hint of ill came to break upon their peace, 
 Manus grew light-hearted again. Once more 
 his songs were heard as he came back from the 
 fishing, or loitered ashore mending his nets. A 
 new happiness was nigh to them, for Anne was 
 with child. True, there was fear also, for the 
 girl was not well at the time when her labour was 
 near, and grew weaker daily. There came a day 
 when Manus had to go to Loch Boisdale in 
 South Uist : and it was with pain and something 
 of foreboding that he sailed away from Berneray 
 in the Sound of Harris, where he lived. It was 
 on the third night that he returned. He was 
 met by Katreen MacRanald, the wife of his 
 mate, with the news that on the morrow after 
 his going Anne had sent for the priest who was 
 staying at Loch Maddy, for she had felt the 
 coming of death. It was that very evening she 
 died, and took the child with her. 
 
 Mknus heard as one in a dream. It seemed 
 to him that the tide was ebbing in his heart, 
 and a cold, sleety rain falling, falling through a 
 mist in his brain.
 
 The Dan-nan-Ron. 187 
 
 Sorrow lay heavily upon him. After the earth- 
 ing of her whom he loved, he went to and fro 
 solitary : often crossing the Narrows and going 
 to the old Pictish Tower under the shadow 
 of Ben Breac. He would not go upon the sea, 
 but let his kinsman Callum do as he liked with 
 the Luath. 
 
 Now and again Father Allan MacNeil sailed 
 northward to see him. Each time he departed 
 sadder. " The man is going mad, I fear," he 
 said to Callum, the last time he saw Manus. 
 
 The long summer nights brought peace and 
 beauty to the isles. It was a great herring-year, 
 and the moon-fishing was unusually good. All 
 the Uist men who lived by the sea-harvest were 
 in their boats whenever they could. The pollack, 
 the dogfish, the otters, and the seals, with flocks 
 of sea-fowl beyond number, shared in the com- 
 mon joy. Manus MacCodrum alone paid no 
 heed to herring or mackerel. He was often 
 seen striding along the shore, and more than 
 once had been heard laughing ; sometimes, too, 
 he was come upon at low tide by the great Reef 
 of Berneray, singing wild strange runes and 
 songs, or crouching upon a rock and brooding 
 dark.
 
 1 88 The Dan-nan-Ron. 
 
 The midsummer moon found no man on Ber- 
 neray except MacCodrum, the Reverend Mr. 
 Black, the minister of the Free Kirk, and an old 
 man named Anndra Mclan. On the night be- 
 fore the last day of the middle month, Anndra 
 was reproved by the minister for saying that 
 he had seen a man rise out of one of the graves 
 in the kirk-yard, and steal down by the stone- 
 dykes towards Balnahunnur-sa-mona, 1 where 
 Mknus MacCodrum lived. 
 
 " The dead do not rise and walk, Anndra." 
 
 " That may be, maighstir, but it may have 
 been the Watcher of the Dead. Sure it is not 
 three weeks since Padruic McAli stair was laid 
 beneath the green mound. He '11 be wearying 
 for another to take his place." 
 
 " Hoots, man, that is an old superstition. 
 The dead do not rise and walk, I tell you." 
 
 " It is right you may be, maighstir, but I 
 heard of this from my father, that was old be- 
 fore you were young, and from his father before 
 him. When the last-buried is weary with being 
 the Watcher of the Dead he goes about from 
 place to place till he sees man, woman, or child 
 
 l Bailie-' na-aonar'sa mkonadh, " th solitary (arm on 
 the hill-slope."
 
 The Dn-nan-R6n. 189 
 
 with the death-shadow in the eyes, and then he 
 goes back to his grave and lies down in peace, 
 for his vigil it will be over now." 
 
 The minister laughed at the folly, and went 
 into his house to make ready for the Sacrament 
 that was to be on the morrow. Old Anndra, 
 however, was uneasy. After the porridge, he 
 went down through the gloaming to Balnahun- 
 nur-sa-mona. He meant to go in and warn 
 Manus MacCodrum. But when he got to the 
 west wall, and stood near the open window, he 
 heard Manus speaking in a loud voice, though 
 he was alone in the room. 
 
 " ff* ionganntach do ghradh dhomhsa, a? toirt 
 barrachd air gradh nam ban ! " . . . * 
 
 This, Manus cried in a voice quivering with 
 pain. Anndra stopped still, fearful to intrude, 
 fearful also, perhaps, to see some one there 
 beside MacCodrum whom eyes should not see. 
 Then the voice rose into a cry of agony. 
 
 " Aorant dhuit, ay an deigh dhomh fas 
 aosda.'"* 
 
 1 " Thy love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love 
 of women." 
 
 2 " I shall worship thee, ay, even after I .have become 
 old."
 
 igo The Dn-nan-R6n. 
 
 With that, Anndra feared to stay. As he 
 passed the byre he started, for he thought he 
 saw the shadow of a mqn. When he looked 
 closer he could see nought, so went his way, 
 trembling and sore troubled. 
 
 It was dusk when Manus came out. He saw 
 that it was to be a cloudy night ; and perhaps 
 it was this that, after a brief while, made him 
 turn in his aimless walk and go back to the 
 house. He was sitting before the naming heart 
 of the peats, brooding in his pain, when sud- 
 denly he sprang to his feet. 
 
 Loud and clear, and close as though played 
 under the very window of the room, came the 
 cold, white notes of an oaten flute. Ah, too 
 well he knew that wild, fantastic air. Who 
 could it be but Gloom Achanna, playing upon 
 his feadan; and what air of all airs could that 
 be but the " Dan-nan-Ron ? " 
 
 Was it the dead man, standing there unseen 
 in the shadow of the Grave ? Was Marcus 
 beside him, Marcus with the knife still thrust 
 up to the hilt, and the lung-foam upon his lips ? 
 Can the sea give up its dead ? Can there be 
 strain of my feadan that ever was made of man, 
 there in the Silence ?
 
 The Dan-nan-R6n. 191 
 
 In vain Manus MacCodrum tortured himself 
 thus. Too well he knew that he had heard the 
 " Dan-nan-Ron," and that no other than Gloom 
 Achanna was the player. 
 
 Suddenly an access of fury wrought him to 
 madness. With an abrupt lilt the tune swung 
 into the Davsa-na-mairv, and thence, after a 
 few seconds, and in a moment, into that myste- 
 rious and horrible Codhail-nan-Pairtean which 
 none but Gloom played. 
 
 There could be no mistake now, nor as to 
 what was meant by the muttering, jerking air of 
 the "gathering of the crabs." 
 
 With a savage cry Manus snatched up a long 
 dirk from its place by the chimney, and rushed 
 out. 
 
 There was not the shadow of a sea-gull even 
 in front ; so he sped round by the byre. Nei- 
 ther was anything unusual discoverable there. 
 
 " Sorrow upon me," he cried ; " man or wraith, 
 I will be putting it to the dirk ! " 
 
 But there was no one ; nothing ; not a sound. 
 
 Then, at last, with a listless droop of his 
 arms, MacCodrum turned and went into the 
 house again. He remembered what Gloom 
 Achanna had said : " You" 1 II hear the ' Dan-nan-
 
 192 The D&n-nan-R6n. 
 
 Rbn ' the night before you die, Manns Mac 
 Codrtim, and lest you doubt it, you '// hear it in 
 your death-hour." 
 
 He did not stir from the fire for three hours ; 
 then he rose, and went over to his bed and lay 
 down without undressing. 
 
 He did not sleep, but lay listening and watch- 
 ing. The peats burned low, and at last there 
 was scarce a flicker along the floor. Outside 
 he could hear the wind moaning upon the sea. 
 By a strange rustling sound he knew that the 
 tide was ebbing across the great reef that runs 
 out from Berneray. By midnight the clouds 
 had gone. The moon shone clear and full. 
 When he heard the clock strike in its worm- 
 eaten, rickety case, he sat up, and listened 
 intently. He could hear nothing. No shadow 
 stirred. Surely if the wraith of Gloom Achanna 
 were waiting for him it would make some sign, 
 now, in the dead of night. 
 
 An hour passed. Manus rose, crossed the 
 room on tip-toe, and soundlessly opened the 
 door. The salt wind blew fresh against his 
 face. The smell of the shore, of wet sea-wrack 
 and pungent gale, of foam and moving water, 
 came sweet to his nostrils. He heard a skua
 
 The Dan-nan-R6n. 193 
 
 calling from the rocky promontory. From the 
 slopes behind, the wail of a moon-restless lap- 
 wing rose and fell mournfully. 
 
 Crouching and with slow, stealthy step, he 
 stole round by the seaward wall. At the dyke 
 he stopped, and scrutinised it on each side. 
 He could see for several hundred yards, and 
 there was not even a sheltering sheep. Then, 
 soundlessly as ever, he crept close to the byre. 
 He put his ear to chink after chink : but not a 
 stir of a shadow even. As a shadow, himself, 
 he drifted lightly to the front, past the hay-rick ; 
 then, with swift glances to right and left, opened 
 the door and entered. As he did so, he stood 
 as though frozen. Surely, he thought, that was 
 a sound as of a step, out there by the hay-rick ? 
 A terror was at his heart. In front, the dark- 
 ness of the byre, with God knows what dread 
 thing awaiting him; behind, a mysterious 
 walker in the night, swift to take him unawares. 
 The trembling that came upon him was nigh 
 overmastering. At last, with a great effort, he 
 moved towards the ledge, where he kept a 
 candle. With shaking hand he struck a light. 
 The empty byre looked ghostly and fearsome 
 in the flickering gloom. But there was no one, 
 '3
 
 194 The D&n-nan-R6n. 
 
 nothing. He was about to turn, when a rat ran 
 along a loose hanging beam, and stared at him, 
 or at the yellow shine. He saw its black eyes 
 shining like peat-water in moonlight. 
 
 The creature was curious at first, then in- 
 different. At least, it began to squeak, and 
 then make a swift scratching with its forepaws. 
 Once or twice came an answering squeak; a 
 faint rustling was audible here and there among 
 the straw. 
 
 With a sudden spring Manus seized the beast 
 Even in the second in which he raised it to his 
 mouth and scrunched its back with his strong 
 teeth, it bit him severely. He let his hands 
 drop, and grope furtively in the darkness. With 
 stooping head he shook the last breath out of 
 the rat, holding it with his front teeth, with 
 back-curled lips. The next moment he dropped 
 the dead thing, trampled upon it, and burst out 
 laughing. There was a scurrying of pattering 
 feet, a rustling of straw. Then silence again. 
 A draught from the door had caught the flame 
 and extinguished it. In the silence and darkness 
 MacCodrum stood, intent, but no longer afraid. 
 He laughed again, because it was so easy to 
 kill with the teeth. The noise of his laughter
 
 The Dan-nan-Ron. 195 
 
 seemed to him to leap hither and thither like a 
 shadowy ape. He could see it : a blackness 
 within the darkness. Once more he laughed. 
 It amused him to see the thing leaping about 
 like that. 
 
 Suddenly he turned, and walked out into the 
 moonlight. The lapwing was still circling and 
 wailing. He mocked it, with loud shrill pee- 
 weety, pee-iveety, pee-weet. The bird swung 
 waywardly, alarmed : its abrupt cry, and dan- 
 cing flight aroused its fellows. The air was full 
 of the lamentable crying of plovers. 
 
 A sough of the sea came inland. Manus in- 
 haled its breath with a sigh of delight. A pas- 
 sion for the running wave was upon him. He 
 yearned to feel green water break against his 
 breast. Thirst and hunger, too, he felt at last, 
 though he had known neither all day. How cool 
 and sweet, he thought, would be a silver haddock, 
 or even a brown-backed Hath, alive and gleam- 
 ing, wet with the sea-water still bubbling in its 
 gills. It would writhe, just like the rat; but then 
 how he would throw his head back, and toss the 
 glittering thing up into the moonlight, catch it 
 on the downwhirl just as it neared the wave on 
 whose crest he was, and then devour it with swift 
 voracious gulps!
 
 196 The D&n-nan-R6n. 
 
 With quick, jerky steps he made his way past 
 the landward side of the small, thatch-roofed 
 cottage. He was about to enter, when he no- 
 ticed that the door, which he had left ajar, was 
 closed. He stole to the window and glanced in. 
 
 A single, thin, wavering moonbeam flickered 
 in' the room. But the flame at the heart of the 
 peats had worked its way through the ash, and 
 there was now a dull glow, though that was 
 within the " smooring," and threw scarce more 
 than a glimmer into the room. 
 
 There was enough light, however, for Manus 
 MacCodrum to see that a man sat on the three- 
 legged stool before the fire. His head was bent, 
 as though he were listening. The face was away 
 from the window. It was his own wraith, of 
 course ; of that, Manus felt convinced. What 
 was it doing there ? Perhaps it had eaten the 
 Holy Book, so that it was beyond his putting a 
 rosad on it ! At the thought he laughed loud. 
 The shadow-man leaped to his feet. 
 
 The next moment MacCodrum swung himself 
 on to the thatched roof, and clambered from 
 rope to rope, where these held down the big 
 stones which acted as dead-weight for the 
 thatch, against the fury of tempests. Stone
 
 The Dan-nan-Ron. 197 
 
 after stone he tore from its fastenings, and 
 hurled to the ground over and beyond the door. 
 Then with tearing hands he began to burrow 
 an opening in the thatch. All the time he 
 whined like a beast. 
 
 He was glad the moon shone full upon him. 
 When he had made a big enough hole, he would 
 see the evil thing out of the grave that sat in 
 his room, and would stone it to death. 
 
 Suddenly he became still. A cold sweat broke 
 out upon him. The thing, whether his own 
 wraith, or the spirit of his dead foe, or Gloom 
 Achanna himself, had begun to play, low and 
 slow, a wild air. No piercing, cold music like 
 that of the feadan ! Too well he knew it, and 
 those cool, white notes that moved here and 
 there in the darkness like snowflakes. As for 
 the air, though he slept till Judgment Day and 
 heard but a note of it amidst all the clamour of 
 heaven and hell, sure he would scream because 
 of the "Dan-nan-R6n." 
 
 The " Dan-nan-R6n : " the Rom / the Seals ! 
 Ah, what was he doing there, on the bitter- 
 weary land ! Out there was the sea. Safe 
 would he be in the green waves. 
 
 With a leap he was on the ground. Seizing a
 
 198 The Dan-nan-R6n. 
 
 a huge stone he hurled it through the window. 
 Then, laughing and screaming, he fled towards 
 the Great Reef, along whose sides the ebb-tide 
 gurgled and sobbed, with glistering white foam. 
 
 He ceased screaming or laughing as he heard 
 the " Dan-nan-R6n " behind him, faint, but fol- 
 lowing; sure, following. Bending low, he raced 
 towards the rock-ledges from which ran the 
 reef. 
 
 When at last he reached the extreme ledge 
 he stopped abruptly. Out on the reef he saw 
 from ten to twenty seals, some swimming to and 
 fro, others clinging to the reef, one or two mak- 
 ing a curious barking sound, with round heads 
 lifted against the moon. In one place there 
 was a surge and lashing of water. Two bulls 
 were fighting to the death. 
 
 With swift, stealthy movements Manus un- 
 clothed himself. The damp had clotted the 
 leathern thongs of his boots, and he snarled 
 with curled lip as he tore at them. He shone 
 white in the moonshine, but was sheltered from 
 the sea by the ledge behind which he crouched. 
 " What did Gloom Achanna mean by that ? " 
 he muttered savagely, as he heard the nearing air 
 change into the " Dance of the Dead." For a
 
 The Dan-nan-R6n. 199 
 
 moment Manus was a man again. He was nigh 
 upon turning to face his foe, corpse or wraith or 
 living body ; to spring at this thing which fol- 
 lowed him, and tear it with hands and teeth. 
 Then, once more, the hated "Song of the 
 Seals " stole mockingly through the night. 
 
 With a shiver he slipped into the dark water. 
 Then with quick, powerful strokes he was in the 
 moon-flood, and swimming hard against it out 
 by the leeside of the reef. 
 
 So intent were the seals upon the fight of 
 the two great bulls that they did not see the 
 swimmer, or, if they did, took him for one of 
 their own people. A savage snarling and bark- 
 ing and half-human crying came from them. 
 Manus was almost within reach of the nearest, 
 when one of the combatants sank dead, with torn 
 throat. The victor clambered on the reef, and 
 leaned high, swaying its great head and shoul- 
 ers to and fro. In the moonlight its white 
 fangs were like red coral. Its blinded eyes ran 
 with gore. 
 
 There was a rush, a rapid leaping and swirl- 
 ing, as Manus surged in among the seals, which 
 were swimming round the place where the slain 
 bull had sunk.
 
 20O The Dan-nan-Ron. 
 
 The laughter of this long, white seal terrified 
 them. 
 
 Wh'en his knee struck against a rock, Mac- 
 Codrum groped with his arms, and hauled him- 
 self out of the water. 
 
 From rock to rock and ledge to ledge he went, 
 with a fantastic, dancing motion, his body gleam- 
 ing foam-white in the moonshine. 
 
 As he pranced and trampled along the weedy 
 ledges, he sang snatches of an old rune, the 
 lost rune of the MacCodrums of Uist. The 
 seals on the rocks crouched spell-bound ; those 
 slow-swimming in the water stared with brown 
 unwinking eyes, with their small ears strained 
 against the sound : 
 
 It is I, Minus MacCodrum, 
 
 I am telling you that, you, Anndra of my blood, 
 
 And you, Neil my grandfather, and you, and you, and you ! 
 
 Ay, ay, Manus my name is, Manus Mac Manus I 
 
 It is 1 myself, and no other. 
 
 Your brother, O Seals of the Sea ! 
 
 Give me blood of the red fish, 
 
 And a bite of the flying sgadan: 
 
 The green wave on my belly, 
 
 And the foam in my eyes 1 
 
 I am your bull-brother, O Bulls of the Sea, 
 
 Bull better than any of you, snarling bull*!
 
 The Dan-nan-Ron. 201 
 
 Come to me, mate, seal of the soft, furry womb, 
 
 White am I still, though red shall I be, 
 
 Red with the streaming red blood if any dispute me! 
 
 Aoh, aoh, aoh, ar&, arb, ho-rb ! 
 
 A man was I, a seal am I, 
 
 My fangs churn the yellow foam from my lips; 
 
 Give way to me, give way to me, Seals of the Sea ; 
 
 Give way, for I am fey of the sea 
 
 And the sea-maiden I see there, 
 
 And my name, true, is Manus MacCodrum, 
 
 The bull-seal that was a man, Ara ! Ara ! 
 
 By this time he was close upon the great 
 black seal, which was still monotonously sway- 
 ing its gory head, with its sightless eyes rolling 
 this way and that. The sea-folk seemed fasci- 
 nated. None moved, even when the dancer in 
 the moonshine trampled upon them. 
 
 When he came within arm-reach he stopped. 
 
 " Are you the Ceann-Cinnidh ? " he cried. 
 " Are you the head of this clan of the sea-folk ? " 
 
 The huge beast ceased its swaying. Its curled 
 lips moved from its fangs. 
 
 " Speak, Seal, if there 's no curse upon you ! 
 Maybe, now, you '11 be Anndra himself, the 
 brother of my father ! Speak! ffst are you 
 hearing that music on the shore? 'Tis the 
 ' Dan-nan-R6n ' ! Death o' my soul, it 's the
 
 2O2 The D&n-nan-R6n. 
 
 ' Dan-nan-R6n ' ! Aha, 't is Gloom Achanna 
 out of the Grave. Back, beast, and let me 
 move on ! " 
 
 With that, seeing the great bull did not move, 
 he struck it full in the face with clenched fist. 
 There was a hoarse, strangling roar, and the seal 
 champion was upon him with lacerating fangs. 
 
 Manus swayed this way and that. All he 
 could hear now was the snarling and growling 
 and choking cries of the maddened seals. As 
 he fell, they closed in upon him. His screams 
 wheeled through the night like mad birds. With 
 desperate fury he struggled to free himself. 
 The great bull pinned him to the rock; a dozen 
 others tore at his white flesh, till his spouting 
 blood made the rocks scarlet in the white shine 
 of the moon. 
 
 For a few seconds he still fought savagely, 
 tearing with teeth and hands. Once, a red 
 irrecognisable mass, he staggered to his knees. 
 A wild cry burst from his lips, when from the 
 shore-end of the reef came loud and clear the 
 lilt of the rune of his fate. 
 
 The next moment he was dragged down and 
 swept from the reef into the sea. As the torn 
 and mangled body disappeared from sight, it
 
 The Din-nan-R6n. 203 
 
 was amid a seething crowd of leaping and strug- 
 gling seals, their eyes wild with affright and fury, 
 their fangs red with human gore. 
 
 And Gloom Achanna, turning upon the reef, 
 moved swiftly inland, playing low OQ his feadan, 
 as he went.
 
 Green Branches. 
 
 IN the year that followed the death of Manus 
 MacCodrum, James Achanna saw nothing of 
 his brother Gloom. He might have thought 
 himself alone in the world, of all his people, but 
 for a letter that came to him out of the west. 
 True, he had never accepted the common opin- 
 ion that his brothers had both been drowned on 
 that night when Anne Gillespie left Eilanmore 
 with Manus. In the first place, he had nothing 
 of that inner conviction concerning the fate of 
 Gloom which he had concerning that of Mar- 
 cus ; in the next, had he not heard the sound of 
 ihzfeadan, which no one that he knew played, 
 except Gloom ; and, for further token, was not 
 the tune that which he hated above all others, 
 the " Dance of the Dead," for who but Gloom 
 would be playing that, he hating it so, and the
 
 Green Branches. 205 
 
 hour being late, and no one else on Eilanmore ? 
 It was no sure thing that the dead had not come 
 back ; but the more he thought of it the more 
 Achanna believed that his sixth brother was 
 still alive. Of this, however, he said nothing to 
 any one. 
 
 It was as a man set free that, at last, after 
 long waiting and patient trouble with the dis- 
 posal of all that was left of the Achanna herit- 
 age, he left the island. It was a grey memory 
 for him. The bleak moorland of it, the blight 
 that had lain so long and so often upon the 
 crops, the rains that had swept the isle for grey 
 days and grey weeks and grey months, the sob- 
 bing of the sea by day and its dark moan by night, 
 its dim relinquishing sigh in the calm of dreary 
 ebbs, its hollow, baffling roar when the storm- 
 shadow swept up out of the sea, one and all 
 oppressed him, even in memory. He had never 
 loved the island, even when it lay green and 
 fragrant in the green and white seas under 
 white and blue skies, fresh and sweet as an 
 Eden of the sea. He had ever been lonely and 
 weary, tired of the mysterious shadow that lay 
 upon his folk, caring little for any of his brothers 
 except the eldest, long since mysteriously gone
 
 206 Green Branches. 
 
 out of the ken of man, and almost hating 
 Gloom, who had ever borne him a grudge be- 
 cause of his beauty, and because of his likeness 
 to and reverent heed for Alison. Moreover, 
 ever since he had come to love Katreen Mac- 
 arthur, the daughter of Donald Macarthur who 
 lived in Sleat of Skye, he had been eager to 
 live near her ; the more eager as he knew that 
 Gloom loved the girl also, and wished for suc- 
 cess not only for his own sake, but so as to put 
 a slight upon his younger brother. 
 
 So, when at last he left the island, he sailed 
 southward gladly. He was leaving Eilanmore ; 
 he was bound to a new home in Skye, and per- 
 haps he was going to his long-delayed, long- 
 dreamed-of happiness. True, Katreen was not 
 pledged to him ; he did not even know for sure 
 if she loved him. He thought, hoped, dreamed, 
 almost believed that she did; but then there 
 was her cousin Ian, who had long wooed her, 
 and to whom old Donald Macarthur had given 
 his blessing. Nevertheless, his heart would 
 have been lighter than it had been for long, 
 but for two things. First, there was the letter. 
 Some weeks earlier he had received it, not 
 recognising the writing, because of the few
 
 Green Branches. 207 
 
 letters he had ever seen, and, moreover, as it 
 was in a feigned hand. With difficulty he had 
 deciphered the manuscript, plain printed though 
 it was. It ran thus : 
 
 " Well, Sheumais, my brother, it is wondering if I am 
 dead, you will be. Maybe ay, and maybe no. But I send 
 you this writing to let you see that I know all you do and 
 think of. So you are going to leave Eilanmore without an 
 Achanna upon it ? And you will be going to Sleat in Skye ? 
 Well, let me be telling you this thing. Do not go. I 
 see blood there. And there is this, too : neither you nor 
 any man shall take Katreen away from me. You know 
 that ; and Ian Macarthur knows it ; and Katreen knows it ; 
 and that holds whether I am alive or dead. I say to you : 
 do not go. It will be better for you, and for all. Ian 
 Macarthur is away in the north-sea with the whaler-captain 
 who came to us at Eilanmore, and will not be back for three 
 months yet. It will be better for him not to come back. 
 But if he comes back he will have to reckon with the man 
 who says that Katreen Macarthur is his. I would rather not 
 have two men to speak to, and one my brother. It does not 
 matter to you where I am. I want no money just now. But 
 put aside my portion for me. Have it ready for me against 
 the day I call for it. I will not be patient that day ; so have 
 it ready for me. In the place that I am I am content. 
 You will be saying : why is my brother away in a remote 
 place (I will say this to you : that it is not further north 
 than St. Kilda nor further south than the Mull of Can- 
 tyre I), and for what reason ? That is between me and
 
 208 Green Branches. 
 
 silence. But perhaps you think of Anne sometimes. Do 
 you know that she lies under the green grass ? And of 
 Minus MacCodrum ? They say that he swam out into the 
 sea and was drowned ; and they whisper of the seal-blood, 
 though the minister is wrath with them for that. He calls 
 it a madness. Well, I was there at that madness, and I 
 played to it on my feadan. And now, Sheumais, can you 
 be thinking of what the tune was that I played ? 
 
 " Your brother, who waits his own day, 
 
 " GLOOM. 
 
 " Do not be forgetting this thing : / would rather not be 
 flaying the ' Damhsh-na-mairbh.' It was an ill hour for 
 Minus when he heard the ' Dan-nan- R&n ; ' it was the song 
 of his soul, that ; and yours is the ' Davsa-na-Mairv.' " 
 
 This letter was ever in his mind: this, and 
 what happened in the gloaming when he sailed 
 away for Skye in the herring-smack of two 
 men who lived at Armadale in Sleat. For, as 
 the boat moved slowly out of the haven, one 
 of the men asked him if he was sure that no 
 one was left upon the island ; for he thought he 
 had seen a figure on the rocks, waving a black 
 scarf. Achanna shook his head ; but just then 
 his companion cried that at that moment he 
 had seen the same thing. So the smack was 
 put about, and when she was moving slow 
 through the haven again, Achanna sculled
 
 Green Branches. 209 
 
 ashore in the little coggly punt. In vain he 
 searched here and there, calling loudly again 
 and again. Both men could hardly have been 
 mistaken, he thought. If there were no human 
 creature on the island, and if their eyes had 
 not played them false, who could it be ? The 
 wraith of Marcus, mayhap; or might it be the 
 old man himself (his father), risen to bid fare- 
 well to his youngest son, or to warn him ? 
 
 It was no use to wait longer, so, looking often 
 behind him, he made his way to the boat again, 
 and rowed slowly out towards the smack. 
 
 Jerk jerk jerk across the water came, 
 low but only too loud for him, the opening 
 motif of the " Damhsa-na-Mairbh." A horror 
 came upon him, and he drove the boat through 
 the water so that the sea splashed over the 
 bows. When he came on deck, he cried in a 
 hoarse voice to the man next him to put up the 
 helm, and let the smack swing to the wind. 
 
 "There is no one there, Callum Campbell," 
 he whispered. 
 
 "And who is it that will be making that 
 strange music ? " 
 
 " What music ? " 
 
 " Sure it has stopped now, but I heard it clear, 
 14
 
 2io Green Branches. 
 
 and so did Anndra MacEwan. It was like the 
 sound of a reed-pipe, and the tune was an eerie 
 one at that." 
 
 " It was the Dance of the Dead." 
 
 " And who will be playing that ? " asked the 
 man, with fear in his eyes. 
 
 " No living man." 
 
 "No living man? " 
 
 " No. I 'm thinking it will be one of my 
 brothers who was drowned here, and by the 
 same token that it is Gloom, for he played upon 
 thefeadan. But if not, then then " 
 
 The two men waited in breathless silence, 
 each trembling with superstitious fear; but at 
 last the elder made a sign to Achanna to finish. 
 
 "Then it will be the Kelpie." 
 
 "Is there is there one of the the cave- 
 women here ? " 
 
 " It is said ; and you know of old that the 
 Kelpie sings or plays a strange tune to wile sea- 
 men to their death." 
 
 At that moment, the fantastic, jerking music 
 came loud and clear across the bay. There 
 was a horrible suggestion in it, as if dead 
 bodies were moving along the ground with long 
 jerks, and crying and laughing wild. It was
 
 Green Branches. 211 
 
 enough ; the men, Campbell and MacEwan, 
 would not now have waited longer if Achanna 
 had offered them all he had in the world. Nor 
 were they, or he, out of their panic haste till the 
 smack stood well out at sea, and not a sound 
 could be heard from Eilanmore. 
 
 They stood watching, silent. Out of the 
 dusky mass that lay in the seaward way to the 
 north came a red gleam. It was like an eye 
 staring after them with blood-red glances. 
 
 " What is that, Achanna ? " asked one of the 
 men at last. 
 
 " It looks as though a fire had been lit in the 
 house up in the island. The door and the 
 window must be open. The fire must be fed 
 with wood, for no peats would give that flame ; 
 and there were none lit when I left. To my 
 knowing, there was no wood for burning ex- 
 cept the wood of the shelves and the bed." 
 
 " And who would be doing that ? " 
 
 " I know of that no more than you do, Callum 
 Campbell." 
 
 No more was said, and it was a relief to all 
 when the last glimmer of the light was absorbed 
 in the darkness. 
 
 At the end of the voyage Campbell and
 
 212 Green Branches. 
 
 MacEwan were well pleased to be quit of their 
 companion ; not so much because he was moody 
 and distraught, as because they feared that a 
 spell was upon him, a fate in the working of 
 which they might become involved. It needed 
 no vow of the one to the other for them to come 
 to the conclusion that they would never land on 
 Eilanmore, or, if need be, only in broad day 
 light and never alone. 
 
 The days went well for James Achanna, 
 where he made his home at Ranza-beag, on 
 Ranza Water in the Sleat of Skye. The farm 
 was small but good, and he hoped that with 
 help and care he would soon have the place as 
 good a farm as there was in all Skye. 
 
 Donald Macarthur did not let him see much 
 of Katreen, but the old man was no longer 
 opposed to him. Sheumais must wait, till Ian 
 Macarthur came back again, which might be 
 any day now. For sure, James Achanna of 
 Ranza-beag was a very different person from 
 the youngest of the Achanna-folk who held 
 by on lonely Eilanmore ; moreover, the old 
 man could not but think with pleasure that it 
 would be well to see Katreen able to walk
 
 Green Branches. 213 
 
 over the whole land of Ranza, from the cairn 
 at the north of his own Ranza-M6r to the burn 
 at the south of Ranza-beag, and know it for 
 her own. 
 
 But Achanna was ready to wait. Even be- 
 fore he had the secret word of Katreen he knew 
 from her beautiful dark eyes that she loved him. 
 As the weeks went by they managed to meet 
 often, and at last Katreen told him that she 
 loved him too, and would have none but him ; 
 but that they must wait till Ian came back, 
 because of the pledge given to him by her 
 father. They were days of joy for him. 
 Through many a hot noontide hour, through 
 many a gloaming, he went as one in a dream. 
 Whenever he saw a birch swaying in the wind, 
 or a wave leaping upon Loch Liath, that was 
 near his home, or passed a bush covered with 
 wild roses, or saw the moonbeams lying white 
 on the boles of the pines, he thought of Kat- 
 reen, his fawn for grace, and so lithe and tall, 
 with sunbrown face and wavy, dark mass of hair, 
 and shadowy eyes and rowan-red lips. It is 
 said that there is a god clothed in shadow who 
 goes to and fro among the human kind, putting 
 silence between lovers with his waving hands,
 
 214 Green Branches. 
 
 and breathing a chill out of his cold breath, and 
 leaving a gulf of deep water flowing between 
 them because of the passing of his feet. That 
 shadow never came their way. Their love grew 
 as a flower fed by rains and warmed by sun- 
 light. 
 
 When midsummer came, and there was no 
 sign of Ian Macarthur, it was already too late. 
 Katreen had been won. 
 
 During the summer months, it was the cus- 
 tom for Katreen and two of the farm-girls to go 
 up Maol-Ranza, to reside at the shealing of 
 Cnoc-an-Fhraoch : and this because of the hill- 
 pasture for the sheep". Cnoc-an-Fhraoch is a 
 round, boulder-studded hill covered with heather, 
 which has a precipitous corrie on each side. 
 and in front slopes down to Lochan Fraoch, a 
 lochlet surrounded by dark woods. Behind the 
 hill, or great hillock rather, lay the shealing. 
 At each week-end Katreen went down to 
 Ranza-M6r, and on every Monday morning at 
 sunrise returned to her heather-girt eyrie. It 
 was on one of these visits that she endured a 
 cruel shock. Her father told her that she must 
 marry some one else than Sheumais Achanna. 
 He had heard words about him which made a
 
 Green Branches. 215 
 
 union impossible, and, indeed, he hoped that the 
 man would leave Ranza-beag. In the end, he ad- 
 mitted that what he had heard was to the effect 
 that Achanna was under a doom of some kind . 
 that he was involved in a blood feud ; and, 
 moreover, that he was fey. The old man would 
 not be explicit as to the person from whom his 
 information came, but hinted that he was a 
 stranger of rank, probably a laird of the isles. 
 Besides this, there was word of Ian Macarthur. 
 He was at Thurso, in the far north, and would 
 be in Skye before long, and he her father 
 had written to him that he might wed Katreen 
 as soon as was practicable. 
 
 " Do you see that Untie yonder, father ? " was 
 her response to this. 
 
 " Ay, lass, and what about the birdeen? " 
 
 "Well, when she mates with a hawk, so will 
 I be mating with Ian Macarthur, but not till 
 then." 
 
 With that she turned, and left the house, and 
 went back to Cnoc-an-Fhraoch. On the way 
 she met Achanna. 
 
 It was that night that for the first time he 
 swam across Lochan Fraoch to meet Katreen. 
 
 The quickest way to reach the shealing was
 
 2i6 Green Branches. 
 
 to row across the lochlet, and then ascend by a 
 sheep-path that wound through the hazel copses 
 at the base of the hill. Fully half an hour was 
 thus saved, because of the steepness of the 
 precipitous corries to right and left. A boat 
 was kept for this purpose, but it was fastened 
 to a shore-boulder by a padlocked iron chain, 
 the key of which was kept by Donald Mac- 
 arthur. Latterly he had refused to let this key 
 out of his possession. For one thing, no doubt, 
 he believed he could thus restrain Achanna 
 from visiting his daughter. The young man 
 could not approach the shealing from either 
 side without being seen. 
 
 But that night, soon after the moon was 
 whitening slow in the dark, Katreen stole down 
 to the hazel copse and awaited the coming of 
 her lover. The lochan was visible from almost 
 any point on Cnoc-an-Fhraoch, as well as from 
 the south side. To cross it in a boat unseen, 
 if any watcher were near, would be impossible, 
 nor could even a swimmer hope to escape 
 notice unless in the gloom of night or, mayhap, 
 in the dusk. When, however, she saw, half 
 way across the water, a spray of green branches 
 slowly moving athwart the surface, she knew
 
 Green Branches. 217 
 
 that Sheumais was keeping his tryst. If, per- 
 chance, any one else saw, he or she would 
 never guess that those derelict rowan-branches 
 shrouded Sheumais Achanna. 
 
 It was not till the estray had drifted close to 
 the ledge, where, hid among the bracken and 
 the hazel undergrowth, she awaited him, that 
 Katreen descried the face of her lover, as with 
 one hand he parted the green sprays, and stared 
 longingly and lovingly at the figure he could 
 just discern in the dim, fragrant obscurity. 
 
 And as it was this night so was it many of 
 the nights that followed. Katreen spent the 
 days as in a dream. Not even the news of her 
 cousin lan's return disturbed her much. 
 
 One day the inevitable meeting came. She 
 was at Ranza-M6r, and when a shadow came 
 into the dairy where she was standing she 
 looked up, and saw Ian before her. She 
 thought he appeared taller and stronger than 
 ever, though still not so tall as Sheumais, who 
 would appear slim beside the Herculean Skye 
 man. But as she looked at his close curling 
 black hair and thick bull-neck and the sullen, 
 eyes in his dark wind-red face, she wondered 
 that she had ever tolerated him at all.
 
 218 Green Branches. 
 
 He broke the ice at once. 
 
 "Tell me, Katreen, are you glad to see me 
 back again?" 
 
 "I am glad that you are home once more 
 safe and sound." 
 
 " And will you make it my home for me by 
 coming to live with me, as I Ve asked you 
 again and again?" 
 
 " No : as I Ve told you again and again." 
 
 He gloomed at her angrily for a few moments 
 before he resumed. 
 
 " I will be asking you this one thing, Katreen, 
 daughter of my father's brother; do you love 
 that man Achanna who lives at Ranza-beag ? " 
 
 " You may ask the wind why it is from the 
 east or the west, but it won 't tell you. You 're 
 not the wind's master." 
 
 M If you think I will let this man take you 
 away from me, you are thinking a foolish 
 thing." 
 
 " And you saying a foolisher." 
 
 "Ay?" 
 
 "Ay, sure. What could you do, Ian Mhic 
 Ian ? At the worst, you could do no more than 
 kill James Achanna. What then ? I too would 
 die. You cannot separate us. I would not
 
 Green Branches. 219 
 
 marry you, now, though you were the last man 
 on the world and I the last woman." 
 
 " You 're a fool, Katreen Macarthur. Your 
 father has promised you to me, and I tell you 
 this : if you love Achanna you '11 save his life 
 only by letting him go away from here. I prom- 
 ise you he will not be here long." j 
 
 " Ay, you promise mej but you will not say 
 that thing to James Achanna's face. You are 
 a coward." 
 
 With a muttered oath the man turned on his 
 heel. 
 
 " Let him beware o' me, and you, too, Ka- 
 treen-mo-nighean-donn. I swear it by my mo- 
 ther's grave and by St. Martin's Cross that you 
 will be mine by hook or by crook." 
 
 The girl smiled scornfully. Slowly she lifted 
 a milk-pail. 
 
 " It would be a pity to waste the good milk, 
 lan-gorach, but if you don't go it is I that will 
 be emptying the pail on you, and then you '11 
 be as white without as your heart is within." 
 
 "So you call me witless, do you? lan- 
 gorach! Well, we shall be seeing as to that. 
 And as for the milk, there will be more than 
 milk spilt because of you, Katreen-donn."
 
 22O Green Branches. 
 
 From that day, though neither Sheumais nor 
 Katreen knew of it, a watch was set upon 
 Achanna. 
 
 It could not be long before their secret was 
 discovered, and it was with a savage joy over- 
 mastering his sullen rage that Ian Macarthur 
 knew himself the discoverer, and conceived his 
 double vengeance. He dreamed, gloatingly, on 
 both the black thoughts that roamed like raven- 
 ous beasts through the solitudes of his heart. 
 But he did not dream that another man was 
 filled with hate because of Katreen's lover, 
 another man who had sworn to make her his 
 own, the man who, disguised, was known in 
 Armadale as Donald McLean, and in the north 
 isles would have been hailed as Gloom 
 Achanna. 
 
 There had been steady rain for three days, 
 with a cold, raw wind. On the fourth the sun 
 shone, and set in peace. An evening of quiet 
 beauty followed, warm, fragrant, dusky from the 
 absence of moon or star, though the thin veils 
 of mist promised to disperse as the night grew. 
 
 There were two men that eve in the under- 
 growth on the south side of the lochlet. Sheu- 
 mais had come earlier than his wont. Impatient
 
 Green Branches. 221 
 
 for the dusk, he could scarce await the waning 
 of the afterglow ; surely, he thought, he might 
 venture. Suddenly, his ears caught the sound 
 of cautious footsteps. Could it be old Donald, 
 perhaps with some inkling of the way in which 
 his daughter saw her lover in despite of all ; or, 
 may-hap, might it be Ian Macarthur, tracking 
 him as a hunter stalking a stag by the water- 
 pools? He crouched, and waited. In a few 
 minutes he saw Ian carefully picking his way. 
 The man stooped as he descried the green 
 branches ; smiled as, with a low rustling, he 
 raised them from the ground. 
 
 Meanwhile yet another man watched and 
 waited, though on the farther side of the 
 lochan, where the hazel copses were. Gloom 
 Achanna half hoped, half feared the ap- 
 proach of Katreen. It would be sweet to see 
 her again, sweet to slay her lover before her 
 eyes, brother to him though he was. But, there 
 was the chance that she might descry him, and, 
 whether recognisingly or not, warn the swim- 
 mer. 
 
 So it was that he had come there before sun- 
 down, and now lay crouched among the bracken 
 underneath a projecting mossy ledge close upon
 
 222 Green Branches. 
 
 the water, where it could scarce be that she or 
 any should see him. 
 
 As the gloaming deepened, a great stillness 
 reigned. There was no breath of wind. A 
 scarce audible sigh prevailed among the spires 
 of the heather. The charring of a night-jar 
 throbbed through the darkness. Somewhere a 
 corncrake called its monotonous crtk-craik : 
 the dull harsh sound emphasising the utter 
 stillness. The pinging of the gnats hovering 
 over and among the sedges made an incessant 
 rumour through the warm, sultry air. 
 
 There was a splash once as of a fish. Then, 
 silence. Then a lower but more continuous 
 splash, or rather wash of water. A slow 
 susurrus rustled through the dark. 
 
 Where he lay among the fern Gloom Achanna 
 slowly raised his head, stared through the 
 shadows, and listened intently. If Katreen 
 were waiting there she was not near. 
 
 Noiselessly he slid into the water. When he 
 rose it was under a clump of green branches. 
 These he had cut and secured three hours be- 
 fore. With his left hand he swam slowly, or 
 kept his equipoise in the water ; with his right 
 he guided the heavy rowan-bough. In his
 
 Green Branches. 223 
 
 mouth were two objects, one long and thin and 
 dark, the other with an occasional glitter as of 
 a dead fish. 
 
 His motion was scarce perceptible. None 
 the less he was nigh the middle of the loch 
 almost as soon as another clump of green 
 branches. Doubtless the swimmer beneath it 
 was confident that he was now safe from obser- 
 vation. 
 
 The two clumps of green branches drew 
 nearer. The smaller seemed a mere estray, a 
 spray blown down by the recent gale. But all 
 at once the larger clump jerked awkwardly and 
 stopped. Simultaneously a strange, low strain 
 of music came from the other. 
 
 The strain ceased. The two clumps of green 
 branches remained motionless. Slowly, at last, 
 the larger moved forward. It was too dark for 
 the swimmer to see if any one lay hid behind 
 the smaller. When he reached it he thrust 
 aside the leaves. 
 
 It was as though a great salmon leaped. 
 There was a splash, and a narrow, dark body 
 shot through the gloom. At the end of it some- 
 thing gleamed. Then suddenly there was a 
 savage struggle. The inanimate green branches
 
 224 Green Branches. 
 
 tore this way and that, and surged and swirled. 
 Gasping cries came from the leaves. Again 
 and again the gleaming thing leapt. At the 
 third leap an awful scream shrilled through the 
 silence. The echo of it wailed thrice, with hor- 
 rible distinctness, in the corrie beyond Cnoc-an- 
 Fhraoch. Then, after a faint splashing, there 
 was silence once more. One clump of green 
 branches drifted slowly up the lochlet. The 
 other moved steadily towards the place whence, 
 a brief while before, it had stirred. 
 
 Only one thing lived in the heart of Gloom 
 Achanna, the joy of his exultation. He had 
 killed his brother Sheumais. He had always 
 hated him because of his beauty ; of late he had 
 hated him because he had stood between him, 
 Gloom, and Katreen Macarthur, because he 
 had become her lover. They were all dead now, 
 except 'himself, all the Achannas. He was 
 " Achanna. 1 ' When the day came that he would 
 go back to Galloway, there would be a magpie 
 on the first birk, and a screaming jay on the first 
 rowan, and a croaking raven on the first fir ; ay, 
 he would be their suffering, though they knew 
 nothing of him meanwhile ! He would be 
 Achanna of Achanna again. Let those who
 
 Green Branches. 225 
 
 would stand in his way beware. As for Ka- 
 treen: perhaps he would take her there, per- 
 haps not. He smiled. 
 
 These thoughts were the wandering fires in 
 his brain while he slowly swam shoreward 
 under the floating green branches, and as he 
 disengaged himself from them, and crawled 
 upward through the bracken. It was at this 
 moment that a third man entered the water, 
 from the farther shore. 
 
 Prepared as he was to come suddenly upon 
 Katreen, Gloom was startled when, in a place of 
 dense shadow, a hand touched his shoulder, and 
 her voice whispered " Sheumais, Sheumais / " 
 
 The next moment she was in his arms. He 
 could feel her heart beating against his side. 
 
 " What was it, Sheumais ? What was that 
 awful cry ? " she whispered. 
 
 For answer, he put his lips to hers, and kissed 
 her again and again. 
 
 The girl drew back. Some vague instinct 
 warned her. 
 
 "What is it, Sheumais? Why don't you 
 speak ? " 
 
 He drew her close again. 
 
 " Pulse of my heart, it is I who love you, I 
 '5
 
 226 Green Branches. 
 
 who love you best of all; it is I, Gloom 
 Achanna ! " 
 
 With a cry, she struck him full in the face. 
 He staggered, and in that moment she freed 
 herself. 
 
 " You coward! " 
 
 "Katreen, I " 
 
 " Come no nearer. If you do, it will be the 
 death of you ! " 
 
 "The death o' me! Ah, bonnie fool that 
 you are, and is it you that will be the death o' 
 me?" 
 
 "Ay, Gloom Achanna, for I have but to 
 scream and Sheumais will be here, an he would 
 kill you like a dog if he knew you did me 
 harm." 
 
 " Ah, but if there were no Sheumais, or any 
 man to come between me an' my will ! " 
 
 " Then there would be a woman ! Ay, if you 
 overbore me I would strangle you with my hair, 
 or fix my teeth in your false throat ! " 
 
 " I was not for knowing you were such a wild- 
 cat : but I '11 tame you yet, my lass ! Aha, 
 wild-cat ! " and as he spoke he laughed low. 
 
 " It is a true word, Gloom of the black heart. 
 I am a wild-cat, and like a wild-cat I am not to
 
 Green Branches. 227 
 
 be seized by a fox ; and that you will be finding 
 to your cost, by the holy St. Bridget! But 
 now, off with you, brother of my man ! " 
 
 " Your man ha ! ha 1' " 
 
 "Why do you laugh?" 
 
 " Sure, I am laughing at a warm, white lass 
 like yourself having a dead man as your lover! " 
 
 "A dead man?" 
 
 No answer came. The girl shook with a 
 new fear. Slowly she drew closer, till her 
 breath fell warm against the face of the other. 
 He spoke at last. 
 
 " Ay, a dead man." 
 
 " It is a lie." 
 
 " Where would you be that you were not 
 hearing his good-bye ? I 'm thinking it was 
 loud enough ! " 
 
 "It is a lie it is a lie ! " 
 
 " No, it is no lie. Sheumais is cold enough 
 now. He 's low among the weeds by now. Ay, 
 by now : down there in the lochan." 
 
 " What you, you devil! Is it for killing 
 your own brother you would be ? " 
 
 " I killed no one. He died his own way. 
 Maybe the cramp took him. Maybe may- 
 be a kelpie gripped him. I watched. I saw
 
 228 Green Branches. 
 
 him beneath the green branches. He was dead 
 before he died. I saw it in the white face o' 
 him. Then he sank. He 's dead. Sheumais is 
 dead. Look here, girl, I 've always loved you. 
 I swore the oath upon you. You 're mine. 
 Sure, you 're mine now, Katreen ! It is loving 
 you I am ! It will be a south wind for you 
 from this day, muirnean mochree .' See here, 
 I '11 show you how I " 
 
 " Back back murderer! " 
 
 " Be stopping that foolishness now, Katreen 
 Macarthur ! By the Book I am tired of it. I 
 am loving you, and it 's having you for mine I 
 am! And if you won't come to me like the 
 dove to its mate, I '11 come to you like the hawk 
 to the dove ! " 
 
 With a spring he was upon her. In vain she 
 strove to beat him back. His arms held her as 
 a stoat grips a rabbit. 
 
 He pulled her head back, and kissed her 
 throat till the strangulating breath sobbed 
 against his ear. With a last despairing effort 
 she screamed the name of the dead man : 
 " Sheumais ! Sheumais / Sheumais / " The 
 man who struggled with her laughed. 
 
 " Ay, call away ! The herrin' will be coming
 
 Green Branches. 229 
 
 through the bracken as soon as Sheumais comes 
 'to your call ! Ah, it is mine you are now, Ka- 
 treen ! He 's dead an' cold an' you 'd best 
 have a living man an' " 
 
 She fell back, her balance lost in the sudden 
 releasing. What did it mean? Gloom still 
 stood there, but as one frozen. Through the 
 darkness she saw, at last, that a hand gripped 
 his shoulder ; behind him a black mass vaguely 
 obtruded. 
 
 For some moments there was absolute silence. 
 Then a hoarse voice came out of the dark. 
 
 " You will be knowing now who it is, Gloom 
 Achanna ! " 
 
 The voice was that of Sheumais, who lay 
 dead in the lochan. The murderer shook as in 
 a palsy. With a great effort, slowly he turned 
 his head. He saw a white splatch, the face of 
 the corpse; in this white splatch flamed two 
 burning eyes, the eyes of the soul of the brother 
 whom he had slain. 
 
 He reeled, staggered as a blind man, and, free 
 now of that awful clasp, swayed to and fro as 
 one drunken. 
 
 Slowly, Sheumais raised an arm and pointed 
 downward through the wood towards the
 
 230 Green Branches. 
 
 lochan. Still pointing, he moved swiftly for- 
 ward. 
 
 With a cry like a beast, Gloom Achanna 
 swung to one side, stumbled, rose, and leaped 
 into the darkness. 
 
 For some minutes Sheumais and Katreen 
 stood, silent, apart, listening to the crashing 
 sound of his flight, the race of the murderer 
 against the pursuing shadow of the Grave.
 
 THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUN. 
 THE BIRDEEN. 
 SILK O' THE KINE.
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 THERE are not many of the Gaelic folk of 
 Lochfyneside in Argyll who could tell the story 
 of Ethlenn Stuart; perhaps few, even, who 
 could point out the particular rocky promon- 
 tory, to this day (although upon no map) called 
 Ard-Ethlenn, some thirty miles or less up the 
 wild and beautiful western coast of Lochfyne, 
 between Crarae Point and the Ceann-More. 
 Ard-Ethlenn, Creagaleen : meaningless names 
 these to the few strangers who might chance to 
 hear them from any fisherman of Strachur or 
 Stralachlan. But to those who know who ,and 
 what Ethlenn Stuart was, and the story of her 
 love for Ian Mclan, the mountain-poet who is 
 known as Ian M6r of the Hills, and the end of 
 their tragic joy, and the last sleep of her against 
 the sun, for such as these " Ard-Ethlenn '' and
 
 234 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 " Creagaleen" " Creag-Gdusaln " and " Maol- 
 Lde-y-a-ghrian," are names with a haunting 
 music. 
 
 My own knowledge of " the Daughter of the 
 Sun," as Ethlenn was called by the imaginative 
 people of the glens, partly after a poem by 
 Ian M6r, addressed to her under that name, 
 partly because of her passionate love of sun- 
 light and the hill-wind and the sea, but mainly, 
 I understand, because she herself was a poet, " a 
 poet of the fire of love, and so a Daughter of 
 the Sun," as one of the old Celtic folk-poems 
 has it, this knowledge was largely derived 
 from Dionaid MacDiarmid, the married sister of 
 Ian. Dionaid herself, with her little cottage, are 
 no longer known of Strachur. Years ago the 
 small croft by the pine-wood behind Easter 
 Creggans was destroyed by a winter-gale, and 
 in time even the few poor, fragmentary traces 
 of human occupation disappeared. The sum- 
 mer before the accident, Dionaid had become 
 weak and ailing ; in the autumn she died. 
 
 But, also, I knew Ian M6r. Often, as a 
 child, I met him upon the lonely hills where I 
 lived ; later, he would speak with me when he
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 235 
 
 would have word of none, when the gloom was 
 upon him ; and I was with him when he died. 
 
 We have all our dreams of impossible love. 
 Somewhere, sometimes, the impossible happens. 
 Then a man and a woman know that oblivious 
 rapture of love, the mirdhei, the ecstasy of the 
 life of dream paramount over the ordinary 
 human gladness of the life of actuality. If 
 ever there were man and woman who were 
 these flower-crowned visionaries of love, Ian 
 Mor Mclan and Ethlenn Stuart were they. 
 
 I cannot tell any connected story of their two 
 lives; nor, sure, is there any need to do so. 
 The name and repute of Ian are with his 
 kindred and the hill-folk of his race : he has his 
 immortality by the flame-lit ingle, in the byres 
 of the straths, in twilight haunts of lovers, in 
 the mountain-shealings, wherever the songs of 
 Ian M6r, so passing sweet and strange, are 
 warm upon the lips of young and old. In his 
 last years he was known among the people in 
 Strachurmore as lan-Aonaran, or as Ian-m6r-na- 
 aonar-sa-mhonadh Ian "the strange one, the 
 lonely one," or Ian " the lonely one of the hills," 
 as, long ago, Ossian called a solitary hill-Druid
 
 236 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 aonaran liath nan creag, " the hoary hermit of 
 the rocks." No one ever ventured to say that 
 he was mad. All knew, however, that, years 
 agone, he had become distraught through the 
 passion of his love, which had nigh killed him. 
 At most, if a stronger epithet than aonaran 
 was used (which means both " lonely " and 
 "singular"), his dubhachas, his gloom, was 
 gently alluded to, or the cianalas, the mountain- 
 melancholy, or that strange shadow thrown 
 across the mind of man by nature, the ciar nan 
 earn, the gloom of the rocks, as it is called by 
 the hill-people. Young and old held in rever- 
 ence this man who dwelt on high, and com- 
 muned more with the swift fires of sunrise and 
 the slow flames of sunset than with his fellows. 
 It was in his thirtieth year that Ian first 
 spoke with Ethlenn ; and that was the year 
 when she and her widowed mother came to live 
 at what was then the lonely clachan of Easter 
 Creggans near Strachur. I am using the word 
 meaningly: for though, as I say, it was then 
 he first spoke with her, he had seen her three 
 years earlier, though without knowledge of who 
 she was. One day in late autumn he had gone 
 with a friend as far as Ormidale of Loch Rid-
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 237 
 
 den, and having said farewell to his one inti- 
 mate companion, who was on his way to a far 
 land whence he would not come again, had 
 walked along the steep hill-slopes to Tigh-na- 
 bruaich in the Kyles of Bute, where he had the 
 steamer that sailed the fifty or sixty miles' water- 
 way to Inverary. On the boat, a small screw- 
 steamer for cargo and local traffic, he saw a 
 young girl whose beauty fascinated him. Well 
 enough he knew who was the grey-haired man 
 she was with, Robert Stuart of Fionnamar in 
 Ardlamont; but because of the feud between 
 this man and his own father, Ian Mclan of 
 Tighnacoille in Strachurmore, he could not 
 break the silence. Sure, as old Dionaid said to 
 me, it is for doubting if Ian would have spoken 
 in any case ; for he, the dreamer, had suddenly 
 come upon his dream, had seen the face that 
 haunted his visions by day and night ; and that 
 seeing, then and there, was enough for him. 
 It was, indeed, characteristic of Ian M6r that 
 he made no inquiry concerning them, when a 
 boat that had been hanging about in Inchmar- 
 nock Water, carried them away to the Ard- 
 lamont shore ; and that from that day he made 
 no effort to find if the beautiful girl were kith
 
 238 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 or kin to " Fionnamar," or was but a passing 
 visitor. But already he loved her. Far away 
 she was from him, as the white cloud from the 
 blue hill which holds the fugitive shadow only. 
 Dimly he recognised this. But the hill can 
 love the cloud, as the pine the wandering wind, 
 as the still tarn the leaping star in the heavens. 
 She became the sungold in his life ; he saw her 
 in every fair and beautiful thing, in the wave, 
 in the wind-white grass, in the light of morning 
 and of gloaming ; everywhere he heard her 
 voice, or the faint rumour of her coming feet. 
 He did not dream to meet her ; it may be he 
 would have gone up into his lonely hills if he 
 had known of her approach. He loved, then, 
 only the beautiful phantom of his mind. 
 
 It was from that time that Ian M6r, the 
 second son of Ian Mclan the old minister in 
 Strachurmore, became the poet. Ever since he 
 had left the College in Glasgow he had worked 
 lovingly and long in prose and verse, with many 
 hopes, and a few illusory successes, content 
 that his father left him to his own devices, and 
 that his brother Hector took upon himself all 
 the care of Tighnacoille. But under the new 
 influence that had come into his life a strange
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 239 
 
 thing happened. All his youthful ambitions 
 became wild swans, and he found himself with 
 one abiding desire : to be a singer for his own 
 people, his own race, in their own ancient 
 language, a tongue old and deep and myste- 
 rious as the mountain-wind or the sighing sea. 
 
 One day, not long after his father's death, he 
 was near a summer-shealing on the upper slope 
 of Ben Measach when he heard a girl singing 
 an unfamiliar Gaelic song, as she lay in the 
 heather watching the kye close upon the hour 
 of the milking. 
 
 " Wave, wave, green branches, wave me far away 
 
 To where the forest deepens and the hill-winds, sleeping, 
 
 stay, 
 Where Peace doth fold her twilight wings, and through 
 
 the heart of day 
 There goes the rumour of passing hours grown faint and 
 
 grey. 
 
 "Wave, wave, green branches, my heart like a bird doth 
 
 hover 
 
 Above the nesting-place your green-gloom shadows cover : 
 Oh, come to my nesting-heart, come close, come close, 
 
 bend over, 
 Joy of my heart, my life, my prince, my lover 1 " 
 
 There is an incommunicable music in the long 
 slow flow of the Gaelic song, and in its dreamy
 
 240 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 monotony. The haunting air and words passed 
 into his brain. Something awoke there ; as the 
 sea-wind, suddenly striking a loch, will awake 
 echoes in remote corries on the hills. 
 
 Curious, because of a new strange lilt in the 
 lines, and of a repressed intensity in the simple 
 Gaelic words, he asked the singer whose was 
 the song she sang. It was then that, for the 
 first time, he heard of Ethlenn Stuart. 
 
 That summer they met. From the first they 
 loved. No one could gainsay the beauty of 
 Ethlenn, with her tall, lithe, slim figure, her 
 dark-brown dusky hair, her gloaming eyes, her 
 delicate features, with, above all, her radiant 
 expression of joyous life. That many heads 
 were shaken knowingly or warningly because 
 of her, was nothing against the fair lass ; only, 
 there were few, probably there was none, who 
 understood her. She saw little of the strath- 
 folk, and when not at home with her invalid 
 mother at the cot among the pines above Creg- 
 gans, or upon the loch, was a wanderer upon 
 the hills. There, in the fresh mornings, or in 
 the drowsy afternoons, or in the prolonged hours 
 of sundown, often she met Ian. More and more 
 dear they grew to each other, till at last they
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 241 
 
 cared to have no other comrade than the hill- 
 wind that whispered through the pines its mes- 
 sage of joy, or the sunlight that came floodingly 
 from over the mountains in the east, and ebbed 
 in vast serenities of peace along the hill-crests 
 beyond the narrow sea-loch. Many of her 
 songs, many of his, were made at this time. 
 This is the song of the " Daughter of the Sun " 
 that he wrote to her out of his heart, and is 
 sung to this day. In the original there is the 
 swift flame, the consuming fire, the repressed 
 passion which I find it impossible to convey. 
 Whoso has heard this song of Ian Mor, and 
 thrilled in the heart-loud silence that follows it, 
 sung, in the twilight or by the peats, by one who 
 loves or has loved, only such an one can know 
 
 Thou art the Daughter of the Sun, 
 
 Alona ! 
 
 Even as the sun in a green place, 
 The light that is upon thy face ! 
 When thou art gone there is dusk on my ways, 
 
 Alona I 
 
 l Alona signifies " most beautiful " or " exquisitely beau- 
 tiful," and is at the same time equivalent to "dear to me" 
 or " dear of my heart." 
 
 16
 
 242 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 Thy soul is of sun-fire wrought in day, 
 
 Alona, 
 
 The white warm clay that hath for name 
 Alona, and for word of fame 
 Ethlenn, and is for me a Flame 
 To burn against the Eternal Day, 
 
 Alona 1 
 
 The hills know thee, and the green woods, 
 
 Alona, 
 
 And the wide sea, and the blue loch, and the stream i 
 On thy brow, Daughter of the Sun, is agleam 
 The mystery of Dream, 
 
 Alona ! 
 
 The fires of the sun that burn thee, 
 
 Alona, 
 
 Oh, heart of my heart, are in me ! 
 Thy fire burns, thy flame killeth, thy sea 
 Of light blazeth continually, 
 Is there no rest in joy, no rest, no rest for me 
 Whom rapture slayeth utterly, 
 
 Alona, Alona I 
 
 It was on the eve of the day he made this 
 song to Ethlenn, that he and she met among the 
 pines upon the lower slopes of Maol-Lde-y-a- 
 ghrian. He came upon her while she lay full 
 length along the bole of a fallen pine. For a 
 time he stood looking upon her. The sunlight,
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 243 
 
 flowing from above Ben Dearg and Am Bua- 
 chaille on the west side of the loch, streamed 
 upon her body as it lay dark against the red 
 pine-bole, and lay upon her face in a glory. 
 The voice of the wind among the trees was 
 as the tide coming over smooth sands. The 
 cuckoos were calling one to another ; echo-like 
 falling cadences coming back from the Wood 
 of Claondiri on the opposite coast. 
 
 He hesitated to tell her what he had to say ; 
 above all, to break the spell. She was at one 
 with nature, thus. The wind was her comrade, 
 the pine-tree her brother ; she herself a flower. 
 
 When he leaned forward and kissed her, he 
 saw that her eyes were dreaming in the far 
 depths above her. She smiled, opened her arms 
 to him, but did not rise. 
 
 " Aluinn," she whispered, " lan-k-ghray, 
 Aluinn, Aluinn ! " 
 
 For a long while they stayed thus in silence. 
 They two and the wind ; all the world fell away 
 from these three. 
 
 At last Ian stirred. 
 
 " Come, Alona ; come, Ethlenn-mdirnean," he 
 whispered, with his lips against her ear, under 
 the dusky, fragrant shadow of her hair.
 
 244 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 Hand in hand, they passed beneath the pines, 
 and out upon the heather. As they climbed 
 Creag'-an-Eich, in the wonderful afterglow, 
 though it was already less than two hours short 
 of midnight, there were no other sounds than 
 the deep wave-murmur of the flowing air amid 
 the pine-trees now beyond them, and the 
 crying of the lapwings. Even the ewes and 
 lambs were still. At long intervals the cluck- 
 ing of grouse, or the churr of a fern-owl, 
 rustled like eddies across the calm of the 
 heather-sea. 
 
 When they reached the summit of Creag'-an- 
 Eich, to some known as Maol-Lae-y-a-ghrian, 
 because of lan's songs, they stood for a while 
 speechless. 
 
 Beneath them the land swam circling to the 
 loch. Save in the shadow of the west, the 
 water was like the melted ore of the Tuatha-de- 
 Danann, suspended so in the flaming cauldrons 
 under the mountains over against a day that 
 shall come again. Beyond, hill-range after hill- 
 range lay in long curves of shadowy amethyst 
 deepening into purple. Over the most remote, 
 three stars seemed to drop silver fire through 
 the faint rose-glow which underlay the straits
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 245 
 
 of gold and crimson far-spreading into immeas- 
 urable lagoons of quiet light. 
 
 Behind them, where they stood hand in hand 
 facing the light, were the mountains, purple- 
 grey and grey-blue: vast buttressed heights 
 rising sheer and isolate. Mass after mass, 
 peak after peak, the mountain sanctuaries stood 
 in their dim, mysterious majesty. 
 
 " Ethlenn-Alona," said Ian at last, but in a 
 voice so low that the girl by his side just caught 
 the words ; " Ethlenn, we have already given 
 all to each other, and have vowed the troth 
 upon us through life. But now let us vow the 
 troth of death also, for who is it that will be 
 knowing when the dark hour is leaping through 
 the noon or stealing through the night." 
 
 So it was there and thus they vowed their 
 solemn troth that neither life nor death should 
 come between them. The prayer that was in 
 each heart rose, an invisible bird, and flew to- 
 wards the slow-receding seas of light. The 
 hill-wind carried their vows far and wide upon 
 the mountains they loved. 
 
 Nor did they know, as with clasped hands 
 they wandered down towards the pine-wood, 
 that a shadow walked behind them, one who
 
 246 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 was like Ethlenn, tall and beautiful, but with 
 her eyes wild and full of a despairing pain. 
 
 Now that I have gone thus far I should tell 
 their story fully ; but I cannot. 
 
 Here is what is for knowledge throughout the 
 glens. 
 
 That night Ian told Ethlenn how he had 
 received a mysterious letter from the distant 
 southland city, London. It purported to be 
 from his brother Hector, whose word was that 
 he had departed suddenly into the south coun- 
 try, from Edinburgh, whither, as Ian knew, he 
 had lately gone. The writing was in an un- 
 familiar hand. The message was to the effect 
 that Hector was ill, dying ; that he begged Ian 
 to come to him at once ; and that, on his arrival, 
 he would be met by a friend, a Stralachlan 
 man at that, who would take him straightway 
 to the death-bed. 
 
 Well, it was the long way to London that Ian 
 M6r went. Was there never a hill, he won- 
 dered, after the Cumberland fells were left far 
 behind, was there never a hill in the poor 
 land? 
 
 But all thoughts of this foreign England and
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 247 
 
 of the great city he was so eager to see, and yet 
 was already weary of, went from him, when, at 
 the station, he was met by Roderick Stuart, the 
 cousin of Ethlenn. 
 
 What did it mean ? What was the meaning 
 of this thing? Why was Roderick Stuart in 
 London, he who was a small laird high up in 
 Stralachlan of Lochfyne ; he that was the lover 
 of Ethlenn ; he that had sworn to the undoing 
 of Ian M6r, and to the winning of his cousin 
 Ethlenn after all ? 
 
 The man came forward, with what smile upon 
 his false lips could rise above a heart so black. 
 
 "No," said Ian simply; "no, we will not 
 be shaking hands, Roderick Mhic Aonghas. 
 There is that between us of which there is no 
 need to speak. Where will my brother be? 
 If you will be so good as to tell me the way I 
 will go to him alone." 
 
 Stuart laughed. " London is n't Inverary, 
 Ian Mhic Ian; no, nor yet Greenock; no, nor 
 yet even Glasgow. The place where your 
 brother is, why it will be miles and miles from 
 here. There is a cab here waiting for us. If 
 you wish to see Hector Mclan alive you must 
 not be waiting here, talking of this and that."
 
 248 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 In the long drive through the streets, so un- 
 speakably sordid and dreary that lan's heart 
 bled for the wretched folk who had to live away 
 from the quiet hills and the clean waters, he 
 asked his companion many questions, but with- 
 out any answer that gave him ease. Again, 
 what was the meaning of Roderick Stuart being 
 dressed as though he were a minister ? True, 
 he was a man with much money, so it was 
 said ; but why was he clad as though he were 
 a minister ? Was it a southland way ? 
 
 So sure at last was he that he was being 
 deceived, that he would have then and there 
 parted with the man Stuart, had it not been 
 that, at that moment, the cab swerved, passed 
 through a gateway into a short narrow avenue, 
 and came to a stop abruptly. 
 
 Almost immediately after they had entered 
 the house, Stuart was called by a servant out 
 of the room where they waited. When he 
 came back, a minute or two later, it was with 
 a tall, heavy-browed, sullen-eyed man. 
 
 " Ian," began Roderick Stuart familiarly, and 
 with a smile as he noticed the angry look in 
 Ian Mor's eyes ; " Ian, this is Dr. MacManus, 
 of whom I have told you."
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 249 
 
 Ian made no answer, but looked from one to 
 the other. The tall man turned to his com- 
 panion : 
 
 "Did you say he was an older or a younger 
 brother of yours, Mr. Stuart ? " 
 
 "Younger." 
 
 But here Ian M6r spoke, frowning darkly. 
 
 " I do not know you, sir, and I do not know 
 why I am in this house, if my brother Hector 
 is not here. If he is, I am wishing to go to 
 him at once. As for this man here, Roderick 
 Stuart, he is no kith or kin to me. My name 
 is Ian Mclan, and I am of Tigh-na-coille in 
 Strachurmore of Lochfyne." 
 
 But why should I delay in telling that which 
 will already be guessed ? 
 
 The man Stuart had prevailed with this Dr. 
 MacManus, whether by craft or by bribery, or 
 both ; and there is no need to say more than 
 that Ian M6r found, too late, that he had been 
 trapped into a private asylum. 1 
 
 i I am not telling here the story of Ian Mbr. All who 
 knew him, and many of those who love his songs, are 
 familiar with the piteous record of the bitter wrong that 
 was done to him and to Ethlenn Stuart. By a strange
 
 250 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 In the months that followed no word was 
 had of him. His brother Hector, who had not 
 been ill at all, and had never gone south from 
 Edinburgh, did all that he could ; not only by 
 inquiries in London, because of what Ethlenn 
 had told him, but also of the steamship-com- 
 panies, for Roderick Stuart of Dubh Chnoc in 
 Stralachlan told him how he had met Ian in 
 Glasgow, and how he, Ian, had informed him 
 of his intent to sail to America and take to a 
 new life there, under a new name. Hector 
 believed so far, and indeed this story grew 
 and was received. Only Ethlenn knew that 
 
 coincidence, the day of his abrupt release was the day be- 
 fore Ethlenn's death, the day he left London for his 
 return to the mountain-land for which, as for her, his 
 heart was sick unto death. The death of Roderick Stuart 
 had brought about his freedom ; but here it is needless to 
 go into details of all that happened before and after. 
 
 It was Ian Mbr himself who found her body, on the eve 
 that followed the sunrise into which her life had lapsed, 
 as a flower might give up its perfume. Nevertheless, I 
 should add, the passion of his love while she lived, the 
 passion of his love for her in death, had more to do with 
 the strange dream-madness, or "ecstasy," of his after- 
 years, than even the excruciating mental suffering which 
 he endured through the villany of Roderick Stuart.
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 251 
 
 the man lied. She waited, with her heart in 
 leash. 
 
 In the sixth month of silence Ethlenn's child 
 was born. With joy and pain she spent long 
 hours looking into its blue eyes, seeking there 
 the clue to the strange and terrible mystery. 
 
 Ah, it is God only knows what she learned 
 there; but one day she put the child hurriedly 
 back to her breast, and strode swift through 
 the pines to her home. Neither sorrow nor 
 suffering had dimmed her beauty. She moved 
 now as a Bandia, a mountain-goddess. 
 
 The child she left with a kinswoman, Mary 
 MacNair, a young widow, who took the little 
 one to her heart with sobbing joy, because "of 
 her own womb that had not borne and of the 
 dead man whom she had loved. 
 
 Having done this, Ethlenn put off from 
 Creggan shore in a boat. The breeze came 
 down the loch, and she sailed swift southward. 
 When opposite the Glen of Dubh Chnoc she 
 landed. In less than an hour she was upon the 
 high upland where Roderick Stuart had his 
 home. The man was not there. He was up 
 on the hill, she was told, at the shealing of 
 Farlan Macfarlane the shepherd.
 
 252 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 When, at last, they met, it was by the 
 Lochan-na-Mona, the deep, black tarn in the 
 moorland. 
 
 They looked at each other in silence. Then 
 a cruel smile came upon the man's face. 
 
 " It is too late that you are coming now, 
 Ethlenn Stuart, or is it Ethlenn Mclan I 
 should be saying ? " 
 
 She took no notice of the sneer. 
 
 " I am Ethlenn Mclan. Do you know why 
 I have come ? " 
 
 " Well, as for that, my lass " 
 
 " I have come to kill you." 
 
 "You you! Ah, by the black stone in 
 lona, is that so ? Sure, it is terrified I ought 
 to be ! " 
 
 But suddenly all the surface courage of the 
 man sank. He saw somewhat in Ethlenn's 
 eyes which put the fear upon him. 
 
 She drew closer. The eyes in her death-pale 
 face were like dark water-lilies afloat on wan 
 water. 
 
 " I did not know in what way God would 
 give you over into my hands, but now I know, 
 Roderick Mhic Aonghas." 
 
 " I am innocent, Ethlenn Co-ogha I did
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 253 
 
 not do it besides, he he he is not dead 
 and " 
 
 But with a spring she was upon him. He 
 stumbled, fell, half-rose ; with a swift whirl she 
 swung him off his balance. The next moment 
 he felt headlong, backward, into the deep pool. 
 
 Ethlenn stood for a moment, watching. 
 Then she snatched the iron-shod staff he had 
 dropped. If he rose, it must be to his death. 
 But whether caught in the trailing weeds, or 
 for some other reason not to be known, Rode- 
 rick Stuart never rose. There, in time, his 
 body was found ; and the strathfolk said that 
 he had fallen there, heavy with the drink that 
 was always upon him of late, and had been 
 drowned there in the dark and the silence. 
 
 Ethlenn waited by the tarn till, from its 
 unrevealing depths, bubble after bubble as- 
 cended ; waited till not the smallest air-bubble 
 quivered upon the smooth blackness of the 
 water ; waited till the lapwings of the gloaming 
 flew overhead, crying mournfully. Then, at 
 last, she turned, and went down through the 
 shadowy woods to the place where her boat 
 was. 
 
 It was moonlight when, three hours later,
 
 254 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 she opened the door of the cottage. Her 
 mother was awake, and called to her. 
 
 " Have you had good news, Ethlenn, my 
 bonnie ? " she whispered, as she drew the beauti- 
 ful face down to her own. 
 
 The girl stared at her questioningly. 
 
 " I am asking it, dear, because of the glad 
 light that is in your eyes. Perhaps it is only a 
 good deed that you have done ? " 
 
 " Ay, mother dear, that is it. It is because 
 of a good deed that I have done. But do not 
 speak to me about it, now or later. I am glad, 
 who can never be glad again till I see Ian face 
 to face." 
 
 And from that day forth Ethlenn went to 
 and fro as one in a dream. Some thought 
 that her sorrow had crazed her ; others that a 
 lifelong melancholy had come to her out of 
 her grief. Once only she was heard to laugh : 
 when a farmer from Stralachlan urged her to 
 write a monody on Roderick Stuart, whose 
 untimely death had shocked the people of the 
 strath. 
 
 More than ever she haunted the pinewood, 
 the hills, or the loch. Often she was seen, 
 singing low to her baby, or raising it on high to
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 255 
 
 catch the wind or the sun, calling the boy her 
 Ian, her poet, her blossom of joy. 
 
 In the late heats she crossed often to the 
 steep woodlands at the Ceann-More, on the 
 opposite side of the loch. At one rocky head- 
 land, crowned with a solitary pine, she dreamed 
 through long hours. It was here that she and 
 Ian had spent one memorable golden day. 
 Lying here, she could still feel his breath warm 
 against her face, could almost feel his lips upon 
 her own. Nearly all her last songs were made 
 at this spot, Creagaleen. 
 
 So it was that, after many weeks, the steep, 
 rocky, and densely wooded shore which ran be- 
 tween two promontories became known to the 
 fish erf oik of Kenmore and Strachur as Ard- 
 Ethlenn. 
 
 Only once did she take the child with her 
 when she went to Creagaleen. It was on that 
 day she made this song to Ian ban, her little 
 boy, her Ian who was of Ian. It is called, in 
 the Gaelic, The Two fans. 
 
 Are these your eyes, Ian, 
 
 That look into mine ? 
 Is this smile, this laugh 
 
 Thine ?
 
 256 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 Heart of me, dear, 
 
 O pulse of my heart, 
 This is our child, our child 
 
 And we apart ! 
 
 Wrought of thy life, Ian, 
 
 Wrought in my womb, 
 Never to feel thy kiss I 
 
 Ah, bitter doom 1 
 
 Live, live, thou laughing boy, 
 
 We meet again 1 
 Here do we part, we twain ; 
 I to my death-sweet pain, 
 
 Thou to thy span of joy. 
 
 Hush, hush ; within thine eyes 
 
 His eyes I see. 
 Sure, death is Paradise 
 If so my soul can be, 
 
 Ian, with thee ! 
 
 Here, too, were made some of those songs of 
 passionate love which have never been collected, 
 but linger only in the hearts of those who 
 learned them long years ago. Two of these I 
 have in the writing of Ian M6r, who copied 
 them for me from the original in " The Book 
 of My Heart," as the small MS. volume was 
 called which was found among Ethlenn's 
 papers.
 
 The Daughter of the Snn. 257 
 I. 
 
 His face was glad as dawn to me, 
 His breath was sweet as dusk to me, 
 His eyes were burning flames to me, 
 
 Shule, Shule, Shule, agrhh ! 
 
 The broad noon-day was night to me, 
 The full-moon night was dark to me, 
 The stars whirled and the poles span 
 The hour God took him far from me. 
 
 Perhaps he dreams in heaven now, 
 Perhaps he doth in worship bow, 
 A white flame round his foam-white brow 
 Shule, Shule, SAule, agrhh! 
 
 I laugh to think of him like this, 
 Who once found all his joy and bliss 
 Against my heart, against my kiss, 
 
 Shule, Shule, Shule, agrhh .' 
 
 Star of my joy, art still the same 
 Now thou hast gotten a new name, 
 Pulse of my heart, my Blood, my Flame, 
 
 Shule, Shule, Shule, agrhh ! 
 
 II. 
 
 He laid his dear face next to mine, 
 His eyes aflame burned close to mine, 
 His heart to mine, his lips to mine, 
 Oh, he was mine, all mine, all mine. 
 I?
 
 258 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 Drunk with old wine of love I was, 
 Drunk as the wild-bee in the grass 
 Singing his honey-mad sweet bass, 
 Drunk, drunk with wine of love I was! 
 
 His lips of life to me were fief, 
 Before him I was but a leaf 
 Blown by the wind, a shaken leaf 
 Yea, as the sickle reaps the sheaf, 
 
 My Grief I 
 He reaped me as a gathered sheaf ! 
 
 His to be gathered, his the bliss, 
 But not a greater bliss than this ! 
 All of the empty world to miss 
 For wild redemption of his kiss ! 
 
 My Grief I 
 
 For hell was lost, though heaven was brief 
 
 Sphered in the universe of thy kiss, 
 
 So cries to thee thy fallen leaf, 
 
 Thy gathered sheaf, 
 
 Lord of my life, my Pride, my Chief, 
 
 My Grief! 
 
 It was midway in the heat-wave of a rainless 
 September that, in lan's words, the Daughter 
 of the Sun "went away with the hill-wind 
 through the green silences." 
 
 One evening she sailed across the loch, and
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 259 
 
 drifted slow with the tide through the green 
 depths beneath Ard-Ethlenn. At Creagaleen 
 she moored the boat, and climbed the bracken- 
 covered boulders. Under the pine where she 
 and Ian had first known the passion of their 
 love, she lay down : strangely weary now. The 
 moon rose over the Cowal, transmuting the 
 velvety shadows on the hills into a fluid light. 
 The lingering gloaming, the moonshine, pale 
 stars to north and south, deep calms of shadow, 
 one and all wrought the loch to the beauty of 
 dream. Thus might the bride of Manannan, 
 she who was a lovely sea-loch, have seemed to 
 him, when he came in from the ocean upon his 
 chariot, the flowing tide. 
 
 To have loved supremely! After all, the 
 green, sweet world had been good to her, its 
 daughter. She had loved and been loved, with 
 the passion of passion. Nothing in the world 
 could take away that joy; not the death of Ian 
 Mor, of which now there could be no longer 
 any doubt; not sorrow by day and grief by 
 night; not the mysterious powers themselves 
 that men called God, and that moved and lived 
 and had their blind will behind the blowing 
 wind and the rising sap, behind the drifting
 
 260 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 leaf and the granite hills, behind the womb of 
 woman and the mind of man, behind the 
 miracle of day and night, behind life, behind 
 death. 
 
 It was hers, all hers. To have known this 
 wonderful happiness was in truth to be, as Ian 
 had often called her, a Princess of the World. 
 How gladly she would have lived through the 
 long years with him, she thought; but, since 
 that was not to be, how gladly she forfeited all 
 else! 
 
 All that night she lay there, under the pine 
 tree, listening to the lapping of the tide in the 
 hollows and crevices beneath. 
 
 It was for peace, too, to know that she had 
 killed Roderick Stuart. Perhaps Ian knew 
 that his murderer lay in that black hill-tarn. 
 That were well. She would have killed him, 
 of course, whatever had happened ; but it was 
 better that he was delivered over to her, then, 
 there, in that way. It was a good law : a life 
 for a life. The minister said " No " ; and the 
 people echoed "No"; but in the human heart 
 it was always "Yes." Ian was the tenderest 
 human being man, woman, or child she 
 had ever known ; but, sure, he too would have
 
 The Daughter of the Sun. 261 
 
 slain Roderick Mhic Aonghas ; ay, sure, that 
 was for the knowing. He would love her the 
 better when they met again in the shadow of 
 the grave, because of the deed she had done. 
 Of old, no man or woman of heroic soul suffered 
 the death-wrong to pass without the death-eric. 
 And who are the blind sheep of to-day that 
 follow new shepherds ? Do they know any whit 
 more than did the mountain-folk and the sea- 
 farers in the days of old ? 
 
 Towards dawn the tide was on the ebb. 
 Ethlenn knew that it was ebb-tide also in her 
 life. 
 
 At sunrise she rose, stretched out her arms, 
 and called Ian thrice. She heard the gulls and 
 skuas crying upon the weedy promontories ; on 
 the loch the mackerel-shoals made a rustling 
 noise ; the hill-wind sang a far-off song : but 
 no answer came from him whom she called. 
 
 The sunlight was about her like a garment: 
 as a consuming flame, rather, it was within her 
 and around her. 
 
 Her eyes filled with light ; her body thrilled. 
 Slowly she turned. A smile came upon her 
 face. She stooped, kneeled, and lay down in 
 the green-gold gloom beneath the pine.
 
 262 The Daughter of the Sun. 
 
 41 Ian ! " she whispered ; " Ian, Aluinn, my 
 Poet, my Mountain-Lover, Ian, Ian ! " 
 
 For it was Death that lay there, waiting com- 
 radely ; but he had come in the guise of Ian 
 M6r.
 
 The Birdeen. 
 
 SOME other time I will tell the story of Isla 
 and Morag Mclan: Isla that was the foster- 
 brother and chief friend of Ian Mclan the 
 mountain-poet, known as Ian of the Hills, or 
 simply as Ian M6r, because of his great height 
 and the tireless strength that was his. Of 
 Morag, too, there is a story of the Straths, 
 sweet as honey of the heather, and glad as the 
 breeze that, blowing across it in summer, waves 
 the purple into white-o'-the-wind and sea-change 
 amethyst. 
 
 Isla was seven years older than Ian M6r, and 
 had been seven years married to Morag, when 
 the sorrow of their friend's life came upon him. 
 Of that matter I speak elsewhere. 
 
 They were happy, Isla and Morag. Though 
 both were of Strachurmore of Loch Fyne, they 
 lived at a small hill-farm on the west side of the
 
 264 The Birdeen. 
 
 upper fjord of Loch Long, and within sight of 
 Arrochar, where it sits among its mountains. 
 They could not see the fantastic outline of 
 "The Cobbler," because of a near hill that 
 shut them off, though from the loch it was 
 visible and almost upon them. But they could 
 watch the mists on Ben Arthur and Ben Mais- 
 each, and when a flying drift of mackerel-sky 
 spread upward from Ben Lomond, that was but 
 a few miles eastward as the crow flies, they 
 could tell of the good weather that was sure. 
 
 Before the end of the first year of their mar- 
 riage, deep happiness came to them. " The 
 Birdeen" was their noon of joy. When the 
 child came, Morag had one regret only, that a 
 boy was not hers, for she longed to see Isla in 
 the child that was his. But Isla was glad, for 
 now he had two dreams in his life : Morag whom 
 he loved more and more, and the little one whom 
 she had borne to him, and was for him a mystery 
 and joy against the dark hours of the dark days 
 that must be. 
 
 They named her Eilidh. One night, in front 
 of the peats, and before her time was come, 
 Morag, sitting with Isla and Ian M6r, dreamed 
 of the birthing. It was dark, save for the warm
 
 The Birdeen. 265 
 
 redness of the peat-glow. There was no other 
 light, and in the dusky corners the obscure vel- 
 vety things that we call shadows moved and had 
 their own life and were glad. Outside, the hill- 
 wind was still at last, after a long wandering 
 moaning that had not ceased since its westering, 
 for, like a wailing hound, it had followed the 
 sun all day. A soft rain fell. The sound of it 
 was for peace. 
 
 Isla sat forward, his chin in his hands and his 
 elbows on his knees. He was dreaming, too. 
 " Morag," " Isla," deep love, deep mystery, the 
 child that was already here, and would soon be 
 against the breast ; these were the circuit of his 
 thoughts. Sure, Morag, sweet and dear as she 
 was, was now more dear, more sweet. " Green 
 life to her," he murmured below his breath, 
 " and in her heart, joy by day and peace by 
 night." 
 
 Ian sat in the shadow of the ingle, and looked 
 now at one and now at the other, and then may- 
 hap into the peat-flame or among the shadows. 
 He saw what he saw. Who knows what is in a 
 poet's mind ? The echo of the wind that was 
 gone was there, and the sound of the rain and 
 the movement and colour of the fire, and some-
 
 266 The Birdeen. 
 
 thing out of the earth and sea and sky, and great 
 pitifulness and tenderness for women and child- 
 ren, and love of men and of birds and beasts, 
 and of the green lives that were to him not less 
 wonderful and intimate. And Ian, thinking, 
 knew that the thoughts of Isla and Morag were 
 drifting through his mind too ; so that he smiled 
 with his eyes because of the longing and joy in 
 the life of the man, his friend; and looked 
 through a mist of unshed tears at Morag, be- 
 cause of the other longing that shone in her eyes, 
 and of the thinness of the hands now, and of 
 the coming and going of the breath like a bird 
 tired after a long flight. He was troubled, too, 
 with the fear and the wonder that came to him 
 out of the hidden glooms of her soul. 
 
 It was Ian who broke the stillness, though 
 for sure his low words were parts of the peat- 
 rustle and the dripping rain and the wash of the 
 sea-loch, where it twisted like a black adder 
 among the hills, and was now quick with the 
 tide. 
 
 " But if the birdeen be after you, Morag, and 
 not after Isla, what will you be for calling it ? " 
 
 Morag started, glanced at him with her flame- 
 lit eyes, and flushed. Then, with a low laugh, 
 her whispered answer came.
 
 The Birdeen. 267 
 
 " Now it is a true thing, Ian, that you are a 
 wizard. Isla has often said that you can hear 
 the wooing of the trees and the flowers, but sure 
 I 'm thinking you could hear the very stones 
 speak, or at least know what is in their hearts. 
 How did you guess that was the thought I was 
 having ? " 
 
 " It was for the knowing, lassikin." 
 
 " Ian, it is a wife you should have, and a child 
 upon your knee to put its lips against yours, and 
 to make your heart melt because of its little 
 wandering hands." 
 
 Ian made no sign, though his pulse leaped, 
 for this was ever the longing that lay waiting 
 behind heart and brain, and thrilled each along 
 the wise, knowing nerves, our wise nerves that 
 were attuned long, long ago, and play to us a 
 march against the light, or down into the dark, 
 and we unwitting, and not knowing the ancient 
 rune of the heritage that the blood sings, an 
 ancient, ancient song. Who plays the tune to 
 which our dancing feet are led ? It is behind 
 the mist, that antique strain to which the hills 
 rose in flame and marl, and froze slowly into 
 granite silence, and to which the soul of man 
 crept from the things of the slime to the palaces
 
 268 The Birdeen. 
 
 of the brain. It is for the hearing, that ; in the 
 shells of the human. Who knows the under- 
 song of the tides in the obscure avenues of the 
 sea? Who knows the old immemorial tidal- 
 murmur along the nerves, along the nerves 
 even of a new-born child ? 
 
 Seeing that he was silent, Morag added : " Ay, 
 Ian dear, it is a wife and a child you must have. 
 Sure no man that has all the loving little names 
 you give to us can do without us ! " 
 
 " Well, well, Morag-aghray, the hour waits, 
 as they say out in the isles. But you have not 
 given me the answer to what I asked ? " 
 
 " And it is no answer that I have. Isla ! 
 Isla, if a girl it is to be, you would be for liking 
 the little one to be called Morag, because of 
 me ; but that I would not like ; no, no, I would 
 not. Is it forgetting, you are, what old Muim' 
 Mary said, that a third Morag in line, like a third 
 Sheumais, would be born in the shadow, would 
 have the gloom ? " 
 
 " For sure, muirnean; it is not you or I that 
 would forget that thing. Well, since there 's 
 Morag that was your mother, and Morag that 
 is you, there can be no third. But it is the same 
 with Muireall that was the name of my mother
 
 The Birdeen. 269 
 
 and of the mother before her. See here now, 
 dear, let Ian have the naming, if a girl it be, 
 for all three of us know that, if a boy it is, his 
 name will be Ian. So now, mo-charaid, what is 
 the name that will be upon the wean ? " 
 
 " IVean" repeated Ian, puzzled for a moment 
 because of the unfamiliar word in the Gaelic, 
 " ah sure, yes : well, but it is Morag who knows 
 best." 
 
 " No, no, Ian. The naming is to be with you. 
 What names of women do you love best ? " 
 
 " Morag." 
 
 " Ah, you know well that is not a true thing, 
 but only a saying for the saying. Tell me true ; 
 what name do you love best ? " 
 
 " Mona I like, and Lora, and Silis too ; and 
 of the old, old names, it 's Brighid I am loving, 
 and, too, Dearduil (Darthula) and Malmhin 
 (Afalveeti) ; but of all names dear to me, and 
 sweet in my ears, it is Eilidh (Ei'-lee)" 
 
 And so it was. When, in the third week 
 after that night, the child was born, and a 
 woman-child at that, it was called Eilidh. But 
 the first thing that Ian said when he entered 
 the house after the birthing was,
 
 270 The Birdeen. 
 
 " How is the birdeen ? " 
 
 And from that day Eilidh was " the Birdeen," 
 oftenest, even with Isla and Morag. 
 
 Of the many songs that Ian made to Eilidh 
 here is one : 
 
 Eilidh, Eilidh, Eilidh, dear to me, dear and sweet, 
 
 In dreams I am hearing the noise of your little running 
 
 feet, 
 
 The noise of your running feet that like the sea-hoofs beat 
 A music by day and night, Eilidh, on the sands of my 
 
 heart, my Sweet ! 
 
 Eilidh, blue i' the eyes, as all babe-children are, 
 
 And white as the canna that blows with the hill-breast 
 
 wind afar, 
 
 Whose is the light in thine eyes, the light of a star, a star 
 That sitteth supreme where the starry lights of heaven a 
 
 glory are ! 
 
 Eilidh, Eilidh, Eilidh, put off your wee hands from the 
 
 heart o' me, 
 It is pain they are making there, where no more pain 
 
 should be ; 
 For little running feet, an' wee white hands, an* croodlin, 
 
 as of the sea, 
 Bring tears to my eyes, Eilidh, tears, tears, out of the heart 
 
 o' me 
 
 Mo lennav-a-chree, 
 
 Mo lennav-a-chree I
 
 The Birdeen. 
 
 271 
 
 This was for himself, and because of what 
 was in his heart. But he made songs to the 
 -Birdeen herself. Some were as simple-myster- 
 ious as a wayside flower ; others were strange, 
 and with a note in them that all who know the 
 Songs of Ian will recognise. Here is one : 
 
 Lennavan-mo, 
 
 Lennavan-mo, 
 
 Who is it swinging you to and fro, 
 
 With a long low swing and a sweet low croon, 
 
 And the loving words of the mother's rune? 
 
 Lennavan-mo, 
 Lennavan-mo, 
 
 Who is it swinging you to and fro ? 
 I 'm thinking it is an angel fair, 
 
 The Angel that looks on the gulf from the lowest stair 
 And swings the green world upward by its leagues of sun- 
 shine-hair. 
 
 Lennavan-mo, 
 
 Lennavan-mo, 
 
 Who is it swings you and the Angel to and fro ? 
 
 It is He whose faintest thought is a world afar, 
 
 It is He whose wish is a leaping seven-moon'd star, 
 
 It is He, Lennavan-mo, 
 
 To whom you and I and all things flow. 
 
 Lennavan-mo, 
 Lennavan-mo,
 
 272 The Birdeen. 
 
 It is only a little wee lass you are, Eilidh-mo-ciiree, 
 
 But as this wee blossom has roots in the depths of the sky, 
 
 So you are at one with the Lord of Eternity, 
 
 Bonnie wee lass that you are, 
 
 My morning-star, 
 
 Eilidh-mo-chree, Lennavan-mo, 
 
 Lennavan-mo ! 
 
 Once more let me give a song of his, this 
 time also, like " Leanabhan-Mo," of those writ- 
 ten while Eilidh was still a breast-babe. 
 
 Eilidh, Eilidh, 
 
 My bonnie wee lass ; 
 The winds blow 
 
 And the hours pass. 
 
 But never a wind 
 
 Can do thee wrong, 
 Brown Birdeen, singing 
 
 Thy bird-heart song. 
 
 And never an hour 
 
 But has for thee 
 Blue of the heaven 
 
 And green of the sea, 
 
 Blue for the hope of thee, 
 
 Eilidh, Eilidh; 
 Green for the joy of thee, 
 
 Eilidh, Eilidh.
 
 The Birdeen. 273 
 
 Swing in thy nest, then, 
 
 Here on my heart, 
 Birdeen, Birdeen, 
 
 Here on my heart, 
 
 Here on my heart 1 
 
 But Eilidh was " the Birdeen " not only when 
 she could be tossed high in the air in lan's 
 strong arms, or could toddle to him from claar 
 to stool and from stool to chair ; not only when 
 she could go long walks with him upon the 
 hills above Loch Long; but when, as a grown 
 lass of twenty, she was so fair to see that the 
 countryside smiled when it saw her, as at the 
 first sunflood swallow, or as at the first calling 
 across dewy meadows of the cuckoo after long 
 days of gloom. 
 
 She was tall and slim, with a flower-like way 
 with her : the way of the flower in the sunlight, 
 of the wave on the sea, of the tree-top in the 
 wind. Her changing hazel eyes, now grey- 
 green, now dusked with sea-gloom or a violet 
 shadowiness ; her wonderful arched eyebrows, 
 dark so that they seemed black ; the beautiful 
 bonnie face of her, with her mobile mouth and 
 white flawless teeth ; the ears that lay against 
 the tangle of her sun-brown shadowy hair, like 
 18
 
 274 The Birdeen. 
 
 pink shells on a drift of seaweed ; the exquisite 
 poise of head and neck and body : are not all 
 these things to be read of her in the poems of 
 Ian M6r? Her voice, too, was sweet against 
 the ears as the singing of hillside burns. But 
 most she was loved for this : that she was ever 
 fresh as the dawn, young as the morning, and 
 alive in every fibre with the joy of life. The 
 old dreamed they were young again, when she 
 was with them; the weary opened their hearts, 
 because she was sunshine ; the young were glad 
 and believed that all things might be. Who 
 can tell the many names of the Birdeen ? She 
 was called Sunshine, Sunbeam, Way o' the 
 Wind, and a score more of lovely and endearing 
 names. But to every one there was one name 
 that was common, the Birdeen. 
 
 " What has she done to be so famous, both 
 through Ian M6r and others," was often said of 
 her when, in later years, the first few threads of 
 grey streaked the bonnie hair that was her pride. 
 What has she done, this Eilidh, save what other 
 women do? Ah, well, it is not Eilidh's story I 
 am telling; and she living yet, and like to live 
 till the young heart of her is still at last. It 
 will be the going of a sunbeam, that.
 
 The Birdeen. 275 
 
 But this is for the knowing, and, sure, can be 
 said. She loved the green world with a deep 
 enduring love. Earth, sea, and sky were com- 
 radely with her, as with few men and fewer 
 women. And she loved men and women and 
 children just as Ian M6r loved them, and that 
 was a way not far from the loving way that the 
 Son of Man had, for it was tender and true and 
 heeding little the evil, but rejoicing with laughter 
 and tears over the good. Then, too, there is 
 this : she loved the man to whom she gave her- 
 self, with deep passion, that was warm against 
 all chill of change and time and death itself. 
 How few of whom even this much can be said ? 
 For deep passion is rare, so rare that men have 
 debased the flawless image to the service of a 
 base coinage. She gave him love, and passion, 
 and the longing of her woman's heart; and she 
 was the flame that was in his brain, for he, too, 
 like Ian M6r, was a poet and dreamer. Then, 
 after having given joy and strength and the 
 flower of her life, so that he had the brain and 
 the heart of two lives, she gave him the supreme 
 gift she had for the giving, and that was their 
 child, that is called Aluinn because of his beauty, 
 and is now the poet of a new day. 
 
 When she was married to the man whose love
 
 276 The Birdeen. 
 
 for her was almost worship, Ian Mor said this 
 to him : " Be proud, for she who has filled you 
 with deep meanings and new powers, is herself 
 a proud Queen in whose service you must either 
 live or die with joy." 
 
 And to Eilidh herself he said, in a written 
 word he gave her to take away with her: 
 " Rhythms of the music of love for your brain, 
 white-wing'd thoughts for the avenues of your 
 heart, and the song of the White Merle be 
 there ! " And the Birdeen was glad at that, 
 for she knew Ian, and all that he meant, and 
 she would rather have had that word than any 
 treasure of men. 
 
 To me, long years afterward, he said this: 
 " I have known two women that were of the old 
 race of the Tuatha De-Danann. They were as 
 one, though she with whom my life rose and my 
 life went was Ethlenn, and the other was Eilidh, 
 the Birdeen at whose birthing I was, and who is 
 comrade and friend to me, more than any man 
 has been or any woman. Of each, this is my 
 word : ' A woman beautiful, to be loved, hon- 
 oured, revered, ay, scarce this side idolatry ; but 
 no weakling ; made of heroic stuff, of elemental 
 passions ; strong to endure, but strong also to 
 conquer and maintain.' "
 
 The Birdeen. 277 
 
 Of what one who must be nameless wrote to 
 her I have no right to speak, but here is one 
 verse from his " Song of my Heart," ill-clad by 
 me in this cold English out of the tender Gaelic 
 that has won him the name " Mouth o' Honey." 
 It is in prose I must give it, for I can find or 
 make no rhythm to catch that strange sea- 
 cadence of his : 
 
 " Come to my life that is already yours, and at one with 
 
 you : 
 
 Come to my blood that leaps because of you, 
 Come to my heart that holds you, Eilidh, 
 Come to my heart that holds you as the green earth clasps 
 
 and holds the sunlight, 
 Come to me ! Come to me, Eilidh ! " 
 
 But still but still "What has she done, 
 this Eilidh, save what other women do?" 
 
 Sure, you must ask this elsewhere than of 
 me. I know no reason for it other than what 
 I have said. She was, and is, "the Birdeen." 
 " Green life to her, green song to her, green joy 
 tp her," the old wish of Ian at her naming, has 
 been fulfilled indeed. Why, for that matter, 
 should she be called "the Birdeen"? There 
 are other women as fair to see, as sweet and 
 true, as dear to men and women. Why ? Sure, 
 for that, why was Helen, Helen ; or Cleopatra,
 
 278 The Birdeen. 
 
 Cleopatra; or Deirdre, Deirdre? And, too, 
 why does the common familiar bow that is set 
 in the heavens thrill us in each new apparition 
 as though it were a sudden stairway to all lost 
 or dreamed-of Edens? As I write I look sea- 
 ward, and over Innisdun, the dark precipitous 
 isle that lies in these wide waters even as Lev- 
 iathan itself, a rainbow rises with vast unbroken 
 sweep, a skyey flower fed from the innumerous 
 hues of sunset woven this way and that on the 
 looms of the sea. And I know that I have 
 never seen a rainbow before, and of all that I 
 may see I may never see another again as I 
 have seen this. Yet it is a rainbow as others 
 are, and have been and will be for all time past 
 and to come. 
 
 Eilidh, that was "the Birdeen" when she 
 laughed at the breast, and was " the Birdeen " 
 when her own Aluinn first turned his father's 
 eyes upon her, and is " the Birdeen " now when 
 the white flower of age is belied by the young 
 eyes and the young, young heart, Eilidh that 
 I love, Eilidh that has the lilt of life in her 
 brain as no woman I have known or heard of 
 has ever had in like measure, Eilidh is my 
 Rainbow.
 
 Silk o' the Kine. 1 
 
 " What I shall now be telling you," said Ian 
 M6r to me once, and indeed, I should remem- 
 ber the time of it well, for it was in the last 
 year of his life, when rarely any other than my- 
 self saw aught of Ian of the Hills. " What I 
 shall now be telling you is an ancient forgotten 
 tale of a man and woman of the old heroic days. 
 The name of the man was Isla, and the name 
 of the woman was Eilidh." 
 
 i Silk d 1 the Kine, one of the poetic " secret " names of 
 conquered Erin, was in ancient days, there and in the 
 Scottish Isles, a designation for a woman of rare beauty. 
 The name Eilidh (pronounced EilMh, or Isle-ee with a 
 long accent on the first syllable) is also ancient, but lingers 
 in the Isles still, and indeed throughout the Western High- 
 lands, as also, I understand, in Connaught and Conne- 
 maja. Somhairle (Somerled) is pronounced So-irl-u.
 
 280 Silk o' the Kine. 
 
 " Ah yes, for sure," Ian added, as I inter- 
 rupted him ; " I knew you would be saying that; 
 but it is not of Eilidh that loved Cormac that I 
 am now speaking. Nor am I taking the hidden 
 way with Isla, that was my friend, nor with 
 Eilidh that is my name-child, whom you know. 
 Let the Birdeen be, bless her bonnie heart ! 
 No, what I am for telling you is all as new to 
 you as the green grass to a lambkin ; and no 
 one has heard it from these tired lips o 1 mine 
 since I was a boy, and learned it off the mouth 
 of old Barabol MacAodh, that was my foster- 
 mother." 
 
 Of all the many tales of the olden time that 
 Ian M6r told me, and are to be found in no 
 book, this was the last. That is why I give it 
 here, where I have spoken much of him. 
 
 Ian told me this thing one winter night, while 
 we sat before the peats, where the ingle was full 
 of warm shadows. We were in the croft of the 
 small hill-farm of Glenivore, which was held by 
 my cousin, Silis Macfarlane. But we were alone 
 then, for Silis was over at the far end of the 
 Strath, because of the baffling against death of 
 her dearest friend, Giorsal MacDiarmid.
 
 Silk o' the Kine. 281 
 
 It was warm there, before the peats, with a 
 thick wedge of spruce driven into the heart of 
 them. The resin crackled and sent blue sparks 
 of flame up through the red and yellow tongues 
 that licked the sooty chimney-slopes, in which, 
 as in a shell, we could hear an endless soughing 
 of the wind. 
 
 Outside, the snow lay deep. It was so hard 
 on the surface that the white hares, leaping 
 across it, went soundless as shadows, and as 
 trackless. 
 
 In the far-off days, when Somhairle was 
 Maormor of the Isles, the most beautiful woman 
 of her time was named Eilidh. 
 
 The king had sworn that whosoever was his 
 best man in battle, when next the Fomorian 
 pirates out of the north came down upon the 
 isles, should have Eilidh to wife. 
 
 Eilidh, who, because of her soft, white beauty, 
 for all the burning brown of her by the sun and 
 wind, was also called Silk o' the Kine, laughed 
 low when she heard this. For she loved the one 
 man in all the world for her, and that was Isla, 
 the son of Isla M6r, the blind chief of Islay. 
 He, too, loved her even as she loved him. He
 
 282 Silk o' the Kine. 
 
 was a poet as well as a warrior, and scarce she 
 knew whether she loved best the fire in his eyes 
 when, girt with his gleaming weapons and 
 with his fair hair unbound, he went forth to 
 battle : or the shine in his eyes when, harp in 
 hand, he chanted of the great deeds of old, or 
 made a sweet song to her, Eilidh, his queen of 
 women ; or the flame in his eyes when, meeting 
 her at the setting of the sun, he stood speechless, 
 wrought to silence because of his worshipping 
 love of her. 
 
 One day she bade him go to the Isle of the 
 Swans to fetch her enough of the breast-down 
 of the wild cygnets for her to make a white cloak 
 of. While he was still absent and the going 
 there, and the faring thereupon, and the return- 
 ing took three days the Fomorians came down 
 upon the Long Island. 
 
 It was a hard fight that was fought, but at 
 last the Norlanders were driven back with 
 slaughter. Somhairle, the Maormor. was all 
 but slain in that fight, and the corbies would 
 have had his eyes had it not been for Osra 
 Mac Osra, who with his javelin slew the spear- 
 man who had waylaid the king while he slipped 
 in the Fomorian blood he had spilt.
 
 Silk o' the Kine. 283 
 
 While the ale was being drunk out of the 
 great horns that night, Somhairle called for 
 Eilidh. 
 
 The girl came to the rath where the king and 
 his warriors feasted, white and beautiful as 
 moonlight among turbulent, black waves. 
 
 A murmur went up from many bearded lips. 
 The king scowled. Then there was silence. 
 
 " I am here, O King," said Eilidh. The 
 sweet voice of her was like soft rain in the 
 woods at the time of the greening. 
 
 Somhairle looked at her. Sure, she was fair 
 to see. No wonder men called her Silk o' the 
 Kine. His pulse beat against the stormy tide 
 in his veins. Then, suddenly, his gaze fell upon 
 Osra. The heart of his kinsman that had saved 
 him was his own ; and he smiled, and lusted 
 after Eilidh no more. 
 
 " Eilidh, that art called Silk o' the Kine, dost 
 thou see this man here before me ? " 
 
 " I see the man." 
 
 " Let the name of him, then, be upon your 
 lips." 
 
 " It is Osra Mac Osra." 
 
 " It is this Osra and no other man that is to 
 wind thee, fair Silk o' the Kine. And by the
 
 284 Silk o' the Kine. 
 
 same token, I have sworn to him that he shall 
 lie breast to breast with thee this night. So 
 go hence to where Osra has his sleeping-place, 
 and await him there upon the deer-skins. From 
 this hour thou art his wife. It is said." 
 
 Then a silence fell again upon all there, when, 
 after a loud surf of babbling laughter and talk, 
 they saw that Eilidh stood where she was, heed- 
 less of the king's word. 
 
 Somhairle gloomed. The great black eyes 
 under his cloudy mass of hair flamed upon her. 
 
 " Is it dumb you are, Eilidh," he said at last, 
 in a cold, hard voice. " Or do you wait for Osra 
 to take you hence ? " 
 
 " I am listening," she answered, and that 
 whisper was heard by all there. It was as the 
 wind in the heather, low and sweet. 
 
 Then all listened. 
 
 The playing of a harp was heard. None 
 played like that, save Isla Mac Isla M6r. 
 
 Then the deer-skins were drawn aside, and 
 Isla came among those who feasted there. 
 
 " Welcome, O thou who wast afar off when 
 the foe came," began Somhairle, with bitter 
 mocking. 
 
 But Isla took no note of that. He went
 
 Silk o' the Kine. 285 
 
 forward till he was nigh upon the Maormor. 
 Then he waited. 
 
 "Well, Isla that is called Isla-Aluinn, Isla 
 fair-to-see, what is the thing you want of me, 
 that you stand there, close-kin to death I am 
 warning you ? " 
 
 "I want Eilidh that is called Silk o' the 
 Kine." 
 
 " Eilidh is the wife of another man." 
 
 " There is no other man, O King." 
 
 " A brave word that ! And who says it, O 
 Isla my over-lord ? " 
 
 " I say it." 
 
 Somhairle, the great Maormor, laughed, and 
 his laugh was like a black bird of omen let 
 loose against a night of storm. 
 
 "And what of Eilidh?" 
 
 " Let her speak." 
 
 With that the Maormor turned to the girl, 
 who did not quail. 
 
 " Speak, Silk o' the Kine ! " 
 
 " There is no other man, O King." 
 
 " Fool, I have this moment wedded you and 
 Osra Mac Osra." 
 
 "I am wife to Isla-Aluinn." 
 
 " Thou canst not be wife to two men ! "
 
 286 Silk o' the Kine. 
 
 " That may be, O King. I know not. But 
 I am wife to Isla-Aluinn." 
 
 The king scowled darkly. None at the 
 board whispered even. Osra shifted uneasily, 
 clasping his sword-hilt. Isla stood, his eyes 
 ashine as they rested on Eilidh. He knew noth- 
 ing in life or death could come between them. 
 
 "Art thou not still a maid, Eilidh?" Sorr- 
 hairle asked at last. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Shame to thee, wanton." 
 
 The girl smiled. But in her eyes, darkened 
 now, there shone a flame. 
 
 "Is Isla-Aluinn the man?" 
 
 " He is the man." 
 
 With that the king laughed a bitter laugh. 
 
 " Seize him ! " he cried. 
 
 But Isla made no movement. So those who 
 were about to bind him stood by, ready with 
 naked swords. 
 
 " Take up your harp," said Somhairle. 
 
 Isla stooped, and lifted the harp. 
 
 " Play now the wedding song of Osra Mac 
 Osra and Eilidh Silk o' the Kine." 
 
 Isla smiled, but it was a grim smile that, and 
 only Eilidh understood. Then he struck the
 
 Silk o' the Kine. 287 
 
 harp, and he sang thus far this song out of his 
 heart to the woman he loved better than life. 
 
 Eilidh, Eilidh, heart of my life, my pulse, my flame, 
 There are two men loving thee, and two who are calling 
 thee wife ! 
 
 But only one husband to thee, Eilidh, that art my wife and 
 
 my joy; 
 Ay, sure thy womb knows me and the child thou bearest is 
 
 Thou to me, I to thee, there is nought else in the world, 
 
 Eilidh, Silk o' the Kine, 
 Nought else in the world, no, no other man for thee, no 
 
 woman for me ! 
 
 But with that Somhairle rose, and dashed the 
 hilt of his great spear upon the ground. 
 
 " Let the twain go," he shouted. 
 
 Then all stood or leaned back, as Isla and 
 Eilidh slowly moved through their midst, hand 
 in hand. Not one there but knew they went to 
 their death. 
 
 " This night shall be theirs," cried the king 
 with mocking wrath. "Then, Osra, you can 
 have your will of Silk o' the Kine that is your 
 wife, and have Isla-Aluinn to be your slave, 
 and this for the rising and setting of three
 
 288 Silk o' the Kine. 
 
 moons from to-night. Then they shall each be 
 blinded and made dumb, and that for the same 
 space of time. And at the end of that time 
 they shall be thrown upon the snow to the 
 wolves." 
 
 Nevertheless Osra groaned in his heart be- 
 cause of that night of Isla with Eilidh. Not 
 all the years of the years could give him a joy 
 like unto that. 
 
 In the silence of the mid-dark he went stealth- 
 ily to where the twain lay. 
 
 It was there he was found in the morning, 
 where he had died soundlessly, with Eilidh's 
 dagger up to the hilt in his heart. 
 
 But none saw them go, save one; and that 
 was Sorch the brother of Isla, Sorch who in 
 later days was called Sorch Mouth o' Honey 
 because of his sweet songs. Of all songs that 
 he sang none was so sweet against the ears as 
 that of the love of Eilidh and Isla. Two lovers 
 these that loved as few love ; and deathless, 
 too, because of that great love. 
 
 And what Sorch saw was this. Just before 
 the rising of the sun, Isla and Eilidh came 
 hand in hand from out of the rath, where they 
 had lain awake all night because of their deep 
 joy.
 
 Silk o' the Kine. 289 
 
 Silently, but unhasting, fearless still as of yore, 
 they moved across the low dunes that withheld 
 the sea from the land. 
 
 The waves were just frothed, so low were, 
 they. The loud glad singing of them filled the 
 morning. Eilidh and Isla stopped when the 
 first waves met their feet. They cast their 
 raiment from them. Eilidh flung the gold fillet 
 of her dusky hair far into the sea. Isla broke 
 his sword, and saw the two halves shelve through 
 the moving greenness. Then they turned, and 
 kissed each other upon the lips. 
 
 And the end of the song of Sorch is this : 
 that neither he nor any man knows whether 
 they went to life or to death; but that Isla 
 and Eilidh swam out together against the sun, 
 and were seen never again by any of their kin 
 or race. Two strong swimmers were these, who 
 swam out together into the sunlight : Eilidh and 
 Isla. 
 
 THE END.
 
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