LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 MRS. DONALD KELLOGG
 
 Nl-0 iD-^ Koxci. (>XaA7
 
 The Writings of 
 "FIONA MACLEOD" 
 
 UNIFORM EDITION 
 
 ARRANGED BY 
 
 MRS. WILLIAM SHARP
 
 The Gods approve the depth and not the tumult of 
 the soul. 
 
 It is loveliness I seek, not lovely things.
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 lona 
 Studies in Spiritual History 
 
 BY 
 
 "FIONA MACLEOD 
 
 (WILLIAM SHARP) 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 1911
 
 Copyright, 1895, by 
 STONE & KIMBALL 
 
 Copyright, 1896, 1898, by 
 HARPER & BROTHERS 
 
 Copyright, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1905, by 
 THOMAS B. MOSHER 
 
 Copyright, 1910, by 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 
 Published, March, 1910 
 
 THE TROW PRESS, NEW YORK
 
 THE WIND, SILENCE, AND LOVE 
 
 FRIENDS WHO HAVE TAUGHT ME MOST: 
 
 BUT SINCE, LONG AGO, TWO WHO ARE NOT FORGOTTEN 
 
 WENT AWAY UPON THE ONE, AND DWELL, THEMSELVES 
 
 REMEMBERING, IN THE OTHER, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 
 
 TO 
 
 E ALASA IDH 
 
 WHOSE LOVE AND SPIRIT LIVE HERE ALSO
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PACE 
 
 The Divine Adventure i 
 
 lONA 91 
 
 By Sundown Shores: 
 
 By Sundown Shores 253 
 
 The Wind, Silence, and Love . . 263 
 
 Barabal: a Memory 268 
 
 The White Heron 276 
 
 The Smoothing of the Hand . . 292 
 
 The White Fever 298 
 
 The Sea-Madness 303 
 
 Earth, Fire, and Water .... 308 
 
 From "Green Fire": 
 
 The Herdsman 319 
 
 Fragments 383 
 
 A Dream 405 
 
 Notes 411 
 
 Bibliographical Note 433 
 
 By Mrs. William Sharp.
 
 THE DIVINE ADVENTURE
 
 '^Let the beginning, I say, of iJiis little book, as if it 
 were some lamp, make it clear thai a divine miracle 
 
 was tnanifested." 
 
 St. Adamnan, Book ii. c. i.
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 "We were three: the Body, the Will, and the Soul. 
 . . . The Will, the Soul, which for the first time 
 had gone alone outside of our common home, had 
 to take upon themselves bodily presences likewise." 
 — The Divine Adventure. 
 
 I remember that it was on St. John's Eve 
 we said we would go away together for a 
 time, but each independently, as three good 
 friends. We had never been at one, though 
 we had shared the same home, and had en- 
 joyed so much in common; but to each, at 
 the same time, had come the great desire of 
 truth, than which there is none greater save 
 that of beauty. 
 
 We had long been somewhat weary. No 
 burden of years, no serious ills, no grief 
 grown old in its own shadow, distressed us. 
 We were young. But we had known the two 
 great ends of life — to love and to suffer. In 
 deep love there is always an inmost dark 
 flame, as in the flame lit by a taper : I think 
 
 3
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 it is the obscure suffering upon which the 
 Dancer Hves. The Dancer! — Love, who is 
 Joy, is a leaping flame : he it is who is the son 
 of that fabled planet, the Dancing Star. 
 
 On that St. John's Eve we had talked with 
 friends on the old mysteries of this day of 
 pagan festival. At last we withdrew, not 
 tired or in disagreement, but because the hid- 
 den things of the spirit are the only realities, 
 and it seemed to us a little idle and foolish to 
 discuss in the legend that which was not for- 
 tuitous or imaginary, since what then held 
 up white hands in the moonlight, even now, 
 in the moonlight of the dreaming mind, 
 beckons to the Divine Forges. 
 
 We left the low-roofed cottage room, 
 where, though the window was open, two can- 
 dles burned with steadfast flame. The night 
 was listeningly still. Beyond the fuchsia bushes 
 a sighing rose, where a continuous foamless 
 wave felt the silences of the shore. The 
 moonpath, far out upon the bronze sea, was 
 like a shadowless white road. In the dusk of 
 the haven glimmered two or three red and 
 green lights, where the fishing-cobles trailed 
 motionless at anchor. Inland were shadowy 
 hills. One of the St. John's Eve fires burned 
 on the nearest of these, its cone blotting out a 
 thousand eastern stars. The flame rose and
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 sank as though it were a pulse: perhaps at 
 that great height the sea-wind or a mountain 
 air played upon it. Out of a vast darkness 
 in the south swung blacker abysses, where 
 thunders breathed with a prolonged and ter- 
 rible sighing; upon their flanks sheet-light- 
 nings roamed. 
 
 There was no sound in the little bay. Be- 
 yond, a fathom of phosphorescence showed 
 that mackerel were playing in the moonshine. 
 Near the trap-ledges, which ran into deep 
 water sheer from the goat-pastures, were 
 many luminous moving phantoms: the me- 
 dusae, green, purple, pale blue, wandering 
 shapes filled with ghostly fire. 
 
 We stood a while in silence, then one of us 
 spoke : 
 
 " Shall we put aside, for a brief while, this 
 close fellowship of ours; and, since we can- 
 not journey apart, go together to find if 
 there be any light upon those matters which 
 trouble us, and perhaps discern things better 
 separately than when trying, as we ever 
 vainly do, to see the same thing with the 
 same eyes ? " 
 
 The others agreed. " It may be I shall 
 know," said one. " It may be I shall remem- 
 ber," said the other. 
 
 " Then let us go back into the house and 
 
 5
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 rest to-night, and to-morrow, after we have 
 slept and eaten well, we can set out with a 
 light heart." 
 
 The others did not answer, for though to 
 one food meant nothing, and to the other 
 sleep was both a remembering and a forget- 
 ting, each unwittingly felt the keen needs of 
 him whom they despised overmuch, and 
 feared somewhat, and yet loved greatly. 
 
 II 
 
 Thus it was that on a midsummer morn- 
 ing we set out alone and afoot, not bent for 
 any one place, though we said we would go 
 towards the dim blue hills in the west, the 
 Hills of Dream, as we called them ; but, 
 rather, idly troubled by the very uncertainties 
 which beset our going. We began that long 
 stepping westward as pilgrims of old who 
 had the Holy City for their goal, but knew 
 that midway were perilous lands. 
 
 We were three, as I have said : the Body, 
 the Will, and the Soul. It was strange for 
 us to be walking there side by side, each 
 familiar with and yet so ignorant of the 
 other. We had so much in common, and yet 
 were so incommunicably alien to one another. 
 6
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 I think that occurred to each of us, as, with 
 brave steps but sidelong eyes, we passed the 
 fuchsia bushes, where the wild bees hummed, 
 and round by the sea pastures, where white 
 goats nibbled among the yellow flags, and 
 shaggy kine with their wild hill-eyes browsed 
 the thyme-sweet salted grass. A fisherman 
 met us. It was old Ian Macrae, whom I had 
 known for many years. Somehow, till then, 
 the thought had not come to me that it 
 might seem unusual to those who knew my 
 solitary ways, that I should be going to and 
 fro with strangers. Then, again, for the first 
 time, it flashed across me that they were so 
 like me — or save in the eyes I could myself 
 discern no difference — the likeness would be 
 as startling as it would be unaccountable. 
 
 I stood for a moment, uncertain. " Of 
 course," I muttered below my breath, " of 
 course, the others are invisible; I had not 
 thought of that." I watched them slowly ad- 
 vance, for they had not halted when I did. 
 I saw them incline the head with a grave 
 smile as they passed Ian. The old man had 
 taken off his bonnet to them, and had stood 
 aside. 
 
 Strangely disquieted, I moved towards 
 Macrae. 
 
 " Ian," I whispered rather than spoke. 
 
 7
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 " Ay," he answered simply, looking at me 
 with his grave, far-seeing eyes. 
 
 "Ian, have you seen my friends before?" 
 
 " No, I have never seen them before." 
 
 " They have been here for — for — many 
 days." 
 
 " I have not seen them." 
 
 " Tell me ; do you recognise them ? " 
 
 " I have not seen them before." 
 
 " I mean, do you — do you see any likeness 
 in them to any you know ? " 
 
 " No, I see no likeness." 
 
 " You are sure, Ian ? " 
 
 "Ay, for sure. And why not?" The 
 old fisherman looked at me with questioning 
 eyes. 
 
 " Tell me, Ian, do you see any difference 
 in me ? " 
 
 " No, for sure, no." 
 
 Bewildered, I pondered this new mystery. 
 Were we really three personalities, without as 
 well as within? 
 
 At that moment the Will turned. I heard 
 his voice fall clearly along the heather-fra- 
 grant air-ledges. 
 
 " We, too, are bewildered by this mystery," 
 he said. 
 
 So he knew my thought. It was our 
 thought. Yes, for now the Soul turned also ; 
 8
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 and I heard his sunwarm breath come across 
 the honeysuckles by the roadside. 
 
 " I, too, am bewildered by this mystery," 
 he said. 
 
 " Ian," I exclaimed to the old man, who 
 stared wonderingly at us ; " Ian, tell me this : 
 what like are my companions ; how do they 
 seem to you ? " 
 
 The old man glanced at me, startled, then 
 rubbed his eyes as though he were half- 
 awakened from a dream. 
 
 "Why are you asking that thing?" 
 
 " Because, Ian, you do not see any likeness 
 in them to myself. I had thought — I had 
 thought they were so like." 
 
 Macrae put his wavering, wrinkled hand 
 to his withered mouth. He gave a chuckling 
 laugh. 
 
 " Ah, I understand now. It is a joke you 
 are playing on old Ian." 
 
 " Maybe ay, and maybe no, Ian ; but I do 
 want to know how they seem to you, those 
 two yonder." 
 
 " Well, well, now, for sure, that friend of 
 yours there, that spoke first, he is just a 
 weary, tired old man, like I am myself, and 
 so like me, now that I look at him, that he 
 might be my wraith. And the other, he is a 
 fine lad, a fisher-lad for sure, though I fear 
 
 9
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 God's gripped his heart, for I see the old an- 
 cient sorrow in his eyes." 
 
 I stared; then suddenly I understood. 
 
 " Good-day, Ian," I added hurriedly, " and 
 the blessing of Himself be upon you and 
 yours, and upon the nets and the boats." 
 
 Then I moved slowly towards my com- 
 panions, who awaited me. I understood 
 now. The old fisherman had seen after his 
 own kind. The Will, the Soul, which for the 
 first time had journeyed outside our com- 
 mon home, had to take upon themselves bod- 
 ily presences likewise. But these wavering 
 images were to others only the reflection of 
 whoso looked upon them. Old Ian had seen 
 his own tired self and his lost youth. With a 
 new fear the Body called to us, and we to 
 him ; and we were one, yet three ; and so we 
 went onward together. 
 
 Ill 
 
 We were silent. It is not easy for three, 
 so closely knit, so intimate, as we had been 
 for so many years, suddenly to enter upon 
 a new comradeship, wherein three that had 
 been as one were now several. A new reti- 
 cence had come to each of us. We walked 
 
 10
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 in silence — conscious of the beauty of the 
 day, in sea and sky and already purpling 
 moors ; of the white gulls flecking the azure, 
 and the yellowhammers and stonechats flit- 
 ting among the gorse and fragrant bog-myr- 
 tle — we knew that none was inclined to 
 speak. Each had his own thoughts. 
 
 The three dreamers — for so we were in 
 that lovely hour of dream — walked stead- 
 fastly onward. It was not more than an 
 hour after noon that we came to an inlet 
 of the sea, so narrow that it looked like a 
 stream, only that a salt air arose between the 
 irises which thickly bordered it, and that the 
 sunken rock-ledges were fragrant with sea- 
 pink and the stone-convolvulus. The moving 
 tidal water was grass-green, save where 
 dusked with long, mauve shadows. 
 
 " Let us rest here," said the Body. " It is 
 so sweet in the sunlight, here by this cool 
 water." 
 
 The Will smiled as he threw himself down 
 upon a mossy slope that reached from an 
 oak's base to the pebbly margins. 
 
 " It is ever so with you," he said, still 
 smiling. " You love rest, as the wandering 
 clouds love the waving hand of the sun." 
 
 "What made you think of that?" asked 
 the Soul abruptly, who till that moment had 
 II
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 been rapt in silent commune with his in- 
 most thoughts. 
 
 "Why do you ask?" 
 
 " Because I, too, was thinking that just as 
 the waving hand of the sun beckons the 
 white wandering clouds, as a shepherd calls 
 to his scattered sheep, so there is a hand 
 waving to us to press forward. Far away, 
 yonder, a rainbow is being woven of sun 
 and mist. Perhaps, there, we may come 
 upon that which we have come out to 
 see." 
 
 " But the Body wishes to rest. And, truly, 
 it is sweet here in the sunflood, and by this 
 moving green water, which whispers in the 
 reeds and flags, and sings its own sea-song 
 the while." 
 
 " Let us rest, then." 
 
 And, as we lay there, a great peace came 
 upon us. There were hushed tears in the 
 eyes of the Soul, and a dreaming smile upon 
 the face of the Will, and, in the serene gaze 
 of the Body, a content that was exceeding 
 sweet. It was so welcome to lie there and 
 dream. We knew a rare happiness in that 
 exquisite quietude. 
 
 After a time, the Body rose, and moved to 
 the water-edge. 
 
 " It is so lovely," he said, " I must bathe " 
 
 12
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 — and with that he threw aside his clothes, 
 and stood naked among the reeds and yel- 
 low flags which bordered the inlet. 
 
 The sun shone upon his white body, the 
 colour of pale ivory. A delicate shadow 
 lightly touched him, now here, now there, 
 from the sunlit green sheaths and stems 
 among which he stood. He laughed out of 
 sheer joy, and raised his arms, and made a 
 splashing with his trampling feet. 
 
 Looking backward with a blithe glance, he 
 cried : 
 
 " After all, it is good to be alive : neither 
 to think nor to dream, but just content to be." 
 
 Receiving no answer, he laughed merrily, 
 and, plunging forward, swam seaward against 
 the sun-dazzle. 
 
 His two companions watched him with 
 shining eyes. 
 
 " Truly, he is very fair to look upon," 
 said the Soul. 
 
 " Yes," added the Will, " and perhaps he 
 has chosen the better part elsewhere as 
 here." 
 
 " Can it be the better part to prefer the 
 things of the moment to those of Eternity?" 
 
 ''What is Eternity?" 
 
 For a few seconds the Soul was silent. It 
 was not easy for him to understand that 
 
 13
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 what was a near horizon to him was a vague 
 vista, possibly a mirage, to another. He was 
 ever, in himself, moving just the hither side 
 of the narrow mortal horizon which Eter- 
 nity swims in upon from behind and beyond. 
 The Will looked at him questioningly, then 
 spoke again : 
 
 " You speak of the things of Eternity. 
 What is Eternity ? " 
 
 " Eternity is the Breath of God." 
 
 " That tells me nothing." 
 
 " It is Time, freed from his Mortality." 
 
 " Again, that tells me little. Or, rather, I 
 am no wiser. What is Eternity to usf " 
 
 " It is our perpetuity." 
 
 " Then is it only a warrant against Death ? " 
 
 " No, it is more. Time is our sphere : 
 Eternity is our home." 
 
 '' There is no other lesson for you in the 
 worm, and in the dust?" 
 
 " What do you mean, brother ? " 
 
 "Does dissolution mean nothing to you?" 
 
 " What is dissolution ? " 
 
 It was now the Will who stared with won- 
 dering eyes. To him that question was as 
 disquieting as that which he had asked the 
 Soul. It was a minute before he spoke 
 again. 
 
 " You ask me what is dissolution ? Do 
 
 14
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 you not understand what death means to 
 nief " 
 
 " Why to you more than to me, or to the 
 Body ? " 
 
 " What is it to you ? " 
 
 " A change from a dream of Beauty, to 
 Beauty." 
 
 " And at the worst ? " 
 
 " Freedom : escape from narrow walls — 
 often dark and foul." 
 
 " In any case nothing but a change, a 
 swift and absolute change, from what was to 
 what is?" 
 
 " Even so." 
 
 " And you have no fear ? " 
 
 " None. Why should I ? " 
 
 "Why should you not?" 
 
 Again there was a sudden silence between 
 the two. At last the Soul spoke : 
 
 " Why should I not ? I cannot tell you. 
 But I have no fear. I am a Son of God." 
 
 "And we?" 
 
 " Ah, yes, dear brother : you, too, and the 
 Body." 
 
 " But we perish ! " 
 
 " There is the resurrection of the Body." 
 
 " Where— when ? " 
 
 " As it is written. In God's hour." 
 
 " Is the worm also the Son of God ? " 
 
 15
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 The Soul stared downward into the green 
 water, but did not answer, A look of 
 strange trouble was in his eyes. 
 
 " Is not the Grave on the hither side of 
 Eternity?" 
 
 Still no answer. 
 
 " Does God whisper beneath the Tomb ? " 
 
 At this the Soul rose, and moved restlessly 
 to and fro. 
 
 " Tell me," resumed the Will, " what is 
 Dissolution ? " 
 
 " It is the returning into dust of that 
 which was dust." 
 
 " And what is dust ? " 
 
 " The formless : the inchoate : the mass 
 out of which the Potter makes new vessels, 
 or moulds new shapes." 
 
 " But you do not go into dust ? " 
 
 " 1 came from afar : afar I go again." 
 
 " But we — we shall be formless : in- 
 choate?" 
 
 " You shall be upbuilded." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 The Sovil turned, and again sat by his com- 
 rade. 
 
 " I know not," he said simply. 
 
 " But if the Body go back to the dust, and 
 the life that is in him be blown out like a 
 wavering flame; and if you who came from 
 i6
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 afar, again return afar; what, then, for me, 
 who am neither an immortal spirit nor yet of 
 this frail human clan ? " 
 
 " God has need of you." 
 
 " When — where? " 
 
 " How can I tell what I cannot even sur- 
 mise? " 
 
 "Tell me, tell me this: if I am so wedded 
 to the Body that, if he perish, I perish also, 
 what resurrection can there be for me ? " 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 " Is it a resurrection for the Body if, after 
 weeks, or years, or scores of years, his de- 
 caying dust is absorbed into the earth, and 
 passes in a chemic change into the living 
 world?" 
 
 " No : that is not a resurrection : that is a 
 transmutation." 
 
 " Yet that is all. There is nothing else 
 possible. Dust unto dust. As with the 
 Body, so with the mind, the spirit of life, 
 that which I am, the Will. In the Grave 
 there is no fretfulness any more : neither 
 any sorrow, or joy, or any thought, or dream, 
 or fear, or hope whatsoever. Hath not God 
 Himself said it, through the mouth of His 
 prophet ? " 
 
 "I do not understand/' murmured the 
 Soul, troubled. 
 
 17
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 " Because the Grave is not your portion." 
 
 " But I, too, must know Death ! " 
 
 " Yes, truly — a change what was it? — a 
 change from a dream of Beauty, to Beauty ! " 
 
 " God knows I would that we could go to- 
 gether — you, and he yonder, and I; or, if 
 that cannot be, he being wholly mortal, then 
 at the least you and I." 
 
 " But we cannot. At least, so it seems to 
 us. But I — I too am alive, I too have 
 dreams and visions, I too have joys and 
 hopes, I too have despairs. And for me — 
 nothing. I am, at the end, as a blown flame." 
 
 " It may not be so. Something has whis- 
 pered to me at times that you and I are to be 
 made one." 
 
 " Tell me : can the immortal wed the mor- 
 tal?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then how can we two wed, for I am 
 mortal. My very life depends on the Body. 
 A falling branch, a whelming wave, a sudden 
 ill, and in a moment that which was is not. 
 He, the Body, is suddenly become inert, mo- 
 tionless, cold, the perquisite of the Grave, the 
 sport of the maggot and the worm : and I — I 
 am a subsided wave, a vanished spiral of 
 smoke, a little fugitive wind-eddy abruptly 
 ended." 
 
 l8
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 " You know not what is the end any more 
 than I do. In a moment we are translated." 
 
 " Ah, is it so with you ? O Soul, I thought 
 that you had a profound surety ! " 
 
 "I know nothing: I believe." 
 
 " Then it may be with you as with us ? " 
 
 " I know little : I believe." 
 
 " When I am well I believe in new, full, 
 rich, wonderful life — in life in the spiritual 
 as well as the mortal sphere. And the Body, 
 when he is ill, he, too, thinks of that which 
 is your heritage. But if you are not sure — 
 if you know nothing — may it not be that you, 
 too, have fed upon dreams, and have dallied 
 with Will-o'-the-wisp, and are an idle-blown 
 flame even as I am, and have only a vaster 
 spiritual outlook ? May it not be that you, O 
 Soul, are but a spiritual nerve in the dark, 
 confused, brooding mind of Humanity? 
 May it not be that you and I and the Body 
 go down unto one end?" 
 
 " Not so. There is the Word of God." 
 
 " We read it differently." 
 
 " Yet the Word remains." 
 
 "You believe in the immortal life? — You 
 believe in Eternity ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Then what is Eternity?" 
 
 " Already you have asked me that ! " 
 
 19
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 " You believe in Eternity. What is Eter- 
 nity?" 
 
 " Continuity." 
 
 " And what are the things of Eternity? " 
 
 " Immortal desires." 
 
 " Then what need for us who are mortal 
 to occupy ourselves with what must be for 
 ever beyond us? " 
 
 Thereat, with a harsh laugh, the Will 
 arose, and throwing his garments from him, 
 plunged into the sunlit green water, with sud- 
 den cries of joy calling to the Body, who was 
 still rejoicefully swimming in the sun-dazzle 
 as he breasted the tide. 
 
 An hour later we rose, and, silent again, 
 once more resumed our way. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was about the middle of the afternoon 
 that we moved inland, because of a difficult 
 tract of cliff and bouldered shore. We fol- 
 lowed the course of a brown torrent, and 
 were soon under the shadow of the mountain. 
 The ewes and lambs made incessantly that 
 mournful crying, which in mountain solitudes 
 falls from ledge to ledge as though it were 
 no other than the ancient sorrow of the hills. 
 20
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 Thence we emerged, walking among boul- 
 ders green with moss and grey with lichen, 
 often isled among bracken and shadowed by 
 the wind-wavering birches, or the finger- 
 leafed rowans already heavy with clusters of 
 ruddy fruit. Sometimes we spoke of things 
 which interested us : of the play of light and 
 shadow in the swirling brown torrent along 
 whose banks we walked, and by whose gray- 
 ling-haunted pools we lingered often, to look 
 at the beautiful shadowy unrealities of the 
 perhaps net less shadowy reality which they 
 mirrored; of the solemn dusk of the pines; 
 of the mauve shadows which slanted across 
 the scanty corn that lay in green patches be- 
 yond lonely crofts ; of the travelling purple 
 phantoms of phantom clouds, to us invisible, 
 overagainst the mountain-breasts; of a soli- 
 tary seamew, echoing the wave in that in- 
 land stillness. 
 
 All these things gave us keen pleasure. 
 The Body often laughed joyously, and talked 
 of chasing the shadow till it should turn 
 and leap into him, and he be a wild crea- 
 ture of the woods again, and be happy, 
 knowing nothing but the incalculable hour. 
 It is an old belief of the Gaelic hill- 
 people. 
 
 " If one yet older be true," said the Will, 
 
 21
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 speaking to the Soul, " you and Shadow are 
 one and the same. Nay, the mystery of the 
 Trinity is symboHsed here again — as in us 
 three ; for there is an ancient forgotten word 
 of an ancient forgotten people, which means 
 alike the Breath, the Shadow, and the Soul." ^ 
 
 As we walked onward we became more 
 silent. It was about the sixth hour from noon 
 that we saw a little coast-town lying amid 
 green pastures, overhung, as it seemed, by 
 the tremulous blue band of the sea-line. The 
 Body was glad, for here were friends, and he 
 wearied for his kind. The Will and the 
 Soul, too, were pleased, for now they shared 
 the common lot of mortality, and knew 
 weariness as well as hunger and thirst. So 
 we moved towards the blue smoke of the 
 homes. 
 
 " The home of a wild dove, a branch 
 swaying in the wind, is sweet to it ; and the 
 green bracken under a granite rock is home 
 to a tired hind ; and so we, who are wayfarers 
 idler than these, which blindly obey the law, 
 may well look to yonder village as our home 
 for to-night." 
 
 So spoke the Soul. 
 
 The Body laughed blithely. "Yes," he 
 
 * ^he Aztec word Ehecatl, which signifies alike 
 the Wind (or Breath), Shadow, and Soul. 
 22
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 added, " it is a cheerier home than the green 
 bracken. Tell me, have you ever heard of 
 The Three Companions of Night?" 
 
 "The Three Companions of Night? I 
 would take them to be Prayer, and Hope, 
 and Peace." 
 
 " So says the Soul — but what do you say, 
 O Will?" 
 
 " I would take them to be Dream, and RcKt, 
 and Longing." 
 
 " We are ever different," replied the Body, 
 with a sigh, " for the Three Companions of 
 whom I speak are Laughter, and Wine, and 
 Love." 
 
 " Perhaps we mean the same thing," mut- 
 tered the Will, with a smile of bitter irony. 
 
 We thought much of these words as we 
 passed down a sandy lane hung with honey- 
 suckles, which were full of little birds who 
 made a sweet chittering. 
 
 Prayer, and Hope, and Peace ; Dream, and 
 Rest, and Longing; Laughter, and Wine, and 
 Love : were these analogues of the Heart's 
 Desire? 
 
 When we left the lane, where we saw a 
 glow-worm emitting a pale fire as he moved 
 through the green dusk in the shadow of the 
 hedge, we came upon a white devious road. 
 A young man stood by a pile of stones. He 
 
 23
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 stopped his labour and looked at us. One of 
 us spoke to him. 
 
 " Why is it that a man like yourself, young 
 and strong, should be doing this work, which 
 is for broken men ? " 
 
 "Why are you breathing?" he asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 " We breathe to live," answered the Body, 
 smiling blithely. 
 
 " Well, I break stones to live." 
 
 "Is it worth it?" 
 
 " It's better than death." 
 
 " Yes," said the Body slowly, " it is better 
 than death." 
 
 " Tell me," asked the Soul, " why is it bet- 
 ter than death?" 
 
 " Who wants not to want ? " 
 
 " Ah — it is the need to want, then, that is 
 strongest ! " 
 
 The stone-breaker looked sullenly at the 
 speaker. 
 
 " If you're not anxious to live," he said, 
 "will you give me what money you have? It 
 is a pity good money should be wasted. I 
 know well where I would be spending it this 
 night of the nights," he added abruptly in 
 Gaelic. 
 
 The Body looked at him with curious 
 eyes. 
 
 24
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 " And where would you be spending it ? " 
 he asked, in the same language. 
 
 " This is the night of the marriage of John 
 Macdonald, the rich man from America, who 
 has come back to his own town, and is giving 
 a big night of it to all his friends, and his 
 friends' friends." 
 
 " Is that the John Macdonald who is mar- 
 rying Elsie Cameron ? " demanded the Body 
 eagerly. 
 
 " Ay, the same ; though it may be the other 
 daughter of Alastair Rua, the girl Morag." 
 
 A flush rose to the face of the Body. His 
 eyes sparkled. 
 
 " It is Elsie," he said to the man. 
 
 " Belike," the stone-breaker muttered in- 
 differently. 
 
 " Do you know where Alastair Rua and his 
 daughters are ? " 
 
 " Yes, at Beann Marsanta Macdonald's big 
 house of the One-Ash Farm." 
 
 " Can you show me the way ? " 
 
 " I'm going that way." 
 
 Thereat the Body turned to his comrades: 
 
 " I love her," he said simply; " I love Mo- 
 rag Cameron." 
 
 " She is not for your loving," answered the 
 Will sharply; " for she has given troth to old 
 Archibald Sinclair." 
 
 25
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 The Body laughed. 
 
 " Love is love," he said lightly. 
 
 "Come," interrupted the Soul wearily; 
 " we have loitered long enough. Let us go." 
 
 We stood looking at the stone-breaker, who 
 was gazing curiously at us. Suddenly he 
 laughed. 
 
 " Why do you laugh? " asked the Soul. 
 
 " Well, I'm not for knowing that. But I'll 
 tell you this : if you two wish to go into the 
 town, you have only to follow this road. And 
 if you want to come to One- Ash Farm, then 
 you must come this other way with me." 
 
 " Do not go," whispered the Soul. 
 
 But the Body, with an impatient gesture, 
 drew aside. " Leave me," he added : " I wish 
 to go with this man. I will meet you to- 
 morrow morning at the first bridge to the 
 westward of the little town yonder, just 
 where the stream slackens over the pebbles." 
 
 With reluctant eyes the two companions 
 saw their comrade leave. For a long time the 
 Will watched him with a bitter smile. Re- 
 deeming love was in the longing eyes of the 
 Soul. 
 
 When the Body and the stone-breaker 
 were alone, as they walked towards the dis- 
 tant farm-steading, where already were lights, 
 and whence came a lowing of kye in the byres, 
 26
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 for it was the milking hour, they spoke at 
 intervals. 
 
 " Who were these with you ? " asked the 
 man. 
 
 " Friends. We have come away together." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " Well, as you would say, to see the 
 world." 
 
 " To see the world ? " The man laughed. 
 " To see the world ! Have you money ? " 
 
 " Enough for our needs." 
 
 " Then you will see nothing. The world 
 gives to them that already have, an' more 
 than have." 
 
 " What do you hope for to-night? " 
 
 " To be drunk." 
 
 " That is a poor thing to hope for. Better 
 to think of the laugh and the joke by the 
 fireside; and of food and drink, too, if you 
 will: of the pipes, and dancing, and pretty 
 girls." 
 
 " Do as you like. As for me, I hope to be 
 drunk." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Why ? Because I'll be another man then. 
 I'll have forgotten all that I now remember 
 from sunrise to sundown. Can you think 
 what it is to break a hope in your heart each 
 time you crack a stone on the roadside? 
 
 27
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 That's what I am, a stone-breaker, an' I 
 crack stones inside as well as outside. It's a 
 stony place my heart, God knows." 
 
 "You are young to speak like that, and 
 you speak like a man who has known better 
 days." 
 
 " Oh, I'm ancient enough," said the man, 
 with a short laugh. 
 
 "What meaning does that have?" 
 " What meaning? Well, it just means this, 
 that I'm as old as the Bible. For there's 
 mention o' me there. Only there I'm herding 
 swine, an' here I'm breaking stones." 
 "And is your father living?" 
 " Ay, he curses me o' Sabbaths." 
 " Then it's not the same as the old story 
 that is in the Bible ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing's the same an' everything's 
 the same — except when you're drunk, an' 
 then it's only the same turned outside in. But 
 see, yonder's the farm. Take my advice, an' 
 drink. It's better than the fireside, it's better 
 than food, it's better than kisses, ay it's better 
 than love, it's as good as hate, an' it's the 
 only thing you can drown in except despair." 
 Soon after this the Body entered the house 
 of the Beann Marsanta Macdonald, and with 
 laughter and delight met Morag Cameron, 
 and others whom his heart leaped to see. 
 28
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 At midnight, the Will sat in a room in a 
 little inn, and read out of two books, now out 
 of one, now out of the other. The one was 
 the Gaelic Bible, the other was in English and 
 was called The One Hope. 
 
 He rose, as the village clock struck twelve, 
 and went to the window. A salt breath, 
 pungent with tide-stranded seaweed, reached 
 him. In the little harbour, thin shadowy 
 masts ascended like smoke and melted. A 
 green lantern swung from one. The howling 
 of a dog rose and fell. A faint lapping of 
 water was audible. On a big fishing-coble 
 some men were laughing and cursing. 
 
 Overhead was an oppressive solemnity. 
 The myriad stars were as the incalculable 
 notes of a stilled music, become visible in si- 
 lence. It was a relief to look into unlighted 
 deeps. 
 
 " These idle lances of God pierce the mind, 
 slay the spirit," the Will murmured, staring 
 with dull anger at the white multitude. 
 
 " If the Soul were here," he added bitterly, 
 " he would look at these glittering mockerieb 
 as though they were harbingers of eternal 
 hope. To me they are whited sepulchres. 
 They say we live, to those who die ; they say 
 God endures, to Man that perisheth ; they 
 whisper the Immortal Hope to Mortality." 
 29
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 Turning, he went back to where he had left 
 the books. He hfted one, and read: — 
 
 " Have we not the word of God Himself 
 tJiat Time and Chance happeneth to all: that 
 soon or late we shall all he caught in a net, 
 we whom Chance hath for his idle sport, and 
 upon whom Time trampleth with impatient 
 feet? Verily, the rainbow is not more frail, 
 more fleeting, than this drear audacity." 
 
 With a sigh he put the book down, and 
 lifted the other. Having found the page he 
 sought, he read slowly aloud : — 
 
 ". . . but Time and Chance happeneth to 
 them all. For man also knozveth not his time: 
 as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and 
 as the birds that arc caught in the snare, even 
 so are the sons of men snared in an evil 
 time, when it falleth suddenly upon them." 
 
 He went to the window again, brooding 
 darkly. A slight sound caught his ear. He 
 saw a yellow light run out, leap across the 
 pavement and pass like a fan of outblown 
 flame. Then the door closed, and we heard 
 a step on the stone flags. He looked down. 
 The Soul was there. 
 
 " Are you restless ? Can you not sleep ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " No, dear friend. But my heart is weary 
 because of the Body. Yet before I go, let me 
 
 30
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 bid you read that which follows upon what 
 you have just read. It is not only Time and 
 Chance upon which to dwell ; but upon this, 
 that God knows that which He does, and the 
 hour and the way, and sees the end in the be- 
 ginning." 
 
 And while the Soul moved softly down the 
 little windy street, the Will opened the Book 
 again, and read as the Soul had bidden. 
 
 " It may be so," he muttered, " it may be 
 that the dreamer may yet wake to behold his 
 dream — " As thou knowest not w^hat is the 
 way of the wind, even so thou knowest not 
 the work of God Who doeth all?" 
 
 With that he sighed wearily, and then, 
 afraid to look again at the bitter eloquence of 
 the stars, lit a candle as he lay down on his 
 bed, and watched the warm companionable 
 flame till sleep came upon him, and he 
 dreamed no more of the rue and cypress, but 
 plucked amaranths in the moonshine. 
 
 Meanwhile the Soul walked swiftly to the 
 outskirts of the little town, and out by the 
 grassy links where clusters of white geese 
 huddled in sleep, and across the windy com- 
 mon where a tethered ass stood, with droop- 
 ing head, his long, twitching ears now mo- 
 tionless. In the moonlight, the shadow of 
 the weary animal stretched to fantastic 
 
 31
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 lengths, and at one point, when the startled 
 Soul looked at it, he beheld the shadow of 
 the Cross, 
 
 When he neared One-Ash Farm he heard 
 a loud uproar from within. Many couples 
 were still dancing, and the pipes and a shrill 
 flute added to the tumult. Others sang and 
 laughed, or laughed and shouted, or cursed 
 hoarsely. Through the fumes of smoke and 
 drink rippled women's laughter. 
 
 He looked in at a window, with sad eyes. 
 The first glance revealed to him the Body, his 
 blue eyes aflame, his face flushed with wine, 
 his left arm holding close to his heart a bright 
 winsome lass, with hair dishevelled, and wild 
 eyes, but with a wonderful laughing eagerness 
 of joy. 
 
 In vain he called. His voice was suddenly 
 grown faint. But what the ear could not 
 hear, the heart heard. The Body rose 
 abruptly. 
 
 " I will drink no more," he said. 
 
 A loud insensate laugh resounded near 
 him. The stone-breaker lounged heavily 
 from a bench, upon the servant's table. 
 
 " I am drunk now, my friend," the man 
 cried with flaming eyes. " I am drunk, an' 
 now I am as reckless as a king, an' as serene 
 as the Pope, an' as heedless as God." 
 
 32
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 The Soul turned his gaze and looked at 
 him. He saw a red flame rising from grey 
 ashes. The ashes were his heart. The flame 
 was his impotent, perishing life. 
 
 Stricken with sorrow, the Soul went to the 
 door, and entered. He went straight to the 
 stone-breaker, who was now lying with head 
 and arms prone on the deal table. 
 
 He whispered in the drunkard's ear. The 
 man lifted his head, and stared with red, 
 brutish eyes. 
 
 " What is that ? " he cried. 
 
 " Your mother was pure and holy. She 
 died to give you her life. What will it be 
 like on the day she asks for it again ? " 
 
 The man raised an averting arm. There 
 was a stare of horror in his eyes. 
 
 " I know you, you devil. Your name is 
 Conscience." 
 
 The Soul looked at the speaker. " I do not 
 know," he answered simply ; " but I believe in 
 God." 
 
 "In the love of God?" 
 
 " In the love of God." 
 
 " He dwells everywhere ? " 
 
 " Everywhere." 
 
 " Then I will find Him, I will find His love, 
 here " — and with that the man raised the 
 deathly spirit to his lips again, and again 
 
 33
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 drank. Then, laughing and cursing, he threw 
 the remainder at the feet of his unknown 
 friend. 
 
 " Farewell ! " he shouted hoarsely, so that 
 those about him stared at him and at the 
 new-comer. 
 
 The Soul turned sadly, and looked for his 
 strayed comrade, but he was nowhere to be 
 seen. In a room upstairs that friend whom 
 he loved was whispering eager vows of sand 
 and wind; and the girl Morag, clinging close 
 to him, tempted him as she herself was 
 tempted, so that both stood in that sand, and 
 in the intertangled hair of each that wind 
 blew. 
 
 The Soul saw, and understood. None 
 spoke to him, a stranger, as he went slowly 
 from the house, though all were relieved when 
 that silent, sad-eyed foreigner withdrew. 
 
 Outside, the cool sea-wind fell freshly upon 
 him. He heard a corncrake calling harshly 
 to his mate, where the corn was yellowing in 
 a little stone-dyked field; and a night-jar 
 creening forward on a juniper, uttering his 
 whirring love-note; and he blessed their 
 sweet, innocent lust. Then, looking upward, 
 he watched for a while the white procession 
 of the stars. They were to him the symbolic 
 signs of the mystery of God. He bowed his 
 
 34
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 head. " Dust of the world," he muttered 
 humbly, " dust of the world." 
 
 Moving slowly by the house — so doubly 
 noisy, so harshly discordant, against the 
 large, serene, nocturnal life — he came against 
 the gable of an open window. On the ledge 
 lay a violin, doubtless discarded by some 
 reveller. The Soul lifted it, and held it up 
 to the night-wind. When it was purified, and 
 the vibrant wood was as a nerve in that fra- 
 grant darkness, he laid it on his shoulder and 
 played softly. 
 
 What was it that he played? Many heard 
 it, but none knew what the strain was, or 
 whence it came. The Soul remembered, and 
 played. It is enough. 
 
 That soft playing stole into the house as 
 though it were the cool sea-wind, as though 
 it were the flowing dusk. Beautiful, un- 
 familiar sounds, and sudden silences passing 
 sweet, filled the rooms. The last guests left 
 hurriedly, hushed, strangely disquieted. The 
 dwellers in the farmstead furtively bade 
 good-night, and slipt away. 
 
 For an hour, till the sinking of the moon, 
 the Soul played. He played the Song of 
 Dreams, the Song of Peace, the three Songs 
 of Mystery. The evil that was in the house 
 ebbed. Everywhere, at his playing, the se- 
 
 35
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 cret obscure life awoke. Nimble aerial 
 creatures swung, invisibly passive, in the 
 quiet dark. From the brown earth, from hid- 
 den sanctuaries in rocks and trees, green and 
 grey lives slid, and stood intent. Out of the 
 hillside came those of old. There were 
 many eager voices, like leaves lapping in a 
 wind. The wild-fox lay down, with red 
 tongue lolling idly; the stag rose from the 
 fern, with dilated nostrils; the night-jar 
 ceased, the corncrake ceased, the moon- 
 wakeful thrushes made no single thrilling 
 note. The silence deepened. Sleep came 
 stealing softly out of the obscure, swimming 
 dusk. There was not a swaying reed, a mov- 
 ing leaf. The strange company of shadows 
 stood breathless. Among the tree-tops the 
 loosened stars shone terribly — lonely fires of 
 silence. 
 
 The Soul played. Once he thought of the 
 stone-breaker. He played into his heart. 
 The man stirred, and tears oozed between his 
 heavy lids. It was his mother's voice that he 
 heard, singing low a cradle-sweet song, and 
 putting back her white hair that she might 
 look earthward to her love. " Grey sweet- 
 heart, grey sweetheart," he moaned. Then his 
 heart lightened, and a moonlight of peace hal- 
 lowed that solitary waste place.
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 Again, at the last, the Soul thought of his 
 comrade, heavy with wine in the room over- 
 head, drunken with desire. And to him he 
 played the imperishable beauty of Beauty, the 
 Immortal Love, so that, afterwards, he should 
 remember the glory rather than the shame of 
 his poor frailty. What he played to the girl's 
 heart only those women know who hear the 
 whispering words of Mary the Mother in 
 sleep, when a second life breathes beneath 
 each breath. 
 
 When he ceased, deep slumber was a balm 
 upon all. He fell upon his knees and prayed. 
 
 " Beauty of all Beauty," he prayed, " let 
 none perish without thee." 
 
 It was thus that we three, who were one, 
 realised how Prayer and Hope and Peace, 
 how Dream and Rest and Longing, how 
 Laughter and Wine and Love, are in truth 
 but shadowy analogues of the Heart's Desire. 
 
 V 
 
 At dawn we woke. A movement of glad- 
 ness was in the lovely tides of morning — 
 delicate green, and blue, and gold. The spires 
 of the grasses were washed in dew ; the in- 
 numerous was as one green flower that had 
 lain all night in the moonshine. 
 
 37
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 We had agreed to meet at the bridge over 
 the stream where it lapsed through gravelly 
 beaches just beyond the little town. 
 
 There the Soul and the Will long awaited 
 the Body. The sun was an hour risen, and 
 had guided a moving multitude of gold and 
 azure waters against the long reaches of yel- 
 low-poppied sand, and to the bases of the 
 great cliffs, whose schist shone like chrysolite, 
 and whose dreadful bastions of black basalt 
 loomed in purple shadow, like suspended 
 thunder-clouds on a windless afternoon. 
 
 The air was filled with the poignant sweet- 
 ness of the loneroid or bog-myrtle, meadow- 
 sweet, and white wild roses. The green smell 
 of the bracken, the delicate woodland odour 
 of the mountain-ash, floated hitherward and 
 thitherward on the idle breath of the wind, 
 sunwarm when it came across the sea-pinks 
 and thyme-set grass, cool and fresh when it 
 eddied from the fern-coverts, or from the 
 heather above the hillside-boulders where the 
 sheep lay, or from under the pines at the bend 
 of the sea-road where already the cooing of 
 grey doves made an indolent sweetness. 
 
 The Soul was silent. He had not slept, 
 but, after his playing in the dark, peace had 
 come to him. 
 
 Before dawn he had gone into the room 
 
 38
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 where the Will lay, and had looked long at 
 his comrade. In sleep the Will more resem- 
 bled him, as when awake he the more resem- 
 bled the Body. A deep pity had come upon 
 the Soul for him whom he loved so well, but 
 knew so little. 
 
 Why was it, he wondered, that he felt less 
 alien from the Body? Why was it that this 
 strange, potent, inscrutable being, whom both 
 loved, should be so foreign to each? The 
 Body feared him. As for himself, he, too, 
 feared him at times. There were moments 
 when all his marvellous background of the 
 immortal life shrank before the keen gaze of 
 his friend. Was it possible that Mind could 
 have a life apart from mortal substances? 
 Was it possible? If so 
 
 It was here that the Will awoke, and 
 smiled at his friend. 
 
 He gave no greeting, but answered his 
 thought. 
 
 " Yes," he said gravely, and as though con- 
 tinuing an argument, " it is impossible, if you 
 mean the mortal substance of our brother, the 
 Body. But yet not without material sub- 
 stance. May it not be that the Mind may 
 have an undreamed-of shaping power, where- 
 by it can instantly create ? " 
 
 " Create what? " 
 
 39
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 " A new environment for its need ? Drown 
 it in the deepest gulfs of the sea, and it will, 
 at the moment it is freed from the body, 
 sheathe itself in a like shape, and habit itself 
 with free spaces of air, so that it may breathe, 
 and live, and emerge into the atmosphere, 
 there to take on a new shape, to involve itself 
 in new circumstances, to live anew ? " 
 
 " It is possible. But would that sea-change 
 leave the Mind the same or another?" 
 
 " The Mind would come forth one and in- 
 corruptible." 
 
 " If, in truth, the Mind be an indivisible 
 essence ? " 
 
 " Yes, if the Mind be one and indivisible." 
 
 "You believe it so?" 
 
 "Tell me, are you insubstantial? You, 
 yourself, below this accident of mortality?" 
 
 " I know not what you mean." 
 
 " You were wondering if, after all, it were 
 possible for me to have a life, a conscious, in- 
 dividual continuity, apart from this mortal 
 substance in which you and I now share — 
 counterparts of that human home we both 
 love and hate, that moving tent of the Illimi- 
 table, which at birth appears a speck on 
 sands of the Illimitable, and at death again 
 abruptly disappears. You were wondering 
 this. But, tell me: have you yourself never 
 40
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 wondered how you can exist, as yourself, 
 apart from something of this very actuality, 
 this form, this materialism to which you find 
 yourself so alien in the Body?" 
 
 " I am spirit. I am a breath." 
 
 " But you are you? " 
 
 " Yes, I am I." 
 
 The surpassing egotism is the same, whether 
 in you, the Soul, who are but a breath ; or in 
 me, the Will, who am but a condition ; or in 
 our brother, the Body, a claimant to Eternal 
 Life while perishing in his mortality ! " 
 
 " I live in God. Whence I came, thither 
 shall I return." 
 
 " A breath ? " 
 
 " It may be." 
 
 " Yet you shall be you ? " 
 
 "Yes; I." 
 
 " Then that breath which will be you must 
 have form, even as the Body must have 
 form." 
 
 " Form is but the human formula for the 
 in formulate." 
 
 " Nay, Form is life." 
 
 " You have ever one wish, it seems to me, 
 O Will: to put upon me the heavy yoke of 
 mortality." 
 
 " Not so: but to lift it from myself." 
 
 " And the Body ? " 
 
 41
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 " Where did you leave him last night? " 
 
 " You remember what he said about the 
 Three Companions of Night: Laughter, and 
 Wine, and Love? I left him with these." 
 
 " They are also called Tears, and Weari- 
 ness, and the Grave. He has his portion. 
 Perhaps he does well. Death intercepts many 
 retributions." 
 
 " He, too, has his dream within a dream." 
 
 " Yes, you played to it, in the silence and 
 the darkness." 
 
 " You heard my playing — you here, I 
 there ? " 
 
 " I heard." 
 
 " And did you sleep or wake, comforted? " 
 
 " I heard a Wind. I have heard it often. 
 I heard, too, my own voice singing in the 
 dark." 
 
 "What was the song?" 
 
 " This :— 
 
 In the silences of the woods 
 I have heard all day and all night 
 The moving multitudes 
 Of the Wind in flight. 
 He is named Myriad: 
 And I am sad 
 
 Often, and often I am glad; 
 But oftener I am white 
 With fear of the dim broods 
 That are his multitudes." 
 42
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 " And then, when you had heard that 
 song? " 
 
 " There was a rush of wings. My hair 
 streamed behind me. Then a sudden still- 
 ness, out of which came moonlight; and a 
 star fell slowly through the dark, and as it 
 passed my face I felt lips pressed against 
 mine, and it seemed to me that you kissed 
 me." 
 
 " And when I kissed you, did I whisper any 
 word ? " 
 
 "You whispered: '/ a}n the Following 
 Love.' " 
 
 " And you knew then that it was the 
 Breath of God, and you had deep peace, and 
 slept ? " 
 
 " I knew that it was the Following Love, — 
 that is the Breath of God, and I had deep 
 peace, and I slept." 
 
 The Soul crossed from the window to the 
 bed, and stooped, and kissed the Will. 
 
 " Beloved," he whispered, " the star was 
 but a dewdrop of the Peace that passeth 
 understanding. And can it be that to you, to 
 whom the healing dew was vouchsafed, shall 
 be denied the water-springs ? " 
 
 " Ah, beautiful dreamer of dreams, bewil- 
 der me no more with your lovely sophistries. 
 See, it is already late, and we have to meet 
 
 43
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 the Body at the shore-bridge over the Httle 
 stream ! " 
 
 It was then that the two, having had a 
 spare meal of milk and new bread, left the 
 inn, and went, each communing with his own 
 thoughts, to the appointed place. 
 
 They heard the Body before they saw him, 
 for he was singing as he came. It was a 
 strange, idle fragment of a song — " The Lit- 
 tle Children of the Wind " — a song that 
 some one had made, complete in its incom- 
 pleteness, as a wind-blown blossom, and, as a 
 blossom discarded by a flying bird, thrown 
 heedlessly on the wayside by its unknown 
 wandering singer : — 
 
 I hear the little children of the wind 
 
 Crying solitary in lonely places: 
 
 I have not seen their faces, 
 
 But I have seen the leaves eddying behind, 
 
 The little tremulous leaves of the wind. 
 
 The Soul looked at the Will. 
 " So he, too, has heard the Wind," he said 
 softly. 
 
 VI 
 
 All that day we journeyed westward. 
 Sometimes we saw, far ofl", the pale blue 
 
 44
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 films of the Hills of Dream, those elusive 
 mountains towards which our way was set. 
 Sometimes they were so startlingly near that, 
 from gorse upland or inland valley, we 
 thought we saw the shadow-grass shake in 
 the wind's passage, or smelled the thyme still 
 wet with dew where it lay under the walls of 
 mountain-boulders. But at noon we were no 
 nearer than when, at sunrise, we had left the 
 little sea-town behind us : and when the 
 throng of bracken-shadows filled the green 
 levels between the fern and the pines — like 
 flocks of sheep following fantastic herdsmen 
 — the Hills of the West were still as near, and 
 as far, as the bright raiment of the rainbow 
 which the shepherd sees lying upon his lonely 
 pastures. 
 
 But long before noon we were glad because 
 of what happened to one of us. 
 
 The dawn had flushed into a wilderness of 
 rose as we left the bridge by the stream. 
 Long shafts of light, plumed with pale gold, 
 were flung up out of the east : everywhere 
 was the tremulous awakening of the new day. 
 A score of yards from the highway a cot- 
 tage stood, sparrows stirring in the thatch, 
 swift fairy-spiders running across the rude 
 white-washed walls, a redbreast singing in 
 the dew-drenched fuchsia-bush. The blue 
 
 45
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 peat-smoke which rose above it was so faint 
 as to be invisible beyond the rowan which 
 stood sunways. The westward part of the 
 cottage was a byre : we could hear the lowing 
 of a cow, the clucking of fowls. 
 
 In every glen, on each hillside, are crofts 
 such as this. There was nothing unusual in 
 what we saw, save that a collie crouched 
 whimpering beyond a dyke on the farther 
 side of the rowan. 
 
 " All is not well here," said the Will. 
 
 " No," murmured the Soul, " I see the 
 shadowy footsteps of those who serve the 
 Evil One. Await me here." 
 
 With that the Soul walked swiftly towards 
 the cottage, and looked in at the little window. 
 His thought was straightway ours, and we 
 knew that a woman lay within and was about 
 to give birth to a child. We knew, also, that 
 those who had dark, cruel eyes, and wore 
 each the feather of a hawk, had no power 
 within, but were baffled, and roamed restlessly 
 outside the cottage on the side of shadow. 
 The Fuath himself was not there, but when 
 his call came the evil spirits rose like a flock 
 of crows and passed away. Then we saw our 
 comrade stand back, and bow down, and fall 
 upon his knees. 
 
 When he rejoined us we were for a moment 
 46
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 as one, and saw seven tall and beautiful spir- 
 its, starred and flame-crested, hand-clasped 
 and standing circlewise round the cottage. 
 They were Sons of Joy, who sang because in 
 that mortal hour was born an immortal soul 
 who in the white flame and the red of mortal 
 life was to be a spirit of gladness and beauty. 
 For there is no joy in the domain of the 
 Spirit like that of the birth of a new joy. 
 
 A long while we walked in silence. In the 
 eyes of the Soul we saw a divine and beauti- 
 ful light : in the eyes of the Will we saw rain- 
 bow-spanned depths: in the eyes of the Body 
 we saw gladness. 
 
 " We are one ! " 
 
 None knew who spoke. For a moment I 
 heard my own voice, saw my own shadow in 
 the grass ; then, in the twinkling of an eye, 
 three stood, looking at each other with 
 startled gaze. 
 
 " Let us go," said the Soul ; " we have a 
 long way yet to travel." 
 
 Each dreaming his own dream, we walked 
 onward. Suddenly the Soul turned and 
 looked in the eyes of the Body. 
 
 " You are thinking of your loneliness," he 
 said gravely. 
 
 " Yes," answered the Body. 
 
 " And I too," .said the Will. 
 
 47
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 For a time no word more was said. 
 
 " I am indeed alone." This I murmured 
 to myself after a long while, and in a mo- 
 ment the old supreme wisdom sank, and we 
 were not one but three. 
 
 " But you, O Soul," said the Will, " how 
 can you be alone when in every hour you have 
 the company of the invisible, and see the pas- 
 sage of powers and influences, of demons and 
 angels, creatures of the triple universe, souls, 
 and the pale flight of the unembodied?" 
 
 " I do not know loneliness because of what 
 I see or do not see, but because of what I 
 feel. When I walk here with you side by 
 side it is as though I walked along a narrow 
 shore between a fathomless sea and fathom- 
 less night." 
 
 The thought of one was the thought of 
 three. I shivered with that great loneliness. 
 The Body glanced sidelong at the Will, the 
 Will at the Soul. 
 
 " It is not good to dwell upon that loneli- 
 ness," said the last. 
 
 " To you, O Body, and to you, O Will, as 
 to me, it is the signal of Him whom we have 
 lost. Listen, and in the deepest hollow of 
 loneliness we can hear the voice of the Shep- 
 herd." 
 
 " I hear nothing," said the Body. 
 48
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 " I hear an echo," said the Will : " I hear 
 an echo; but so, too, I can hear the authentic 
 voice of the sea in a hollow shell. Authentic ! 
 . . . when I know well that the murmur is 
 no eternal voice, no whisper of the wave 
 made one with pearly silence, but only the 
 sound of my flowing blood heard idly in the 
 curves of ear and shell!" 
 
 " Ah ! " . . . cried the Body, " it is a lie, 
 that cruel word of science. The shell must 
 ever murmur of the sea ; if not, at least let us 
 dream that it does. Soon, soon we shall have 
 no dream left. How am I to know that all, 
 that everything, is not but an idle noise 
 in my ears? How am I to know that the 
 Hope of the Will, and the Voice of the Soul, 
 and the message of the Word, and the Whis- 
 per of the Eternal Spirit, are not one and all 
 but a mocking echo in that shell which for me 
 is the Shell of Life, but may be only the cold 
 inhabitation of my dreams?" 
 
 " Yet were it not for these echoes," the 
 Soul answered, " life would be intolerable for 
 you, as for you too, my friend." 
 
 The Will smiled scornfully. 
 
 " Dreams are no comfort, no solace, no re- 
 lief from weariness even, if one knows them 
 to be no more than the spray above the froth 
 of a distempered mind." 
 
 49
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 Suddenly one of us began in a low voice a 
 melancholy little song: — 
 
 I hear the sea-song of the blood in my heart, 
 I hear the sea-song of the blood in my ears; 
 And I am far apart, 
 And lost in the years. 
 
 But when I lie and dream of that which was 
 Before the first man's shadow flitted on the grass — 
 I am stricken dumb 
 With sense of that to come. 
 
 Is then this wildering sea-song but a part 
 Of the old song of the mystery of the years — 
 Or only the echo of the tired Heart 
 And of Tears ? 
 
 But none answered, and so again we walked 
 onward, silent. The wind had fallen, and in 
 the noon-heat we began to grow weary. It 
 was with relief that we saw the gleam of 
 water between the branches of a little wood 
 of birches, which waded towards it through a 
 tide of bracken. Beyond the birks shimmered 
 a rainbow; a stray cloud had trailed from 
 glen to glen, and suddenly broken among the 
 tree-tops. 
 
 " There goes Yesterday ! " cried the Body 
 laughingly — alluding to the saying that the 
 morning rainbow is the ghost of the day that 
 
 50
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 passed at dawn. The next moment he broke 
 into a fragment of song: — 
 
 Brother and Sister, wanderers they 
 
 Out of the Golden Yesterday — 
 
 Thro' the dusty Now and the dim To-morrow 
 
 Hand-in-hand go Joy and Sorrow. 
 
 " Yes, joy and sorrow, O glad Body," ex- 
 claimed the Will — " but it is the joy only that 
 is vain as the rainbow, which has no other 
 message. It should be called the Bow of 
 Sorrow." 
 
 " Not so," said the Soul gently, " or, if so, 
 not as you mean, dear friend : — 
 
 It is not Love that gives the clearest sight: 
 For out of bitter tears, and tears unshed, 
 Riseth the Rainbow of Sorrow overhead, 
 And 'neath the Rainbow is the clearest light." 
 
 The Will smiled: — 
 
 " I too must have my say, dear poets : — 
 
 Where rainbows rise through sunset rains 
 By shores forlorn of isles forgot, 
 
 A solitary Voice complains 
 
 'The World is here, the World is not.' 
 
 The Voice may be the wind, or sea. 
 
 Or spirit of the sundown West: 
 Or, mayhap, some sweet air set free 
 
 From off the Islands of the Blest: 
 
 51
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 It may be ; but I turn my face 
 To that which still I hold so dear; 
 
 And lo, the voices of the days — 
 
 'The World is not, the World is here. 
 
 'Tis the same end whichever way 
 And either way is soon forgot: 
 
 •The World is all in all, To-day: 
 To-morrow all the World is not.' " 
 
 VII 
 
 In the noon-heat we lay, for rest and 
 coolness, by the pool, and on the shadow- 
 side of a hazel. The water was of so dark 
 a brown that we knew it was of a great 
 depth, and, indeed, even at the far verge, 
 a heron, standing motionless, wetted her 
 breast-feathers. 
 
 In the mid-pool, where the brown lawns 
 sloped into depths of purple-blue, we could 
 see a single cloud, invisible otherwise where 
 we lay. Nearer us, the water mirrored a 
 mountain-ash heavy with ruddy clusters. 
 That long, feathery foliage, that reddening 
 fruit, hung in a strange, unfamiliar air; the 
 stranger, that amid the silence of those phan- 
 tom branches ever and again flitted furtive 
 shadow-birds. 
 
 We had walked for hours, and were now 
 
 52
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 glad to rest. With us we had brought oaten 
 bread and milk, and were well content. 
 
 " It was by a pool such as this," said one 
 of us, after a long interval, " that dreamers 
 of old called to Connla, and Connla heard. 
 That was the mortal name of one whose name 
 we know not." 
 
 " Call him now," whispered the Body 
 eagerly. 
 
 The Soul leaned forward, and stared into 
 the fathomless brown dusk. 
 
 " Speak, Connla ! Who art thou ? " 
 
 Clear as a Sabbath-bell across windless 
 pastures we heard a voice: 
 
 " I am of those who wait yet a while. I am 
 older than all age, for my youth is Wisdom ; 
 and I am younger than all youth, for I am 
 named To-morrow." 
 
 We heard no more. In vain, together, 
 separately, we sought to break that silence 
 which divides the mortal moment from hour- 
 less time. The Soul himself could not hear, 
 or see, or even remember, because of that 
 mortal raiment of the flesh which for a 
 time he had voluntarily taken upon him- 
 self. 
 
 " I will tell you a dream that is not all a 
 dream," he said at last, after we had lain a 
 long while pondering what that voice had ut- 
 
 sz
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 tered, that voice which showed that the grave 
 held a deeper mystery than silence. 
 
 The Will looked curiously at him. 
 
 " Is it a dream wherein we have shared ? " 
 he asked slowly. 
 
 " That I know not : yet it may well be so. 
 I call my dream ' The Sons of Joy.' If you 
 or the Body have also dreamed, let each re- 
 late the dream." 
 
 " Yes," said the Body, " I have dreamed it. 
 But I would call it rather ' The Sons of De- 
 light.' " 
 
 "And I," said the Will, '"The Sons of 
 Silence.' " 
 
 " Tell it," said the Soul, looking towards 
 the Body. 
 
 " It was night," answered the Body at 
 once : " and I was alone in a waste place. 
 My feet were entangled among briars and 
 thorns, and beside me was a quagmire. On 
 the briar grew a great staff, and beside it a 
 circlet of woven thorn. I could see them, in 
 a soft, white light. It must have been moon- 
 light, for on the other side of the briar I saw, 
 in the moonshine, a maze of wild roses. They 
 were lovely and fragrant. I would have liked 
 to take the staff, but it was circled with the 
 thorn-wreath ; so I turned to the moonshine 
 and the wild roses. It was then that I saw a 
 
 54
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 multitude of tall and lovely figures, men and 
 women, all rose-crowned, and the pale, beau- 
 tiful faces of the women with lips like rose- 
 leaves. They were singing. It was the Song 
 of Delight. I, too, sang. And as I sang, I 
 wondered, for I thought that the eyes of those 
 about me were heavy with love and dreams, 
 as though each had been pierced with a 
 shadowy thorn. But still the song rose, and 
 I knew that the flowers in the grass breathed 
 to it, and that the vast slow cadence of the 
 stars was its majestic measure. Then the 
 dawn broke, and I saw all the company, 
 winged and crested with the seven colours, 
 press together, so that a rainbow was up- 
 builded. In the middle space below the rain- 
 bow, a bird sang. Then I knew I was that 
 bird ; and as the rainbow vanished, and the 
 dawn grew grey and chill, I sank to the 
 ground. But it was all bog and swamp. I 
 knew I should sing no more. But I heard 
 voices saying: "O happy, wonderful bird, 
 who has seen all delight, whose song was so 
 rapt, sing, sing, sing! " But when I could 
 sing no more I was stoned, and lay dead. 
 
 " That was my dream." 
 
 The Soul sighed. 
 
 " It was not thus I dreamed," he mur- 
 mured ; ** but thus : — 
 
 55
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 " I stood, at night, on the verge of the sea, 
 and looked at the maze of stars. And while 
 looking and dreaming, I heard voices, and, 
 turning, beheld a multitude of human beings. 
 All were sorrowful ; many were heavy with 
 weariness and despair ; all suffered from some 
 grievous ill. Among them were many who 
 cried continually that they had no thought, or 
 dream, no wish, but to forget all, and be at 
 rest: 
 
 " I called to them, asking whither they were 
 bound ? 
 
 " ' We are journeying to the Grave/ came 
 the sighing answer. 
 
 " Then suddenly I saw the Grave. An 
 angel stood at the portals. He was so beau- 
 tiful that the radiance of the light upon his 
 brow lit that shoreless multitude ; in every 
 heart a little flame arose. The name of that 
 divine one was Hope. 
 
 " As shadow by shadow slipt silently into 
 the dark road behind the Grave, I saw the 
 Angel touch for a moment every pale brow. 
 
 " I knew at last that I saw beyond the 
 Grave. Infinite ways traversed the uni- 
 verse, wherein suns and moons and stars hung 
 like fruit. Multitude within multitude was 
 there. 
 
 " Then, again, suddenly I stood where I 
 
 56
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 had been, and saw the Grave reopen, and 
 from it troop back a myriad of bright 
 and beautiful beings. I could see that 
 some were souls re-born, some were lovely 
 thoughts, dreams, hopes, aspirations, influ- 
 ences, powers and mighty spirits too. And all 
 sang: 
 
 " ' We are the Sons of Joy.' 
 
 " That was my dream." 
 
 We were still for a few moments. Then 
 the Will spoke. 
 
 " This dream of ours is one thing as the 
 Body's, and another as the Soul's. It is yet 
 another, as I remember it : — 
 
 " On a night of cold silence, when the 
 breath of the equinox sprayed the stars into 
 a continuous dazzle, I heard the honk of the 
 wild geese as they cleft their way wedge- 
 wise through the gulfs overhead. 
 
 " In the twinkling of an eye I was beyond 
 the last shadow of the last wing. 
 
 " Before me lay a land solemn with auroral 
 light. For a thousand years, that were as a 
 moment, I wandered therein. Then, far be- 
 fore me, I saw an immense semicircle of di- 
 vine figures, tall, wonderful, clothed with 
 moonfire, each with uplifted head, as a forest 
 before a wind. To the right they held the 
 East, and to the left the West. 
 
 57
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 "'Who are you?' I cried, as I drifted 
 through them hke a mist of pale smoke. 
 
 " ' We are the Laughing Gods,' they an- 
 swered. 
 
 " Then after I had drifted on beyond the 
 reach of sea or land, to a frozen solitude 
 of ice, I saw again a vast concourse stretch- 
 ing crescent-wise from east to west : taller, 
 more wonderful, crowned with stars, and 
 standing upon dead moons white with per- 
 ished time. 
 
 " ' Who are you ? ' I cried, as I went past 
 them like a drift of pale smoke. 
 
 " * We are the Gods who laugh not/ they 
 answered. 
 
 " Then when I had drifted beyond the si- 
 lence of the Pole, and there was nothing but 
 unhabitable air, and the dancing fires were a 
 flicker in the pale sheen far behind, I saw 
 again a vast concourse stretching crescent- 
 wise from east to west. They were taller 
 still ; they were more wonderful still. They 
 were crowned with flaming suns, and their 
 feet were white with the dust of ancient con- 
 stellations. 
 
 " ' Who are you ? ' I cried, as I went past 
 them like a mist of pale smoke. 
 
 " ' We are the Gods,' they answered. 
 
 " And while I waned into nothingness I felt 
 
 58
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 in my nostrils the salt smell of the sea, and, 
 listening, I heard the honk of the wild geese 
 wedging southward. 
 
 " That was my dream." 
 
 When the Will ceased, nothing was said. 
 We were too deeply moved by strange 
 thoughts, one and all. Was it always to 
 be thus . . . that we might dream one 
 dream, confusedly real, confusedly unreal, 
 when we three were one ; but that when each 
 dreamed alone, the dream, the vision, was 
 ever to be distinct in form and significance? 
 
 We lay resting for long. After a time we 
 slept. I cannot remember what then we 
 dreamed, but I know that these three dreams 
 were become one, and that what the Soul saw 
 and what the Will saw and what the Body 
 saw was a more near and searching revelation 
 in this new and one dream than in any of the 
 three separately. I pondered this, trying to 
 remember : but the deepest dreams are al- 
 ways unrememberable, and leave only a fra- 
 grance, a sound as of a quiet footfall passing 
 into silence, or a cry, or a sense of something 
 wonderful, unimagined, or of light intolera- 
 ble: but I could recall only the memory of a 
 moment ... a moment wherein, in a flash 
 of lightning, I had seen all, understood all. 
 
 I rose . . . there was a dazzle on the water, 
 
 59
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 a shimmer on every leaf, a falling away as of 
 walls of air into the great river of the wind 
 . . . and there were three, not one, each 
 staring dazed at the other, in the ears of each 
 the bewilderment of the already faint echo 
 of that lost " I." 
 
 VIII 
 
 Towards sundown we came upon a hamlet, 
 set among the hills. Our hearts had beat 
 quicker as we drew near, for with the glory 
 of light gathered above the west the moun- 
 tains had taken upon them a bloom soft and 
 wonderful, and we thought that at last we 
 were upon the gates of the hills towards 
 which we had journeyed so eagerly. But 
 when we reached the last pines on the ridge 
 we saw the wild doves flying far westward. 
 Beyond us, under a pale star, dimly visible in 
 a waste of rose, were the Hills of Dream. 
 
 The Soul wished to go to them at once, for 
 now they seemed so near to us that we might 
 well reach them with the rising of the moon. 
 But the others were tired, nor did the Hills 
 seem so near to them. So we sat down by 
 the peat-fire in a shepherd's cottage, and ate 
 of milk and porridge, and talked with the 
 man about the ways of that district, and the 
 
 60
 
 The Divine Adventufe 
 
 hills, and how best to reach them. " If you 
 want work," he said, " you should go away 
 south, where the towns are, an' not to these 
 lonely hills. They are so barren, that even 
 the goatherds no longer wander their beasts 
 there." 
 
 " It's said they're haunted," added the 
 Body, seeing that the others did not speak. 
 
 " Ay, sure enough. That's well known, 
 master. An' for the matter o' that, there's a 
 wood down there to the right where for three 
 nights past I have seen figures and the gleam- 
 ing of fire. But there isn't a soul in that 
 wood — no, not a wandering tinker. I took 
 my dogs through it to-day, an' there wasn't 
 the sign even of a last-year's gypsy. As for 
 the low bare hill beyond it, not a man, let 
 alone a woman or child, would go near it in 
 the dark. In the Gaelic it's called Maol De, 
 that is to say, the Hill of God." 
 
 For a long time we sat talking with the 
 shepherd, for he told us of many things that 
 were strange, and some that were beautiful, 
 and some that were wild and terrible. One 
 of his own brothers, after an evil life, had be- 
 come mad, and even now lived in caves among 
 the higher hills, going ever on hands and 
 feet, and cursing by day and night because he 
 was made as one of the wild swine, that know 
 6i
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 only hunger and rage and savage sleep. He 
 himself tended lovingly his old father, who 
 was too frail to work, and often could not 
 sleep at nights because of the pleasant but 
 wearying noise the fairies made as they met 
 on the dancing-lawns among the bracken. 
 Our friend had not himself heard the simple 
 people, and in a whisper confided to us that 
 he thought the old man was a bit mazed, and 
 that what he heard was only the solitary play- 
 ing of the Amadan-Dhu, who, it was known 
 to all, roamed the shadows between the two 
 dusks. " Keep away from the river in the 
 hollow," he said at another moment, " for 
 it's there, on a night like this, just before the 
 full moon got up, that, when I was a boy, I 
 saw the Aonaran. An' to this day, if I saw 
 you or any one standing by the water, it 'ud 
 be all I could do not to thrust you into it 
 and drown you: ay, I'd have to throw myself 
 on my face, an' bite the grass, an' pray till my 
 soul shook the murder out at my throat. For 
 that's the Aonaran's doing." 
 
 Later, he showed us, when we noticed it, a 
 bit of smooth coral that hung by a coarse 
 leathern thong from his neck. 
 
 "Is that an amulet?" one of us asked. 
 
 "No: it's my lassie's." 
 
 We looked at the man inquiringly. 
 62
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 " The bairn's dead thirty years agone." 
 
 In the silence that followed, one of us 
 rose, and went with the shepherd into the lit- 
 tle room behind. When the man came back it 
 was with a wonderful light in his face. Our 
 comrade did not return . . . but when we 
 glanced sidelong, lo, the Soul was there, as 
 though he had not moved. Then, of a sud- 
 den, we knew what he had done, what he had 
 said, and were glad. 
 
 When we left (the shepherd wanted us to 
 stay the night, but we would not), the stars 
 had come. The night was full of solemn 
 beauty. 
 
 We went down by the wood of which the 
 shepherd had spoken, and came upon it as 
 the moon rose. But as a path bordered it, we 
 followed that little winding white gleam, 
 somewhat impatient now to reach those far 
 hills where each of us believed he would find 
 his heart's desire, or, at the least, have that 
 vision of absolute Truth, of absolute Beauty, 
 which we had set out to find. 
 
 We had not gone a third of the way when 
 the Body abruptly turned, waving to us a 
 warning hand. When we stood together si- 
 lent, motionless, we saw that we were upon 
 a secret garden. We were among ilex, and 
 beyond were tall cypresses, like dark flames 
 
 63
 
 The Divine .idvcnture 
 
 rising out of the earth, their hither sides Ht 
 with wavering moonfire. Far away the hill- 
 foxes barked. Somewhere near us in the 
 dusk an owl hooted. The nested wild doves 
 were silent. Once, the faint churr of a dis- 
 tant fern-owl sent a vibrant dissonance, that 
 was yet strangely soothing, through the dark- 
 ness and the silence. 
 
 " Look ! " whispered the Body, 
 
 We saw, on a mossy slope under seven 
 great cypresses, a man lying on the ground, 
 asleep. The moonshine reached him as we 
 looked, and revealed a face of so much beauty 
 and of so great a sorrow that the heart ached. 
 Nevertheless, there was so infinite a peace 
 there, that, merely gazing upon it, our lives 
 stood still. The moonbeam slowly passed 
 from that divine face. I felt my breath ris- 
 ing and falling, like a feather before the 
 mystery of the wind is come. Then, the 
 further surprised, we saw that the sleeper 
 was not alone. About him were eleven others, 
 who also slept ; but of these one sat upright, 
 as though the watchman of the dark hour, 
 slumbering at his post. 
 
 While the Body stooped, whispering, we 
 
 caught sight of the white face of yet another, 
 
 behind the great bole of a tree. This man, 
 
 the twelfth of that company which was 
 
 64
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 gathered about the sleeper in its midst, stared, 
 with uplifted hand. In his other hand, and 
 lowered to the ground, was a torch. He 
 stared upon the Sleeper, 
 
 Slowly I moved forward. But whether in 
 so doing, or by so doing, we broke some 
 subtle spell, which had again made us as one, 
 I know not. Suddenly three stood in that 
 solitary place, with none beside us, neither 
 sleeping nor watching, neither quick nor 
 dead. Far off the hill-foxes barked. Among 
 the cypress boughs an owl hooted, and was 
 still. 
 
 " Have we dreamed ? " each asked the 
 other. Then the Body told what he had seen, 
 and what heard ; and it was much as is writ- 
 ten here, only that the sleepers seemed to him 
 worn and poor men, ill-clad, weary, and that 
 behind the white face of the twelfth, who hid 
 behind a tree, was a company of evil men 
 with savage faces, and fierce eyes, and drawn 
 swords. 
 
 " I have seen nothing of all this," said the 
 Will harshly, " but only a fire drowning in its 
 own ashes, round which a maze of leaves 
 circled this way and that, blown by idle 
 winds." 
 
 The Soul looked at the speaker. He sighed. 
 " Though God were to sow living fires about 
 
 65
 
 The Divine Adventur'e 
 
 you, O Will," he said, " you would not be- 
 lieve." 
 
 The Will answered dully: " I have but one 
 dream, one hope, and that is to believe. Do 
 not mock me." The Soul leaned and kissed 
 him lovingly on the brow. 
 
 " Look," he said ; " what I saw was this : I 
 beheld, asleep, the Divine Love ; not sleeping, 
 as mortals sleep, but in a holy quiet, brooding 
 upon infinite peace, and in commune with the 
 Eternal Joy. Around him were the Nine 
 Angels, the Crais nan Aijigcal of our prayers, 
 and two Seraphs — the Eleven Powers and 
 Dominions of the World. And One stared 
 upon them, and upon Him, out of the dark 
 wood, with a face white with despair, that 
 great and terrible Lord of Shadow whom 
 some call Death, and some Evil, and some 
 Fear, and some the Unknown God. Behind 
 him was a throng of demons and de- 
 moniac creatures : and all died continually. 
 And the wood itself — it was an infinite for- 
 est; a forest of human souls awaiting 
 God." 
 
 The Will listened, with eyes strangely 
 ashine. Suddenly he fell upon his knees, and 
 prayed. We saw tears falling from his 
 eyes. 
 
 " I am blind and deaf," he whispered in the 
 66
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 ear of the Body, as he rose ; but, lest I for- 
 get, tell me where I am, in what place we 
 
 — — « " 
 are. 
 
 " It is a garden called Gethsemane," an- 
 swered the other — though I know not how he 
 knew — I — we — as we walked onward in si- 
 lence through the dusk of moon and star, and 
 saw the gossamer-webs whiten as they be- 
 came myriad, and hang heavy with the pale 
 glister of the dews of dawn. 
 
 IX 
 
 The morning twilight wavered, and it was 
 as though an incalculable host of grey doves 
 fled upward and spread earthward before a 
 wind with pinions of rose : then the dappled 
 dove-grey vapour faded, and the rose hung 
 like the reflection of crimson fire, and dark 
 isles of ruby and straits of amethyst 
 and pale gold and safifron and April-green 
 came into being: and the new day was 
 come. 
 
 We stood silent. There is a beauty too 
 great. We moved slowly round by the low 
 bare hill beyond the wood. No one was 
 there, but on the summit stood three crosses; 
 one, midway, so great that it threw a shadow 
 
 67
 
 The Divine Adventiife 
 
 from the brow of the East to the feet of the 
 West. 
 
 The Soul stopped. He seemed as one 
 rapt. We looked upon him with awe, for his 
 face shone as though from as light within. 
 " Listen," he whispered, " I hear the singing 
 of the Sons of Joy. Farewell : I shall come 
 again." 
 
 We were alone, we two. Silently we 
 walked onward. The sun rays slid through 
 the grass, birds sang, the young world that 
 is so old smiled : but we had no heed for this. 
 In that new solitude each almost hated the 
 other. At noon a new grief, a new terror, 
 came to us. We were upon a ridge, looking 
 westward. There were no hills anywhere. 
 
 Doubtless the Soul had gone that way 
 which led to them. For us . . . they were 
 no longer there. 
 
 " Let us turn and go home," said the 
 Body wearily. 
 
 The Will stood and thought. 
 
 " Let us go home," he said. 
 
 With .that he turned, and walked hour 
 after hour. It was by a road unknown to 
 us, for, not noting where we went, we had 
 traversed a path that led us wide of that by 
 which we had come. At least we saw nothing 
 of it. Nor, at dusk, would the Will go 
 68
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 further, nor agree even to seek for a path 
 that might lead to the garden called Gethse- 
 mane. 
 
 " We are far from it," he said, " if indeed 
 there be any such place. It was a dream, 
 and I am weary of all dreams. When we 
 are home again, O Body, we will dream no 
 more." 
 
 The Body was silent, then abruptly 
 laughed. His comrade looked at him curi- 
 ously. 
 
 "Why do you laugh?" 
 
 " Did you not say there would be no more 
 tears? And of that I am glad." 
 
 " You did not laugh gladly. But what I 
 said was that there shall be no more dreams 
 for us, that we will dream no more." 
 
 " It is the same thing. W^e have tears be- 
 cause we dream. If we hope no more, we 
 dream no more : if we dream no more, we 
 weep no more. And I laughed because of 
 this : that if we weep no more we can live as 
 we like, without thought of an impossible to- 
 morrow, and with little thought even for to- 
 day." 
 
 For a time we walked in brooding thought, 
 but slowly, because of the gathering dark. 
 Neither spoke, until the Body suddenly stood 
 still, throwing up his arms. 
 
 69
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 " Oh, what a fool I have been ! What a 
 fool I have been ! " 
 
 The \\ ill made no reply. He stared before 
 him into the darkness. 
 
 We had meant to rest in the haven of the 
 great oaks, but a thin rain had begun, and we 
 shivered with the chill. The thought came to 
 us to turn and find our way back to the house 
 of the shepherd, hopeless as the quest might 
 prove, for we were more and more bewil- 
 dered as to where we were, or even as to the 
 direction in which we moved, being without 
 pilot of moon or star, and having already fol- 
 lowed devious ways. But while we were hes- 
 itating, we saw a light. The red flame shone 
 steadily through the rainy gloom, so we knew 
 that it was no lantern borne by a fellow-way- 
 farer. In a brief while we came upon it, 
 and saw that it was from a red lamp burning 
 midway in a forest chapel. 
 
 We lifted the latch and entered. There 
 was no one visible. Nor was any one in the 
 sacristy. We went to the door again, and 
 looked vainly in all directions for light which 
 might reveal a neighbouring village, or ham- 
 let, or even a woodlander's cottage. 
 
 Glad as we were of the shelter, and of the 
 glow from the lamp, a thought, a dream, a 
 desire, divided us. We looked at each other 
 
 70
 
 The Divine Adventufe 
 
 sidelong, each both seeking and avoiding the 
 other's eyes. 
 
 " I cannot stay here," said the Body at 
 last; "the place stifles me. I am frightened 
 to stay. The path outside is clear and well 
 trodden ; it must lead somewhere, and as this 
 chapel is here, and as the lamp is lit, a vil- 
 lage, or at least a house, cannot be far off." 
 
 The Will looked at him. 
 
 " Do not go," he said earnestly. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I do not know. But do not let us part. 
 I dare not leave here. I feel as though this 
 were our one safe haven to-night." 
 
 The Body moved to the door and opened it. 
 
 " I am going. And — and — I am going, too, 
 because I am tired both of you and the Soul. 
 There is only one way for me, I see, and I go 
 that way. Farewell." 
 
 The door closed. The Will was alone. 
 For a few moments he stood, smiling scorn- 
 fully. With a sudden despairing gesture he 
 ran to the door, flung it open, and peered into 
 the darkness. 
 
 He could see no one ; could hear no steps. 
 His long beseeching cry drowned among 
 these solitudes. Slowly he re-closed the 
 door ; slowly walked across the stone flags ; 
 and with folded arms stood looking upon the 
 
 71
 
 TJic Divine Adventure 
 
 altar, dyed crimson with the glow from the 
 great lamp which hung midway in the nave. 
 
 There was a choir-stall to his right. Here 
 he sat, for a time glad merely to be at rest. 
 
 Soon all desire of sleep went from him, and 
 he began to dream. At this he smiled : it was 
 so brief a while ago since he had said he 
 would dream no more. 
 
 Away now from his two lifelong comrades, 
 and yet subtly connected with them, and liv- 
 ing by and through each, he felt a new lone- 
 liness. Life could be very terrible. Life 
 , . . the word startled him. What life could 
 there be for him if the Body perished? That 
 was why he had cried out in anguish after his 
 comrade had left, with that ominous word 
 " farewell." True, now he lived, breathed, 
 thought, as before : but this, he knew, was by 
 some inexplicable miracle of personality, by 
 Avhich the three who had been one were each 
 enabled to go forth, fulfilling, and in all ways 
 ruled and abiding by, the natural law. If the 
 Body should die, would he not then become 
 as a breath in frost? If the Soul ... ah ! 
 he wondered what then would happen. 
 
 " When I was with the Body," he mut- 
 tered, " I was weary of dreams, or longed 
 only for those dreams which could be ful- 
 filled in action. But now . . . now it is dif-
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 ferent. I am alone. I must follow my own 
 law. But what . . . how . . . where . . . 
 am I to choose? All the world is a wilder- 
 ness with a heart of living light. The side 
 we see is Life : the side we do not see we call 
 Hope. All ways — a thousand myriad ways 
 — lead to it. Which shall I choose? How 
 shall I go ? " 
 
 Then I began to dream ... I ... we 
 . . . then the Will began to dream. 
 
 Slowly the Forest Chapel filled with a vast 
 throng, ever growing more dense as it be- 
 came more multitudinous, till it seemed as 
 though the walls fell away and that the aisles 
 reached interminably into the world of sha- 
 dow, through the present into the past, and to 
 dim ages. 
 
 Behind the altar stood a living Spirit, 
 most wonderful, clothed with Beauty and 
 Terror, 
 
 Then the Will saw, understood, that this 
 was not the Christ, nor yet the Holy Spirit, 
 but a Dominion. It was the Spirit of this 
 world, one of the Powers and Dominions 
 whom of old men called the gods. But all 
 in that incalculable throng worshipped this 
 Spirit as the Supreme God. He saw, too, or 
 realised, that, to those who worshipped, this 
 Spirit appeared differently, now as a calm 
 
 7Z
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 and august dreamer, now as an inspired war- 
 rior, now as a man wearing a crown of thorns 
 against the shadow of a gigantic cross : as the 
 Son of God, or the Prophet of God, or in 
 manifold ways the Supreme One, from Jeho- 
 vah to the savage Fetich. 
 
 Turning from that ocean of drowned hfe, 
 he looked again at the rainbow-plumed and 
 opal-hued Spirit : but now he could see no 
 one, nothing, but a faint smoke that rose as 
 from a torch held by an invisible hand. The 
 altar stood unserved. 
 
 Nor was the multitude present. The my- 
 riad had become a wavering shadow, and was 
 no more. 
 
 A child had entered the church. The little 
 boy came slowly along the nave till he stood 
 beneath the red lamp, so that his white robe 
 was warm with its glow. He sang, and the 
 Will thought it was a strange song to hear in 
 that place, and wondered if the child were 
 not an image of what was in his own heart. 
 
 When the day darkens, 
 When dusk grows light, 
 When the dew is falHng, 
 
 When Silence dreams . . . 
 I hear a wind 
 Calling, calling 
 By day and by night. 
 
 74
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 What is the wind 
 That I hear calling 
 By day and by night, 
 The crying of wind? 
 When the day darkens, 
 When dusk grows light, 
 When the dew is falling? 
 
 The Will rose and moved towards the 
 child. No one was there, but he saw that a 
 wind-eddy blew about the altar, for a little 
 cloud of rose-leaves swirled above it. As in 
 a dream he heard a voice, faint and sweet : — 
 
 Out of the Palace 
 
 Of Silence and Dreams 
 
 My voice is falling 
 
 From height to height: 
 I am the Wind 
 Calling, calling 
 By day and by night. 
 
 The red flame waned and was no more. 
 Above the altar a white flame, pure as an opal 
 burning in moonfire, rose for a moment, and 
 in a moment was mysteriously gathered into 
 the darkness. 
 
 Startled, the Will stood moveless in the ob- 
 scurity. Were these symbols of the end — the 
 red flame and the white . . . the Body and 
 the Soul? 
 
 Then he remembered the ancient wisdom 
 
 75
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 of the Gael, and went out of the Forest Chapel 
 and passed into the woods. He put his Hps 
 to the earth, and lifted a green leaf to his 
 brow, and held a branch to his ear : and be- 
 cause he was no longer heavy with the sweet 
 clay of mortality, though yet of the human 
 clan, he heard that which we do not hear, and 
 saw that which we do not see, and knew that 
 which we do not know. All the green life 
 was his. In that new world he saw the lives 
 of trees, now pale green, now of woodsmoke 
 blue, now of amethyst: the grey lives of 
 stone : breaths of the grass and reed : creatures 
 of the air, delicate and wild as fawns, or 
 swift and fierce and terrible, tigers of that 
 undiscovered wilderness, with birds almost 
 invisible but for their luminous wings, their 
 opalescent crests. 
 
 With these and the familiar natural life, 
 with every bird and beast kindred and know- 
 ing him kin, he lived till the dawn, and from 
 the dawn till sunrise, and from sunrise till 
 noon. At noon he slept. W'hen he woke he 
 saw that he had wandered far, and was glad 
 when he came to a woodlandcr's cottage. 
 Here a woman gave him milk and bread, but 
 she was dumb, and he could learn nothing 
 from her. She showed him a way which he 
 followed; and by that high upland path, be- 
 76
 
 The Divine Adventiite 
 
 fore sundown, he came again upon the For- 
 est Chapel, and saw that it stood on a spur of 
 blue hills. 
 
 Were it not for a great and startling weak- 
 ness that had suddenly come upon him, he 
 would have gone in search of his lost com- 
 rade. While he lay with his back against a 
 tree, vaguely wondering what ill had come 
 upon him, he heard a sound of wheels. Soon 
 after a rough cart was driven rapidly towards 
 the Forest Chapel, but when the countryman 
 saw him he reined in abruptly, as though at 
 once recognising one whom he had set out 
 to seek. "Your friend is dying," he said; 
 " come at once if you want to see him again. 
 He sent me to look for you." 
 
 In a moment all lassitude and pain went 
 from the Will, and he sprang into the cart, 
 asking (while his mind throbbed with a 
 dreadful anxiety) many questions. But all 
 he could learn from his taciturn companion 
 was that yester eve his comrade had fallen 
 in with a company of roystering and loose 
 folk, with whom he had drunk heavily over- 
 night and gamed and lived evilly; that all 
 this day he had lain as in a stupor, till the 
 afternoon, when he awoke and straightway 
 fell into a quarrel about a woman, and, after 
 fierce words and blows, had been mortally 
 
 77
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 wounded with a knife. He was now lying, al- 
 most in the grasp of death, at the Inn of the 
 Crossways. 
 
 In the whirl of anxiety, dread, and a new 
 and terrible confusion, the Will could not 
 think clearly as to what he was to say or do, 
 what was to be or could be done for his 
 friend. And while he was still swayed help- 
 lessly, this way and that, as a herring in a 
 net drifted to and fro by wind and wave, the 
 Inn was reached. 
 
 With stumbling eagerness he mounted the 
 rough stairs, and entered a small room, clean, 
 though almost sordid in its bareness, yet 
 through its western window filled with the 
 solemn light of sunset. 
 
 On a white bed lay the Body, and the Will 
 saw at a glance that his comrade had not 
 long to live. The handkerchief the sufferer 
 held on his breast was stained with the 
 bright crimson of the riven lungs ; his 
 white face was whiter than the pillow, the 
 more so, as a red splatch lay on each 
 cheek. 
 
 The dying man opened his eyes as the door 
 opened. He smiled gladly when he saw who 
 had come. 
 
 " I am glad indeed of this," he whispered. 
 " I feared I was to die alone, and in delir- 
 
 78
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 ium or unconsciousness. Now I shall not be 
 alone till the end. And then " 
 
 But here the Will sank upon his knees by 
 the bedside. For a few minutes his tears fell 
 upon the hand he clasped. The sobs shook 
 in his throat. He had never fully realised 
 what love he bore his comrade, his second 
 self; how interwrought with him were all his 
 joys and sorrows, his interests, his hopes and 
 fears. 
 
 Suddenly, with supplicating arms, he cried, 
 " Do not die ! Oh, do not die ! Save me, 
 save me, save me ! " 
 
 " How can I save you, how can I help you, 
 dear friend ? " asked the Body in a broken 
 voice ; " my sand is all but run out ; my hour 
 is come." 
 
 " But do you not know, do you not see, 
 that I cannot live without you ! — that I must 
 die — that if you perish so must I also pass 
 with your passing breath ! " 
 
 " No — no — no ! — for, see, we are no longer 
 one, but three. The Soul is far from us now, 
 and soon you too will be gone on your own 
 way. It is only I who can go no more into 
 the beautiful dear world. O Will, if I could, 
 I would give all your knowledge and endless 
 quest of wisdom and all your hopes, and all 
 the dreams and the white faith of the Soul, 
 
 79
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 for one little year of sweet human life — for 
 one month even — ah, what do I say, for a 
 few days even, for a day, for a few hours ! 
 It is so terrible thus to be stamped out. 
 Yesterday I saw a dog leaping and barking in 
 delight as it raced about a wagon, and then in 
 a moment a foot caught and it was entangled, 
 and the wagon-wheel crushed it into a lifeless 
 mass. There was no dog; for that poor 
 beast it was the same as though it had never 
 been, as though the world had never been, as 
 though nothing more was to be. He was a 
 breath blown unremembering out of nothing 
 into nothing. That is what death is. That 
 is what death is, O Will ! " 
 
 " No, no, it is too horrible — too cruel — too 
 unjust." 
 
 " Yes, for you. But not for me. Your 
 way is not the way of death, but of life. For 
 me, I am as the beasts are, their sorry lord, 
 but akin — oh yes, akin, akin. I follow the 
 natural law in all things. And I know this 
 now, dear comrade : that without you and the 
 Soul I should have been no other than 
 the brutes that know nothing save their 
 innocent lusts and live and die without 
 thought." 
 
 The Will slowly rose. 
 
 " It was madness for us to separate and 
 
 80
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 come upon this quest," he said, looking long- 
 ingly at the Body. 
 
 " Not so, dear friend. We should have 
 had to separate soon or late, whatsoever we 
 had done. If I have feared you at times, and 
 turn from you often, I have loved you well, 
 and still more the Soul. I think you have 
 both lied to me overmuch, and you mostly. 
 But I forgive what I know was done in love 
 and hope. And you, O Will, forgive me for 
 all I have brought, what I now bring, upon 
 you ; forgive the many thwartings and dull 
 indifference and heavy drag I have so often, 
 oh, so often been to you. For now death is 
 at hand. But I have one thing I wish to ask 
 you." 
 
 " Speak." 
 
 " Before my life was broken, there was 
 one whom I loved. Every hope, every dream, 
 every joy, every sorrow that I had came from 
 this love. It was her death which broke my 
 life — not only for the piteous loss and all it 
 meant to me, but because death came with 
 tragic heedlessness — for she was young, and 
 strong, and beautiful. And before she died, 
 she said we should meet again. I was never, 
 and now am far the less worthy of her ; and 
 yet — and yet — oh, if only that great, beautiful 
 love were all I had to doubt or fear, I should 
 8i
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 have no doubt or fear ! But no — no — we 
 shall never meet. How can we? Before to- 
 morrow I shall be like that crushed dog, and 
 not be: just as if I had never been! " 
 
 The blood rose, and sobs and tears made 
 further words inaudible. But after a little 
 the Body spoke again, 
 
 " But you, O Will, you and the Soul both 
 resemble me. We are as flowers of the same 
 colour, as clay of the same mould. It may be 
 you shall meet her. Tell her that my last 
 thought was of her; take her all my dreams 
 and hopes — and say — and say — say " 
 
 But here the Body sat up in the bed, ash- 
 white, with parted lips and straining eyes. 
 
 " What ? Quick, quick, dear Body — 
 say? " 
 
 " Say that I loved best that in her which I 
 loved best in myself — the Soul. Tell her I 
 have never wholly despaired. Ah, if only the 
 Soul were here, I would not even now de- 
 spair! Tell her I leave all to the Soul — and 
 — and — love shall triumph " 
 
 There was a rush of blood, a gurgling cry, 
 and the Body sank back lifeless. In the very 
 moment of death the eyes lightened with a 
 wonderful radiance — it was as though the 
 evening stars suddenly came through the 
 dark. 
 
 82
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 The Will looked to see wlience it came. 
 The Soul stood beside him, white, wonder- 
 ful, radiant. 
 
 " I have come," he said. 
 
 " For me ? " said the Will, shaking as with 
 an ague, yet in bitter irony. 
 
 " Yes, for you, and for the Body too." 
 
 " For the Body ? — see, he is already clay. 
 What word have you to say to that, to me 
 who likewise am already perishing? 
 
 " This — do you remember what so brief a 
 while ago we three as one wrote — wrote with 
 my spirit, through your mind, and tlie Body's 
 hand — these words : Love is more great than 
 ive conceive, and Death is the keeper of un- 
 known redcuiptionsf " 
 
 *' Yes — yes — O Soul ! I remember, I re- 
 member." 
 
 " It was true there : it is true here. Have 
 I not ever told you thr.t Love would save?" 
 
 With that the Soul moved over to the bed- 
 side, and kissed the Body. 
 
 " Farewell, fallen leaf. But the tree lives 
 — and beyond the tree is the wind, the breath 
 of the eternal." 
 
 " Look," he added, " our comrade is still 
 asleep, though now no mortal skill could 
 nourish the hidden spark " ; and with that he 
 stooped and kissed again the silent lips and 
 
 83
 
 TJie Divine Adventure 
 
 the still brow and the pulseless heart, and 
 suddenly a breath, an essence, came from the 
 body, in form like itself, a phantom, yet en- 
 dued with a motion of life. 
 
 As the faintest murmur in a shell we heard 
 him whisper, Life! Life! Life! Then, as a 
 blown vapour, he was one with us. A singu- 
 lar change came upon the clay which had 
 once been so near and dear to us : a frozen 
 whiteness that had not been there before, a 
 stillness as of ancient marble. 
 
 The Will stood, appalled, with v/ild eyes. 
 Some dreadful invisible power was upon him. 
 
 " Lost ! " he cried ; and now his voice, too, 
 was faint as a murmur in a shell. But the 
 Soul smiled. 
 
 Then the Will grew grey as a willow-leaf 
 aslant in the wind ; and as the shadow of a 
 reed wavered in the wind ; and as a reed's 
 shadow is and is not, so was he suddenly no 
 more. 
 
 But, in the miracle of a moment, the Soul 
 appeared in the triple mystery of substance, 
 and mind, and spirit. In full and joyous life 
 the Will stood re-born, and now we three 
 were one again. 
 
 I looked for the last time on that which had 
 been our home. The lifeless thing lay, most 
 terribly still and strange ; yet with a dignity 
 84
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 that came as a benediction, for this dead tem- 
 ple of hfe had yielded to a divine law, allied 
 not to shadow and decay, but to the recur- 
 rent spring, to the eternal ebb and flow, to 
 the infinite processional. It is we of the hu- 
 man clan only who are troubled by the vast 
 waste and refuse of life. There is not any 
 such waste, neither in the myriad spawn nor 
 the myriad seed : a Spirit sows by a law we do 
 not see, and reaps by a law we do not know. 
 
 Then I turned and went to the western 
 window. I saw that the Inn stood upon the 
 Hills of Dream, yet, when I looked within, 
 I knew that I was again in my familiar home. 
 Once more, beyond the fuchsia bushes, the 
 sea sighed, as it felt the long shore with a 
 continuous foamless wave. In the little room 
 below, the lamp was lit; for the glow fell 
 warmly upon the gravel path, shell-bordered, 
 and upon the tufted mignonette, sea-pinks, 
 and feathery southernwood. The sound of 
 hushed voices rose. 
 
 And now the dawn is come, and I have 
 written this record of what we, who are now 
 indeed one, but far more truly and intimately 
 than before, went out to seek. In another 
 hour I shall go hence, a wayfarer again. I 
 have a long road to travel, but am sustained 
 by joy, and uplifted by a great hope. When, 
 
 85
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 tired, I lay down the pen, and with it the last 
 of mortal uses, it will be to face the glory of 
 a new day. I have no fear. I shall not leave 
 all I have loved, for I have that in me which 
 binds me to this beautiful world, for another 
 life at least, it may be for many lives. And 
 that within me which dreamed and hoped 
 shall now more gladly and wonderfully 
 dream, and hope, and seek, and know, and 
 see ever deeper and further into the mystery 
 of beauty and truth. And that within me, 
 which knew, now knozvs. In the deepest 
 sense there is no spiritual dream that is not 
 true, no hope that shall for ever go famished, 
 no tears that shall not be gathered into the 
 brooding skies of compassion, to fall again in 
 healing dews. 
 
 What the Body could not, nor ever could 
 see, and what to the Will was a darkness, or 
 at best a bewildering mist, is now clear. 
 There are mysteries of which I cannot write ; 
 not from any occult secret, but because they 
 are so simple and inevitable, that, like the 
 mystery of day and night, or the change of 
 the seasons, or life and death, they must be 
 learned by each, in his own way, in his own 
 hour. It is out of their light that I see ; it is 
 by these stars that I set forth, where else I 
 should be as a shadow upon a trackless waste. 
 86
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 But Love, I am come to realise, is the 
 supreme deflecting force. Love " unloosens 
 sins," unites failure, disintegrates the act; 
 not by an inconceivable conflict with the im- 
 mutable law of consequence, but by deflection. 
 For the divine love follows the life, and turns 
 and meets it at last, and in that meeting de- 
 flects : so that that which is mortal, evil, and 
 what is of the mortal law, the act, sinks ; and 
 on the forehead of the divine law that which 
 is alone inevitable survives and moves onward 
 in the rhythm that is life. When we under- 
 stand the mystery of Redemption, we shall 
 understand what Love is. The expiatory is 
 an unknown attribute in the Divine. Expia- 
 tion is but the earthly burnt-ofl^ering of that 
 in us which is mortal : Redemption, which is 
 the spiritual absorption of the expiation due 
 to others, and the measureless restitution in 
 love of wrong humbly brought to the soul 
 and consumed there — so that it issues a living 
 force to meet and deflect — is the living wit- 
 ness in that of us which is immortal. Those 
 who wrong us do indeed become our saviours. 
 It is their expiation that we make ours: they 
 must go free of us ; and when they come 
 again and discrown us, then in love we 
 shall be at one and equal. So far, words 
 may clothe thought; but, beyond, the soul 
 
 87
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 knows there is no expiation. Except you 
 redeem yourself, there is no God. Forgive- 
 ness is the dream of Httle children : beau- 
 tiful because thus far we see and know, but 
 no farther. 
 
 I see now what madness it was, as so often 
 happened, to despise the body. But one mys- 
 tery has become clear to me through this 
 strange quest of ours — though when I say 
 " I," or " our," I know not whether it is the 
 Body or the Will or the Soul that speaks, 
 till I remember that triune marriage at the 
 deathbed, and know that while each is con- 
 sciously each — the one with memory, the 
 other with knowledge and hope, the third 
 with wisdom and faith — we are yet one, as 
 are the yellow and the white and the violet 
 in the single flame in this candle beside me. 
 And this mystery is, that the body was not 
 built of life-warmed clay merely to be the 
 house of the soul. Were it so, were the soul 
 unwed to its mortal comrades, it would be no 
 more than a moment's uplifted wave on an 
 infinite sea. Without memory, without hope, 
 it would be no more than a breath of the 
 Spirit. But before the Divine Power moulded 
 us into substance, we were shaped by it in 
 form. And form is, in the spiritual law, 
 what the crystal is in the chemic law.
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 For now I see clearly that the chief end of 
 the body is to enable the soul to come into 
 intimate union with the natural law, so that 
 it may fulfil the divine law of Form, and be 
 at one with all created life and yet be for 
 ever itself and individual. By itself the soul 
 would only vainly aspire; it has to learn to 
 remember, to become at one with the wind 
 and the grass and with all that lives and 
 moves ; to take its life from the root of the 
 body, and its green life from the mind, and 
 its flower and fragrance from what it may of 
 itself obtain, not only from this world, but 
 from its own dews, its own rainbows, dawn 
 stars and evening stars, and vast incalculable 
 fans of time and death. And this I have 
 learned : that there is no absolute Truth, no 
 absolute Beauty, even for the Soul. It may 
 be that in the Divine Forges we shall be so 
 moulded as to have perfect vision. Mean- 
 while only that Truth is deepest, that Beauty 
 highest which is seen, not by the Soul only, 
 or by the Mind, or by the Body, but all three 
 as one. Let each be perfect in kind and per- 
 fect in unity. This is the signal meaning of 
 the mystery. It is so inevitable that it has its 
 blind descent to fetich as well as its divine 
 ascension. But the ignoble use does not 
 annul the noble purport, any more than 
 
 89
 
 The Divine Adventure 
 
 the blindness of many obscures the dream 
 of one. 
 
 There could be no life hereafter for the 
 soul were it not for the body, and what were 
 that life without the mind, the child of both, 
 whom the ancient seers knew and named 
 Mnemosyne? Without memory life would 
 be a void breath, immortality a vacuum. 
 
 Ah, the glory of the lifting light! The 
 new day is come. Farewell. 
 
 90
 
 lONA 
 
 91
 
 "There are moments when the soul takes wings: 
 what it has to remember, it remembers : what it loves, 
 it loves still more: what it longs for, to that it flies." 
 
 92
 
 lona 
 
 A few places in the world are to be held 
 holy, because of the love which consecrates 
 them and the faith which enshrines them. 
 Their names are themselves talismans of 
 spiritual beauty. Of these is lona. 
 
 The Arabs speak of Mecca as a holy place 
 before the time of the prophet, saying that 
 Adam himself lies buried here : and, before 
 Adam, that the Sons of Allah, who are called 
 Angels, worshipped ; and that when Allah 
 Himself stood upon perfected Earth it was 
 on this spot. And here, they add, when there 
 is no man left upon earth, an angel shall 
 gather up the dust of this world, and say to 
 Allah, " There is nothing left of the whole 
 earth but Mecca: and now Mecca is but the 
 few grains of sand that I hold in the hollow 
 of my palm, O Allah." 
 
 In spiritual geography lona is the Mecca 
 of the Gael. 
 
 It is but a small isle, fashioned of a little 
 sand, a few grasses salt with the spray of an 
 
 93
 
 lona 
 
 ever-restless wave, a few rocks that wade in 
 heather and upon whose brows the sea-wind 
 weaves the yellow lichen. But since the 
 remotest days sacrosanct men have bowed 
 here in worship. In this little island a lamp 
 was lit whose flame lighted pagan Europe, 
 from the Saxon in his fens to the swarthy 
 folk who came by Greek waters to trade 
 the Orient. Here Learning and Faith had 
 their tranquil home, when the shadov^ of 
 the sword lay upon all lands, from Syra- 
 cuse by the Tyrrhene Sea to the rainy isles 
 of Orcc. From age to age, lowly hearts have 
 never ceased to bring their burthen here, 
 lona herself has given us for remembrance a 
 fount of youth more wonderful than that 
 which lies under her own boulders of Diin-I. 
 And here Hope waits. 
 
 To tell the story of lona is to go back to 
 God, and to end in God. 
 
 But to write of lona, there are many ways 
 of approach. No place that has a spiritual 
 history can be revealed to those who know 
 nothing of it by facts and descriptions. The 
 approach may be through the obscure glens 
 of another's mind and so out by the moonlit 
 way, as well as by the track that thousands 
 travel. I have nothing to say of lona's acre- 
 
 94
 
 lona 
 
 age, or fisheries, or pastures : nothing of how 
 the islanders Hve. These things are the ac- 
 cidental. There is small difference in simple 
 life anywhere. Moreover, there are many to 
 tell all that need be known. 
 
 There is one lona, a httle island of the 
 west. There is another lona, of which I 
 would speak. I do not say that it lies open 
 to all. It is as we come that we find. If we 
 come, bringing nothing with us, we go away 
 ill-content, having seen and heard nothing of 
 what we had vaguely expected to see or hear. 
 It is another lona than the lona of sacred 
 memories and prophecies : lona the metro- 
 polis of dreams. None can understand it 
 who does not see it through its pagan light, 
 its Christian light, its singular blending of 
 paganism and romance and spiritual beauty. 
 There is, too, an lona that is more than 
 Gaelic, that is more than a place rainbow-lit 
 with the seven desires of the world, the lona 
 that, if we will it so, is a mirror of your 
 heart and of mine. 
 
 History may be written in many ways, but 
 I think that in days to come the method of 
 spiritual history will be found more sugges- 
 tive than the method of statistical history. 
 The one will, in its own way, reveal inward 
 life, and hidden significance, and palpable 
 
 95
 
 lona 
 
 destiny: as the other, in the good but nar- 
 row way of convention, does with exactitude 
 dehneate features, narrate facts, and relate 
 events. The true interpreter will as little 
 despise the one as he will claim all for the 
 other. 
 
 And that is why I would speak here of 
 lona as befalls my pen, rather than as perhaps 
 my pen should go: and choose legend and re- 
 membrance, and my own and other memo- 
 ries and associations, and knowledge of my 
 own and others, and hidden meanings, and 
 beauty and strangeness surviving in dreams 
 and imaginations, rather than facts and fig- 
 ures, that others could adduce more deftly 
 and with more will. 
 
 In the Felire na Naomh Nerennach is a 
 strangely beautiful if fantastic legend of one 
 Mochaoi, Abbot of n'-Aondruim in Uladh. 
 With some companions he was at the edge 
 of a wood, and while busy in cutting wattles 
 wherewith to build a church, " he heard a 
 bright bird singing on the blackthorn near 
 him. It was more beautiful than the birds 
 of the world." Mochaoi listened entranced. 
 There was more in that voice than in the 
 throat of any bird he had ever heard, so he 
 stopped his wattle-cutting, and, looking at the 
 96
 
 lona 
 
 bird, courteously asked who was thus de- 
 Hghting him. The bird at once answered, 
 " A man of the people of my Lord " (that is, 
 an angel). "Hail," said Mochaoi, "and for 
 why that, O bird that is an angel ? " "I am 
 come here by command to encourage you in 
 your good work, but also, because of the love 
 in your heart, to amuse you for a time with 
 my sweet singing." " I am glad of that," 
 said the saint. Thereupon the bird sang a 
 single surpassing sweet air, and then fixed his 
 beak in the feathers of his wing, and slept. 
 But Mochaoi heard the beauty and sweetness 
 and infinite range of that song for three hun- 
 dred years. Three hundred years were in 
 that angelic song, but to Mochaoi it was less 
 than an hour. For three hundred years he 
 remained listening, in the spell of beauty: 
 nor in that enchanted hour did any age come 
 upon him, or any withering upon the wattles 
 he had gathered; nor in the wood itself did a 
 single leaf turn to a red or yellow flame 
 before his eyes. Where the spider spun her 
 web, she spun no more : where the dove 
 leaned her grey breast from the fir, she leaned 
 still. 
 
 Then suddenly the bird took its beak from 
 its wing-feathers, and said farewell. When 
 it was gone, Mochaoi lifted his wattles, and 
 
 97
 
 lona 
 
 went homeward as one in a dream. He stared, 
 when he looked for the httle wattled cells of 
 the Sons of Patrick. A great church built of 
 stone stood before his wondering eyes. A 
 man passed him, and told the stranger that it 
 was the church of St. Mochaoi. When he 
 spoke to the assembled brothers, none knew 
 him: some thought he had been taken away 
 by the people of the Shee, and come back at 
 fairy-nightfall, which is the last hour of the 
 last day of three hundred years. " Tell us 
 your name and lineage," they cried. " 1 am 
 Mochaoi, Abbot of n'-Aondruim," he said, 
 and then he told his tale, and they knew him, 
 and made him abbot again. In the enchanted 
 wood a shrine was built, and about it a 
 church grew, " and surpassingly white angels 
 often alighted there, or sang hymns to it 
 from the branches of the forest trees, or 
 leaned with their foot on tiptoe, their eyes 
 on the horizon, their ear on the ground, their 
 wings flapping, their bodies trembling, wait- 
 ing to send tidings of prayer and repentance 
 with a beat of their wings to the King of the 
 Everlasting." 
 
 There were many who thought that 
 Mochaoi was dead, when he was seen no 
 more of his fellow-monks at the forest mon- 
 astery of n'Aondruim in Uladh. But his 
 
 98
 
 lona 
 
 chronicler knew : " a sleep without decay of 
 the body Mochaoi of Antrim slept." 
 
 I am reminded of the story of Mochaoi 
 when I think of lona. I think she too, beau- 
 tiful isle, while gathering the kelp of human 
 longing and tears and hopes, strewn upon her 
 beaches by wild waves of the world, stood, 
 enchanted, to listen to a Song of Beauty. 
 " That is a new voice I hear in the wave," 
 we can dream of her saying, and of the an- 
 swer : " we are the angelical flocks of the 
 Shepherd : we are the Voices of the Eternal ; 
 listen a while ! " 
 
 It has been a long sleep, that enchanted 
 swoon. But Mochaoi awoke, after three 
 hundred years, and there was neither time 
 upon his head, nor age in his body, nor a sin- 
 gle withered leaf of the forest at his feet. 
 And shall not that be possible for the Isle of 
 Dreams, whose sands are the dust of mar- 
 tyrs and noble and beautiful lives, which was 
 granted to one man by " one of the people of 
 my Lord?" 
 
 When I think of lona I think often, too, of 
 a prophecy once connected with lona ; though 
 perhaps current no more in a day when pro- 
 phetical hopes are fallen dumb and blind. 
 
 It is commonly said that, if he would be 
 
 99
 
 lona 
 
 heard, none should write in advance of his 
 times. That I do not believe. Only, it does 
 not matter how few listen. I believe that 
 we are close upon a great and deep spiritual 
 change. I believe a new redemption is even 
 now conceived of the Divine Spirit in the hu- 
 man heart, that is itself as a woman, broken 
 in dreams and yet sustained in faith, patient, 
 long-suffering, looking towards home. I be- 
 lieve that though the Reign of Peace may 
 be yet a long way off, it is drawing near : and 
 that Who shall save us anew shall come di- 
 vinely as a Woman, to save as Christ saved, 
 but not, as He did, to bring with Her a 
 sword. But whether this Divine Woman, 
 this Mary of so many passionate hopes and 
 dreams, is to come through mortal birth, or 
 as an immortal Breathing upon our souls, 
 none can yet know. 
 
 Sometimes I dream of the old prophecy 
 that Christ shall come again upon lona, and 
 of that later and obscure prophecy which 
 foretells, now as the Bride of Christ, now as 
 the Daughter of God, now as the Divine 
 Spirit embodied through mortal birth in a 
 Woman, as once through mortal birth in a 
 Man, the coming of a new Presence and 
 Power: and dream that this may be upon 
 lona, so that the little Gaelic island may be- 
 
 lOO
 
 lona 
 
 come as the little Syrian Bethlehem. But 
 more wise it is to dream, not of hallowed 
 ground, but of the hallowed gardens of the 
 soul wherein She shall appear white and ra- 
 diant. Or, that upon the hills, where we 
 are wandered, the Shepherdess shall call us 
 home. 
 
 From one man only, on lona itself, I have 
 heard any allusion to the prophecy as to the 
 Saviour who shall yet come: and he in part 
 was obscure, and confused the advent of 
 Mary into the spiritual world with the pos- 
 sible coming again to earth of Mary, as an- 
 other Redeemer, or with a descending of the 
 Divine Womanhood upon the human heart as 
 an universal spirit descending upon awaiting 
 souls. But in intimate remembrance I recall 
 the words and faith of one or two whom 
 I loved well. Nor must I forget that my 
 old nurse, Barabal, used to sing a strange 
 " oran," to the effect that when St. Bride 
 came again to lona it would be to bind the 
 hair and wash the feet of the Bride of 
 Christ. 
 
 One of those to whom I allude was a young 
 Hebridean priest, who died in Venice, after 
 troubled years, whose bitterest vicissitude 
 was the clouding of his soul's hope by the 
 wings of a strange multitude of dreams — one 
 
 lOI
 
 lofia 
 
 of whom and whose end I have elsewhere 
 written : and he told me once how, " as our 
 forefathers and elders believed and still be- 
 lieve, that Holy Spirit shall come again which 
 once was mortally born among us as the Son 
 of God, but, then, shall be the Daughter of 
 God. The Divine Spirit shall come again as 
 a Woman. Then for the first time the world 
 will know peace." And when I asked him if 
 it were not prophesied that the Woman is to 
 be born in lona, he said that if this prophecy 
 had been made it was doubtless of an lona 
 that was symbolic, but that this was a matter 
 of no moment, for She would rise suddenly in 
 many hearts, and have her habitation among 
 dreams and hopes. The other who spoke to, 
 me of this Woman who is to save was an old 
 fisherman of a remote island of the Hebrides, 
 and one to whom I owe more than to any 
 other spiritual influence in my childhood, for 
 it was he who opened to me the three gates of 
 Beauty. Once this old man, Seumas Mac- 
 leod, took me with him to a lonely haven in 
 the rocks, and held me on his knee as we sat 
 watching the sun sink and the moon climb out 
 of the eastern wave. I saw no one, but 
 abruptly he rose and put me from him, and 
 bowed his grey head as he knelt before one 
 who suddenly was standing in that place. I 
 
 102
 
 lona 
 
 asked eagerly who it was. He told me that it 
 was an Angel. Later, I learned (I remem- 
 ber my disappointment that the beautiful 
 vision was not winged with great white 
 wings) that the Angel was one soft flame of 
 pure white, and that below the soles of his 
 feet were curling scarlet flames. He had 
 come in answer to the old man's prayer. He 
 had come to say that we could not see the Di- 
 vine One whom we awaited. " But you will 
 yet see that Holy Beauty," said the Angel, and 
 Seumas believed, and I too believed, and be- 
 lieve. He took my hand, and I knelt be- 
 side him, and he bade me repeat the words 
 he said. And that was how I first prayed 
 to Her who shall yet be the Balm of the 
 World. 
 
 And since then I have learned, and do see, 
 that not only prophecies and hopes, and de- 
 sires unclothed yet in word or thought, fore- 
 tell Her coming, but already a multitude of 
 spirits are in the gardens of the soul, and 
 are sowing seed and calling upon the wind of 
 the south ; and that everywhere are watching 
 eyes and uplifted hands, and signs which 
 cannot be mistaken, in many lands, in many 
 peoples, in many minds ; and, in the heaven 
 itself that the soul sees, the surpassing sig- 
 nature. 
 
 103
 
 lona 
 
 I recall one whom I knew, a fisherman of 
 the little green island : and I tell this story 
 of Coll here, for it is to me more than the 
 story of a dreaming islander. One night, ly- 
 ing upon the hillock that is called Cnoc-nan- 
 Aingeal, because it is here that St. Colum 
 was wont to hold converse with an angel 
 out of heaven, he watched the moonlight 
 move like a slow fin through the sea : and 
 in his heart were desires as infinite as the 
 waves of the sea, the moving homes of the 
 dead. 
 
 And while he lay and dreamed, his thoughts 
 idly adrift as a net in deep waters, he closed 
 his eyes, muttering the Gaelic words of an 
 old line, 
 
 In the Isle of Dreams God shall yet fulfil Himself 
 anew. 
 
 Hearing a footfall, he stirred. A man stood 
 beside him. He did not know the man, who 
 was young, and had eyes dark as hill-tarns, 
 with hair light and soft as thistledown ; and 
 moved light as a shadow, delicately treading 
 the grass as the wind treads it. In his hair 
 he had twined the fantastic leaf of the horn- 
 poppy. 
 
 The islander did not move or speak : it was 
 as though a spell were upon him. 
 104
 
 lona 
 
 " God be with you," he said at last, utter- 
 ing the common salutation. 
 
 '' And with you. Coll mac Coll," answered 
 the stranger. Coll looked at him. Who was 
 this man, with the sea-poppy in his hair, who, 
 unknown, knew him by name ? He had heard 
 of one whom he did not wish to meet, the 
 Green Harper : also of a grey man of the sea 
 whom islesmen seldom alluded to by name : 
 again, there was the Amadan Dhu . . . but at 
 that name Coll made the sign of the cross, and 
 remembering what Father Allan had told him 
 in South Uist, muttered a holy exorcism of 
 the Trinity. 
 
 The man smiled. 
 
 " You need have no fear. Coll mac Coll," 
 he said quietly. 
 
 " You that know my name so well are wel- 
 come, but if you in turn would tell me your 
 name I should be glad." 
 
 " I Have no name that I can tell you," an- 
 swered the stranger gravely ; " but I am not 
 of those who are unfriendly. And because 
 you can see me and speak to me, I will help 
 you to whatsoever you may wish." 
 
 Coll laughed. 
 
 " Neither you nor any man can do that. 
 For now that I have neither father nor 
 mother, nor brother nor sister, and my lass 
 
 105
 
 lona 
 
 too is dead, I wish neither for sheep nor cat- 
 tle, nor for new nets and a fine boat, nor a 
 big house, nor as much money as MacCailein 
 Mor has in the bank at Inveraora." 
 
 " What then do you wish for, Coll mac 
 Coll ? " 
 
 " I do not wish for what cannot be, or I 
 would wish to see again the dear face of 
 Morag, my lass. But I wish for all the glory 
 and wonder and power there is in the world, 
 and to have it all at my feet, and to know 
 everything that the Holy Father himself 
 knows, and have kings coming to me as the 
 crofters come to MacCailein Mor's factor." 
 
 " You can have that. Coll mac Coll," said 
 the Green Harper, and he waved a withe of 
 hazel he had in his hand. 
 
 "What is that for?" said Coll. 
 
 " It is to open a door that is in the air. And 
 now. Coll, if that is your wish of all wishes, 
 and you will give up all other wishes for that 
 wish, you can have the sovereignty of the 
 world. Ay, and more than that : you shall 
 have the sun like a golden jewel in the hol- 
 low of your right hand, and all the stars as 
 pearls in your left, and have the moon as a 
 white shining opal above your brows, with all 
 knowledge behind the sun, within the moon, 
 and beyond the stars." 
 io6
 
 lona 
 
 Coil's face shone. He stood, waiting. Just 
 then he heard a familiar sound in the dusk. 
 The tears came into his eyes. 
 
 " Give me instead," he cried, " give me a 
 warm breast-feather from that grey dove of 
 the woods that is winging home to her 
 young." He looked as one moon-dazed. None 
 stood beside him. He was alone. Was it a 
 dream, he wondered? But a weight was 
 lifted from his heart. Peace fell upon him as 
 dew upon grey pastures. Slowly he walked 
 homeward. Once, glancing back, he saw a 
 white figure upon the knoll, with a face noble 
 and beautiful. Was it Colum himself come 
 again? he mused: or that white angel with 
 whom the Saint was wont to discourse, and 
 who brought him intimacies of God? or was 
 it but the wave-fire of his dreaming mind, as 
 lonely and cold and unreal as that which the 
 wind of the south makes upon the wandering 
 hearths of the sea? 
 
 I tell this story of Coll here, for, as I have 
 said, it is to me more than the story of a 
 dreaming islander. He stands for the soul of 
 a race. It is because, to me, he stands for 
 the sorrowful genius of our race, that I have 
 spoken of him here. Below all the strife of 
 lesser desires, below all that he has in com- 
 mon with other men, he has the livelong un- 
 107
 
 lona 
 
 quenchable thirst for the things of the spirit. 
 This is the thirst that makes him turn so 
 often from the near securities and prosperi- 
 ties, and indeed all beside, setting his heart 
 aflame with vain, because illimitable, desires. 
 For him, the wisdom before which know- 
 ledge is a frosty breath : the beauty that is be- 
 yond what is beautiful. For, like Coll, the 
 world itself has not enough to give him. And 
 at the last, and above all, he is like Coll in 
 this, that the sun and moon and stars them- 
 selves may become as trampled dust, for only 
 a breast-feather of that Dove of the Eternal, 
 which may have its birth in mortal love, but 
 has its evening home where are the dews of 
 immortality. 
 
 " The Dove of the Eternal." It was from 
 the lips of an old priest of the Hebrides that I 
 first heard these words. I was a child, and 
 asked him if it was a white dove, such 
 as I had seen fanning the sunglow in Icolm- 
 kill. 
 
 " Yes," he told me, " the Dove is white, and 
 it was beloved of Colum, and is of you, little 
 one, and of me." 
 
 "Then it is not dead?" 
 
 " It is not dead." 
 
 I was in a more wild and rocky isle than 
 1 08
 
 lona 
 
 lona then, and when I went into a sohtary 
 place close by my home it was to a stony wil- 
 derness so desolate that in many moods I 
 could not bear it. But that day, though there 
 were no sheep lying beside boulders as grey 
 and still, nor whinnying goats (creatures 
 that have always seemed to me strangely 
 homeless, so that, as a child, it was often my 
 noon- fancy on hot days to play to them on a 
 little reed-flute I was skilled in making, 
 thwarting the hill-wind at the small holes to 
 the fashioning of a rude furtive music, which 
 I believed comforted the goats, though why 
 I did not know, and probably did not try to 
 know) : and though I could hear nothing 
 but the soft, swift, slipping feet of the wind 
 among the rocks and grass and a noise of the 
 tide crawling up from a shore hidden behind 
 crags (beloved of swallows for the small 
 honey-flies which fed upon the thyme) : still, 
 on that day, I was not ill at ease, nor in any 
 way disquieted. But before me I saw a white 
 rock-dove, and followed it gladly. It flew cir- 
 cling among the crags, and once I thought it 
 had passed seaward ; but it came again, and 
 alit on a boulder, 
 
 I went upon my knees, and prayed to it, 
 and, as nearly as I can remember, in these 
 words : — 
 
 109
 
 lona 
 
 " O Dove of the Eternal, I want to love 
 you, and you to love me: and if you live on 
 lona, I want you to show me, when I go 
 there again, the place where Colum the Holy 
 talked with an angel. And I want to live as 
 long as you, Dove" (I remember thinking 
 this might seem disrespectful, and that I 
 added hurriedly and apologetically), " Dove 
 of the Eternal." 
 
 That evening I told Father Ivor what I had 
 done. He did not laugh at me. He took me 
 on his knee, and stroked my hair, and for a 
 long time was so silent that I thought he 
 was dreaming. He put me gently from him, 
 and kneeled at the chair, and made this sim- 
 ple prayer which I have never forgotten : " O 
 Dove of the Eternal, grant the little one's 
 prayer." 
 
 That is a long while ago now, and I have 
 sojourned since in lona, and there and else- 
 where known the wild doves of thought and 
 dream. But I have not, though I have 
 longed, seen again the White Dove that Col- 
 um so loved. For long I thought it must have 
 left lona and Barra too, when Father Ivor 
 died. 
 
 Yet I have not forgotten that it is not dead. 
 " I want to live as long as you," was my 
 child's plea: and the words of the old priest, 
 no
 
 lona 
 
 knowing and believing were, " O Dove of the 
 Eternal, grant the little one's prayer." 
 
 It was not in Barra, but in lona, that, while 
 yet a child, I set out one evening to find the 
 Divine Forges. A Gaelic sermon, preached 
 on the shoreside by an earnest man, who, go- 
 ing poor and homeless through the west, had 
 tramped the long roads of Mull overagainst 
 us, and there fed to flame a smouldering fire, 
 had been my ministrant in these words. The 
 " revivalist " had spoken of God as one who 
 would hammer the evil out of the soul and 
 weld it to good, as a blacksmith at his anvil : 
 and suddenly, with a dramatic gesture, he 
 cried : " This little island of lona is this anvil ; 
 God is your blacksmith: but oh, poor people, 
 who among you knows the narrow way to 
 the Divine Forges ? " 
 
 There is a spot on lona that has always 
 had a strange enchantment for me. Behind 
 the ruined walls of the Columban church, 
 the slopes rise, and the one isolated hill of 
 lona is, there, a steep and sudden wilderness. 
 It is commonly called Dun-I (JDoon-ee), for at 
 the summit in old days was an island for- 
 tress; but the Gaelic name of the whole of 
 this uplifted shoulder of the isle is Slibh 
 Meanach. Hidden under a wave of heath 
 
 III
 
 lona 
 
 and boulder, near the broken rocks, is a little 
 pool. From generation to generation this 
 has been known, and frequented, as the 
 Fountain of Youth. 
 
 There, through boggy pastures, where the 
 huge-horned shaggy cattle stared at me, and 
 up through the ling and roitch, I climbed: 
 for, if anywhere, I thought that from there 
 I might see the Divine Forges, or at least 
 might discover a hidden way, because of the 
 power of that water, touched on the eyelids at 
 sunlift, at sunset, or at the rising of the m-oon. 
 
 From where I stood I could see the people 
 still gathered upon the dunes by the shore, 
 and the tall, ungainly figure of the preacher. 
 In the narrow strait were two boats, one be- 
 ing rowed across to Fionnaphort, and the 
 other, with a dun sail burning flame-brown, 
 hanging like a bird's wing against Glas 
 Eilean, on the tideway to the promontory of 
 Earraid. Was the preacher still talking of 
 the Divine Forges? I wondered; or were 
 the men and women in the ferry hurrying 
 across to the Ross of Mull to look for them 
 among the inland hills? And the Earraid 
 men in the fishing-smack: were they sailing 
 to see if they lay hidden in the wilderness of 
 rocks, where the muffled barking of the seals 
 made the loneliness more wild and remote? 
 
 112
 
 lona 
 
 I wetted my eyelids, as I had so often 
 done before (and not always vainly, though 
 whether vision came from the water, or from 
 a more quenchless spring within, I know 
 not), and looked into the little pool. Alas! 
 I could see nothing but the reflection of a 
 star, too obscured by light as yet for me to 
 see in the sky, and, for a moment, the shadow 
 of a gull's wing as the bird flew by far over- 
 head. I was too young then to be content 
 with the symbols of coincidence, or I might 
 have thought that the shadow of a wing from 
 Heaven, and the light of a star out of the 
 East, were enough indication. But, as it 
 was, I turned, and walked idly northward, 
 down the rough side of Dun Bhuirg (at Cul 
 Bhuirg, a furlong westward, I had once seen 
 a phantom, which I believed to be that of 
 the Culdee, Oran, and so never went that 
 way again after sundown) to a thyme-covered 
 mound that had for me a most singular fas- 
 cination. 
 
 It is a place to this day called Diin Man- 
 anain. Here, a friend who told me many 
 things, a Gaelic farmer named Macarthur, 
 had related once a fantastic legend about a 
 god of the sea. Manaun was his name, and 
 he lived in the times when lona was part of 
 the kingdom of the Suderoer. Whenever he 
 
 113
 
 lona 
 
 willed he was like the sea, and that is not 
 wonderful, for he was born of the sea. Thus 
 his body was made of a green wave. His 
 hair was of wrack and tangle, glistening with 
 spray ; his robe was of windy foam ; his feet, 
 of white sand. That is, when he was with 
 his own, or when he willed; otherwise, he 
 was as men are. He loved a woman of the 
 south so beautiful that she was named Dear- 
 sadh-na-Ghreine (Sunshine). He captured 
 her and brought her to lona in September, 
 when it is the month of peace. For one 
 month she was happy: when the wet gales 
 from the west set in, she pined for her own 
 land : yet in the dream-days of November, 
 she smiled so often that Manaun hoped; but 
 when Winter was come, her lover saw that 
 she could not live. So he changed her into 
 a seal. " You shall be a sleeping woman by 
 day," he said, " and sleep in my diin here on 
 lona: and by night, when the dews fall, you 
 shall be a seal, and shall hear me calling to 
 you from a wave, and shall come out and 
 meet me." 
 
 They have mortal offspring also, it is 
 said. 
 
 There is a story of a man who went to the 
 mainland, but could not see to plough, be- 
 cause the brown fallows became waves that 
 114
 
 lona 
 
 splashed noisily about him. The same man 
 went to Canada, and got work in a great 
 warehouse; but among the bales of merchan- 
 dise he heard the singular note of the sand- 
 piper, and every hour the sea-fowl confused 
 him with their crying. 
 
 Probably some thought was in my mind 
 that there, by Dun Mananain, I might find 
 a hidden way. That summer I had been 
 thrilled to the inmost life by coming sud- 
 denly, by moonlight, on a seal moving across 
 the last sand-dune between this place and the 
 bay called Port Ban. A strange voice, too, I 
 heard upon the sea. True, I saw no white 
 arms upthrown, as the seal plunged into the 
 long wave that swept the shore; and it was 
 a grey skua that wailed above me, winging 
 inland; yet had I not had a vision of the 
 miracle? 
 
 But alas! that evening there was not even 
 a barking seal. Some sheep fed upon the 
 green slope of Manaun's mound. 
 
 So, still seeking a way to the Divine 
 Forges, I skirted the shore and crossed the 
 sandy plain of the Machar, and mounted the 
 upland district known as Sliav Starr (the Hill 
 of Noises), and walked to a place, to me 
 sacred. This was a deserted green airidh 
 
 115
 
 lona 
 
 between great rocks. From here I could 
 look across the extreme western part of 
 lona, to where it shelved precipitously around 
 the little Port-a-churaich, the Haven of the 
 Coracle, the spot where St. Columba landed 
 when he came to the island. 
 
 I knew every foot of ground here, as ev- 
 ery cave along the wave-worn shore. How 
 often I had wandered in theSe solitudes, to 
 see the great spout of water rise through the 
 grass from the caverns beneath, forced up- 
 ward when tide and wind harried the sea- 
 flocks from the north ; or to look across the 
 ocean to the cliflfs of Antrim, from the Carn 
 cul Ri Eirinn, the Cairn of the Hermit King 
 of Ireland, about whom I had woven many a 
 romance. 
 
 I was tired, and fell asleep. Perhaps the 
 Druid of a neighbouring mound, or the 
 lonely Irish King, or Colum himself (whose 
 own Mound of the Outlook was near), or one 
 of his angels who ministered to him, watched, 
 and shepherded my dreams to the desired 
 fold. At least I dreamed, and thus: — 
 
 The skies to the west beyond the seas were 
 not built of flushed clouds, but of transparent 
 flame. These flames rose in solemn stillness 
 above a vast forge, whose anvil was the shin- 
 ing breast of the sea. Three great Spirits 
 Ii6
 
 lona 
 
 stood by it, and one lifted a soul out of the 
 deep shadow that was below; and one with 
 his hands forged the soul of its dross and 
 welded it anew; and the third breathed upon 
 it, so that it was winged and beautiful. 
 Suddenly the glory-cloud waned, and I saw 
 the multitude of the stars. Each star was 
 the gate of a long, shining road. Many — 
 a countless number — travelled these roads. 
 Far ofY I saw white walls, built of the pale 
 gold and ivory of sunrise. There again I 
 saw the three Spirits, standing and waiting. 
 So these, I thought, were not the walls of 
 Heaven, but the Divine Forges. 
 
 That was my dream. When I awaked, the 
 curlews were crying under the stars. 
 
 When I reached the shadowy glebe, behind 
 the manse by the sea, I saw the preacher 
 walking there by himself, and doubtless 
 praying. I told him I had seen the Divine 
 Forges, and twice; and in crude, childish 
 words told how I had seen them. 
 
 " It is not a dream," he said. 
 
 I know now what he meant. 
 
 It would seem to be difficult for most of 
 
 us to beHeve that what has perished can be 
 
 reborn. It is the same whether we look 
 
 upon the dust of ancient cities, broken 
 
 117
 
 lona 
 
 peoples, nations that stand and wait, old 
 faiths, defeated dreams. It is so hard to be- 
 lieve that what has fallen may arise. Yet we 
 have perpetual symbols; the tree, that the 
 winds of Autumn ravage and the Spring re- 
 stores; the trodden weed, that in April 
 awakes white and fragrant; the swallow, that 
 in the south remembers the north. We 
 forget the ebbing wave that from the sea- 
 depths comes again : the Day, shod with 
 sunrise while his head is crowned with 
 stars. 
 
 Far-seeing was the vision of the old Gael, 
 who prophesied that lona would never 
 wholly cease to be " the lamp of faith," but 
 would in the end shine forth as gloriously as 
 of yore, and that, after dark days, a new hope 
 would go hence into the world. But before 
 that (and he prophesied when the island was 
 in its greatness) — 
 
 "Man tig so gu crich 
 Bithidh I mar a bha, 
 Gun a ghuth mannaich 
 Findh shalchar ba . . ." 
 
 quaint old-world Erse words, which mean — 
 
 "Before this happens, 
 lona will be as it was, 
 
 ii8
 
 lona 
 
 Without the voice of a monk, 
 Under the dung of cows." ' 
 
 And truly enough the Httle island was for 
 long given over to the sea-wind, whose 
 mournful chant even now fills the ruins 
 where once the monks sang matins and even- 
 song; for generations, sheep and long-horned 
 shaggy kine found their silent pastures in 
 the wilderness that of old was " this our little 
 seabounded Garden of Eden." 
 
 But now that Zona has been " as it was," 
 the other and greater change may yet be, 
 may well have already come. 
 
 Strange, that to this day none knows with 
 surety the derivation or original significance 
 of the name lona. Many ingenious guesses 
 have been made, but of these some are ob- 
 viously far-fetched, others are impossible in 
 
 ^ A more polished later version, though attributed 
 to Columba, runs: — 
 
 "An I mo chridhe, I mo ghr^idh 
 An aite guth mhanach bidh geum ba; 
 Ach mu'n tig an saoghal gu crich, 
 Bithidh I mar a bha." 
 
 (In efifect: In lona that is my heart's desire, lona 
 that is my love, the lowing of cows shall yet replace the 
 voices of monks: but before the end is come lona shall 
 again be as it was.) 
 
 119
 
 lona 
 
 Gaelic, and all but impossible to the mind 
 of any Gael speaking his ancient tongue. 
 Nearly all these guesses concern the lona of 
 Columba: few attempt the name of the sacred 
 island of the Druids. Another people once 
 lived here with a forgotten faith; possibly be- 
 fore the Picts there was yet another, who 
 worshipped at strange altars and bowed down 
 before Shadow and Fear, the earliest of the 
 gods. 
 
 The most improbable derivation is one that 
 finds much acceptance. When Columba and 
 his few followers were sailing northward from 
 the isle of Oronsay, in quest, it is said, of 
 this sacred island of the Druids, suddenly one 
 of the monks cried sud i (f siod e!) "yon- 
 der it!" With sudden exultation Columba 
 exclaimed, Mar sud bitJie I, goir thcar II, 
 " Be it so, and let it be called I " fl or EE). 
 We are not the wiser for this obviously 
 monkish invention. It accounts for a sylla- 
 ble only, and seems like an efifort to explain 
 the use' of / (II, Y, Hy, Hee) for "island" 
 in place of the vernacular Innis, Inch, Eilean, 
 etc. Except in connection with lona I doubt 
 if / for island is ever now used in modern 
 Gaelic. Icolmkill is familiar: the anglicised 
 Gaelic of the Isle of Colum of the Church. 
 But it is doubtful if any now living has ever 
 
 120
 
 lona 
 
 heard a Gael speak of an island as /; T doubt 
 if an instance could be adduced. On the 
 other hand, / might well have been, and 
 doubtless is, used in written speech as a sign 
 for Innis, as 's is the common writing of 
 agus, and. As for the ancient word Idh or 
 Iy,'^do not know that its derivation has been 
 ascertained, though certain Gaelic linguists 
 claim that Idh and Innis are of the same root. 
 I do not know on what authority, but an 
 anonymous Gaelic writer, in an account of 
 lona in 1771, alludes to the probability that 
 Christianity was introduced there before St. 
 Columba's advent, and that the island was 
 already dedicated to the Apostle St. John, 
 " for it was originally called I'Eoin, i.e. the 
 Isle of John, whence lona." I'eoin certainly 
 is very close in sound, as a Gael would pro- 
 nounce it, to lona, and there can be little 
 doubt that the island had druids (whether 
 Christian monks also with or without) when 
 Columba landed. Before Conall, King of 
 Alba (as he was called, though only Dalriadic 
 King of Argyll), invited Colum to lona, to 
 make that island his home and sanctuary, 
 there were certainly Christian monks on the 
 island. Among them was the half-mythical 
 Odran or Oran, who is chronicled in the 
 Annals of the Four Masters as having been 
 121
 
 lona 
 
 a missionary priest, and as having died in 
 lona fifteen years before Colum landed. 
 Equally certainly there were druids at this late 
 date, though discredited of the Pictish king 
 and his people, for a Cymric priest of the old 
 faith was at that time Ard-Druid. This man 
 Gwendollen, through his bard or second- 
 druid Myrddin (Merlin), deplored the perse- 
 cution to which he was subject, in that now 
 he and his no longer dared to practise the 
 sacred druidical rites " in raised circles " — 
 adding bitterly, " the grey stones themselves, 
 even, they have removed." 
 
 Again, Davies in his Celtic Researches 
 speaks of Colum as having on his settlement 
 in lona burnt a heap of druidical books. It 
 is at any rate certain that druidical believers 
 (helots perhaps) remained to Colum's time, 
 even if the last druidic priest had left. In 
 the explicit accounts which survive there is 
 no word of any dispossession of the druidic 
 priests. It is more than likely that the Pic- 
 tish king, who had been converted to Chris- 
 tianity, and gave the island to Columba by 
 special grant, had either already seen Irish 
 monks inhabit it, or at least had withdrawn 
 the lingering priests of the ancient faith of 
 his people. Neither Columba nor Adamnan 
 nor any other early chronicler speaks of lona 
 
 122
 
 lona 
 
 as held by the Druids when the Httle coracle 
 with the cross came into Port-a-Churaich. 
 
 Others have derived the name from Aon, 
 an isthmus, but the objections to this are 
 that it is not applicable to the island, and per- 
 haps never was; and, again, the Gaelic pro- 
 nunciation. Some have thought that the 
 word, when given as I-Eoin, was intended, 
 not for the Isle of John, but the Isle of 
 Birds. Here, again, the objection is that 
 there is no reason why lona should be called 
 by a designation equally applicable to every 
 one of the numberless isles of the west. To 
 the mountaineers of Mull, however, the little 
 low-lying seaward isle must have appeared 
 the haunt of the myriad sea-fowl of the 
 Moyle; and if the name thus derives, doubt- 
 less a Mull man gave it. 
 
 Again, it is said that lona is a miswriting of 
 loua, " the avowed ancient name of the is- 
 land." It is easy to see how the scribes who 
 copied older manuscripts might have made 
 the mistake; and easy to understand how, 
 the mistake once become the habit, fanciful 
 interpretations were adduced to explain 
 " lona." 
 
 There is little reasonable doubt that lona 
 was the ancient Gaelic or Pictish name of the 
 island. I have frequently seen allusions to 
 123
 
 lona 
 
 its having been called Innis nan Dhruid- 
 nechean, or Dhruidhnean, the Isle of the 
 Druids: but that is not ancient Gaelic, and I 
 do not think there is any record of lona be- 
 ing so called in any of the early manuscripts. 
 Doubtless it was a name given by the Shena- 
 chies or bardic story-tellers of a later date, 
 though of course it is quite possible that 
 lona was of old commonly called the Isle of 
 the Druids. In this connection I may put 
 on record that a few years ago I heard an 
 old man of the western part of the Long Is- 
 land (Lewis), speak of the priests and minis- 
 ters of to-day as "druids"; and once, in 
 either Coll or Tiree, I heard a man say, in 
 English, alluding to the Established minister, 
 " Yes, yes, that will be the way of it, for sure, 
 
 for Mr. is a wise druid." It might well 
 
 be, therefore, that in modern use the Isle of 
 Druids signified only the Isle of Priests. 
 There is a little island of the Outer Hebrides 
 called Innis Chailleachan Dhubh — the isle of 
 the black old women ; and a legend has 
 grown up that witches once dwelt here and 
 brewed storms and evil spells. But the 
 name is not an ancient name, and was given 
 not so long ago, because of a small sister- 
 hood of black-cowled nuns who settled there. 
 St. Adamnan, ninth Abbot of lona, writing 
 124
 
 lona 
 
 at the end of the seventh century, invari- 
 ably calls the island loita or the loiian 
 Island. Unless the hypothesis of the careless 
 scribes be accepted, this should be conclu- 
 sive. 
 
 For myself I do not believe that there has 
 been any slip of n for u. And I am con- 
 firmed in this opinion by the following cir- 
 cumstance. Three years ago I was sailing 
 on one of the sea-lochs of Argyll. My only 
 companion was the boatman, and incidentally 
 I happened to speak of some skerries (a 
 group of sea-set rocks) off the Ross of Mull, 
 similarly named to rocks in the narrow kyle 
 we were then passing; and learned with sur- 
 prise that my companion knew them well, 
 and was not only an lona man, but had lived 
 on the island till he was twenty. I asked him 
 about his people, and when he found that I 
 knew them he became more confidential. 
 But he professed a strange ignorance of all 
 concerning lona. There was an old lona 
 iorram, or boat-song, I was anxious to have: 
 he had never heard of it. Still more did I 
 desire some rendering or even some lines of 
 an ancient chant of whose existence I knew, 
 but had never heard recited, even fragmen- 
 tarily. He did not know of it : he " did not 
 know Gaelic," that is, he remembered only a 
 125
 
 lona 
 
 little of it. Well, no, he added, perhaps he 
 did remember some, " but only just to talk 
 to fishermen an' the like." 
 
 Suddenly a squall came down out of the 
 hills. The loch blackened. In a moment a 
 froth of angry foam drove in upon us, but 
 the boat righted, and we flew before the blast, 
 as though an arrow shot by the wind. I 
 noticed a startling change in my companion. 
 His blue eyes were wide and luminous; his 
 lips twitched; his hands trembled. Suddenly 
 he stooped slightly, laughed, cried some 
 words I did not catch, and abruptly broke 
 into a fierce and strange sea-chant. It was 
 no other than the old lona rann I had so 
 vainly sought! 
 
 Some memory had awakened in the man, 
 perhaps in part from what I had said — with 
 the old spell of the sea, the old cry of the 
 wind. 
 
 Then he ceased abruptly, he relapsed, and 
 with a sheepish exclamation and awkward 
 movement shrank beside me. Alas, I could 
 recall only a few lines; and I failed in every 
 effort to persuade him to repeat the rann. 
 But I had heard enough to excite me, for 
 again and again he had called or alluded to 
 lona by its ancient pre-Columban name of 
 loua, and once at least I was sure, from the 
 126
 
 lona 
 
 words, that the chant was also to loua the 
 Moon. 
 
 That night, however, he promised to tell 
 me on the morrow all he could remember of 
 the old loua chant. On the morrow, alas, he 
 had to leave upon an unexpected business 
 that could not be postponed, and before his 
 return, three days later, I was gone. I have 
 not seen him again, but it is to him I am in- 
 debted for the loan of an ancient manuscript 
 map of lona, a copy of which I made and 
 have by me still. It was an heirloom: by his 
 own account had been in his family, in lona, 
 for seven generations, " an it's Himself 
 knows how much more." He had been to 
 the island the summer before, because of his 
 father's death, and had brought this coarsely 
 painted and rudely framed map away with 
 him. He told me too, that night, how the 
 oldest folk on the island — " some three or 
 four o' them, anyway; them as has the 
 Gaelic" — had the old loua chant in their 
 minds. As a boy he had heard it at many 
 a winter ceilidh. " Ay, ay, for sure, lona 
 was called loua in them old ancient days." 
 
 My friend also had a little book of his 
 
 mother's which contained, in a neat hand, 
 
 copies of Gaelic songs, among them some of 
 
 the old Islay and Skye oar-chants of the 
 
 127
 
 lona 
 
 iorram kind. I recall an iorram that had 
 hardly a word in it, but was only a series 
 of barbaric cries, sometimes full of lament 
 {ho-ro-aroo-arbnc, ho-ro, ah-hbnc, ah-hdne!), 
 which was the lona fisherman's song to en- 
 tice seals to come near. I remember, too, 
 the opening of a " maighdean-mhara " or mer- 
 maid song, by a little-known namesake of my 
 own, a sister of Mary Macleod, " the sweet 
 singer of the Hebrides," because it had as a 
 heading (perhaps put there by the lona 
 scribe) some lines of Mary's that I liked well. 
 I quote from memory, but these were to 
 the efifect that, in his home, what the Macleod 
 loved, was playing at chess 
 
 Agus jiiaint air a chlarsaich 
 Gus e h' eachdraidli na dheigh sin 
 Greis air ursgeul na Peine 
 
 [and the music of the harp, and the telling of 
 tales of the feats of the Feinn (the Fingal- 
 ians).] There are not many now, I fear, who 
 could find entertainment thus, or care to sit 
 before the peat-fires. 
 
 On one other occasion I have heard the 
 
 name loua used by a fisherman. I was at 
 
 Strachur, on Loch Fyne, and was speaking to 
 
 the skipper of a boat's crew of Macleods from 
 
 128
 
 lona 
 
 the Lews, when I was attracted by an old 
 man. He knew my Uist friend, then at 
 Strachur, who told me more than one strange 
 legend of the Sliochd-nan-Ron, the seal-men, 
 I met the old man that night before the peat- 
 glow, and while he was narrating a story of 
 a Princess of Spain who married the King of 
 Ireland's son, he spoke incidentally of their 
 being wrecked on lona, " that was then called 
 loua, ay, an' that for one hundred and two 
 hundred and three hundred years and thrice 
 a hundred on the top o' that before it was 
 Icolmkill." 
 
 I did not know him, but a friend told me 
 that the late Mr. Cameron, the minister of 
 Brodick, in Arran, had the m.s. of an old lona 
 (or Hebridean) iorram, in the refrain of which 
 loua was used throughout. 
 
 Neither do I think the name the island now 
 bears has anything in common with loua. 
 In a word, I am sure that the derivations of 
 lona are commonly fanciful, and that the 
 word is simply Gaelic for the Isle of Saints, 
 and was so given it because of Columba and 
 the abbots and monks who succeeded him 
 and his. In Gaelic, the letters sh at the be- 
 ginning of a word are invariably mute; so 
 that I-shona, the Isle of Saints, would be 
 pronounced lona. I think that any lingering 
 
 129
 
 lona 
 
 doubt I had about the meaning of the name 
 went when I got tlie old map of which I have 
 spoken, and found that in the left corner was 
 written in large rude letters II-SHONA. 
 
 How great a man was the Irish monk 
 Crimthan, called Colum, the Dove: Colum- 
 cille, the Dove of the Church. One may read 
 all that has been written of him since the 
 sixth century, and not reach the depths of his 
 nature. I doubt if any other than a Gael can 
 understand him aright. More than any Celt 
 of whom history tells, he is the epitome of 
 the Celt. In war, Cuchullin himself was not 
 more brave and resourceful. Finn, calling 
 his champions to the pursuit of Crania, or 
 Oisin boasting of the Fianna before Patrick, 
 was not more arrogant, yet his tenderness 
 could be as his Master's was, and he could 
 be as gentle as a young mother with her 
 child, and had a child's simplicity. He knew 
 the continual restlessness of his race. He 
 was forty-two when he settled in lona, and 
 had led a life of frequent and severe vicissi- 
 tude, often a wanderer, sometimes with blood 
 against him and upon his head, once in ex- 
 tremity of danger, an outlaw, excommuni- 
 cated. But even in his haven of lona he 
 was not content. He journeyed northward 
 130
 
 lona 
 
 through the Pictish realms, a more danger- 
 ous and obscure adventure then than to cross 
 Africa to-day. He sailed to " the Ethican 
 island," as St. Adamnan calls Tiree, and made 
 of it a sanctuary, where prayer might rise as 
 a continual smoke from quiet homes. No fear 
 of the savage clans of Skye — where a wo- 
 man had once reigned with so great a fame in 
 war that even the foremost champion of Ire- 
 land went to her in his youth to learn arms 
 and battle-wisdom — restrained him from fac- 
 ing the island Picts. Long before Hakon 
 the Dane fought the great seafight ofif Largs 
 on the mainland, Colum had built a church 
 there. In the far Perthshire wilds, before 
 Macbeth slew Duncan the king, the strong 
 abbot of lona had founded a monastery in 
 that thanedom. At remote Inbhir Nis, the 
 Inverness of to-day, he overcame the King 
 of the Picts and his sullen Druids, by his 
 daring, the fierce magnetism of his will, his 
 dauntless resource. Once, in a savage re- 
 gion, far north-eastward, towards the Scandi- 
 navian sea, he was told that there his Cross 
 would not long protect either wattled church 
 or monk's cell: on that spot he built the 
 monastery of Deir, that stood for a thousand 
 years, and whose priceless manuscript is now 
 one of the treasures of Northumbria. 
 
 131
 
 lona 
 
 Coltimba was at once a saint, a warrior, a 
 soldier of Christ, a great abbot, a dauntless 
 explorer, and militant Prince of the Church; 
 and a student, a man of great learning, a 
 poet, an artist, a visionary, an architect, ad- 
 ministrator, law-maker, judge, arbiter. As 
 a youth this prince, for he was of royal blood, 
 was so beautiful that he was likened to an 
 angel. In mature manhood, there was none 
 to equal him in stature, manly beauty, 
 strength, and with a voice so deep and pow- 
 erful that it was like a bell and could be 
 heard on occasion a mile away, and once, 
 indeed, at the court of King Bruidh, Hterally 
 overbore and drowned a concerted chorus of 
 sullen druids. These had tried to outvoice 
 him and his monks, little knowing what a 
 mighty force the sixty-fourth Psalm could be 
 in the throat of this terrible Culdee, who to 
 them must have seemed much more befitting 
 his house-name, Crimthan (Wolf), than "the 
 Dove "! 
 
 This vocal duel was a characteristic device 
 of the Druids. I recall one notable instance 
 long before Colum's time, though the Leab- 
 har na H'Uidhre in which it is to be found 
 was not compiled till a.d. iooo. In the story 
 of the love of Connla, son of Conn of the 
 Hundred Battles, for a woman of the other 
 132
 
 lona 
 
 world, a druid asks her whence she has come, 
 and when she answers that it is from the 
 lands of those who live a beautiful and death- 
 less life, he knows that she is a woman of the 
 Stdhe. So he chants against the fair woman 
 till the spell of her voice is overcome, and 
 she goes away as a mist that falls on the 
 shore, as a Hebridean poet would say.^ 
 
 Later, she comes again, and now invisible 
 to all save Connla. Conn the king hears her 
 chanting to Connla that it is no such lofty 
 place he holds " amid short-lived mortals 
 awaiting fearful death " that he need dread 
 to leave it, " the more as the ever-living ones 
 invite thee to be the ruler over Tethra (a 
 Kingdom of Joy)." So once more the king 
 calls upon the Ard-Druid to dispel the 
 woman by his incantations. For a moment 
 Connla wavers, but the Fairy Woman, with 
 a music of mockery, sings to him that Druid- 
 ism is in ill-favour " over yonder," little loved 
 and little honoured " there," for, in effect, the 
 nations of the Shee do not need that idle 
 dream. Connla's longing is more great to 
 him than his kingdom or the fires of home, 
 
 1 In a beautiful old Scoto-Gaelic ballad, the "B^s 
 Fhraoich," occurs the line, Thuit i air an traigh na 
 neul, "she fell on the shore as a mist," though here 
 finely used for a swoon only.
 
 I on a 
 
 and he goes with his leannanshee in a boat, 
 till those on the strand see him dimly and 
 then no more in that sundown glow, nor ever 
 again. Columba, a poet and scholar famil- 
 iar with the old tables of his beloved Eire, 
 probably did not forget on occasion to turn 
 this druidic tale against Druidism itself, re- 
 peating how, in its own time, before the little 
 bell of the tonsured folk was heard in Ire- 
 land (so little a bell to be the tocsin of fallen 
 gods and broken nations), " Druidism is not 
 loved, for little has it progressed to honour 
 on the great Righteous Strand." 
 
 For one thing of great Gaelic import, Co- 
 lumba has been given a singular preemi- 
 nence — not for his love of country, pride of 
 race, passionate loyalty to his clan, to every 
 blood-claim and foster-claim, and friendship- 
 claim, though in all this he was the very 
 archetype of the clannish Gael — but because 
 (so it is averred) he was the first of our race 
 of whom is recorded the systematic use of the 
 strange gift of spiritual foresight, " second- 
 sight." It has been stated authoritatively that 
 he is the first of whom there is record as hav- 
 ing possessed this faculty ; but that could only 
 be averred by one ignorant of ancient Gaelic 
 literature. Even in Adamnan's chronicle, 
 
 134
 
 lona 
 
 within some seventy years after the death of 
 Columba, there is record of others having 
 this faculty, apart from the perhaps more 
 purely spiritual vision of his mother Aithne, 
 when an angel raimented her with the beauty 
 of her unborn son, or of his foster-father, the 
 priest Cruithnechan, who saw the singular 
 light of the soul about his sleeping pupil, or 
 of the abbot Brendan who redeemed the saint 
 from excommunication and perhaps death by 
 his vision of him advancing with a pillar of 
 fire before him and an angel on either side. 
 (When, long years afterwards, Brendan died 
 in Ireland, Colum in lona startled his monks 
 by calling for an immediate celebration of the 
 Eucharist, because it had been revealed to 
 him that St. Brendan had gone to the heav- 
 enly fatherland yesternight : " Angels came to 
 meet his soul : I saw the whole earth illumined 
 with their glory.") Among others there is 
 the story of Abbot Kenneth, who, sitting at 
 supper, rose so suddenly as to leave without 
 his sandals, and at the altar of his church 
 prayed for Colum, at that moment in dire 
 peril upon the sea: the story of Ernan, who, 
 fishing in the river Fenda, saw the death of 
 Colum in a symbol of flame: the story of 
 Lugh mac Tailchan, who, at Cloinfinchoil, be- 
 held lona (which he had never visited), and 
 
 135
 
 lona 
 
 above it a blaze of angels' wings, and Colum's 
 soul. In the most ancient tales there is fre- 
 quent allusion to what we call second-sight. 
 The writers alluded to could not have heard 
 of the warning of the dread Mor-Rigan to 
 Cuchullin before the fatal strife of the Tain- 
 B6-Cuailgne; or Cuchullin's own pre-vision 
 (among a score as striking) of the hostings 
 and gatherings on the fatal plain of Muir- 
 themne ; or the Amazonian queen, Scathach's, 
 fore-knowledge of the career and early death 
 of the champion of the Gaels : 
 
 ' ' (At the last) great peril awaits thee . . . 
 Alone against a vast herd: 
 Thirty years I reckon the length of thy years 
 
 (literally, the strength of thy valour) ; 
 Further than this I do not add;" 
 
 or of Deirdre's second-sight, when by the 
 white cairn on Sliav Fuad she saw the sons 
 of Usna headless, and Illann the Fair head- 
 less too, but Buimne the Ruthless Red with 
 his head upon his shoulders, smiling a grim 
 smile — when she saw over Naois, her beloved, 
 a cloud of blood — or that, alas, too bitter-true 
 a foreseeing, when in the Craebh Derg, the 
 House of the Red Branch, she cried to her 
 lover and his two brothers that death was at 
 the door and " grievous to me is the deed, 
 136
 
 lona 
 
 O darling friends — and till the world's end 
 Emain will not be better for a single night 
 than it is to-night." Or, again, of that pa- 
 thetic, simultaneous death-vision of Baile the 
 Sweet-Spoken and Aillinn, he in the north, she 
 in the south, so that each out of a grief un- 
 bearable straightway died, as told in one of 
 the oldest as well as loveliest of ancient 
 Gaelic tales, the Sccl Baili Binnbcrlaig. 
 
 There is something strangely beautiful in 
 most of these " second-sight " stories of Co- 
 lumba. The faculty itself is so apt to the 
 spiritual law that one wonders why it is so 
 set apart in doubt. It would, I think, be far 
 stranger if there were no such faculty. 
 
 That I believe, it were needless to say, 
 were it not that these words may be read by 
 many to whom this quickened inward vision 
 is a superstition, or a fantastic glorification of 
 insight. I believe ; not only because there is 
 nothing too strange for the soul, whose vision 
 surely I will not deny, while I accept what is 
 lesser, the mind's prescience, and, what is 
 least, the testimony of the eyes. That I have 
 cause to believe is perhaps too personal a 
 statement, and is of little account; but in that 
 interior wisdom, which is no longer the flicker 
 of one little green leaf but the light and 
 sound of a forest, of which the leaf is a part, 
 
 137
 
 lona 
 
 I know that to be true, which I should as soon 
 doubt as that the tide returns or that the sap 
 rises or that dawn is a ceaseless flashing light 
 beneath the circuit of the stars. Spiritual 
 logic demands it. 
 
 It would ill become me to do otherwise. I 
 would as little, however, deny that this in- 
 ward vision is sometimes imperfect and un- 
 trustworthy, as I would assert that it is in- 
 fallible. There is no common face of good 
 or evil; and in like fashion the aspect of this 
 so-called mystery is variable as the lives of 
 those in whom it dwells. With some it is a 
 prescience, more akin to instinct than to 
 reason, and obtains only among the lesser 
 possibilities, as when one beholds another 
 where in the body none is ; or a scene not pos- 
 sible, there, in that place; or a face, a meet- 
 ing of shadows, a disclosure of hazard or 
 accident, a coming into view of happenings 
 not yet fulfilled. With some it is simply a 
 larger sight, more wide, more deep ; not 
 habitual, because there is none of us who is 
 not subject to the law of the body; and sud- 
 den, because all tense vision is a passion of 
 the moment. It is as the lightning, whose 
 sustenance is sure for all that it has a second's 
 life. With a few it is a more constant com- 
 panion, a dweller by the morning thought, by 
 
 138
 
 lona 
 
 the noon reverie, by the evening dream. It 
 Hes upon the pillow for some; to some it as 
 though the wind disclosed pathways of the 
 air ; a swaying branch, a dazzle on the wave, 
 the quick recognition in unfamiliar eyes, is, 
 for others, sufficient signal. Not that these 
 accidents of the manner need concern us 
 much. We have the faculty, or we do not 
 have it. Nor must we forget that it can be 
 the portion of the ignoble as well as of those 
 whose souls are clear. When it is in truth a 
 spiritual vision, then we are in company of 
 what is the essential life, that which we call 
 divine. 
 
 It was this that Columba had, this serene 
 perspicuity. That it was a conscious posses- 
 sion we know from his own words, for he 
 gave this answer to one who marvelled : 
 " Heaven has granted to some to see on occa- 
 sion in their mind, clearly and surely, the 
 whole of earth and sea and sky." 
 
 It is not unlikely that in the seventy 
 years which elapsed between Colum's death 
 and the writing of that lovely classic of the 
 Church, Adamnan's Vita St. Columba:, some 
 stories grew around the saint's memory which 
 were rather the tribute of childlike rever- 
 ence and love than the actual experiences of 
 the holy man himself. What then? A field 
 
 139
 
 lona 
 
 in May is not the less a daughter of Spring, 
 because the cowslip-wreaths found there may 
 have been brought from little wayward 
 garths by children who wove them lovingly as 
 they came. 
 
 Many of these strange records are mere 
 coincidences ; others reveal so happy a sure- 
 ty in the simple faith of the teller that we 
 need only smile, and with no more resentment 
 than at a child who runs to say he has found 
 stars in a wayside pool. Others are rather 
 the keen insight of a ceaseless observation 
 than the seeing of an inward sense. But, and 
 perhaps oftener, they are not inherently in- 
 credible. I do not think our forebears did ill 
 to give haven to these little ones of faith, 
 rather than to despise, or to drive them away. 
 
 I have already spoken of Columba as an- 
 other St. Francis, because of his tenderness 
 for creatures. I recall now the lovely legend 
 (for I do not think Colum himself attributed 
 "second-sight" to an animal) which tells 
 how the old white pony which daily brought 
 the milk from the cow-shed to the monastery 
 came and put its head in the lap of the aged 
 and feeble abbot, thus mutely to bid fare- 
 well. Let Adamnan tell it : " This creature 
 then coming up to the saint, and knowing that 
 his master would soon depart from him, and 
 140
 
 lona 
 
 that he would see his face no more, began to 
 utter plaintive moans, and, as if a man, to 
 shed tears in abundance into the saint's lap, 
 and so to weep, frothing greatly. Which 
 when the attendant saw, he began to drive 
 away that weeping mourner. But the saint 
 forbade him, saying, * Let him alone ! As he 
 loves me so, let him alone, that into this my 
 bosom he may pour out the tears of his most 
 bitter lamentation. Behold, thou, a man, that 
 hast a soul, yet in no way hast knowledge of 
 my end save what I have myself shown thee; 
 but to this brute animal the Master Himself 
 hath revealed that his master is about to go 
 away from him.' And so saying, he blessed 
 his sorrowing servant the horse." 
 
 If there be any to whom the aged Colum 
 comforting the grief of his old white pony is 
 a matter of disdain or derision, I would not 
 have his soul in exchange for the dumb sor- 
 row of that creature. One would fare 
 further with that sorrow, though soulless, 
 than with the soul that could not understand 
 that sorrow. 
 
 If one were to quote from Adamnan's three 
 Books of the Prophecies, Miracles, and Vis- 
 ions of Columba, there would be another 
 book. Amid much that is childlike, and a lit- 
 tle that is childish, what store of spiritual 
 141
 
 lona 
 
 beauty and living symbol in these three books 
 — the Book of Prophetic Revelations, the 
 Book of Miracles of Power, the Book of 
 Angelic Visitations. But there, as elsewhere, 
 one must bear in remembrance that, in spir- 
 itual sight, there is symbolic vision as well as 
 actual vision. When Colum saw his friend 
 Columbanus (who, unknown to any on lona, 
 had set out in his frail coracle from the Isle 
 of Rathlin) tossed in the surges of Corryvre- 
 chan ; or when, nigh Glen Urquhart, he hur- 
 ried forward to minister to an old dying Pict 
 " who had lived well by the light of nature," 
 and whose house, condition, and end had been 
 suddenly revealed to him : then we have actual 
 vision. When Aithne, his mother, dreamed 
 that an angel showed her a garment of so sur- 
 passing a loveliness that it was as though 
 woven of flowers and rainbows, and then 
 threw it on high, till its folds expanded and 
 covered every mountain-top from the brows 
 of Connaught to the feet of the Danish sea, 
 and so revealed to her what manner of son 
 she bore within her womb; or when, in the 
 hour of Colum's death, the aged son of Tail- 
 chan beheld the whole expanse of air flooded 
 with the blaze of angels' wings, which trem- 
 bled with their songs : then we have symbolic 
 vision. And sometimes we have that which 
 142
 
 lona 
 
 partakes of each, as when (as Adamnan tells 
 us in his third book) Colum saw angels stand- 
 ing upon the rocks on the opposite side of the 
 Sound which divides lona from the Ross of 
 Mull, calling to his soul to cross to them, yet, 
 as they assembled and beckoned, mysteriously 
 and suddenly restrained, for his hour was not 
 come. 
 
 And in all actual vision there is gradation; 
 from what is so common, premonition, to 
 what is not common, prescience, and to what 
 is rare, revelation. Thus when the labourers 
 on lona looked up from the fields and saw 
 the aged abbot whom they so loved, borne in 
 a wagon to give them benediction at seed- 
 sowing, many among them knew that they 
 would not see Colum again, and Colum knew 
 it, and so shared that premonition. And 
 when, many years before, he and the abbot 
 Comgell, returning from a futile conference 
 of the kings Aedh and Aidan, rested by a 
 spring, concerning which Colum said that the 
 day would come when it would be filled with 
 human blood, " because my people, the Hy- 
 Neill, and the Pictish folk, thy relations 
 according to the flesh, will wage war by 
 this fortress of Cethirn close by," Comgell 
 learned, through Colum's foreknowledge, of 
 what did in truth come to pass. Again, when 
 
 143
 
 lona 
 
 Colum bade a brother go three days thence to 
 the sea-shore on the west side of lona, and 
 He in readiness to help " a certain guest, a 
 crane to wit, beaten by the winds during long 
 and circuitous and aerial flights, which will 
 arrive after the ninth hour of the day, very 
 weary and sore distressed," and bade him to 
 lift it and tend it lovingly for three days and 
 three nights till it should have strength to re- 
 turn to " its former sweet home," and to do 
 this out of love and courtesy because "it comes 
 from our fatherland " — and when all happens 
 and is done as the saint foretold and com- 
 manded, then we have revelation, the vision 
 that is absolute, the knowledge that is the at- 
 mosphere of the inevitable. It would take a 
 book indeed to tell all the stories of Columba's 
 visionary and prophetic powers. That I write 
 at this length concerning him, indeed, is be- 
 cause he is himself lona. Columba is Chris- 
 tian lona, as much as lona is Icolmkill. I have 
 often wondered (because of a passage in 
 Adamnan) if the island be not indeed named 
 after him, the Dove: for as Adamnan says 
 incidentally, the name Columba is identical 
 with the Hebrew name Jonah, also signify- 
 ing a Dove, and by the Hebrews pronounced 
 lona. 
 
 It is enough now to recall that this man, so 
 
 144
 
 lona 
 
 often erring but so human always, in whose 
 Hfe we see the soul of lona as in a glass, is 
 become the archetype of his race, as lona is 
 the microcosm of the Gaelic world. That he 
 came into this life heralded by dreams and 
 visions, that from his youth onward to old 
 age he knew every mystery of dream and 
 vision, and that before and after his death 
 his soul was revealed to others through 
 dreams and visions, is but an added hieratic 
 grace: yet we do well to recall often how 
 these dreams before and these visions after 
 were angelical, and nobly beautiful : how there 
 was left of him, and to his little company, and 
 to us for remembrance, that last signal vision 
 of a blaze of angelic wings, more intolerable 
 than the sun at noon, the tempestuous multi- 
 tude trembling with the storm of song. 
 
 Columba and Oran . . . these are the 
 two great names in lona. Love and Faith 
 have made one immortal ; the other lives 
 also, clothed in legend. I am afraid there is 
 not much definite basis for the popular lona 
 legend of Oran. It is now the wont of guides 
 and others to speak of the Reilig Odhrain, 
 Oran's burial-place, as that of Columba's 
 friend (and victim), but it seems likelier that 
 the Oran who lies here is he who is spoken 
 
 145
 
 lona 
 
 of in the Annals of the Four Masters as hav- 
 ing died in the year 548, that is fifteen years 
 before Colum came to the island. This, how- 
 ever, might well be a mistake: what is more 
 convincing is that Adamnan never mentions 
 the episode, nor even the name of Oran, nor 
 is there mention of him in that book of Co- 
 lum's intimate friend and successor, Baith- 
 ene, which Adamnan practically incorporated. 
 On the other hand, the Oran legend is cer- 
 tainly very old. The best modern rendering 
 we have of it is that of Mr. Whitley Stokes 
 in his Three Middle-Irish Homilies, and 
 readers of Dr. Skene's valuable Celtic Scot- 
 land recollect the translation there re- 
 dacted. The episode occurs first in an an- 
 cient Irish life of St. Columba. The legend, 
 which has crystallised into a popular saying, 
 " Uir, uir, air suil Odhrain ! mu'n labhair e 
 tuille comhraidh " — " Earth, earth on Oran's 
 eyes, lest he further blab " — avers that three 
 days after the monk Oran or Odran was en- 
 tombed alive (some say in the earth, some in 
 a cavity), Colum opened the grave, to look 
 once more on the face of the dead brother, 
 when to the amazed fear of the monks and 
 the bitter anger of the abbot himself, Oran 
 opened his eyes and exclaimed, " There is no 
 such great wonder in death, nor is Hell what 
 146
 
 lona 
 
 it has been described." (Ifrinn, or Ifurin — 
 the word used — is the Gaelic Hell, the Land 
 of Eternal Cold.) At this, Colum straight- 
 way cried the now famous Gaelic words, and 
 then covered up poor Oran again lest he 
 should blab further of that uncertain world 
 whither he was supposed to have gone. In 
 the version given by Mr. Whitley Stokes 
 there is no mention of Odran's grave having 
 been uncovered after his entombment. But 
 what is strangely suggestive is that both in 
 the oral legend and in that early monkish 
 chronicle alluded to, Columba is repre- 
 sented as either suggesting or accepting im- 
 molation of a living victim as a sacrifice 
 to consecrate the church he intended to 
 build. 
 
 One story is that he received a divine in- 
 timation to the effect that a monk of his 
 company must be buried alive, and that 
 Odran offered himself. In the earliest known 
 rendering " Colum Cille said to his people: 
 ' It is well for us that our roots should go 
 underground here ' ; and he said to them, 
 ' It is permitted to you that some one of you 
 go under the earth of this island to consecrate 
 it.' Odran rose up readily, and thus he said : 
 * If thou wouldst accept me,' he said, ' I am 
 ready for that.' . . . Odran then went to 
 
 147
 
 I on a 
 
 heaven. Coliim Cille then founded the 
 Church of Hii." 
 
 It would be a dark stain on Columba if 
 this legend were true. But apart from the 
 fact that Adamnan does not speak of it or 
 of Oran, the probabilities are against its 
 truth. On the other hand, it is, perhaps, 
 quite as improbable that there was no basis 
 for the legend. I imagine the likelier basis to 
 be that a druid suffered death in this fashion 
 under that earlier Odran of whom there is 
 mention in the Ajuials of the Four Masters: 
 possibly, that Odran himself was the mar- 
 tyr, and the Ard-Druid the person who had 
 " the divine intimation." Again, before it be 
 attributed to Columba, one would have to find 
 if there is record of such an act having been 
 performed among the Irish of that day. We 
 have no record of it. It is not improbable 
 that the whole legend is a symbolical survival, 
 an ancient teaching of some elementary mys- 
 tery through some real or apparent sacri- 
 ficial rite. 
 
 Among the people of lona to-day there is 
 a very confused idea about St. Oran. To some 
 he is a saint : to others an evil-doer : some 
 think he was a martyr, some that he was pun- 
 ished for a lapse from virtue. Some swear 
 by his grave, as though it were almost as sa- 
 148
 
 lona 
 
 cred as the Black Stone of lona : to others, 
 perhaps most, his is now but an idle name. 
 
 By the Black Stone of lona! One may 
 hear that in Icolmkill or anywhere in the 
 west. It used to be the most binding oath in 
 the Highlands, and even now is held as an in- 
 disputable warrant of truth. In lona itself, 
 strangely enough, one would be much more 
 likely to hear a statement affirmed " by St. 
 Martin's Cross." On this stone — the old 
 Druidic Stone of Destiny, sacred among 
 the Gael before Christ was born — Columba 
 crowned Aidan King of Argyll. Later, the 
 stone was taken to Dunstaffnage, where the 
 Lords of the Isles were made princes : thence 
 to Scone, where the last of the Celtic Kings 
 of Scotland was crowned on it. It now lies 
 in Westminster Abbey, a part of the Corona- 
 tion Chair, and since Edward I. every Brit- 
 ish monarch has been crowned upon it. If 
 ever the Stone of Destiny be moved again, that 
 writing on the wall will be the signature of a 
 falling dynasty ; but perhaps, like lona in the 
 island saying, this can be left to the Gaelic 
 equivalent of Nevermas, " gus am bi Mac- 
 Cailein na' righ," " till Argyll be a king." 
 
 In my childhood I well recall meeting in 
 lona an old man who had come from the 
 149 
 
 X
 
 lona 
 
 glens of Antrim, to me memorable because 
 he was the last Gaelic minstrel of the old kind 
 I have seen. " It was a poor land, Antrim," 
 he said, " with no Gaelic, a bitter lot o' pro- 
 testantry, an' little music." 
 
 I remember, too, his adding in effect: 
 " It is in the west you should be if you 
 want music, an' men and women without 
 coldness or the hard mouth. In Donegal an' 
 Mayo an' all down Connemara-way to the 
 cliffs of Moher you'll hear the wind an' the 
 voices o' the Shee with never a man to curse 
 the one or the other." I asked him why he 
 had come to lona. It was to see the isle of 
 Colum, he said, " St. Briget's brother, God 
 bless the pair av' thim." He was on his way 
 to Oban, thence to go to a far place in the 
 Athole country, where his daughter had mar- 
 ried a factor who had returned to his own 
 land from the Irish west, and was the more 
 dear to the old man because his only liv- 
 ing blood-kin, and because she had called 
 her little girl by the name of the old harp- 
 er's long-lost love, " my love an' my 
 wife." 
 
 The last harper, though he had not his harp 
 with him. He had come from Drogheda in a 
 cattle-boat to Islay (whence he had sailed in 
 a fishing-smack to lona), and his friend the 
 
 150
 
 lona 
 
 mate had promised to leave the harp and his 
 other belongings at Oban in safe keeping. He 
 had with him, however, a small instrument 
 that he called his little clar. It was something 
 between a guitar and a cithern, suggestive of 
 a primitive violin, and he played on it some- 
 times with his fingers, sometimes with a 
 short bit of wood like a child's tipcat; and, 
 he said, could make good music with a hazel- 
 wand or " the dry straight rod of a quicken 
 when that's to be had." He said this 
 quaint instrument had come down to him 
 through fifty-one generations : literally, " elev- 
 en and twice twenty shcanairean (grand- 
 fathers, or elders or forebears)," of whom 
 he could at any moment give the pedi- 
 gree of ceithir deiig air 'fhichead," four and 
 ten upon twenty " — that is, to translate 
 the Gaelic method of enumeration, " thirty- 
 four." 
 
 This was at the house of a minister then 
 lodging in the island, and it was he who 
 hosted the old harper. He told me, later, 
 that he had no doubt this was the old-world 
 cruit, the Welsh crwth of to-day, and the 
 once colloquial Lowland " crowther," akin to 
 the Roman canora cythara, the " forebear " 
 of the modern Spanish guitar. To this day, I 
 may add, Highlanders (at least in the west)
 
 lona 
 
 call the guitar the Cruit-Spanteach. There 
 seem to have been four kinds of "harp" 
 in the old days : the clar or clarsach, the 
 kairneen (ceirnine), the kreemtheencrooth 
 (cream-thine-cruit), and the cionar cruit. 
 The clarsach was the harp proper; that is, 
 the small Celtic harp. The ceirnine was the 
 smaller hand-harp. The " creamthine cruit " 
 had six strings, and was probably used chiefly 
 at festivals, possibly for a strong sonance to 
 accentuate chants; while the cionar cruit had 
 ten strings, and was played either by a bow 
 or with a wooden or other instrument. It 
 must have been a cionar-cruit, ancient or a 
 rude later-day imitation, that the old harper 
 had. 
 
 Poor old man, I fear he never played on his 
 harp again ; for I learned later that he had 
 found his Athole haven broken up, and his 
 daughter and her husband about to emi- 
 grate to Canada, so that he went with them, 
 and died on the way — perhaps as much from 
 the mountain-longing and home-sickness as 
 from any more tangible ill. 
 
 I have a double memento of him that I 
 value. In Islay he had bought or been given 
 a little book of Gaelic songs (the Scoto-Gaelic 
 must have puzzled him sorely, poor old eirion- 
 nach), and this he left behind him, and my 
 
 I '^2
 
 lona 
 
 minister friend gave it to me, with much of 
 the above noted down on its end-pages. The 
 little book had been printed early in the cen- 
 tury, and was called Ccillcirean Binn nan 
 Creagan Aosda, literally " Melodious Little 
 Warblings from the Aged Rocks " ; and it 
 has always been dear to me because of one 
 lovely phrase in it about birds, where the 
 unknown Gaelic singer calls them " clann 
 bheag' nam preas," the small clan of the 
 bushes, equivalent in English to " the children 
 of the bushes." This occurs in a lovely 
 verse — 
 
 "Mu'n cuairt do bhruachaibh ard mo glinn, 
 Biodh luba gheuga 's orra blath, 
 's clann bheag' nam preas a' tabhairst seinn 
 Do chreagaibh aosd oran graidh." 
 
 (" Along the lofty sides of my glen let there 
 be bending boughs clad in blossom, and the 
 children of the bushes making the aged rocks 
 re-echo their songs of love") — truly a char- 
 acteristic Gaelic wish, characteristically ex- 
 pressed. 
 
 And though this that I am about to say did 
 not happen on lona, I may tell it here, for it 
 was there and from an islander I heard it, 
 an old man herding among the troubled 
 rocky pastures of Sguir Mor and Cnoc na 
 
 153
 
 lona 
 
 Fhiona, in the south of that western part 
 called Sliav Starr — one translation of which 
 might be Wuthering Heights, for the word 
 can be rendered wind-blustery or wind-noisy ; 
 though I fancy that starr is, on lona, com- 
 monly taken to mean a strong coarse grass. 
 (Fhiona here I take to be not the genitive of 
 a name, nor that of " wine," but a misspell- 
 ing of fionna, grain.) 
 
 When he was a boy he was in the island of 
 Barra, he said, and he had a foster-brother 
 called Iain Macneil. Iain was born with mu- 
 sic in his mind, for though he was ever a 
 poor creature as a man, having as a child 
 eaten of the bird's heart, he could hear a 
 power o' wonder in the wind.^ He had never 
 come to any good in a worldly sense, my old 
 herdsman Micheil said; but it was not from 
 want of cleverness only, but because " he had 
 enough with his music." " Poor man, he 
 failed in everything he did but that — and, 
 sure, that was not against him, for is ann air 
 an traghadh a riigadh e — wasn't he bom when 
 the tide was ebbing?" Besides, there was a 
 mystery. Iain's father was said to be an 
 
 ' An allusion to the Hebridean proverb, Ma dh' 
 itheas tu cridh an ebin, bidh do chridhe air chrith ri 
 d' bhed (" If you eat the bird's heart, your heart will 
 palpitate for ever.")
 
 lona 
 
 lona man, but that was only a politeness and 
 a play upon words {" The Holy Isle of the 
 Western Sea " could mean either lona or the 
 mystic Hy-Brasil, or Tir-na-thonn of the 
 underworld) ; for he had no mortal father, 
 but a man of the Smiling Distant People was 
 his father. Iain's mother had loved her 
 Leannan-shee, her fairy sweetheart, but that 
 love is too strong for a woman to bear, and 
 she died. Before Iain was born she lay under 
 a bush of whitethorn, and her Leannan ap- 
 peared to her. " I can't give you life," he 
 said, " unless you'll come away with me." 
 But she would not; for she wished the child 
 to have Christian baptism. " Well, good- 
 bye," he said, " but you are a weak love. A 
 woman should care more for her lover than 
 her child. But I'll do this: I'll give the child 
 the dew, an' he won't die, an' we'll take him 
 away when we want him. An' for a gift to 
 him, you can have either beauty or music." 
 " I don't want the dew," she said, " for I'd 
 rather he lay below the grass beside me when 
 his time comes : an' as for beauty, it's been 
 my sorrow. But because I love the songs you 
 have sung to me an' wooed me with, an' 
 made me forget to hide my soul from you — 
 an' it fallen as helpless as a broken wave on 
 damp sand — let the child have the binn-hcul 
 
 155
 
 lona 
 
 an' the latiih clarsaircachd (the melodious 
 mouth an' the harping hand)." 
 
 And truly enough Iain Macneil " went 
 away." He went back to his own people. It 
 must have been a grief to him not to lie un- 
 der the grass beside his mother, but it was not 
 for his helping. For days before he mysteri- 
 ously disappeared he went about making a 
 ciucharan like a November wind, a singular 
 plaintive moaning. When asked by his fos- 
 ter-brother Micheil why he was not content, 
 he answered only " Far am hi mo ghaol, 
 bidh mo thathaich " (Where my Love is, 
 there must my returning be). He had for 
 days, said Micheil, the mournful crying in the 
 ear that is so often a presage of death or sor- 
 row; and himself had said once " Tha 'n eabh 
 a' m' chenais " — the cry is in my ear. When 
 he went away, that going was the way of 
 the snow. 
 
 It is no wonder that legends of Finn and 
 Oisein, of Oscur and Gaul and Diarmid, of 
 Cuchullin, and many of the old stories of the 
 Gaelic chivalry survive in the isles. There, 
 more than in Ireland, Gaelic has survived as 
 the living speech, and though now in the 
 Inner Hebrides it is dying before " an a' 
 Beurla," the English tongue, and still more 
 
 156
 
 lona 
 
 before the degraded " Bheurla leathan " or 
 Glasgow-English of the lowland west, the 
 old vernacular still holds an ancient treas- 
 ure. 
 
 The last time I sailed to Staffa from Ulva, 
 a dead calm set in, and we took a man from 
 Gometra to help with an oar — his recom- 
 mendation being that he was " cho laidir ri 
 Cuchullin," as strong as Coohoolin. But 
 neither in lona nor in the northward isles 
 nor in Skye itself, have I found or heard 
 of much concerning the great Gaelic hero. 
 Fionn and Oisin and Diarmid are the names 
 oftenest heard, both in legend and proverbial 
 allusion. An habitual mistake is made by 
 writers who speak of the famous Cuchullin 
 or CuthuUin mountains in Skye as having 
 been named after Cuchullin ; and though 
 sometimes the local guides to summer tourists 
 may speak of the Gaelic hero in connection 
 with the mountains north of Coruisk, that is 
 only because of hearsay. The Gaelic name 
 should never be rendered as the CuthuUin or 
 Cohoolin mountains, but as the Coolins. The 
 most obvious meaning of the name Ciiilfhion 
 (Kyoolyun or Coolun), is "the fine corner," 
 but, as has been suggested, the hills may have 
 got their name because of the " cuillionn 
 mara " or sea-holly, which is pronounced 
 
 157
 
 lona 
 
 Ku' I'-unn or coolin. This is most probably 
 the origin of the name. 
 
 In fine weather one may see from lona the 
 CooHns standing out in lovely blue against 
 the northern sky-line, their contours the most 
 beautiful feature in a view of surpassing 
 beauty. How often I have watched them, 
 how often dreamed of what they have seen, 
 since Oisin passed that way with Malvina: 
 since CuchuUin learned the feats of war at 
 Dijn Scaaiah, from that great queen whose 
 name, it is said, the island bears in remem- 
 brance of her; since Connlaoch, his son, set 
 sail to meet so tragic a death in Ireland. 
 There are two women of Gaelic antiquity 
 who above all others have always held my 
 imagination as with a spell : Scathach or 
 Sgathaith (sky-ah), the sombre Amazonian 
 queen of the mountain-island (then per- 
 haps, as now, known also as the Isle of 
 Mist), and Meave, the great queen of Con- 
 naught, whose name has its mountain bases 
 in gigantic wars, and its summits among 
 the wild poetry and romance of the 
 Shea. 
 
 My earliest knowledge of the heroic cycle 
 of Celtic mythology and history came to me, 
 as a child, when I spent my first summer in 
 lona. How well I remember a fantastic le- 
 
 158
 
 lona 
 
 gend I was told: how that these far blue 
 mountains, so freaked into a savage beauty, 
 were due to the sword-play of CuchuUin. 
 And this happened because the Queen o' Skye 
 had put a spear through the two breasts of 
 his love, so that he went in among her war- 
 rior women and slew every one, and severed 
 the head of Sgayah herself, and threw it into 
 Coruisk, where to this day it floats as Eilean 
 Dubh, the dark isle. Thereafter, Cuchullin 
 hewed the mountain-tops into great clefts, 
 and trampled the hills into a craggy wilder- 
 ness, and then rushed into the waves and 
 fought with the sea-hordes till far away the 
 bewildered and terrified stallions of the ocean 
 dashed upon the rocks of Man and uttermost 
 shores of Erin. 
 
 This magnificent mountain range can be 
 seen better still from Lunga near lona, 
 whence it is a short sail with a southerly 
 wind. In Lunga there is a hill called Cnoc 
 Cruit or Dun Cruit, and thence one may see, 
 as in a vast illuminated missal whose pages 
 are of deep blue with bindings of azure and 
 pale gold, innumerable green isles and peaks 
 and hills of the hue of the wild plum. When 
 last I was there it was a day of cloudless 
 June. There was not a sound but the hum 
 of the wild bee foraging in the long garths of 
 
 159
 
 lona 
 
 white clover, and the continual sighing of a 
 wave. Listening, I thought I heard a harper 
 playing in the hollow of the hill. It may have 
 been the bees heavy with the wine of honey, 
 but I was content with my fancy and fell 
 asleep, and dreamed that a harper came out 
 of the hill, at first so small that he seemed like 
 the green stalk of a lily and had hands like 
 daisies, and then so great that I saw his 
 breath darkening the waves far out on the 
 Hebrid sea. He played, till I saw the stars 
 fall in a ceaseless, dazzling rain upon lona. A 
 wind blew that rain away, and out of the 
 wave that had been lona I saw thousands 
 upon thousands of white doves rise from the 
 foam and fly down the four great highways 
 of the wind. When I woke, there was no 
 one near. lona lay like an emerald un- 
 der the wild-plum bloom of the Mull moun- 
 tains. The bees stumbled through the clover ; 
 a heron stood silver-grey upon a grey-blue 
 stone; the continual wave was, as before, 
 as one wave, and with the same hushed sigh- 
 ing. 
 
 Two or three years ago I heard a boatman 
 
 using a singular phrase, to the effect that a 
 
 certain deed was as kindly a thought as that 
 
 of the piper who played to St. Micheil in 
 
 1 60
 
 liona 
 
 his grave. I had never heard of this before, 
 or anything Hke it, nor have I since, on Up or 
 in book. He told me that he spoke of a wan- 
 dering piper known as Piobaire Raonull Dall, 
 Blind Piper Ronald, who fifty years or so 
 ago used to wander through the isles and 
 West Highlands ; and how he never failed to 
 play a spring on his pipes, either to please or 
 to console, or maybe to air a lament for what's 
 lost now and can't come again, when on any 
 holy day he stood before a figure of the Vir- 
 gin (as he might well do in Barra or South 
 Uist), or by old tombs or habitations of 
 saints. My friend's father or one of his peo- 
 ple, once, in the Kyles of Bute, when sailing 
 past the little ruinous graveyard of Kil- 
 michael on the Bute shore, had come upon 
 Raonull-Dall, pacing slowly before the bro- 
 ken stones and the little cell which legend says 
 is both the hermitage and the grave of St. 
 Micheil. When asked what he was playing 
 and what for, in that lonely spot, he said it 
 was an old ancient pibroch, the Gathering of 
 the Clerics, which he was playing just to 
 cheer the heart of the good man down be- 
 low. When told that St. Micheil would be 
 having his fill of good music where he was, 
 the old man came away in the boat, and for 
 long sat silent and strangely disheartened. I 
 i6i
 
 lona 
 
 have more than once since then sailed to that 
 little lonely ancient grave of Kilmichael in 
 the Kyles of Bute, from Tignabruaich or 
 further Cantyre, and have wished that I too 
 could play a spring upon the pipes, for if so 
 I would play to the kind heart of " Piobaire 
 Raonull Dall." 
 
 Of all the saints of the west, from St. Mo- 
 lios or Molossius (Maol-Iosa? the servant by 
 Jesus?) who has left his name in the chief 
 township in Arran, to St. Barr, who has 
 given his to the largest of the Bishop's Isles, 
 as the great Barra island-chain in the South 
 Hebrides used to be called, there is none so 
 commonly remembered and so frequently in- 
 voked as St. Micheil. There used to be no 
 festival in the Western Isles so popular as 
 that held on 29th September, " La' Fheill 
 Mhicheil," the Day of the Festival of Mich- 
 ael ; and the Eve of Michael's Day is still in 
 a few places one of the gayest nights in the 
 year, though no longer is every barn turned 
 into a dancing place or a place of merry- 
 making or, at least, a place for lovers to 
 meet and give betrothal gifts. The day it- 
 self, in the Catholic Isles, was begun with 
 a special Mass, and from hour to hour 
 was filled with traditional duties and pleas- 
 ures. 
 
 162
 
 lona 
 
 The whole of the St. Micheil ceremonies 
 were of a remote origin, and some, as the 
 ancient and ahnost inexpHcable dances, and 
 their archaic accompaniment of word and 
 gesture far older than the sacrificial slaying 
 of the Michaelmas Lamb. It is, however, 
 not improbable that this latter rite was a sur- 
 vival of a pagan custom long anterior to the 
 substitution of the Christian for the Druidic 
 faith. 
 
 The " lollach Mhicheil "—the triumphal 
 song of Michael — is quite as much pagan as 
 Christian. We have here, indeed, one of the 
 most interesting and convincing instances of 
 the transmutation of a personal symbol. St. 
 Michael is on the surface a saint of extraor- 
 dinary powers and the patron of the shores 
 and the shore-folk : deeper, he is an angel, 
 who is upon the sea what the angelical saint, 
 St. George, is upon the land : deeper, he is a 
 blending of the Roman Neptune and the 
 Greek Poseidon: deeper, he is himself an an- 
 cient Celtic god : deeper, he is no other than 
 Manannan, the god of ocean and all waters, 
 in the Gaelic Pantheon : as, once more, Ma- 
 nannan himself is dimly revealed to us as still 
 more ancient, more primitive, and even as su- 
 preme in remote godhead, the Father of an 
 immortal Clan. 
 
 163
 
 lona 
 
 To this day Micheil is sometimes alluded to 
 as the god Micheil, and I have seen some 
 very strange Gaelic lines which run in effect : 
 
 "It was well thou hadst the horse of the god Micheil 
 Who goes without a bit in his mouth, 
 So that thou couldst ride him through the fields 
 
 of the air, 
 And with him leap over the knowledge of Na- 
 ture ' ' — 
 
 presumably not very ancient as they stand, 
 because of the use of " steud " for horse, and 
 " naduir " for nature, obvious adaptations 
 from English and Latin. Certainly St. Mich- 
 ael has left his name in many places, from the 
 shores of the Hebrides to the famous Mont 
 St. Michel of Brittany, and I doubt not that 
 everywhere an earlier folk, at the same places, 
 called him Manannan. In a most unlikely 
 place to find a record of old hymns and folk- 
 songs, one of the volumes of Reports of the 
 Highlands and Islands Commission, Mr. Car- 
 michael many years ago contributed some of 
 his unequalled store of Hebridean reminis- 
 cence and knowledge. Among these old 
 things saved, there is none that is better 
 worth saving than the beautiful Catholic 
 hymn or invocation sung at the time of the 
 midsummer migration to the hill-pastures. 
 In this shealing-hvmn the three powers who 
 164
 
 lona 
 
 are invoked are St. Micheil (for he is a pa- 
 tron saint of horses and travel, as well as of 
 the sea and seafarers), St. Columba, guar- 
 dian of cattle, and the Virgin Mary, 
 " Mathair Uain ghil," " Mother of the White 
 Lamb," as the tender Gaelic has it, who is so 
 beautifully called the golden-haired Virgin 
 Shepherdess. 
 
 It is pleasant to think of Columba, who 
 loved animals, and whose care for his shep- 
 herd-people was always so great, as having 
 become the patron saint of cattle. It is thus 
 that the gods are shaped out of a little mortal 
 clay, the great desire of the heart, and im- 
 mortal dreams. 
 
 I may give the whole hymn in English, as 
 rendered by Mr. Carmichael : 
 
 'Thou gentle Michael of the white steed, 
 Who subdued the Dragon of blood, 
 For love of God and the Son of Mary, 
 Spread over us thy wing, shield us all! 
 Spread over us thy wing, shield us all! 
 
 'Mary beloved! Mother of the White Lamb, 
 Protect us, thou Virgin of nobleness, 
 Queen of beauty! Shepherdess of the flocks! 
 Keep our cattle, su'-round us together, 
 Keep our cattle, surround us together. 
 
 165
 
 lona 
 
 'Thou Columba, the friendly, the kind, 
 In name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 
 Spirit, 
 Through the Three-in-One, through the Three, 
 Encompass us, guard our procession. 
 Encompass us, guard our procession. 
 
 "Thou Father! Thou Son! Thou Holy Spirit! 
 Be the Three-One with us day and night, 
 On the machair plain, on the mountain ridge, 
 The Three-One is with us, with His arm around 
 
 our head. 
 The Three-One is with us, with His arm around 
 
 our head." 
 
 I have heard a paraphrase of this hymn, 
 both in GaeHc and Enghsh, on lona ; and 
 once, off Soa, a Httle island to the south of 
 Icolmkill, took down a verse which I thought 
 was local, but which I afterwards found 
 (with very slight variance) in Mr. Car- 
 michael's Governmental Uist-Record. It was 
 sung by Barra fishermen, and ran in effect 
 " O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ! O Holy 
 Trinity, be with us day and night. On the 
 crested wave as on the mountain-side ! Our 
 Mother, Holy Mary Mother, has her arm un- 
 der our head ; our pillow is the arm of Mary, 
 Mary the Holy Mother." 
 i66
 
 lona 
 
 It is perhaps the saddest commentary that 
 could be made on what we have lost that the 
 children of those who were wont to go to 
 rest, or upon any adventure, or to stand in 
 the shadow of death, with some such words as 
 
 "My soul is with the Light on the mountains, 
 Archangel Micheil shield my soul ! ' ' 
 
 now go or stand in a scornful or heedless si- 
 lence, or without remembrance, as others did 
 who forgot to trim their lamps. 
 
 Who now would go up to the hill-pastures 
 singing the Beannachadh Buachailleag, the 
 Herding Blessing? With the passing of the 
 old language the old solemnity goes, and the 
 old beauty, and the old patient, loving won- 
 der. I do not like to think of what songs are 
 likely to replace the Herding Blessing, whose 
 first verse runs thus: 
 
 "I place this flock before me 
 As was ordained by the King of the World, 
 Mary Virgin to keep them, to wait them, to watch 
 them. 
 On hill and glen and plain, 
 On hill, in glen, on plain." 
 
 In the maelstrom of the cities the old race 
 
 perishes, drowns. How common the foolish 
 
 utterance of narrow lives, that all these old 
 
 ways of thought are superstitious. To have 
 
 167
 
 lona 
 
 a superstition is, for these, a worse ill than 
 to have a shrunken soul. I do not believe in 
 spells and charms and foolish incantations, 
 but I think that ancient wisdom out of the 
 simple and primitive heart of an older time is 
 not an ill heritage ; and if to believe in the 
 power of the spirit is to be superstitious, I am 
 well content to be of the company that is now 
 forsaken. 
 
 But even in what may more fairly be called 
 superstitious, have we surety that we have 
 done well in our exchange? 
 
 A short while ago I was on the hillside 
 above one of the much-frequented lochs in 
 eastern Argyll. Something brought to my 
 mind, as I went farther up into the clean soli- 
 tudes, one of the verses of the Herding Bless- 
 
 "From rocks, from snow-wreaths, from streams, 
 From crooked ways, from destructive pits, 
 From the arrows of the sUm fairy women, 
 From the heart of envy, the eye of evil. 
 Keep us, Holy St. Bride." 
 
 " From the arrows of the slim fairy women." 
 And I — do I believe in that? At least it will 
 be admitted that it is worth a belief ; it is a 
 pleasant dream ; it is a gate into a lovely 
 world; it is a secret garden, where are old 
 168
 
 lona 
 
 sweet echoes ; it has the rainbow-Hght of 
 poetry. Is it not poetry? And I — oh yes, 
 I believe it, that superstition : a thousand-fold 
 more real is it, more believable, than that 
 coarse-tongued, ill-mannered, boorish people, 
 desperate in slovenly pleasure. For that will 
 stay, and they will go. And if I am wrong, 
 then I will rather go with it than stay with 
 them. And yet — surely, surely the day will 
 come when this sordidness of life as it is so 
 often revealed to us will sink into deep wa- 
 ters, and the stream become purified, and 
 again by its banks be seen the slim fairy 
 women of health and beauty and all noble 
 and dignified things. 
 
 This is a far cry from lona ! And I had 
 meant to write only of how I heard so re- 
 cently as three or four summers ago a verse 
 of the Uist Herding Chant. It was recited to 
 me, overagainst Dijn-I, by a friend who is a 
 crofter in that part of lona. It was not quite 
 as Mr. Carmichael translates it, but near 
 enough. The Rann Buachhailleag is, I should 
 add, addressed to the cattle. 
 
 "The protection of God and Columba 
 Encompass your going and coming, 
 And about you be the milkmaid of the smooth 
 
 white palms, 
 Briget of the clustering hair, golden brown." 
 
 169
 
 lona 
 
 On lona, however, there is. so far as I re- 
 member, no special spot sacred to St. Micheil : 
 but there is a legend that on the night Co- 
 lumba died Micheil came over the waves on 
 a rippling flood of light, which was a cloud of 
 angelic wings, and that he sang a hymn to 
 the soul of the saint before it took flight for 
 its heavenly fatherland. No one heard that 
 hymn save Colum, but I think that he who 
 first spoke of it remembered a more ancient 
 legend of how Manannan came to Cuchullin 
 when he was in the country of the Shee, when 
 Liban laughed. 
 
 I spoke of Port-a-Churaich, the Haven of 
 the Coracle, a little ago. How strange a his- 
 tory is that of lona since the coming of the 
 Irish priest, Crimthan, or Crimmon as we call 
 the name, surnamed Colum Cille, the Dove 
 of the Church. Perhaps its unwritten his- 
 tory is not less strange. God was revered on 
 lona by priests of a forgotten faith before 
 the Cross was raised. The sun-priest and the 
 moon-worshipper had their revelation here. 
 I do not think their offerings were despised. 
 Colum, who loved the Trinity so well that on 
 one occasion he subsisted for three days on 
 the mystery of the mere word, did not fore- 
 go the luxury of human sacrifice, though he 
 170
 
 lona 
 
 abhorred the blood-stained altar. For, to 
 him, an obstinate pagan slain was to the 
 glory of God. The moon-worshipper did no 
 worse when he led the chosen victim to the 
 dolmen. But the moon-worshipper was a 
 Pict without the marvel of the written word ; 
 so he remained a heathen, and the Christian 
 named himself saint or martyr. 
 
 None knows with surety who dwelled on 
 this mysterious island before the famous son 
 of Feilim of Clan Domnhuil, great-grandson 
 of Neil of the Nine Hostages, came with his 
 fellow-monks and raised the Cross among the 
 wondering Picts. But the furthest record 
 tells of worship. Legend itself is more an- 
 cient here than elsewhere. Once a woman 
 was worshipped. Some say she was the moon, 
 but this was before the dim day of the moon- 
 worshippers. (In Gaelic too, as with all the 
 Celtic peoples, it is not the moon but the sun 
 that is feminine.) She may have been an 
 ancestral Brighde, or that mysterious Anait 
 whose Scythian name survives elsewhere in 
 the Gaelic west, and nothing else of all her 
 ancient glory but that shadowy word. Per- 
 haps, here, the Celts remembered one whom 
 they had heard of in Asian valleys or by the 
 waters of Nilus, and called upon Isis under a 
 new name. 
 
 171
 
 lona 
 
 The Haven of the Coracle! It was not 
 Colum and his white-robe company who first 
 made the isle sacred. I have heard that when 
 Mary Macleod (our best-loved Hebridean 
 poet) was asked what she thought of lona. 
 she replied that she thought it was the one bit 
 of Eden that had not been destroyed, and that 
 it was none other than the central isle in the 
 Garden untouched of Eve or Adam, where 
 the angels waited. 
 
 Many others have dreamed by that lonely 
 cairn of the Irish king, before Colum, and, 
 doubtless, many since the child who sought 
 the Divine forges. 
 
 Years afterwards I wrote, in the same 
 place, after an absence wherein lona had be- 
 come as a dream to me, the story of St. 
 Briget, in the Hebrides called Bride, under 
 the love-name commonly given her, Muime 
 Chriosd — Christ's Foster-Mother. May I 
 quote again, here, as so apposite to what I 
 have written, to what indirectly I am trying 
 to convey of the spiritual history of lona, 
 some portion of it? 
 
 In my legendary story I tell of how one 
 
 called Dughall, of a kingly line, sailing from 
 
 Ireland, came to be cast upon the ocean-shore 
 
 of lona, then called Innis-nan-Dhruidhneach, 
 
 172
 
 I on a 
 
 the Isle of the Druids — for this was before 
 the cry of the Sacred Wolf was heard, as an 
 old-time island-poet has it, playing upon 
 Colum's house-name, Crimthan, signifying a 
 wolf. The frail coracle in which he and 
 others had crossed the Moyle had been driven 
 before a tempest, and cast at sunrise like a 
 spent fish upon the rocks of the little haven 
 that is now called Port-a-Churaich. All had 
 found death in the wave except himself and 
 the little girl-child he had brought with him 
 from Ireland, the child of so much tragic 
 mystery. 
 
 When, warmed by the sun, they rose, they 
 found themselves in a waste place. Dughall 
 was ill in his mind because of the portents, 
 and now to his fear and amaze the child 
 Briget knelt on the stones, and, with claspt 
 hands, frail and pink as the sea-shells round 
 about her, sang a song of words which were 
 unknown to him. This was the more marvel- 
 lous, as she was yet but an infant, and could 
 say few words even of Erse, the only tongue 
 she had heard. 
 
 At this portent, he knew that Aodh the 
 Arch-Druid had spoken seeingly. Truly this 
 child was not of human parentage. So he, 
 too, kneeled; and, bowing before her, asked 
 if she were of the race of the Tuatha de 
 
 173
 
 lona 
 
 Danann, or of the older gods, and what her 
 will was, that he might be her servant. Then 
 it was that the kneeling child looked at him, 
 and sang in a low sweet voice in Erse: 
 
 "I am but a little child, 
 Dughall, son of Hugh, son of Art, 
 But my garment shall be laid 
 On the lord of the world. 
 Yea, surely it shall be that He, 
 The King of Elements Himself 
 Shall lean against my bosom, 
 And I will give him peace, 
 And peace will I give to all who ask 
 Because of this mighty Prince, 
 And because of his Mother that is the Daughter 
 of Peace." 
 
 And while Dughall Donn was still marvel- 
 ling at this thing, the Arch-Druid of lona 
 approached, with his white-robed priests. A 
 grave welcome was given to the stranger. 
 While the youngest of the servants of God 
 was entrusted with the child, the Arch-Druid 
 took Dijghall aside and questioned him. It 
 was not till the third day that the old man 
 gave his decision. Dughall Donn was to 
 abide on lona if he so willed ; but the child 
 was to stay. His life would be spared, nor 
 would he be a bondager of any kind, and a 
 little land to till would be given him, and all 
 
 174
 
 lona 
 
 that he might need. But of his past he was 
 to say no word. His name was to become as 
 nought, and he was to be known simply as 
 Duvach. The child, too, was to be named 
 Bride, for that was the way the name Briget 
 is called in the Erse of the Isles. 
 
 To the question of Dughall, that was 
 thenceforth Duvach, as to why he laid so 
 great stress on the child, who was a girl, and 
 the reputed offspring of shame at that, Cathal 
 the Arch-Druid replied thus : " My kinsman 
 Aodh of the golden hair, who sent you here, 
 was wiser than Hugh the king, and all the 
 Druids of Aoimag. Truly, this child iS' an Im- 
 mortal. There is an ancient prophecy concern- 
 ing her: surely of her who is now here, and 
 no other. There shall be, it says, a spotless 
 maid born of a virgin of the ancient divine race 
 in Innisfail. And when for the seventh time 
 the sacred year has come, she will hold Eter- 
 nity in her lap as a white flower. Her maiden 
 breasts shall swell with milk for the Prince of 
 the World. She shall give suck to the King 
 of the Elements. So I say unto you, Duvach, 
 go in peace. Take unto yourself a wife, and 
 live upon the place I will allot on the east 
 side of loua. Treat Bride as though she were 
 your soul, and leave her much alone, and let 
 her learn of the sun and the wind. In the 
 
 175
 
 lona 
 
 fulness of time the prophecy shall be ful- 
 filled." 
 
 So was it, from that day of the days. Du- 
 vach took a wife unto himself, who weaned 
 the little Bride, who grew in beauty and grace, 
 so that all men marvelled. Year by year for 
 seven years the wife of Duvach bore him a 
 son, and these grew apace in strength, so that 
 by the beginning of the third year of the 
 seventh circle of Bride's life there were three 
 stalwart youths to brother her, and three 
 comely and strong lads, and one young boy 
 fair to see. Nor did any one, not even Bride 
 herself, saving Cathal the Arch-Druid, know 
 that Duvach the herdsman was Dughall Donn, 
 of a princely race in Innisfail. 
 
 In the end, too, Duvach came to think that 
 he had dreamed, or at the least that Cathal 
 had not interpreted the prophecy aright. For 
 though Bride was of exceeding beauty, and 
 of a holiness that made the young druids bow 
 before her as though she were a bandia, yet 
 the world went on as before, and the days 
 brought no change. Often, while she was 
 still a child, he had questioned her about the 
 words she had said as a babe, but she had no 
 memory of them. Once, in her ninth year, 
 he came upon her on the hillside of Diin-I 
 singing these self-same words. Her eyes 
 176
 
 lona 
 
 dreamed far away. He bowed his head, and, 
 praying to the Giver of Light, hurried to 
 Cathal. The old man bade him speak no 
 more to the child concerning the mysteries. 
 
 Bride lived the hours of her days upon the 
 slopes of Diin-I, herding the sheep, or in fol- 
 lowing the kye upon the green hillocks and 
 grassy dunes of what then, as now, was called 
 the Machar. The beauty of the world was 
 her daily food. The spirit within her was 
 like sunlight behind a white flower. The 
 birdeens in the green bushes sang for joy 
 when they saw her blue eyes. The tender 
 prayers that were in her heart were often seen 
 flying above her head in the form of white 
 doves of sunshine 
 
 But when the middie of the year came that 
 was (though Duvach had forgotten it) the 
 year of the prophecy, his eldest son, Conn, who 
 was now a man, murmured against the vir- 
 ginity of Bride, because of her beauty and 
 because a chieftain of the mainland was eager 
 to wed her. " I shall wed Bride or raid 
 loua," was the message he had sent. 
 
 So one day, before the Great Fire of the 
 Summer Festival, Conn and his brothers re- 
 proached Bride. 
 
 " Idle are these pure eyes, O Bride, not to 
 be as lamps at thy marriage-bed." 
 177
 
 lona 
 
 " Truly, it is not by the eyes that we live," 
 replied the maiden gently, while to their 
 fear and amazement she passed her hand be- 
 fore her face and let them see that the sockets 
 were empty. 
 
 Trembling with awe at this portent, Du- 
 vach intervened : 
 
 " By the sun I swear it, O Bride, that thou 
 shalt marry whomsoever thou wilt and none 
 other, and when thou wilt, or not at all, if 
 such be thy will." 
 
 And when he had spoken. Bride smiled, 
 and passed her hand before her face again, 
 and all there were abashed because of the 
 blue light as of morning that was in her 
 shining eyes. 
 
 It was while the dew was yet wet on the 
 grass that on the morrow Bride came out of 
 her father's house, and went up the steep slope 
 of Diin-I. The crying of the ewes and 
 lambs at the pastures came plaintively against 
 the dawn. The lowing of the kye arose from 
 the sandy hollows by the shore, or from the 
 meadows on the lower slopes. Through the 
 whole island went a rapid, trickling sound, 
 most sweet to hear: the myriad voices of 
 twittering birds, from the dotterel in the sea- 
 weed, to the larks climbing the blue slopes of 
 heaven. 
 
 178
 
 lona 
 
 This was the festival of her birth, and she 
 was clad in white. About her waist was a 
 girdle of the sacred rowan, the feathery 
 green leaves flickering dusky shadows upon 
 her robe as she moved. The light upon her 
 yellow hair was as when morning wakes, 
 laughing in wind amid the tall corn. As she 
 went she sang to herself, softly as the croon- 
 ing of a dove. If any had been there to hear 
 he would have been abashed, for the words 
 were not in Erse, and the eyes of the beauti- 
 ful girl were as those of one in a vision. 
 
 When, at last, a brief while before sunrise, 
 she reached the summit of the Scuir, that is so 
 small a hill and yet seems so big in lona, 
 where it is the sole peak, she found three 
 young druids there, ready to tend the sacred 
 fire the moment the sunrays should kindle it. 
 Each was clad in a white robe, with fillets of 
 oak leaves ; and each had a golden armlet. 
 They made a quiet obeisance as she ap- 
 proached. One stepped forward, with a flush 
 in his face because of her beauty, that was as 
 a sea-wave for grace and a flower for purity, 
 as sunlight for joy and moonlight for peace. 
 
 " Thou mayst draw near if thou wilt, 
 
 Bride, daughter of Duvach," he said, with 
 
 something of reverence as well as of grave 
 
 courtesy in his voice; " for the holy Cathal 
 
 179
 
 lona 
 
 hath said that the breath of the Source of All 
 is upon thee. It is not lawful for women to 
 be here at this moment, but thou hast the law 
 shining upon thy face and in thine eyes. 
 Hast thou come to pray ? " 
 
 But at that moment a cry came from one of 
 his companions. He turned, and rejoined his 
 fellows. Then all three sank upon their 
 knees, and with outstretched arms hailed the 
 rising of God. 
 
 As the sun rose, a solemn chant swelled 
 from their lips, ascending as incense through 
 the silent air. The glory of the new day 
 came soundlessly. Peace was in the blue 
 heaven, on the blue-green sea, and on the 
 green land. There was no wind, even where 
 the currents of the deep moved in shadowy 
 purple. The sea itself was silent, making no 
 more than a sighing slumber-breath round 
 the white sands of the isle, or a dull whisper 
 where the tide lifted the long weed that clung 
 to the rocks. 
 
 In what strange, mysterious way. Bride did 
 not see; but as the three druids held their 
 hands before the sacred fire there was a faint 
 crackling, then three thin spirals of blue 
 smoke rose, and soon dusky red and wan yel- 
 low tongues of flame moved to and fro. The 
 sacrifice of God was made. Out of the im- 
 i8o 
 
 I
 
 lona 
 
 measurable heaven He had come, in his 
 golden chariot. Now, in the wonder and 
 mystery of His love, He was re-born upon the 
 world, re-born a little fugitive flame upon a 
 low hill in a remote isle. Great must be His 
 love that he could die thus daily in a thou- 
 sand places : so great His love that he could 
 give up His own body to daily death, and 
 suffer the holy flame that was in the embers 
 He illumined to be lighted and revered and 
 then scattered to the four quarters of the 
 world. 
 
 Bride could bear no longer the mystery of 
 this great love. It moved her to an ecstasy. 
 What tenderness of divine love that could 
 thus redeem the world daily: what long-suf- 
 fering for all the evil and cruelty done hourly 
 upon the weeping earth : what patience with 
 the bitterness of the blind fates ! The beauty 
 of the worship of Be'al was upon her as a 
 golden glory. Her heart leaped to a song that 
 could not be sung. 
 
 Bowing her head, so that the tears fell upon 
 her hands, she rose and moved away. 
 
 Elsewhere I have told how a good man of 
 lona sailed along the coast one Sabbath after- 
 noon with the Holy Book, and put the Word 
 upon the seals of Soa : and, in another tale, 
 i8i
 
 lona 
 
 how a lonely man fought with a sea-woman, 
 that was a seal ; as, again, how two fishermen 
 strove with the sea-witch of Earraid : and, in 
 " The Dan-nan-Ron," of a man who went 
 mad with the sea-madness, because of the 
 seal-blood that was in his veins, he being a 
 MacOdrum of Uist, and one of the Sliochd 
 nan Ron, the Tribe of the Seal. And those 
 who have read the tale, twice printed, once as 
 " The Annir Choille," and again as " Cathal 
 of the Woods," will remember how, at the 
 end, the good hermit Molios, when near 
 death in his sea-cave of Arran, called the 
 seals to come out of the wave and listen to 
 him, so that he might tell them the white 
 story of Christ; and how in the moonshine, 
 with the flowing tide stealing from his feet to 
 his knees, the old saint preached the gospel of 
 love, while the seals crouched upon the rocks, 
 with their brown eyes filled with glad tears : 
 and how, before his death at dawn, he was 
 comforted by hearing them splashing to and 
 fro in the moon-dazzle, and calling one to the 
 other, " We, too, are of the sons of God." 
 
 What has so often been written about is a 
 reflection of what is in the mind : and though 
 stories of the seals may be heard from the 
 Rhinns of Islay to the Seven Hunters (and I 
 first heard that of the MacOdrums, the seal- 
 182
 
 lona 
 
 folk, from a Uist man), I think that it was 
 because of what I heard of the sea-people on 
 lona, when I was a child, that they have been 
 so much with me in remembrance. 
 
 In the short tale of the Moon-child, I told 
 how two seals that had been wronged by a 
 curse which had been put upon them by Co- 
 lumba, forgave the saint, and gave him a sore- 
 won peace. I recall another (unpublished) 
 tale, where a seal called Domnhuil Dhu — a 
 name of evil omen — was heard laughing one 
 Hallowe'en on the rocks below the ruined ab- 
 bey, and calling to the creatures of the sea 
 that God was dead : and how the man who 
 heard him laughed, and was therewith 
 stricken with paralysis, and so fell sidelong 
 from the rocks into the deep wave, and was 
 afterwards found beaten as with hammers 
 and shredded as with sharp fangs. 
 
 But, as most characteristic, I would rather 
 tell here the story of Black Angus, though 
 the longer tale of which it forms a part has 
 been printed before. 
 
 One night, a dark rainy night it was, with 
 an uplift wind battering as with the palms of 
 savage hands the heavy clouds that hid ' the 
 moon, I went to the cottage near Spanish 
 Port, where my friend Ivor Maclean lived 
 with his old deaf mother. He had reluc- 
 
 183
 
 lona 
 
 tantly promised to tell me the legend of Black 
 Angus, a request he had ignored in a sullen 
 silence when he and Padruic Macrae and I 
 were on the Sound that day. No tales of the 
 kind should be told upon the water. 
 
 When I entered, he was sitting before the 
 flaming coal-fire ; for on lona now, by decree 
 of MacCailein Mor, there is no more peat 
 burned. 
 
 ''You will tell me now, Ivor?" was all I 
 said. 
 
 " Yes ; I will be telling you now. And the 
 reason why I did not tell you before was be- 
 cause it is not a wise or a good thing to tell 
 ancient stories about the sea while still on the 
 running wave. Macrae should not have done 
 that thing. It may be we shall suffer for it 
 when next we go out with the nets. We were 
 to go to-night ; but, no, not I, no, no, for sure, 
 not for all the herring in the Sound." 
 
 " Is it an ancient sgeul, Ivor? " 
 
 " Ay. I am not for knowing the age of 
 these things. It may be as old as the days of 
 the Feinn, for all I know. It has come 
 down to us. Alasdair MacAlasdair of Tiree, 
 him that used to boast of having all the 
 stories of Colum and Brigdhe, it was he 
 told it to the mother of my mother, and she 
 to me." 
 
 184
 
 lona 
 
 "What is it called?" 
 
 "Well, this and that; but there is no 
 harm in saying it is called the Dark Name- 
 less One." 
 
 " The Dark Nameless One ! " 
 
 " It is this way. But will you ever have 
 heard of the MacOdrums of Uist?" 
 
 " Ay ; the Sliochd-nan-ron." 
 
 " That is so. God knows. The Sliochd- 
 nan-ron . . . the progeny of the Seal. . . . 
 Well, well, no man knows what moves in the 
 shadow of life. And now I will be telling 
 you that old ancient tale, as it was given to me 
 by the mother of my mother." 
 
 On a day of the days, Colum was walking 
 alone by the sea-shore. The monks were at 
 the hoe or the spade, and some milking the 
 kye, and some at the fishing. They say it 
 was on the first day of the Faoilleach Gcamh- 
 raidh, the day that is called Am Fhcill 
 Brighde, and that they call Candlemas over 
 yonder. 
 
 The holy man had wandered on to where 
 the rocks are, opposite to Soa. He was pray- 
 ing and praying; and it is said that whenever 
 he prayed aloud, the barren egg in the nest 
 would quicken, and the blighted bud unfold, 
 and the butterfly break its shroud. 
 
 185
 
 lona 
 
 Of a sudden he came upon a great black 
 seal, lying silent on the rocks, with wicked 
 eyes. 
 
 " My blessing upon you, O Ron," he said, 
 with the good kind courteousness that was 
 his. " Droch spodadh ort," answered the 
 seal, " A bad end to you, Colum of the 
 Gown." 
 
 " Sure now," said Colum angrily, " I am 
 knowing by that curse that you are no friend 
 of Christ, but of the evil pagan faith out of 
 the north. For here I am known ever as 
 Colum the White, or as Colum the Saint ; and 
 it is only the Picts and the wanton Normen 
 who deride me because of the holy white robe 
 I wear." 
 
 " Well, well," replied the seal, speaking 
 the good Gaelic as though it were the tongue 
 of the deep sea, as God knows it may be for 
 all you, I, or the blind wind can say ; " well, 
 well, let that thing be: it's a wave-way here 
 or a wave-way there. But now, if it is a 
 druid you are, whether of fire or of Christ, be 
 telling me where my woman is, and where my 
 little daughter." 
 
 At this, Colum looked at him for a long 
 while. Then he knew. 
 
 " It is a man you were once, O Ron ? " 
 
 " Maybe ay and maybe no." 
 i86
 
 Tona 
 
 "And with that thick GaeUc that you 
 have, it will be out of the north isles you 
 come ? " 
 
 " That is a true thing." 
 
 " Now I am for knowing at last who and 
 what you are. You are one of the race of 
 Odrum the Pagan?" 
 
 " Well, I am not denying it, Colum. And 
 what is more, I am Angus MacOdrum, 
 Aonghas mac Torcall mhic Odrum, and the 
 name I am known by is Black Angus." 
 
 " A fitting name too," said Colum the 
 Holy, " because of the black sin in your 
 heart, and the black end God has in store for 
 you." 
 
 At that Black Angus laughed. 
 
 " Why is the laughter upon you, Man- 
 Seal?" 
 
 " Well, it is because of the good company 
 I'll be having. But, now, give me the word: 
 Are you for having seen or heard of a woman 
 called Kirsteen M'Vurich?" 
 
 " Kirsteen — Kirsteen — that is the good 
 name of a nun it is, and no sea-wanton ! " 
 
 " Oh, a name here or a name there is soft 
 sand. And so you cannot be for telling me 
 where my woman is ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then a stake for your belly, and nails 
 187
 
 lona 
 
 through your hands, thirst on your tongue, 
 and the corbies at your eyne ! " 
 
 And, with that. Black Angus louped into 
 the green water, and the hoarse wild laugh of 
 him sprang into the air and fell dead upon the 
 shore like a wind-spent mew. 
 
 Colum went slowly back to the brethren, 
 brooding deep. " God is good," he said in a 
 low voice, again and again ; and each time 
 that he spoke there came a daisy into the 
 grass, or a bird rose, with song to it for the 
 first time, wonderful and sweet to hear. 
 
 As he drew near to the House of God he 
 met Murtagh, an old monk of the ancient 
 race of the isles. 
 
 "Who is Kirsteen M'Vurich, Murtagh?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " She was a good servant of Christ, she 
 was, in the south isles, O Colum, till Black 
 Angus won her to the sea." 
 
 "And when was that?" 
 
 " Nigh upon a thousand years ago." 
 
 " But can mortal sin live as long as that? " 
 
 " Ay, it endureth. Long, long ago, before 
 Oisin sang, before Fionn, before Cuchullin 
 was a glorious great prince, and in the days 
 when the Tuatha-de-Danann were sole lords 
 in all green Banba, Black Angus made the 
 woman Kirsteen M'Vurich leave the place of 
 1 88
 
 lona 
 
 prayer and go down to the sea-shore, and 
 there he leaped upon her and made her his 
 prey, and she followed him into the sea." 
 
 "And is death above her now?" 
 
 " No. She is the woman that weaves the 
 sea-spells at the wild place out yonder that is 
 known as Earraid: she that is called the sea- 
 witch." 
 
 " Then why was Black Angus for the seek- 
 ing her here and the seeking her there ? " 
 
 " It is the Doom. It is Adam's first wife 
 she is, that sea-witch over there, where the 
 foam is ever in the sharp fangs of the rocks." 
 
 " And who will he be? " 
 
 " His body is the body of Angus, the son 
 of Torcall of the race of Odrum, for all that 
 a seal he is to the seeming; but the soul of 
 him is Judas." 
 
 " Black Judas, Murtagh ? " 
 
 *' Ay, Black Judas, Colum." 
 
 But with that, Ivor Macrae rose abruptly 
 from before the fire, saying that he would 
 speak no more that night. And truly enough 
 there was a wild, lone, desolate cry in the 
 wind, and a slapping of the waves one upon 
 the other with an eerie laughing sound, and 
 the screaming of a seamew that was like a 
 human thing. 
 
 189
 
 lona 
 
 So I touched the shawl of his mother, who 
 looked up with startled eyes and said, " God 
 be with us " ; and then I opened the door, and 
 the salt smell of the wrack was in my nostrils, 
 and the great drowning blackness of the night. 
 
 When I was a child I used to throw offer- 
 ings — small coins, flowers, shells, even a 
 newly caught trout, once a treasured flint 
 arrow-head — into the sea-loch by which we 
 lived. My Hebridean nurse had often told 
 me of Shony, a mysterious sea-god, and I 
 know I spent much time in wasted adoration: 
 a fearful worship, not unmixed with disap- 
 pointment and some anger. Not once did I 
 see him. I was frighted time after time, 
 but the sudden cry of a heron, or the snort of 
 a pollack chasing the mackerel, or the abrupt 
 uplifting of a seal's head, became over-famil- 
 iar, and I desired terror, and could not find 
 it by the shore. Inland, after dusk, there was 
 always the mysterious multitude of shadow. 
 There too, I could hear the wind leaping and 
 growling. But by the shore I never knew any 
 dread, even in the darkest night. The sound 
 and company of the sea washed away all 
 fears. 
 
 I was amused not long ago to hear a little 
 girl singing, as she ran wading through the 
 190
 
 lona 
 
 foam of a troubled sunlit sea, as it broke on 
 those wonderful white sands of lona — 
 
 "Shanny, Shanny, Shanny, 
 Catch my feet and tickle my toes! 
 And if you can, Shanny, Shanny, Shanny, 
 I'll go with you where no one knows!" 
 
 I have no doubt this daintier Shanny was my 
 old friend Shony, whose more terrifying way 
 was to clutch boats by the keel and drown the 
 sailors, and make a death-necklace of their 
 teeth. An evil Shony; for once he netted a 
 young girl who was swimming in a loch, and 
 when she would not give him her love he tied 
 her to a rock, and to this day her long brown 
 hair may be seen floating in the shallow green 
 wave at the ebb of the tide. One need not 
 name the place ! 
 
 The Shanny song recalls to me an old 
 Gaelic alphabet rhyme, wherein a MaigJi- 
 deann-Mhara, or Mermaid, stood for M, and 
 a Suire (also a mermaid) stood for S ; and 
 my long perplexities as to whether I would 
 know a shuera from a midianmara when I saw 
 either. It also recalls to me that it was from 
 a young schoolmaster priest, who had come 
 back from Ireland to die at home, that I first 
 heard of the Beth-Luis-Nuin, the Gaelic 
 equivalent of " the A B C." Every letter in 
 191
 
 lona 
 
 the Gaelic alphabet is represented by a tree, 
 and Beithe and Luis and Nuin are the Birch, 
 the Rowan, and the Ash. The reason why 
 the alphabet is called the Beth-Luis-Nuin is 
 that B, L, N, and not A, B, C, are its first 
 three letters. It consists of eighteen letters — 
 and in ancient Gaelic seventeen, for H (the 
 Uath, or Whitethorn) does not exist there, I 
 believe: and these run, B, L, N, F, S (H), 
 D, T, C, M, G, P, R, A, O, U, E, I— each let- 
 ter represented by the name of a tree. Birch, 
 Rowan, Ash, etc. Properly, there is no C in 
 Gaelic, for though the letter C is common, it 
 has always the sound of K. 
 
 Since this page first appeared I have had so 
 many letters about the Gaelic alphabet of to- 
 day that I take the opportunity to add a few 
 lines. To-day as of old all the letters of the 
 Gaelic alphabet are called after trees, from 
 the oak to the shrub-like elder, with the ex- 
 ception of G, T, and U, which stand for Ivy, 
 Furze and Heather. It no longer runs B, L, 
 N, etc., but in sequence follows the familiar 
 and among western peoples, universal A, B, 
 C, etc. It is, however, short of our Roman 
 alphabet by eight letters J, K, O, V, W, X, 
 Y and Z. On the other hand, each of these 
 is represented, either by some other letter 
 having a like value or by a combination : 
 192
 
 lona 
 
 thus K is identical with C, which does not 
 exist in Gaelic as a soft sound any more than 
 it does in Greek, but only as the C in Eng- 
 lish words such as cat or cart^ or in combina- 
 tion with h as a gutteral as in loch — while v 
 as common a sound in Gaelic as the hiss of s 
 in English exists in almost every second or 
 third word as bh or mh. The Gaelic A, B, C 
 of to-day, then, runs as follows: Ailm, Beite, 
 Coll, Dur, Eagh, Fearn, Gath, Huath, Togh, 
 Luis, Muin, Nuin, Oir, Peith, Ruis, Suil, 
 Teine, Ur — which again is equivalent to say- 
 ing Elm, Birch, Hazel, Oak, Aspen, Alder, 
 Ivy, Whitethorn, Yew, Rowan or Quicken, 
 Vine, Ash, Spindle-tree, Pine, Elder, Willow, 
 Furze, Heath. 
 
 The little girl who knew so much about 
 Shanny knew nothing but of her own ABC. 
 But I owe her a debt, since through her I 
 came upon my good friend " Gunainm." 
 From her I heard first, there on lona, on a 
 chance visit of a few summer days, of two 
 of the most beautiful of the ancient Gaelic 
 hymns, the Fiacc Hymn and the Hymn of 
 Broccan. My friend had delineated them as 
 missals, with a strangely beautiful design to 
 each. How often I have thought of one, il- 
 lustrative of a line in the Fiacc Hymn : 
 " There was pagan darkness in Eire in those 
 
 193
 
 lona 
 
 days: the people adored Faerie." In the 
 Broccan Hymn (composed by one Broccan 
 in the time of Lugaid, son of Loegaire, a.d. 
 500) is one particularly lovely line : " Vic- 
 torious Bride (Briget) loved not this vain 
 world: here, ever, she sat the seat of a bird 
 on a cliff." 
 
 In a dream I dream frequently, that of 
 being the wind, and drifting over fra- 
 grant hedgerows and pastures, I have often, 
 through unconscious remembrance of that 
 image of St. Bride sitting the seat of a bird 
 on the edge of the cliff that is this world, felt 
 myself, when not lifted on sudden warm fans 
 of dusk, propelled as on a swift wing from 
 the edge of a precipice. 
 
 I would that we had these winds of dream 
 to command. I would, now that I am far 
 from it, that this night at least I might pass 
 over lona, and hear the sea-doves by the ruins 
 making their sweet mournful croon of peace, 
 and lift, as a shadow gathering phantom 
 flowers, the pale orchis by the lapwing's nest. 
 
 One day, walking by a reedy lochan on the 
 Ross of Mull, not far inland from Fionna- 
 phort, where is the ferry for Baile-Mor of 
 lona, I met an old man who seemed in sor- 
 row. When he spoke I was puzzled by some 
 194
 
 lona 
 
 words which were not native there, and then 
 I learned that he had long lived in Edinburgh 
 and later in Dunfermline, and in his work 
 had associated with Hollanders and others of 
 the east seas. 
 
 He had come back, in his old age, to " see 
 the place of his two loves " — the hamlet in 
 Earraid, where his old mother had blessed 
 him " forty year back," and the little farm 
 where Jean Cameron had kissed him and 
 promised to be true. He had gone away as a 
 soldier, and news reached them of his death ; 
 and when he came out of the Indies, and went 
 up Leith Walk to the great post-house in Edin- 
 burgh, it was to learn that the Earraid cot- 
 tage was empty, and that Jean was no longer 
 Jean Cameron. 
 
 There was not a touch of bitterness in the 
 old man's words. " It was my name, for one 
 thing," he said simply: " you see, there's many 
 a " J. Macdonald " in the Highland regi- 
 ments ; and the mistake got about that way. 
 No, no — the dear lass wasna to blame. And 
 I never lost her love. When I found out 
 where she was I went to see her once more, 
 an' to tell her I understood, an' loved her all 
 the same. It was hard, in a way, when I 
 found she had made a loveless marriage, but 
 human nature's human nature, an' I could 
 
 195
 
 lona 
 
 not but be proud and glad that she had nane 
 but puir Jamie Macdonald in her heart. I 
 told her I would be true to her, and since she 
 was poor, would help her, an' wi' God's kind- 
 ness true I was, an' helped her too. For her 
 man did an awfu' business one day, and was 
 sentenced for life. She had three bairns. 
 Well, I keepit her an' them — though I ne'er 
 saw them but once in the year, for she had 
 come back to the west, her heart brast with 
 the towns. First one bairn died, then another. 
 Then Jean died." 
 
 The old man resumed suddenly : " I had 
 put all my savings into the Grand North 
 Bank. When that failed I had nothing, for 
 with the little that was got back I bought a 
 good 'prenticeship for Jean's eldest. Since 
 then I've lived by odd jobs. But Fm old 
 now, an' broke. Every day an' every night 
 I think o' them two, my mother an' Jean." 
 
 " She must have been a leal fine woman," I 
 said, but in Gaelic. With a flash he looked at 
 me, and then said slowly, as if remembering, 
 " Eudail dc mhnathan an domhain," " Treas- 
 ure of all the women in the world." 
 
 I have often thought of old " Jamie Mac- 
 donald " since. How wonderful his deep 
 love ! This man was loyal to his love in long 
 absence, and was not less loyal when he found 
 196
 
 lona 
 
 that she was the wife of another; and gave 
 up thought of home and comfort and com- 
 panionship, so that he might make hfe more 
 easy for her and the children that were not 
 his. He had no outer reward for this, nor 
 looked for any. 
 
 We crossed to Balliemore together, and 
 when I came upon him next day by the 
 Reilig Odhran, I asked him what he thought 
 of lona. 
 
 He looked at the grey worn stones, " the 
 stairway of the kings," the tombs, the carved 
 crosses, the grey ruin of the wind-harried ca- 
 thedral, and with a wave of his hand, said 
 simply, " Comunn mo ghaoil," " 'Tis a com- 
 panionship after my heart." 
 
 I do not doubt that the old man went on 
 his way comforted by the grey silence and 
 grey beauty of this ancient place, and that 
 he found in lona what would be near him for 
 the rest of his days. 
 
 As a child I had some wise as well as fool- 
 ish instruction concerning the nations of 
 Faerie. If, in common with nearly all happy 
 children, I was brought up in intimate, even 
 in circumstantial, knowledge of " the fairies " 
 — being charitably taught, for one thing, so 
 that I have often left a little bowl of milk, a 
 
 197
 
 lona 
 
 saucerful of oatcake and honey, and the hke, 
 under a wooden seat, where they would be 
 sure to see it — I was told also of the Sidhe, 
 often so rashly and ignorantly alluded to 
 as the fairies in the sense of a pretty, 
 diminutive, harmless, natural folk; and by 
 my nurse Barabal instructed in some of 
 the ways, spells, influences, and even ap- 
 pearances of these powerful and mysterious 
 clans. 
 
 I do not think, unless as a very young 
 child, I ever confused them. I recollect well 
 my pleasure at a sign of gratitude. I was 
 fond of making little reed or bulrush or ash 
 flutes, but once I was in a place where these 
 were difficult to get, and I lost the only one 
 I had. That night I put aside a small portion 
 of my supper of bread and milk and honey, 
 and remember also the sacrifice of a goose- 
 berry of noble proportions, relinquished, not 
 without a sigh, in favour of any wandering 
 fairy lad. 
 
 Next morning when I ran out — three of us 
 then had a wild morning performance we 
 called some fantastic, forgotten name, and 
 ourselves the Sun-dancers — I saw by the emp- 
 tied saucer my little reed-flute ! Here was 
 proof positive ! I was so grateful for that 
 fairy's gratitude, that when dusk came again 
 198
 
 lona 
 
 I not only left a larger supper-dole than 
 usual, but, decked with white fox-glove bells 
 (in which I had unbounded faith), sat 
 drenched in the dew and played my little 
 reed. ' Any moment (I was sure) a small 
 green fellow would appear, and with wild in- 
 dignation I found myself snatched from the 
 grass, and my ears dinned now with re- 
 proaches about the dew, now with remon- 
 strances against " that frightfu' reed-screech- 
 ing that scared awa' the varry hens." 
 
 Ah, there are souls that know nothing of 
 fairies, or music ! 
 
 But the Sidhe are a very different people 
 from the small clans of the earth's delight. 
 
 However (though I could write of both a 
 great volume), I have little to say of either 
 just now, except in one connection. 
 
 It is commonly said that the People of the 
 Sidhe dwell within the hills, or in the under- 
 world. In some of the isles their home, now, 
 is spoken of as Tir-na-thonn, the Land of the 
 Wave, or Tir-fo-Tuinn, the Land under the 
 Sea. 
 
 But from a friend, an islander of lona, I 
 have learned many things, and among them, 
 that the Shee no longer dwell within the in- 
 land hills, and that though many of them in- 
 habit the lonelier isles of the west, and in 
 199
 
 lona 
 
 particular The Seven Hunters, their King- 
 dom is in the North. 
 
 Some say it is among the pathless moun- 
 tains of Iceland. But my friend spoke to an 
 Iceland man, and he said he had never seen 
 them. There were Secret People there, but 
 not the Gaelic Sidhe. 
 
 Their Kingdom is in the North, under the 
 Fir-Chlisneach, the Dancing Men, as the 
 Hebrideans call the polar aurora. They are 
 always young there. Their bodies are white 
 as the wild swan, their hair yellow as honey, 
 their eyes blue as ice. Their feet leave no 
 mark on the snow. The women are white as 
 milk, with eyes like sloes, and lips like red 
 rowans. They fight with shadows, and are 
 glad; but the shadows are not shadows to 
 them. The Shee slay great numbers at the 
 full moon, but never hunt on moonless nights, 
 or at the rising of the moon, or when the dew 
 is falling. Their lances are made of reeds 
 that glitter like shafts of ice, and it is ill for 
 a mortal to find one of these lances, for it is 
 tipped with the salt of a wave that no living 
 thing has touched, neither the wailing mew 
 nor the finned sgadan nor his tribe, nor the 
 narwhal. There are no men of the human 
 clans there, and no shores, and the tides are 
 forbidden. 
 
 200
 
 lona 
 
 Long ago one of the monks of Columba 
 sailed there. He sailed for thrice seven days 
 till he lost the rocks of the north ; and for 
 thrice thirty days, till Iceland in the south 
 was like a small bluebell in a great grey plain ; 
 and for thrice three years among bergs. For 
 the first three years the finned things of the sea 
 brought him food ; for the second three years 
 he knew the kindness of the creatures of the 
 air; in the last three years angels fed him. 
 He lived among the Sidhe for three hundred 
 years. When he came back to lona, he was 
 asked where he had been all that long night 
 since evensong to matins. The monks had 
 sought him everywhere, and at dawn had 
 found him lying in the hollow of the long 
 wave that washes lona on the north. He 
 laughed at that, and said he had been on the 
 tops of the billows for nine years and three 
 months and twenty-one days, and for three 
 hundred years had lived among a deathless 
 people. He had drunk sweet ale every day, 
 and every day had known love among flowers 
 and green bushes, and at dusk had sung old 
 beautiful forgotten songs, and with star-flame 
 had lit strange fires, and at the full of the 
 moon had gone forth laughing to slay. It was 
 heaven, there, under the Lights of the North. 
 When he was asked how that people might 
 201
 
 lona 
 
 be known, he said that away from there they 
 had a cold, cold hand, a cold, still voice, and 
 cold ice-blue eyes. They had four cities at the 
 four ends of the green diamond that is the 
 world. That in the north was made of earth ; 
 that in the east, of air; that in the south, of 
 fire ; that in the west, of water. In the mid- 
 dle of the green diamond that is the world is 
 the Glen of Precious Stones. It is in the 
 shape of a heart, and glows like a ruby, 
 though all stones and gems are there. It is 
 there the Sidhe go to refresh their deathless 
 life. 
 
 The holy monks said that this kingdom was 
 certainly Ifurin, the Gaelic Hell. So they put 
 their comrade alive in a grave in the sand, and 
 stamped the sand down upon his head, and 
 sang hymns so that mayhap even yet his soul 
 might be saved, or, at least, that when he 
 went back to that place he might remember 
 other songs than those sung by the milk-white 
 women with eyes like sloes and lips red as 
 rowans. " Tell that honey-mouthed cruel 
 people they are in Hell," said the abbot, 
 " and give them my ban and my curse un- 
 less they will cease laughing and loving 
 sinfully and slaying with bright lances, and 
 will come out of their secret places and be 
 baptized." 
 
 202
 
 lona 
 
 They have not yet come. 
 
 This adventurer of the dreaming mind is 
 another Oran, that fabulous Oran of whom 
 the later Columban legends tell. I think that 
 other Orans go out, even yet, to the Country 
 of the Sidhe. But few come again. It must 
 be hard to find that glen at the heart of the 
 green diamond that is the world ; but, when 
 found, harder to return by the way one came. 
 
 Once when I was sailing to Tiree, I stopped 
 at lona, and went to see an old woman named 
 Giorsal. She was of my own people, and, 
 not being lona-born, the islanders called her 
 the foreigner. She had a daughter named 
 Ealasaidh, or Elsie as it is generally given in 
 English, and I wanted to see her even more 
 than the old woman. 
 
 "Where is Elsie?" I asked, after our 
 greetings were done. 
 
 Giorsal looked at me sidelong, and then 
 shifted the kettle, and busied herself with the 
 teapot. 
 
 I repeated the question. 
 
 " She is gone," the old woman said, with- 
 out looking at me. 
 
 " Gone ? Where has she gone to ? " 
 
 " I might as well ask you to tell me that." 
 
 ** Is she married . . . had she a lover . . . 
 203
 
 lona 
 
 or ... or ... do you mean that she . . . 
 that you . . . have lost her? " 
 
 " She's gone. That's all I know. But she 
 isn't married, so far as I know : an' I never 
 knew any man she fancied: an' neither I nor 
 any other on lona has seen her dead body ; 
 an' by St. Martin's Cross, neither I nor any 
 other saw her leave the island. And that 
 was more than a year ago." 
 
 " But, Giorsal, she must have left lona and 
 gone to Mull, or maybe gone away in a 
 steamer, or " 
 
 " It was in midwinter, an' when a heavy 
 gale was tearing through the Sound. There 
 was no steamer an' no boat that day. 
 There isn't a boat of lona that could have 
 taken the sea that day. And no — Elsie wasna 
 drowned. I see that's what's in your mind. 
 She just went out o' the house again cryin'. 
 I asked her what was wrong wi' her. She 
 turned an' smiled, an' because o' that terri- 
 fying smile I couldna say a word. She went 
 up behind the Ruins, an' no one saw her af- 
 ter that but Ian Donn. He saw her among 
 the bulrushes in the swamp over by Staonaig. 
 She was laughing an' talking to the reeds, or 
 to the wind in the reeds. So Ian Donn says." 
 
 " And what do you say, Giorsal? " 
 
 The old woman went to the door, looked 
 204
 
 lona 
 
 out, and closed it. When she returned, she 
 put another bit on the fire, and kept her gaze 
 on the red glow. 
 
 " Do you know much about them old lona 
 monks ? " she asked abruptly. 
 
 "What old monks?" 
 
 " Them as they call the Culdees. You used 
 to be askin' lots o' questions about them. 
 Ay? well . . . they aye hated folk from the 
 North, an' women-folk above all." 
 
 I waited, silent. 
 
 " And Elsie, poor lass, she hated them in 
 turn. She was all for the wild clansmen out 
 o' Skye and the Long Island. She said she 
 wished the Siol Leoid had come to lona be- 
 fore Colum built the big church. And for 
 why? Well, there's this, for one thing: For 
 months a monk had come to her o' nights in 
 her sleep, an' said he would kill her, because 
 she was a heathen. She went to the minister 
 at last, an' said her say. He told her she was 
 a foolish wench, an' was sore angry with 
 her. So then she went to old Mary Gillespie, 
 out by the lochan beyond Fionnaphort on 
 the Ross yonder — her that has the sight 
 an' a power o' the old wisdom. After that 
 she took to meeting friends in the moon- 
 shine." 
 
 " Friends? " 
 
 205
 
 tona 
 
 " Ay. There's no call to name names. 
 One day she told me that she had been bid- 
 den to go over to them. If she didn't, the 
 monks would kill her, they said. The monks 
 are still the strongest here, they told her, or 
 she me, I forget which. That is, except over 
 by Staonaig. Up between Sgeur lolaire and 
 Cnoc Druidean there's a path that no monk 
 can go. There, in the old days, they burned 
 a woman. She was not a woman, but they 
 thought she was. She was one o' the Sorrows 
 of the Shee, that they put out to suffer for 
 them, an' get the mortal ill. That's the plague 
 to them. It's ill to any that brings harm on 
 them. That's why the monks arena strong 
 over by Staonaig way. But I told my girl 
 not to mind. She was safe wi' me, I said. 
 She said that was true. For weeks I heard no 
 more o' that monk. One night Elsie came 
 in smiling an' pluckin' wild roses. " Breis- 
 leach!" I cried, " what's the meanin' o' roses 
 in January?" She looked at me, frighted, 
 an' said nothin', but threw the things on the 
 fire. It was next day she went away." 
 
 " And " 
 
 "An' that's all. Here's the tea. Ay, an* 
 for sure here's my good man. Whist, now ! 
 Rob, do you see who's here?" 
 
 206
 
 lona 
 
 Nothing is more strange than the confused 
 survival of legends and pagan faiths and early- 
 Christian beliefs, such as may be found still 
 in some of the isles. A Tiree man, whom I 
 met some time ago on the boat that was tak- 
 ing us both to the west, told me there's a 
 story that Mary Magdalene lies in a cave in 
 lona. She roamed the world with a blind 
 man who loved her, but they had no sin. One 
 day they came to Knoidart in Argyll. Mary 
 Magdalene's first husband had tracked her 
 there, and she knew that he would kill the 
 blind man. So she bade him lie down among 
 some swine, and she herself herded them. 
 But her husband came and laughed at her. 
 " That is a fine boar you have there," he 
 said. Then he put a spear through the blind 
 man. " Now I will take your beautiful hair," 
 he said. He did this, and went away. She 
 wept till she died. One of Colum's monks 
 found her, and took her to lona, and she was 
 buried in a cave. No one but Colum knew 
 who she was. Colum sent away the man, be- 
 cause he was always mooning and lamenting. 
 She had a great wonderful beauty to her. 
 
 It is characteristic enough, even to the 
 quaint confusion that could make Mary Mag- 
 dalene and St. Columba contemporary. But 
 as for the story, what is it but the universal 
 207
 
 lona 
 
 Gaelic legend of Diarmid and Grania? They 
 too wandered far to escape the avenger. It 
 does not matter that their " beds " are shown 
 in rock and moor, from Glenmoriston to 
 Loch Awe, from Lora Water to West Loch 
 Tarbert, with an authenticity as absolute as 
 that which discovers them almost anywhere 
 between Donegal and Clare; nor that the 
 death-place has many sites betwixt Argyll and 
 Connemara. In Gaelic Scotland every one 
 knows that Diarmid was wounded to the 
 death on the rocky ground between Tarbert 
 of Loch Fyne and the West Loch. Every 
 one knows the part the boar played, and the 
 part Finn played. 
 
 Doubtless the story came by way of the 
 Shannon to the Loch of Shadows, or from 
 Cucullin's land to Diin Sobhairce on the An- 
 trim coast, and thence to the Scottish main- 
 land. In wandering to the isles, it lost some- 
 thing both of Eire and Alba. The Campbells, 
 too, claimed Diarmid; and so the Hebrideans 
 would as soon forget him. So, there, by one 
 byplay of the mind or another, it survived in 
 changing raiment. Perhaps an islesman had 
 heard a strange legend about Mary Magda- 
 lene, and so named Grania anew. Perhaps a 
 story-teller consciously wove it the new way. 
 Perhaps an lona man, hearing the tale in dis- 
 208
 
 lona 
 
 tant Barra or Uist, in Coll or Tiree, " buried " 
 Mary in a cave of Icolmkill. 
 
 The notable thing is, not that a primitive 
 legend should love fantastic raiment, but that 
 it should be so much aUke, where the Syrian 
 wanders from waste to waste, by the camp- 
 fires of the Basque muleteers, and in the rainy 
 lands of the Gael. 
 
 In Mingulay, one of the south isles of the 
 Hebrides, in South Uist, and in lona, I have 
 heard a practically identical tale told with 
 striking variations. It is a tale so wide- 
 spread that it has given rise to a pathetic 
 proverb, " Is mairg a loisgeadh a chlarsach 
 dut," " Pity on him who would burn the harp 
 for you." 
 
 In Mingulay, the " harper " who broke his 
 " harp " for a woman's love was a young man, 
 a fiddler. For three years he wandered out of 
 the west into the east, and when he had made 
 enough money to buy a good share in a fish- 
 ing-boat, or even a boat itself, he came back 
 to Mingulay. When he reached his Mary's cot- 
 tage, at dusk, he played her favourite air, an 
 " oran leannanachd," but when she came out it 
 was with a silver ring on her left hand and a 
 baby in her arms. Thus poor Padruig Mac- 
 neill knew Mary had broken her troth and 
 married another man, and so he went down 
 209
 
 lona 
 
 to the shore and played a " marbh-rann," and 
 then broke his fiddle on the rocks ; and when 
 they came upon him in the morning he had 
 the strings of it round his neck. In Uist, the 
 instrument is more vaguely called a " tiom- 
 pan," and here, on a bitter cold night in a 
 famine time, the musician breaks it so as to 
 feed the fire to warm his wife — a sacrifice ill 
 repaid by the elopement of the hard woman 
 that night. In lona, the tale is of an Irish piper 
 who came over to Icolmkill on a pilgrimage, 
 and to lay his " peeb-h'yanna " ^ on " the holy 
 stones " ; but, when there, he got word that 
 his young wife was ill, so he " made a loan 
 of his clar," and with the money returned to 
 Derry, only to find that his dear had gone 
 away with a soldier for the Americas. 
 
 The legendary history of lona would be as 
 much Pagan as Christian. To-day, at many 
 a ceilidh by the warm hearths in winter, one 
 may hear allusions to the Scandinavian pi- 
 rates, or to their more ancient and obscure 
 kin, the Fomor. . . . The Fomor or Fomor- 
 ians were a people that lived before the Gael, 
 and had their habitations in the isles : fierce 
 prowlers of the sea, who loved darkness and 
 
 'The Irish pipes are called " Piob-theannaich " 
 to distinguish them from the "Piob" or " Piob- 
 Mhor" of the Highlands. 
 
 2IO
 
 iona 
 
 cold and storm, and drove herds of wolves 
 across the deeps. In other words, they were 
 elemental forces. But the name is sometimes 
 used for the Norse pirates who ravaged the 
 west, from the Lews to the town of the Hur- 
 dle-Ford. 
 
 In poetic narration " the men of Lochlin " 
 occurs oftener : sometimes the Summer-sail- 
 ors, as the Vikings called themselves ; some- 
 times, perhaps oftenest, the Danes. The Vik- 
 ings have left numerous personal names 
 among the islanders, notably the general 
 term " summer-sailors," somerledi, which 
 survives as Somerled. Many Macleods and 
 Macdonalds are called Somerled, Torquil 
 (also Torcall, Thorkill), and Manus (Mag- 
 nus), and in the Hebrides surnames such as 
 Odrum betray a Norse origin. A glance at 
 any good map will reveal how largely the 
 capes and promontories and headlands, and 
 small bays and havens of the west, remember 
 the lords of the Suderoer. 
 
 The fascination of this legendary history is 
 in its contrast of the barbaric and the spirit- 
 ual. Since I was a child I have been held 
 spellbound by this singular union. To see the 
 Virgin Mary in the sombre and terrible figure 
 of the Washer of the Ford, or spiritual des- 
 tiny in that of the Woman with the Net, was 
 
 211
 
 lona 
 
 natural : as to believe that the same Columba 
 could be as tender as St. Bride or gentle as 
 St. Francis, and yet could thrust the living 
 Oran back into his grave, or prophecy, as 
 though himself a believer in the druidic wis- 
 dom, by the barking of a favourite hound 
 that had a white spot on his forehead — Don- 
 nalaicli chon chinain. 
 
 Of this characteristic blending of pagan 
 and Christian thought and legend I have tried 
 elsewhere to convey some sense — oftener, 
 perhaps, have instinctively expressed : and 
 here, as they are apposite to lona, I would 
 like to select some pages as representative of 
 three phases — namely, of the barbaric history 
 of lona, of the primitive spiritual history 
 which is so childlike in its simplicity, and of 
 that direct grafting of Christian thought and 
 imagery upon pagan thought and imagery 
 which at one time, and doubtless for many 
 generations (for it still survives), was a nor- 
 mal unconscious method. Some five years 
 ago I wrote three short Columban stories, col- 
 lectively called The Three Marvels of lona, 
 one named " The Festival of the Birds," an- 
 other " The Sabbath of the Fishes and the 
 Flies," and the third " The Moon-Child." It 
 is the second of these that, somewhat altered 
 
 212
 
 lona 
 
 to its present use by running into it part of 
 another Columban tale, I add now. 
 
 Before dawn, on the morning of the hun- 
 dredth Sabbath after Colum the White had 
 made glory to God in Hy, that was thereto- 
 fore called loua, or the Druid Isle, and is 
 now lona, the saint beheld his own sleep in 
 a vision. 
 
 Much fasting and long pondering over the 
 missals, with their golden and azure and sea- 
 green initials and earth-brown branching let- 
 ters, had made Colum weary. He had 
 brooded much of late upon the mystery of 
 the living world that was not man's world. 
 
 On the eve of that hundredth Sabbath, 
 which was to be a holy festival in lona, he 
 had talked long with an ancient greybeard 
 out of a remote isle in the north, the wild 
 Isle of the Mountains, where Scathach the 
 queen hanged the men of Lochlin by their 
 yellow hair. 
 
 This man's name was Ardan, and he was 
 of the ancient people. He had come to lona 
 because of two things. Maolmor, the king of 
 the northern Picts, had sent him to learn of 
 Colum what was this god-teaching he had 
 brought out of Eire: and for himself he had 
 come when old age was upon him, to see what 
 213
 
 lona 
 
 manner of man this Colum was, who had 
 made loua, that was " Innis-nan-Dhruidh- 
 nean " — the Isle of the Druids — into a place 
 of new worship. 
 
 For three hours Ardan and Colum had 
 walked by the sea-shore. Each learned of the 
 other. Ardan bowed his head before the 
 wisdom. Colum knew in his heart that the 
 Druid saw mysteries. 
 
 In the first hour they talked of God. 
 
 *' Ay, sure : and now," said the saint, " O 
 Ardan the wise, is my God thy God ? " 
 
 At that Ardan turned his eyes to the west. 
 With his right hand he pointed to the sun that 
 was like a great golden flower. "Truly, He 
 is thy God and my God." Colum was silent. 
 Then he said : " Thee and thine, O Ardan, 
 from Maolmor the Pictish king to the least 
 of his slaves, shall have a long weariness in 
 Hell. That fiery globe yonder is but the 
 Lamp of the World : and sad is the case of 
 the man who knows not the torch from the 
 torch-bearer." 
 
 In the second hour they talked of Man. 
 While Ardan spoke, Colum smiled in his 
 deep, grey eyes. 
 
 " It is for laughter that," he said, when 
 Ardan ceased. 
 
 "And why will that be, O Colum Cille?" 
 214
 
 lona 
 
 Ardan asked. Then the smile went out of 
 Colum's grey eyes, and he turned and looked 
 about him. 
 
 He saw, near, a crow, a horse, and a hound. 
 
 " These are thy brethren," he said scorn- 
 fully. 
 
 But Ardan answered quietly, " Even so." 
 
 The third hour they talked about the beasts 
 of the earth and the fowls of the air. 
 
 At the last Ardan said : " The ancient wis- 
 dom hath it that these are the souls of men 
 and women that have been, or are to be." 
 Whereat Colum answered : " The new wis- 
 dom, that is old as eternity, declareth that 
 God created all things in love. Therefore are 
 we at one, O Ardan, though we sail to the 
 Isle of Truth from the west and the east. 
 Let there be peace between us." " Peace," 
 said Ardan. 
 
 That eve, Ardan of the Picts sat with the 
 monks of lona. 
 
 Colum blessed him and said a saying. 
 Cathal of the Songs sang a hymn of beauty. 
 Ardan rose, and put the wine of guests to his 
 lips, and chanted this rami : 
 
 O Colum and monks of Christ, 
 It is peace we are having this night: 
 Sure, peace is a good thing, 
 And I am glad with the gladness. 
 
 215
 
 lona 
 
 We worship one God, 
 Though ye call him Dia — 
 And I say not, O De! 
 But cry Bea'uil Bel! 
 
 For it is one faith for man, 
 And one for the living world. 
 And no man is wiser than another — 
 And none knoweth much. 
 
 Norle knoweth a better thing than this: 
 The Sword, Love, Song, Honour, Sleep. 
 None knoweth a surer thing than this: 
 Birth, Sorrow, Pain, Weariness, Death. 
 
 Sure, peace is a good thing; 
 Let us be glad of peace: 
 We are not men of the Sword, 
 But of the Rune and the Wisdom. 
 
 I have learned a truth of Colum, 
 And he hath learned of me : 
 All ye on the morrow shall see 
 A wonder of the wonders. 
 
 Ardan would say no more after that, though 
 all besought him. Many pondered long that 
 night. Cathal made a song of mystery. 
 Colum brooded through the dark; but be- 
 fore dawn he fell asleep upon the fern that 
 strewed his cell. At dawn, with waking eyes, 
 and weary, he saw his Sleep in a vision. 
 
 It stood grey and wan beside him. 
 2l6
 
 lona 
 
 "What art thou, O Spirit?" he said. 
 
 " I am thy Sleep, Colum." 
 
 " And is it peace ? " 
 
 " It is peace." 
 
 " What wouldst thou ? " 
 
 " I have wisdom. Thy mind and thy soul 
 were closed. I could not give what I brought. 
 I brought wisdom." 
 
 " Give it." 
 
 " Behold ! " 
 
 And Colum, sitting upon the strewed fern 
 that was his bed, rubbed his eyes that were 
 heavy with weariness and fasting and long 
 prayer. He could not see his Sleep now. It 
 was gone as smoke that is licked up by the 
 wind. . . . 
 
 For three days thereafter Colum fasted, save 
 for a handful of meal at dawn, a piece of rye- 
 bread at noon, and a mouthful of dulse and 
 spring-water at sun-down. On the night of 
 the third day, Oran and Keir came to him in 
 his cell. Colum was on his knees lost in 
 prayer. No sound was there, save the faint 
 whispered muttering of his lips and on 
 the plastered wall the weary buzzing of a 
 fly. 
 
 " Holy One ! " said Oran in a low voice, 
 soft with pity and awe ; "Holy One ! " 
 
 But Colum took no notice. His lips still 
 217
 
 lona 
 
 moved, and the tangled hairs below his nether 
 lip shivered with his failing breath. 
 
 " Father ! " said Keir, tender as a woman ; 
 " Father ! " 
 
 Colum did not turn his eyes from the wall. 
 The fly droned his drowsy hum upon the 
 rough plaster. It crawled wearily for a 
 space, then stopped. The slow hot drone filled 
 the cell. 
 
 " Father," said Oran, " it is the will of the 
 brethren that thou shouldst break thy fast. 
 Thou art old, and God has thy glory. Give 
 us peace." 
 
 " Father," urged Keir, seeing that Colum 
 kneeled unnoticingly, his lips still moving 
 above his grey beard, with the white hair of 
 him falling about his head like a snowdrift 
 slipping from a boulder. " Father, be piti- 
 ful ! We hunger and thirst for thy presence. 
 We can fast no longer, yet we have no heart 
 to break our fast if thou art not with us. 
 Come, holy one. and be of our company, and 
 eat of the good broiled fish that awaiteth 
 us. We perish for the benediction of thine 
 eyes." 
 
 Then it was that Colum rose, and walked 
 slowly towards the wall. 
 
 " Little black beast," he said to the fly that 
 droned its drowsy hum and moved not at all ; 
 2l8
 
 lona 
 
 " little black beast, sure it is well I am know- 
 ing what you are. You are thinking you are 
 going to get my blessing, you that have come 
 out of hell for the soul of me ! " 
 
 At that the fly flew heavily from the wall, 
 and slowly circled round and round the head 
 of Colum the White. 
 
 " What think ye of that, brother Oran, 
 brother Keir? " he asked in a low voice, hoarse 
 because of his long fast and the weariness 
 that was upon him. 
 
 " It is a fiend," said Oran. 
 
 " It is an angel," said Keir. 
 
 Thereupon the fly settled upon the wall 
 again, and again droned his drowsy hot hum. 
 
 " Little black beast," said Colum, with the 
 frown coming down into his eyes, " is it for 
 peace you are here, or for sin ? Answer, I 
 conjure you in the name of the Father, the 
 Son, and the Holy Ghost ! " 
 
 "An ainn an Athar, 's an Mhic, 's an 
 Spioraid Naoimh," repeated Oran below his 
 breath. 
 
 "An ainn an Athar, 's an Mhic, 's an Spio- 
 raid Naoimh," repeated Keir below his breath. 
 
 Then the fly that was upon the wall flew 
 up to the roof and circled to and fro. And 
 it sang a beautiful song, and its song was 
 this : 
 
 219
 
 lona 
 
 Praise be to God, and a blessing too at that, and a 
 blessing ! 
 
 For Colum the White, Colum the Dove, hath wor- 
 shipped ; 
 
 Yea, he hath worshipped and made of a desert a 
 garden. 
 
 And out of the dung of men's souls hath made a 
 sweet savour of burning. 
 
 A savour of burning, most sweet, a fire for the altar, 
 This he hath made in the desert; the hell-saved all 
 
 gladden. 
 Sure he hath put his benison, too, on milch-cow and 
 
 bullock, 
 On the fowls of the air, and the man-eyed seals, 
 
 and the otter. 
 
 But high in His DAn in the great blue mainland of 
 
 heaven, 
 God the All-Father broodeth, where the harpers are 
 
 harping His glory: 
 There where He sitteth, where a river of ale poureth 
 
 ever, 
 His great sword broken, His spear in the dust. He 
 
 broodeth. 
 
 And this is the thought that moves in his brain, as 
 
 a cloud filled with thunder 
 Moves through the vast hollow sky filled with the 
 
 dust of the stars — 
 "What boots it the glory of Colum, when he maketh 
 
 a Sabbath to bless me. 
 And hath no thought of my sons in the deeps of the 
 
 air and the sea ? ' ' 
 
 220
 
 lona 
 
 And with that the fly passed from their 
 vision. In the cell was a most wondrous 
 sweet song, like the sound of far-off pipes 
 over water. 
 
 Oran said in a low voice of awe, " O God, 
 our God ! " 
 
 Keir whispered, white with fear, " O God, 
 my God ! " 
 
 But Colum rose, and took a scourge from 
 where it hung on the wall. " It shall be for 
 peace, Oran," he said, with a grim smile flit- 
 ting like a bird above the nest of his grey 
 beard ; " it shall be for peace, Keir ! " 
 
 And with that he laid the scourge heavily 
 upon the bent backs of Keir and Oran, nor 
 stayed his hand, nor let his three days' fast 
 weaken the deep piety that was in the 
 might of his arm, and because of the glory 
 of God. 
 
 Then, when he was weary, peace came into 
 his heart, and he sighed Amen!" 
 
 " Amen ! " said Oran the monk. 
 
 " Amen ! " said Keir the monk. 
 
 " And this thing has been done," said Col- 
 um, " because of your evil wish and the 
 brethren, that I should break my fast, and 
 eat of fish, till God will it. And lo, I have 
 learned a mystery. Ye shall all witness to it 
 on the morrow, which is the Sabbath." 
 
 221
 
 lona 
 
 That night the monks wondered much. 
 Only Oran and Keir cursed the fishes in the 
 deeps of the sea and the flies in the deeps of 
 the air. 
 
 On the morrow, when the sun was yellow 
 on the brown seaweed, and there was peace 
 on the isle and upon the waters, Colum and 
 the brotherhood went slowly towards the 
 sea. 
 
 At the meadows that are close to the 
 sea, the saint stood still. All bowed their 
 heads. 
 
 " O winged things of the air," cried Colum, 
 " draw near ! " 
 
 With that the air was full of the hum of 
 innumerous flies, midges, bees, wasps, moths, 
 and all winged insects. These settled upon 
 the monks, who moved not, but praised God 
 in silence. 
 
 " Glory and praise to God," cried Colum, 
 " behold the Sabbath of the children of God 
 that inhabit the deeps of the air ! Blessing 
 and peace be upon them." 
 
 " Peace ! Peace ! " cried the monks, with 
 one voice. 
 
 " In the name of the Father, the Son, and 
 the Holy Ghost ! " cried Colum the White, 
 glad because of the glory to God. 
 
 "An ainn an Athar, 's an Mhic, 's an Spio- 
 
 222
 
 lona 
 
 raid Naoimh," cried the monks, bowing rev- 
 erently, and Oran and Keir deepest of all, be- 
 cause they saw the fly that was of Colum's 
 cell leading the whole host, as though it were 
 its captain, and singing to them a marvellous 
 sweet song. 
 
 Oran and Keir testified to this thing, and 
 all were full of awe and wonder, and Colum 
 praised God. 
 
 Then the saints and the brotherhood moved 
 onward and went upon the rocks. When all 
 stood ankle-deep in the seaweed that was 
 swaying in the tide, Colum cried : 
 
 " O finny creatures of the deep, draw 
 near! " 
 
 And with that the whole sea shimmered as 
 with silver and gold. All the fishes of the 
 sea, and the great eels, and the lobsters and 
 the crabs, came in a swift and terrible pro- 
 cession. Great was the glory. 
 
 Then Colum cried, " O fishes of the deep, 
 who is your king?" Whereupon the herring, 
 the mackerel, and the dogfish swam forward, 
 and each claimed to be king. But the echo 
 that ran from wave to wave said. The Her- 
 ring is King ! 
 
 Then Colum said to the mackerel, " Sing 
 the song that is upon you." 
 
 And the mackerel sang the song of the 
 223
 
 lona 
 
 wild rovers of the sea, and the lust of 
 pleasure. 
 
 Then Colum said, " But for God's mercy, I 
 would curse you, O false fish." 
 
 Then he spoke likewise to the dogfish, and 
 the dogfish sang of slaughter and the chase, 
 and the joy of blood. 
 
 And Colum said, " Hell shall be your por- 
 tion." 
 
 Then there was peace. And the herring 
 said: 
 
 " In the name of the Father, the Son, and 
 the Holy Ghost." 
 
 Whereat all that mighty multitude, before 
 they sank into the deep, waved their fins and 
 their claws, each after its kind, and repeated 
 as with one voice: 
 
 " An ainm an Athar, 's an Mhic, 's an Spio- 
 raid Naoimh ! " 
 
 And the glory that was upon the Sound of 
 lona was as though God trailed a starry net 
 upon the waters, with a shining star in every 
 little hollow, and a flowing moon of gold on 
 every wave. 
 
 Then Colum the White put out both his 
 arms, and blessed the children of God that 
 are in the deeps of the sea and that are in the 
 deeps of the air. 
 
 That is how Sabbath came upon all living 
 224
 
 lona 
 
 things upon loua that is called lona, and 
 within the air above loua, and within the sea 
 that is around loua. 
 
 And the glory is Colum's. 
 
 To illustrate the history of the island I 
 select the following episode from Barbaric 
 Tales. It deals with The Flight of the Cul- 
 dees. The name culdee is somewhat loosely 
 used both by mediaeval and modern writers, 
 for it does not appear to have been given to 
 Brotherhood of the Columban Church till 
 two hundred years after Columba's death. 
 The word may be taken to mean the Cleric 
 of God ; perhaps, later, it was the equivalent 
 of anchorite. This episode is, in date, about 
 A.D. 800 or soon after. 
 
 On the wane of the moon, on the day fol- 
 lowing the ruin of Bail'-tiorail, sails were 
 seen far east of Stromness. 
 
 Olaus the White called his men together. 
 The boats coming before the wind were 
 doubtless his own galleys which he had lost 
 when the south-gale had blown them against 
 Skye; but no man can know when and how 
 the gods may smile grimly, and let the swords 
 that whirl be broken, or the spears that are 
 flat become a hedge of death. 
 225
 
 lona 
 
 An hour later, a startled word went from 
 viking to viking. The galleys in the offing 
 were the fleet of Sweno the Hammerer. Why 
 had he come so far southward, and why were 
 oars so swift and the stained sails distended 
 before the wind? They were soon to know. 
 
 Sweno himself was the first to land. A 
 great man he was, broad and burly, with a 
 sword-slash across his face that brought his 
 brows in a perpetual frown above his savage 
 blood-shot eyes. 
 
 In few words he told how he had met a 
 galley, with only half its crew, and of these 
 many who were wounded. It was the last of 
 the fleet of Haco the Laugher. A fleet of 
 fifteen war-birlinns had set out from the Long 
 Island, and had given battle. Haco had gone 
 into the strife, laughing loud as was his wont, 
 and he and all his men had the berserk rage, 
 and fought witli joy and foam at the mouth. 
 Never had the Sword sung a sweeter song. 
 
 "Well," said Olaus the White grimly, 
 "well, how did the Raven fly?" 
 
 " When Haco laughed for the last time, his 
 sword waving out of the death-tide where he 
 sank, there was only one galley left. No 
 more than nine vikings lived thereafter to tell 
 the tale. These nine we took out of their 
 boat, which was below waves soon. Haco and 
 226
 
 lona 
 
 his men are all fighting the sea-shadows by 
 now." 
 
 A loud snarling went from man to man. 
 This became a cry of rage. Then savage 
 shouts filled the air. Swords were lifted up 
 against the sky ; and the fierce glitter of blue 
 eyes and the bristling of tawny beards were 
 fair to see, thought the captive women, though 
 their hearts beat in their breasts like eaglets 
 behind the bars of a cage. 
 
 Sweno the Hammerer frowned a deep 
 frown when he heard that Olaus was there 
 with only the Svart-Alf out of the galleys 
 which had gone the southward way. 
 
 "If the islanders come upon us now with 
 their birlinns we shall have to make a running 
 fight," he said. 
 
 Olaus laughed. 
 
 " Ay, but the running shall be after the 
 birlinns, Sweno." 
 
 " I hear there are fifty and nine men of 
 these Culdees yonder under the sword-priest, 
 Maoliosa?" 
 
 " It is a true word. But to-night, after the 
 moon is up, there shall be none." 
 
 At that, all who heard laughed, and were 
 less heavy in their hearts because of the slay- 
 ing and drowning of Haco the Laugher and 
 all his crew. 
 
 227
 
 lona 
 
 " Where is the woman Brenda that you 
 took ? " Olaus asked, as he stared at Sweno's 
 boat and saw no woman there. 
 
 " She is in the sea." 
 
 Olaus the White looked. It was his eyes 
 that asked. 
 
 " I flung her into the sea because she 
 laughed when she heard of how the birlinns 
 that were under Somhairle the Renegade 
 drove in upon our ships, and how Haco 
 laughed no more, and the sea was red with 
 viking blood." 
 
 " She was a woman, Sweno — and none 
 more fair in the isles, after Morna that is 
 mine." 
 
 " Woman or no woman, I flung her into the 
 sea. The Gael call us Gall: then I will let no 
 Gael laugh at the Gall. It is enough. She is 
 drowned. There are always women : one 
 here, one there — it is but a wave blown this 
 way or that." 
 
 At this moment a viking came running 
 across the ruined town with tidings. Maoliosa 
 and his culdees were crowding into a great 
 birlinn. Perhaps they were coming to give 
 battle: perhaps they were for sailing away 
 from that place. 
 
 Olaus and Sweno stared across the fjord. 
 At first they knew not what to do. If Mao- 
 228
 
 lona 
 
 liosa thought of battle he would hardly choose 
 that hour and place. Or was it that he knew 
 the Gael were coming in force, and that the 
 vikings were caught in a trap? 
 
 At last it was clear. Sweno gave a great 
 laugh. 
 
 " By the blood of Odin," he cried, " they 
 come to sue for peace ! " 
 
 Filled with white-robed culdees, the bir- 
 linn drew slowly across the loch. A tall, old 
 man stood at the prow, with streaming hair 
 and beard, white as sea-foam. In his right 
 hand he grasped a great Cross, whereon 
 Christ was crucified. 
 
 The vikings drew close to one another. 
 
 " Hail them in their own tongue, Sweno," 
 said Olaus. 
 
 The Hammerer moved to the water-edge, 
 as the birlinn stopped, a short arrow-flight 
 away. 
 
 " Ho, there, priests of the Christ-faith ! " 
 
 "What would you, viking?" It was Mao- 
 liosa himself that spoke. 
 
 " Why do you come here among us, you 
 that are Maoliosa ? " 
 
 " To win you and yours to God, Pagan." 
 
 " Is it madness that is upon you, old man? 
 We have swords and spears here, if we lack 
 hymns and prayers." 
 
 229
 
 lona 
 
 All this time Olaus kept a wary watch in- 
 land and seaward, for he feared that Mao- 
 liosa came because of an ambush. 
 
 Truly the old monk was mad. He had told 
 his culdees that God would prevail, and that 
 the pagans would melt away before the Cross. 
 The ebb-tide was running swift. Even while 
 Sweno spoke, the birlinn touched a low sea- 
 hidden ledge of rock. A cry of consternation 
 went up from the white-robes. Loud laugh- 
 ter came from the vikings. 
 
 " Arrows ! " cried Olaus. 
 
 With that threescore men took their bows. 
 A hail of death-shafts fell. Many pierced the 
 water, but some pierced the necks and hearts 
 of the culdees. 
 
 Maoliosa himself, stood in death trans- 
 fixed to the mast. With a scream the monks 
 swept their oars backward. Then they leaped 
 to their feet, and changed their place, and 
 rowed for life. 
 
 The summer-sailors sprang into their gal- 
 ley. Sweno the Hammerer was at the bow. 
 The foam curled and hissed. The birlinn of 
 the culdees grided upon the opposite shore at 
 the moment when Sweno brought down his 
 battle-axe upon the monk who steered. The 
 man was cleft to the shoulder. Sweno 
 swayed with the blow, stumbled, and fell head- 
 230
 
 lona 
 
 long into the sea. A culdee thrust at him with 
 an oar. and pinned him among the sea-tangle. 
 Thus died Sweno the Hammerer. 
 
 Like a flock of sheep the white-robes leaped 
 upon the shore. Yet Olaus was quicker than 
 they. With a score of vikings he raced to 
 the Church of the Cells, and gained the sanc- 
 tuary. The monks uttered a cry of despair, 
 and, turning, fled across the sands. Olaus 
 counted them. There were now forty in all. 
 
 " Let forty men follow," he cried. 
 
 The monks fled this way and that. Olaus, 
 and those who watched, laughed to see how 
 they stumbled, because of their robes. One 
 by one fell, sword-cleft or spear-thrust. The 
 sand-dunes were red. 
 
 Soon there were fewer than a score — then 
 twelve only — ten ! 
 
 " Bring them back ! " Olaus shouted. 
 
 When the ten fugitives were captured and 
 brought back, Olaus took the crucifix that 
 Maoliosa had raised, and held it before each 
 in turn. 
 
 "Smite!" he said to the first monk. But 
 the man would not. 
 
 "Smite!" he said to the second; but he 
 would not. And so it was to the tenth. 
 
 "Good!" said Olaus the White; "they 
 shall witness to their God." 
 231
 
 lona 
 
 With that he bade his vikings break up the 
 birlinn, and drive the planks into the ground 
 and shore them up with logs. When this 
 was done he crucified each culdee. With 
 nails and with ropes he did unto each what 
 their God had suffered. Then all were left 
 there by the water-side. 
 
 That night, when Olaus the White and the 
 laughing Morna left the great bonfire where 
 the vikings sang and drank horn after horn 
 of strong ale, they stood and looked across 
 the strait. In the moonlight, upon the dim 
 verge of the island shore, they could see ten 
 crosses. On each was a motionless white 
 splatch. 
 
 Once more, for an instance of the grafting 
 of Christian thought and imagery on pagan 
 thought and imagery, I take a few pages of 
 the introductory part to the story of " The 
 Woman with the Net," in a later volume.* 
 They tell of a young monk who, inspired by 
 Colum's holy example, went out of lona as 
 a missionary to the Pictish heathen of the 
 north. 
 
 When Artan had kissed the brow of every 
 white-robed brother on lona, and had been 
 
 " The Dominion of Dreams, ist Ed. 
 232
 
 lona 
 
 thrice kissed by the aged Colum, his heart 
 was filled with gladness. 
 
 It was late summer, and in the afternoon- 
 light peace lay on the green waters of the 
 Sound, on the green grass of the dunes, on 
 the domed wicker-woven cells of the culdees 
 over whom the holy Colum ruled, and on 
 the little rock-strewn hill which rose above 
 where stood Colum's wattled church of sun- 
 baked mud. The abbot walked slowly by the 
 side of the young man. Colum was tall, 
 with hair long and heavy but white as the 
 canna, and with a beard that hung low on 
 his breast, grey as the moss on old firs. His 
 blue eyes were tender. The youth — for 
 though he was a grown man he seemed a 
 youth beside Colum — had beauty. He was 
 tall and comely, with yellow curling hair, and 
 dark-blue eyes, and a skin so white that it 
 troubled some of the monks who dreamed 
 old dreams and washed them away in tears 
 and scourgings. 
 
 " You have the bitter fever of youth upon 
 you, Artan," said Colum, as they crossed the 
 dunes beyond Dun-I ; " but you have no fear, 
 and you will be a flame among these Pictish 
 idolaters, and you will be a lamp to show 
 them the way." 
 
 " And when I come again, there will be 
 
 233
 
 lona 
 
 clappings of hands, and hymns, and many 
 rejoicings? " 
 
 " I do not think you will come again," said 
 Colum, " The wild people of these north- 
 lands will bum you, or crucify you, or put 
 you upon the crahslat, or give you thirst 
 and hunger till you die. It will be a great 
 joy for you to die like that, Artan, my 
 son?" 
 
 " Ay, a great joy," answered the young 
 monk, but with his eyes dreaming away from 
 his words. 
 
 Silence was between them as they neared 
 the cove where a large coracle lay, with three 
 men in it. 
 
 " Will God be coming to lona when I am 
 away ? " asked Artan. 
 
 Colum stared at him. 
 
 " Is it likely that God would come here in 
 a coracle ? " he asked, with scornful eyes. 
 
 The young man looked abashed. For 
 sure, God would not come in a coracle, just 
 as he himself might come. He knew by that 
 how Colum had reproved him. He would 
 come in a cloud of fire, and would be seen 
 from far and near. Artan wondered if the 
 place he was going to was too far north for 
 him to see that greatness; but he feared to 
 ask. 
 
 234
 
 lona 
 
 "Give me a new name," he asked; "give 
 me a new name, my father." 
 
 "What name will you have?" 
 
 " Servant of Mary." 
 
 " So be it, Artan Gille-Mhoire." 
 
 With that Colum kissed him and bade fare- 
 well, and Artan sat down in the coracle, and 
 covered his head with his mantle, and wept 
 and prayed. 
 
 The last word he heard was, Peace! 
 
 " That is a good word, and a good thing," 
 he said to himself; "and because I am the 
 Servant of Mary, and the Brother of Jesu the 
 Son, I will take peace to the Cruitnc, who 
 know nothing of that blessing of the bless- 
 ings." 
 
 When he unfolded his mantle, he saw that 
 the coracle was already far from lona. The 
 south wind blew, and the tides swept north- 
 ward, and the boat moved swiftly across the 
 water. The sea was ashine with froth and 
 small waves leaping like lambs. 
 
 In the boat were Thorkeld, a helot of 
 lona, and two dark wild-eyed men of the 
 north. They were Picts, but could speak the 
 tongue of the Gael. Myrdu, the Pictish king 
 of Skye, had sent them to lona, to bring back 
 from Colum a culdee who could show won- 
 ders. 
 
 235
 
 lona 
 
 "And tell the chief Druid of the God- 
 men," Myrdu had said, " that if his culdee 
 does not show me good wonders, and so make 
 me believe in his two gods and the woman, 
 I will put an ash-shaft through his body from 
 the hips and out at his mouth, and send him 
 back on the north tide to the Isle of the 
 White-Robes." The sun was already among 
 the outer isles when the coracle passed near 
 the Isle of Columns. A great noise was in 
 the air: the noise of the waves in the caverns, 
 and the noise of the tide, like sea-wolves 
 growling, and like bulls bellowing in a narrow 
 pass of the hills. 
 
 A sudden current caught the boat, and it 
 began to drift towards great reefs white with 
 ceaseless torn streams. 
 
 Thorkeld leaned from the helm, and 
 shouted to the two Picts. They did not stir, 
 but sat staring, idle with fear. 
 
 Artan knew now that it was as Colum had 
 said. God would give him glory soon. 
 
 So he took the little clarsach he had for 
 hymns, for he was the best harper on lona, 
 and struck the strings, and sang. But the 
 Latin words tangled in his throat, and he 
 knew too that the men in the boat would not 
 understand what he sang; also that the older 
 gods still came far south, and in the caves of 
 236
 
 lona 
 
 the Isle of Columns were demons. There 
 was only one tongue common to all; and 
 since God had wisdom beyond that of Colum 
 himself, He would know the song in Gaelic 
 as well as though sung in Latin. 
 
 So Artan let the wind take his broken 
 hymn, and he made a song of his own, and 
 sang: 
 
 O Heavenly Mary, Queen of the Elements, 
 And you, Brigit the fair with the little harp, 
 And all the saints, and all the old gods 
 (And it is not one of them I'd be disowning), 
 Speak to the Father, that he may save us from 
 drowning. 
 
 Then seeing that the boat drifted closer, 
 he sang again: 
 
 Save us from the rocks and the sea, Queen of 
 
 Heaven! 
 And remember that I am a Culdee of lona. 
 And that Colum has sent me to the Cruitn^ 
 To sing them the song of peace lest they be damned 
 
 for ever! 
 
 Thorkeld laughed at that. 
 
 " Can the woman put swimming upon 
 you? '■ he said roughly. " I would rather 
 have the good fin of a great fish now than 
 any woman in the skies." 
 
 237
 
 lona 
 
 " You will burn in hell for that," said Ar- 
 tan, the holy zeal warm at his heart. 
 
 But Thorkeld answered nothing. His 
 hand was on the helm, his eyes on the foam- 
 ing rocks. Besides, what had he to do with 
 the culdee's hell or heaven? When he died, 
 he, who was a man of Lochlann, would go to 
 his own place. 
 
 One of the dark men stood, holding the 
 mast. His eyes shone. Thick words swung 
 from his lips, like seaweed thrown out of a 
 hollow by an ebbing wave. 
 
 The coracle swerved, and the four men 
 were wet with the heavy spray. 
 
 Thorkeld put his oar in the water, and the 
 swaying craft righted. 
 
 " Glory to God," said Artan. 
 
 " There is no glory to your god in this," 
 said Thorkeld scornfully. " Did you not 
 hear what Necta sang? He sang to the wom- 
 an in there that drags men into the caves, 
 and throws their bones on the next tide. He 
 put an incantation upon her, and she shrank, 
 and the boat slid away from the rocks." 
 
 " That is a true thing," thought Artan. 
 He wondered if it was because he had not 
 sung his hymn in the holy Latin. 
 
 When the last flame died out of the west, 
 and the stars came like sheep gathering at 
 238
 
 lona 
 
 the call of the shepherd, Artan remembered 
 that he had not said his prayers and sang the 
 vesper hymn. 
 
 He lay back and listened. There were no 
 bells calling across the water. He looked 
 into the depths. It was Manann's kingdom, 
 and he had never heard that God was there; 
 but he looked. Then he stared into the dark- 
 blue star-strewn sky. 
 
 Suddenly he touched Thorkeld. 
 
 " Tell me," he said, *' how far north has 
 the Cross of Christ come?" 
 
 " By the sea way it has not come here yet. 
 Murdoch the Freckled came with it this way, 
 but he was pulled into the sea, and he died." 
 
 "Who pulled him into the sea?" 
 
 Thorkeld stared into the running wave. 
 He had no words. 
 
 Artan lay still for a long while. 
 
 " It will go ill with me," he thought, " if 
 Mary cannot see me so far away from lona, 
 and if God will not listen to me. Colum 
 should have known that, and given me a holy 
 leaf with the fair branching letters on it, and 
 the Latin words that are the words of God." 
 
 Then he spoke to the man who had sung. 
 
 " Do you know of Mary, and God, and the 
 Son, and the Spirit?" 
 
 " You have too many Gods, Culdee," an- 
 
 239
 
 lona 
 
 swered the Pict sullenly: " for of these one is 
 your god's son, and the other is the woman 
 his mother, and the third is the ghost of an 
 ancestor." 
 
 Artan frowned. 
 
 " The curse of the God of Peace upon you 
 for that," he said angrily; " do you know that 
 you have hell for your dwelling-place if you 
 speak evil of God the Father, and the Son, 
 and the Mother of God? " 
 
 " How long have they been in lona, White- 
 Robe?" 
 
 The man spoke scornfully. Artan knew 
 they had not been there many years. He 
 had no words. 
 
 " My fathers worshipped the Sun on the 
 Holy Isle before ever your great Druid that is 
 called Colum crossed the Moyle. Were your 
 three gods in the coracle with Colum? They 
 were not on the Holy Isle when he came." 
 
 " They were coming there," answered Ar- 
 tan confusedly. " It is a long, long way 
 from — from — from the place they were sailing 
 from." 
 
 Necta listened sullenly. 
 
 " Let them stay on lona," he said : " gods 
 
 though they be, it would fare ill with them if 
 
 they came upon the Woman with the Net." 
 
 Then he turned on his side, and lay by the 
 
 240
 
 lona 
 
 man Darach, who was staring at the moon 
 and muttering words that neither Artan nor 
 Thorkeld knew. 
 
 A white calm fell. The boat lay like a 
 leaf on a silent pool. There was nothing 
 between that dim wilderness and the vast 
 sweeping blackness filled with quivering 
 stars, but the coracle, that a wave could 
 crush. 
 
 At times, I doubt not, there must have 
 been weaker brethren among these simple 
 and devoted Culdees of lona, though in 
 Colum's own day there was probably none 
 (unless it were Oran) who was not the visible 
 outward shrine of a pure flame. 
 
 Thinking of such an one, and not without 
 furtive pagan sympathy, I wrote the other 
 day these lines, which I may also add here 
 as a further side-light upon that half-Pagan, 
 half-Christian basis upon which the Columban 
 Church of lona stood. 
 
 Balva the old monk I am called : when I was young, 
 
 Balva Honeymouth. 
 That was before Colum the White came to lona in 
 
 the West. 
 She whom I loved was a woman whom I won out of 
 
 the South, 
 And I had a good heaven with my lips on hers and 
 
 with breast to breast. 
 241
 
 lona 
 
 Balva the old monk I am called : were it not for the 
 
 fear 
 That the soul of Colum the White would meet my 
 
 soul in the Narrows 
 That sever the living and dead, I would rise up from 
 
 here, 
 And go back to where men pray with spears and 
 
 arrows. 
 
 Balva the old monk I am called: ugh! ugh! the cold 
 
 bell of the matins — 'tis dav/n! 
 Sure it's a dream I have had that I was in a warm 
 
 wood with the sun ashine, 
 And that against me in the pleasant greenness was 
 
 a soft fawn. 
 And a voice that whispered "Balva Honeymouth, 
 
 drink, I am thy wine!" 
 
 As I write,^ here on the hill-slope of Dun- 
 I, the sound of the furtive wave is as the 
 sighing in a shell. I am alone between sea 
 and sky, for there is no other on this boul- 
 dered height, nothing visible but a single 
 blue shadow that slowly sails 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 shore- 
 less sea to the west; these ascend as the very 
 smoke of sound. All round the island there 
 is a continuous breathing; deeper and more 
 
 • See Notes, p. 429. 
 242
 
 lona 
 
 prolonged on the west, where the open sea 
 is; but audible everywhere. The seals on 
 Soa are even now 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 from the ruddy 
 granite shores of the Ross there is a congre- 
 gation of seafowl — gannets and guillemots, 
 skuas and herring-gulls, the long-necked 
 northern diver, the tern, the cormorant. In 
 the sunblaze, 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 sun- 
 shine, leaping and running in these flowing 
 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 does 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 — I 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 
 
 243
 
 tona 
 
 of the sorrow of childhood — that sorrow so 
 unfathomable, so incommunicable. And yet 
 not a stone's-throw from where I lie, half 
 hidden beneath an overhanging rock, is the 
 Pool of Healing. To this small, black-brown 
 tarn, pilgrin» of every generation, for hun- 
 dreds of years, have come. Solitary, these; 
 not only because the pilgrim to the Fount of 
 Eternal Youth must fare hither alone, and at 
 dawn, so as to touch the healing water the 
 moment the first sunray quickens it — but sol- 
 itary, also, because those who go in quest of 
 this Fount of Youth are the dreamers and the 
 Children of Dream, and these are not many, 
 and few come now to this lonely place. Yet, 
 an Isle of Dream lona is, indeed. Here the 
 last sun-worshippers bowed before the Ris- 
 ing of God ; here Columba and his hymning 
 priests laboured and brooded; and here Oran 
 or his kin dreamed beneath the monkish 
 cowl that pagan dream of his. Here, too, the 
 eyes of Fionn and Oisin, and of many an- 
 other of the heroic men and women of the 
 Fianna, may have lingered; 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 herit- 
 age to the stricken; here, for century after 
 century, the Gael has lived, suffered, joyed, 
 244
 
 lona 
 
 dreamed his impossible, beautiful dream; as 
 here, now, he still lives, still suffers patiently, 
 still dreams, and through all and over all, 
 broods upon the incalculable mysteries. He 
 is an elemental, among the elemental forces. 
 He knows the voices of wind and sea: and 
 it is because the Fount of Youth upon Dun- 
 I of lona is not the only wellspring of peace, 
 that the Gael can front destiny as he does, 
 and can endure. Who knows where its tribu- 
 taries are? They may be in your heart, or 
 in mine, and in a myriad others. 
 
 I would that the birds of Angus Og 
 might, for once, be changed, not, as fabled, 
 into the kisses of love, but into doves of 
 peace, that they might fly into the green 
 world, and nest there in many hearts, in 
 miany minds, crooning their incommunicable 
 song of joy and hope. 
 
 A doomed and passing race. I have been 
 taken to task for these words. But they are 
 true, in the deep reality where they obtain. 
 Yes, but true only in one sense, however vital 
 that is. The Breton's eyes are slowly turning 
 from the enchanted West, and slowly his ears 
 are forgetting the whisper of the wind around 
 menhir and dolmen. The Manxman has 
 ever been the mere yeoman of the Celtic 
 
 245
 
 lona 
 
 chivalry; but even his rude dialect perishes 
 year by year. In Wales, a great tradition 
 survives; in Ireland, a supreme tradition 
 fades through sunset-hued horizons; in Celtic 
 Scotland, a passionate regret, a despairing 
 love and longing, narrows yearly before a 
 dull and incredibly selfish alienism. 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 Mal- 
 vina led the blind Oisin 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 
 stronger people. The Celt fades, but his 
 spirit rises in the heart and the mind of the 
 Anglo-Celtic peoples, with whom are the des- 
 tinies of generations to come. 
 
 I stop, and look seaward from this hillslope 
 of Dijn-L Yes, even in this Isle of Joy, as 
 it seems in this dazzle of golden light and 
 splashing wave, there is the like mortal gloom 
 and immortal mystery which moved the 
 minds of the old seers and bards. Yonder, 
 246
 
 lona 
 
 where that thin spray quivers against the 
 thyme-set cHfif, is the Spouting Cave, where 
 to this day the Mar-Tarbh, dread creature of 
 the sea, swims at the full of the tide. Be- 
 yond, out of sight behind these craggy 
 steeps, is Port-na-Churaich, where, a thou- 
 sand years ago, Columba landed in his cor- 
 acle. Here, eastward, is the 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 the Gael is here, 
 lona is the microcosm of the Gaelic world. 
 
 Last night, about the hour of the sun's 
 going, I lay upon the heights near the Cave, 
 overlooking the Machar — the sandy, rock- 
 frontiered plain of duneland on the west side 
 of lona, exposed to the Atlantic. There was 
 neither bird nor beast, no living thing to see, 
 save one solitary human creature. The 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 everything. 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. 
 247
 
 lona 
 
 Then I heard the rush, the stamping and 
 neighing, of some young mares, pasturing 
 there, as they raced to and fro, bewildered or 
 perchance 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. 
 
 Abruptly, though not for a long time there- 
 after, the mist rose and drifted seaward. 
 
 All was as before. The kelp-burner still 
 stood, straking the smouldering seaweed. 
 Above him a column ascended, bluely spiral, 
 dusked with shadow. 
 
 The kelp-burner: who was he but the Gael 
 of the Isles? Who but the Gael in his old- 
 world 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. 
 
 But ... to the island-story once more! 
 Some day, surely, the historian of lona will 
 appear. 
 
 248
 
 lona 
 
 How many " history-books " there are like 
 dead leaves. The simile is a travesty. There 
 is no little russet leaf of the forest that could 
 not carry more real, more intimate know- 
 ledge. There is no leaf that could not reveal 
 mystery of form, mystery of colour, wonder 
 of structure, secret of growth, the law of 
 harmony; that could not testify to birth, and 
 change, and decay, and death; and what his- 
 tory tells us more? — that could not, to the 
 inward ear, bring the sound of the south 
 wind making a greenness in the woods of 
 Spring, the west wind calling his brown and 
 red flocks to the fold. 
 
 What a book it will be! It will reveal to 
 us the secret of what Oisin sang, what 
 Merlin knew, what Columba dreamed, what 
 Adamnan hoped: what this little "lamp of 
 Christ " was to pagan Europe ; what incense 
 of testimony it flung upon the winds; what 
 saints and heroes went out of it ; how the 
 dust of kings and princes was brought there 
 to mingle with its sands; how the noble and 
 the ignoble came to it across long seas and 
 perilous countries. It will tell, too, how the 
 Danes ravaged the isles of the west, and left 
 not only their seed for the strengthening of 
 an older race, but imageries and words, 
 words and imageries so alive to-day that the 
 249
 
 lona 
 
 listener in the mind may hear the cries of the 
 viking above the voice of the Gael and the 
 more ancient tongue of the Pict. It will tell, 
 too, how the nettle came to shed her snow 
 above kings' heads, and the thistle to wave 
 where bishops' mitres stood; how a simple 
 people out of the hills and moors, remember- 
 ing ancient wisdom or blindly cherishing for- 
 gotten symbols, sought here the fount of 
 youth; and how, slowly, a long sleep fell 
 upon the island, and only the grasses shaken 
 in the wind, and the wind itself, and the 
 broken shadows of dreams in the minds of 
 the old, held the secret of lona. And, at the 
 last — with what lift, with what joy — it will tell 
 how once more the doves of hope and peace 
 have passed over its white sands, this little 
 holy land! This little holy land! Ah, white 
 doves, come again! A thousand thousand 
 wait. 
 
 250
 
 BY SUNDOWN SHORES
 
 'Cette dnte qui se lamente 
 En cette plaine dormante 
 
 C'est la notre, n'est-ce pas f 
 La ntienne, dis, et la tienne, 
 Dont s'exhale Vhumhle antienne 
 
 Par ce tiede soir, tout bas ?"
 
 By Sundown Shores 
 
 '"N hano ann Tad, ar Mab hac ar Spered-Zantel, 
 Iloman' zo'r ganaouenn zavet en Breiz-Izel! 
 Zavet gant eur paour-kez, en Ar-goat, en Ar-vor, 
 Kanet anez-hi, pewienn, hac ho pezo digor." 
 
 "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
 Spirit 
 This song of mine was raised in my Breton Father- 
 land, 
 In Argoat forest-clad, in Arvor of the grey wave: 
 Sing it, wayfarers, and all gates will open before 
 you." 
 
 I do not know the name of the obscure min- 
 strel who sang this song, as he passed from 
 village to village, by the coasts, along the 
 heath-lands of Brittany. But there are poets 
 who have no name and no country, because 
 they are named by the secret name of the 
 longing of many minds, and mysteriously 
 come from and pass to the Land of Heart's 
 Desire, which is their own land. This wan- 
 dering Breton minstrel is of that company. 
 His sone is familiar. I have heard it where 
 Connemara breaks in grey rock and sudden 
 pastures to the sea: where only the wind and 
 
 253
 
 v.-> 
 
 By Sundown Shores 
 
 the heather people the soHtudes of Argyll: 
 where the silent Isles shelve to perpetual 
 foam. He speaks for all his brotherhood of 
 Armorica: he speaks also for the greater 
 brotherhood of his race, the broken peoples 
 who now stand upon the sundown shores, 
 from wild Ushant to the clifTs of Achil, from 
 St. Bride's Bay to solitary St. Kilda. He is 
 not only the genius of Arvor, daughter of 
 dreams, but the genius of a race whose fare- 
 well is in a tragic lighting of torches of 
 beauty around its grave. For it is the soul 
 of the Celt who wanders homeless to-day, 
 with his pathetic burthen that his sone was 
 made by ancestral woods, by the unchanging 
 sea; dreaming the enchanted air will open 
 all doors. Alas! few doors open: the way- 
 farer must not tarry. Memories and echoes 
 he may leave, but he must turn his face. 
 Grey dolmen and grey menhir already stand 
 there, by the last shores, memorials of his 
 destiny. 
 
 The ancient Gaels believed that in the 
 western ocean there was an island called Hy 
 Brasil, where all that was beautiful and mys- 
 terious lived beyond the pillars of the rain- 
 bow. The legendary romances of the Celtic 
 races may be described as the Hy Brasil of 
 literature. 
 
 254
 
 By Sundown Shores 
 
 In the Celtic commune there are many- 
 legendary tales which, but for the accident of 
 names and local circumstances, are identical. 
 The familiar Highland legend of the children 
 who, bathing in a mountain loch, were car- 
 ried off by a water-horse, has its counterpart 
 in Connemara, in Merioneth, and in Finis- 
 tere, though in the Welsh recital the children 
 are the victims of a dragon, and in the Breton 
 legend the monster is a boar. For that mat- 
 ter, this elemental tale has its roots in the 
 east, and Macedonia and the Himalaya re- 
 tain the memory of what Aryan wagoners 
 told by the camp-fires during their centuries- 
 long immigration into Europe. Whether, 
 however, a tale be universal or strictly Celtic, 
 generally it has a parallel in one or all of 
 the racial dialects. True, there are legendary- 
 cycles which are local. The Arzur of Brit- 
 tany is a mere echo in the Hebrides, and the 
 name of Cuculain or the fame of the Red 
 Branch has not reached the dunes of Armor- 
 ica. Nevertheless, even in the mythopoeic 
 tales there is a kindred character. Nomenoe 
 may have been a Breton Fionn, though he 
 had no Oisin to wed his deeds to a deathless 
 music; and Diarmid and Grainne have loved 
 beneath the oaks of Broceliande or the beech- 
 groves of Llanidris, as well as among the 
 
 255
 
 By Sundown Shores 
 
 hills of Erin, or in the rocky fastnesses of 
 Morven, It is characteristic, too, how Celt- 
 land has given to Celtland. Scotland gave 
 Ireland St. Patrick; Ireland gave Scotland 
 St. Columba; the chief bard of Armorica 
 came from Wales; and Cornwall has the 
 Arthurian fame which is the meed of Kymric 
 Caledonia. To this day no man can say 
 whether Oisin, old and blind, wandered at the 
 last to Drumadoon in Arran, or if indeed he 
 followed out of Erin the sweet voice from 
 Tirnan-Og, and was seen or heard of by 
 none, till three centuries later the bells of the 
 clerics and the admonitions of Patrick made 
 his days a burden not to be borne. Did not 
 the greatest of Irish kings die in tributary 
 lands by the banks of the 'Loire, and who has 
 seen the moss of that lost grave in Broce- 
 liande where Merlin of the North lay down 
 to a long sleep? 
 
 Even where there seems no probability of 
 a common origin, there is often a striking 
 similarity in the matter and the manner of 
 folk-tales, particularly those which narrate the 
 strange experiences of the saints. Thus, for 
 example, in one of the most beautiful of the 
 legendary stories given in The Shadow of 
 Arvor ^ there is an account of how Gradlon, 
 
 * Vide Notes, p. 429. 
 256
 
 By Sundozvn Shores 
 
 " the honoured chief of Kerne, the monarch 
 who built Ys, and on whose brow were united 
 the crowns of Armorica," having voluntarily 
 become a wandering beggar, arrived at last 
 in the heart of an ancient forest : " towering 
 moss-clad pillars bearing a heavy roof of 
 foliage, full of the mystery of a cathedral 
 aisle by night." Here the king vowed to 
 build a great temple, but before he could ful- 
 fil his vow he died. Gwennole the monk had 
 missed Gradlon, and had followed him to the 
 forest, to find him there on the morrow, ly- 
 ing on a bed of moss which the fallen leaves 
 had flecked with gold. Near him crouched 
 a human figure. This was Primel the an- 
 chorite. Note how the king speaks to the 
 Christian monk Gwennole concerning this 
 ancient hermit. " Have mercy on this poor 
 old man beside me: the length of three men's 
 lives has been his, and he has known the 
 deeps of sorrow. The sorrows which have 
 come upon me are nothing to his; for while 
 I have wept over the fate of my royal city, 
 and while for Ahez my heart has been 
 broken, this man has lost his gods. There is 
 no sorrow that is so great a sorrow. He is 
 a Druid lamenting a dead faith. Show him 
 tenderness." Therewith Gradlon dies. Over 
 the dead king " Gwennole murmured a Latin 
 
 257
 
 By Sundown Shores 
 
 chant; the drnid in a tremulous voice intoned 
 a refrain in an unknown tongue; and Grad- 
 lon, ruler of the sea, slept in that glade 
 watched over by the priest of Christ and by 
 the last surviving servant of Teutates. . . . 
 There, amid the majestic solitudes of the for- 
 est, the two religions of the ancient race 
 joined hands and were at one before the 
 mystery of death." Later, the druid bids 
 Gwennole build a Christian sanctuary on the 
 spot where " the belated ministrant of a fallen 
 faith " died beside Gradlon Maur, the Great 
 King. One strange touch of bitterness oc- 
 curs. " But," exclaims Gwennole, " if the 
 sanctuary be reared here, we shall invade thy 
 last refuge." " As for me . . . ! " replies 
 the old man; then, after a silence he adds, 
 with a gesture of infinite weariness, " it is 
 my gods who should protect me. Let them 
 save me if they can." The dying druid turns 
 away to seek his long rest under the sacred 
 oaks: "Gwennole, his heart full of a tender 
 love and pity which he could not understand, 
 moved slowly towards the sea." A fitting 
 close to a book full of interest, charm, and 
 spiritual beauty. 
 
 In the third book of St. Adamnan's Life of 
 St. Columha, there is an episode entitled " Of 
 a manifestation of angels meeting the soul of 
 258
 
 By Sundown Shores 
 
 one Emchath." Columba, " making his way 
 beyond the Ridge of Britain (Drum-Alban), 
 near the lake of the river Nisa (Loch Ness), 
 being suddenly inspired by the Holy Spirit, 
 says to the brethren who are journeying with 
 him at that time. Let us make haste to 
 meet the holy angels who, that they may 
 carry away the soul of a certain heathen man, 
 who is keeping the moral law of nature even 
 to extreme old age, have been sent out from 
 the highest regions of heaven, and are wait- 
 ing until we come thither, that we may bap- 
 tize him in time before he dies.' Thereafter 
 the aged saint made as much haste as he 
 could to go in advance of his companions, 
 until he came to the district which is named 
 Airchartdan (Glen Urquhart)." There he 
 found " the holy heathen man," Emchath by 
 name. 
 
 Here, then, is an instance of a Celtic priest 
 in Armorica and of a Celtic priest in Scotland 
 acting identically towards an upright heathen. 
 A large book would be necessary to relate 
 the correspondence between the folk-tales, 
 the traditional romances, and the Christian 
 legends of the four great branches of the 
 Celtic race. 
 
 On the seventh day, when God rested, says a 
 poet of the Gael, He dreamed of the lands and 
 
 259
 
 By Sundown Shores 
 
 nations he had made, and out of that dream- 
 ing were born Ireland and Brittany. Truly, 
 within Christian days, there were more saints, 
 there were more lamps of the spirit lit in 
 that grey peninsula, in that green land, in the 
 little sand-cinctured isle lona, then anywhere 
 betwixt the Syrian deserts and the meads of 
 Glastonbury. It takes nothing from, it adds 
 much to these lands where spiritual ecstasy 
 has longest dreamed, that the old gods have 
 not perished but merge into the brotherhood 
 of Christ's company: that the old faiths, and 
 the ancient spirit, and the pagan soul were 
 not given to the wave for foam, to the pas- 
 tures for idle sand. Ireland and Brittany! 
 Behind the sorrowful songs of longing and 
 regret, behind the faint chime of bells which 
 some day linger as an echo in the towers of 
 Ys where she lies under the wave, are the 
 cries of the tympan and the forgotten music 
 of druidic harps. What song the oaks knew 
 in Broceliande, what song Taliesin heard, 
 what chant Merlin the Wild raised among 
 dim woods in Caledon : these may be lost to 
 us for ever, or live only through our songs 
 and dreams as shadows live in the hollows of 
 the sunrain : but Broceliande and Gethsem- 
 ane are in symbol akin, Taliesin is but an- 
 other name of him who ate the wild honey 
 260
 
 By Sundozvn Shores 
 
 and listened to the wind, and Merlin, with 
 the nuts of wisdom in his hand, stands heark- 
 ening to the same deep murmur of the eter- 
 nal life which "was heard upon the Mount of 
 Olives. 
 
 It has occurred to me often of late, from 
 what I have seen, and read, and heard from 
 others, that the Celtic mythopoeic faculty is 
 still concerning itself largely with an inter- 
 weaving of Pagan and Christian thought, of 
 Pagan and Christian symbol, of the old Pagan 
 tales of a day and of mortal beauty with the 
 Christian symbolic legends that are of no day 
 and are of immortal beauty. 
 
 A fisherman told me the story of Diarmid 
 and Grainne, in the guise of a legend of 
 the Virgin Mary and her Gaelic husband.^ 
 Three years ago, in Appin, an old woman, 
 Jessie Stewart, told me that when Christ 
 was crucified He came back to us as Oisin 
 of the Songs. From a ferryman on Loch 
 Linnhe, near the falls of Lora, a friend heard 
 a confused story of Oisin (confused because 
 the narrator at one moment spoke of Oisin, 
 and at another of " Goll "), how on the day 
 that Christ was crucified Oisin slew his own 
 son, and knew madness, crying that he was 
 but a shadow, and his son a shadow, and that 
 
 ' See lona, p. 209. 
 261
 
 By Sundown Shores 
 
 what he had done was but the shadow of 
 what was being done in that hour '" to the 
 black sorrow of time and the universe {dom- 
 hain)." In this connection, Celtic students 
 will recall the story of Concobar mac Nessa, 
 the High King of Ulster: how on that day 
 he rose suddenly and fled into the woods 
 and hewed down the branches of trees, cry- 
 ing that he slew the multitudes of those who 
 at that moment were doing to death the in- 
 nocent son of a king. 
 
 Out of this confusion may arise a new in- 
 terpretation of certain great symbolic persons 
 and incidents in the old mythology-. As this 
 legendary lore is being swiftly forgotten, it 
 is well that it should be saved to new mean- 
 ings and new beauty, by that mythopoeic fac- 
 ulty which, in the Celtic imagination, is as a 
 wing continually uplifting fallen dreams to 
 the unaging wind of the Spirit. 
 
 262
 
 THE \MXD, SILENCE, AND LOVE 
 
 I know one who, asked bj- a friend desiring 
 more intimate knowledge as to what influ- 
 ences above all other influences had shaped 
 her inward life, answered at once, with that 
 sudden vision of insight which reveals more 
 than the vision of thought, " The Wind, Si- 
 lence, and Love." 
 
 The answer w-as characteristic, for, with 
 her who made it, the influences that shape 
 have always seemed more significant than 
 the things that are shapen. None can know 
 for another the mysteries of spiritual compan- 
 ionship. What is an abstraction to one is a 
 reality to another : what to one has the proved 
 familiar face, to another is illusion. 
 
 I can well understand the one of whom I 
 write. W'ith most of us the shaping influ- 
 ences are the common sweet influences of 
 motherhood and fatherhood, the airs of home, 
 the place and manner of childhood. But 
 these are not for all, and may be adverse, 
 and in some degree absent. Even when a 
 child is fortunate in love and home, it may 
 263
 
 The Wind, Silence, and Love 
 
 be spiritually alien from these: it may dimly 
 discern love rather as a mystery dwelling in 
 sunlight and moonlight, or in the light that 
 lies on quiet meadows, w^oods, quiet shores: 
 may find a more intimate sound of home in 
 the wind whispering in the grass, or when a 
 sighing travels through the wilderness of 
 leaves, or when an unseen wave moans in the 
 pine. 
 
 When we consider, could any influences 
 be deeper than these three elemental powers, 
 for ever young, yet older than age, beautiful 
 immortalities that whisper continually against 
 our mortal ear. The Wind, Silence, and 
 IvOve: yes, I think of them as good comrades, 
 nobly ministrant, priests of the hidden way. 
 
 To go into solitary places, or among trees 
 which await dusk and storm, or by a dark 
 shore; to be a nerve there, to listen to, in- 
 wardly to hear, to be at one with, to be as 
 grass filled with, as reeds shaken by, as a 
 wave lifted before, the wind: this is to know 
 what cannot otherwise be known ; to hear the 
 intimate, dread voice ; to listen to what 
 long, long ago went away, and to what now , 
 is going and coming, coming and going, 
 and to what august airs of sorrow and 
 beauty prevail in that dim empire of sha- 
 dow where the falling leaf rests unfallen, 
 
 264
 
 The Wind, Silence, and Love 
 
 where Sound, of all else forgotten and for- 
 getting, lives in the pale hyacinth, the moon- 
 white pansy, the cloudy amaranth that gathers 
 dew. 
 
 And, in the wood; by the grey stone on the 
 hill; where the heron waits; where the plover 
 wails; on the pillow; in the room filled with 
 flame-warmed twilight; is there any comrade 
 that is as Silence is ? Can she not whisper 
 the white secrecies which words discolour? 
 Can she not say, when we would forget, for- 
 get; when we would remember, remember? 
 Is it not she also who says, Come unto me 
 all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and 
 I will give you rest? Is it not she who has 
 a lute into which all loveliness of sound has 
 passed, so that when she breathes upon it life 
 is audible? Is it not she who will close many 
 doors, and shut away cries and tumults, and 
 will lead you to a green garden and a foun- 
 tain in it, and say, " This is your heart, and 
 that is your soul: listen." 
 
 That third one, is he a Spirit, alone, un- 
 companioned? I think sometimes that these 
 three are one, and that Silence is his inward 
 voice and the Wind the sound of his unweary- 
 ing feet. Does he not come in wind, whether 
 his footfall be on the wild rose, or on the 
 bitter wave, or in the tempest shaken with 
 265
 
 The Wind, Silence, and Love 
 
 noises and rains that are cries and tears, 
 sighs and prayers and tears? 
 
 He has many ways, many hopes, many 
 faces. He bends above those who meet in 
 twilight, above the cradle, above dwellers by 
 the hearth, above the sorrowful, above the 
 joyous children of the sun, above the grave. 
 Must he not be divine, who is worshipped of 
 all men? Does not the wild-dove take the 
 rainbow upon its breast because of him, and 
 the salmon leave the sea for inland pools, 
 and the creeping thing become winged and 
 radiant ? 
 
 The Wind, Silence, and Love: if one can- 
 not learn of these, is there any comradeship 
 that can tell us more, that can more comfort 
 us, that can so inhabit with living light what 
 is waste and barren? 
 
 And, in the hidden hour, one will stoop, 
 and kiss us on the brow, when our sudden 
 stillness will, for others, already be mem- 
 ory. And another will be as an open road, 
 with morning breaking. And the third 
 will meet us, with a light of joy in his eyes; 
 but we shall not see him at first because of 
 the sun-blaze, or hear his words because 
 in that summer air the birds will be multi- 
 tude. 
 
 Meanwhile they are near and intimate. 
 266
 
 The Wind, Silence, and Love 
 
 Their life uplifts us. We cannot forget 
 wholly, nor cease to dream, nor be left un- 
 hoping, nor be without rest, nor go darkly 
 without torches and songs, if these accom- 
 pany us; or we them, for they go one way. 
 
 267
 
 BARABAL 
 
 A MEMORY 
 
 I have spoken in " lona " and elsewhere of 
 the old Highland woman who was my nurse. 
 She was not really old, but to me seemed so, 
 and I have always so thought of her. She 
 was one of the most beautiful and benignant 
 natures I have known. 
 
 I owe her a great debt. In a moment, 
 now, I can see her again, with her pale face 
 and great dark eyes, stooping over my bed, 
 singing " Wae's me for Prince Charlie," or 
 an old Gaelic Lament, or that sad, forgotten, 
 beautiful and mournful air that was played at 
 Fotheringay when the Queen of Scots was 
 done to death, " lest her cries should be 
 heard." Or, later, I can hear her telling me 
 old tales before the fire; or, later still, before 
 the glowing peats in her little island-cottage, 
 speaking of men and women, and strange 
 legends, and stranger dreams and visions. 
 To her, and to an old islander, Seumas Mac- 
 leod, of whom I have elsewhere spoken in 
 268 
 
 4
 
 Barabal 
 
 this volume, I owe more than to any other 
 influences in my childhood. Perhaps it is 
 from her that in part I have my great 
 dislike of towns. There is no smoke in 
 the lark's house, to use one of her fre- 
 quent sayings — one common throughout the 
 west. 
 
 I never knew any one whose speech, whose 
 thought, was so coloured with the old wis- 
 dom and old sayings and old poetry of her 
 race. To me she stands for the Gaelic wo- 
 man, strong, steadfast, true to " her own," her 
 people, her clan, her love, herself. " When 
 you come to love," she said to me once, 
 " keep always to the one you love a mouth of 
 silk and a heart of hemp." 
 
 Her mind was a storehouse of proverbial 
 lore. Had I been older and wiser, I might 
 have learned less fugitively. I cannot attempt 
 to reach adequately even the most character- 
 istic of these proverbial sayings; it would 
 take overlong. Most of them, of course, 
 would be familiar to our proverb-loving peo- 
 ple. But, among others of which I have 
 kept note, I have not anywhere seen the fol- 
 lowing in print. " You could always tell 
 where his thoughts would be . . . pointing 
 one way like the hounds of Finn " (i.e. the 
 two stars of the north, the Pointers): "It's 
 269
 
 Barabal 
 
 a comfort to know there's nothing missing, 
 as the wren said when she counted the 
 stars": "The dog's howl is the stag's 
 laugh "; and again, " I would rather cry with 
 the plover than laugh with the dog " (both 
 meaning that the imprisoned comfort of the 
 towns is not to be compared with the life of 
 the hills, for all its wildness). " True love is 
 like a mountain-tarn ; it may not be deep, but 
 that's deep enough that can hold the sun, 
 moon, and stars " : " It isn't silence where the 
 lark's song ceases": "St. Bride's Flower, 
 St. Bride's Bird, and St. Bride's Gift make a 
 fine spring and a good year." {Am Bearnan 
 Bhrigde, 'us Gille-Bhrigde 'us Lunn-Bata 
 Bhrigde, etc. — the dandelion, the oyster- 
 catcher, and the cradle ^ — because the dande- 
 lion comes with the first south winds and in 
 a sunny spring is seen everywhere, and be- 
 cause in a fine season the oyster-catcher's 
 early breeding-note foretells prosperity with 
 the nets, and because a birth in spring is 
 good luck for child and mother.) " It's 
 easier for most folk to say Lus Bealtainn 
 than La' Bealtainn ": i.e. people can see the 
 
 * It is probably in the isles only that the pretty 
 word Lunn-Bata is used for crd-all (creathall), a 
 cradle. It might best be rendered as boat-on-a- 
 billow, lunn being a heaving billow. 
 270
 
 Barabal 
 
 small things that concern themselves better 
 than the great things that concern the world; 
 literally, " It's easier to say marigold than 
 may-day " — in Gaelic, a close play upon 
 words : " Cuir do lamh leinn," " lend us a 
 hand," as the fox in the ditch said to the 
 duckling on the roadside : " Gum a slan gii'n 
 till thu/ " May you return in health," as 
 the young man said when his conscience 
 left him : " It's only a hand's-turn from 
 eunadair to eunadan" (from the bird-snarer 
 to the cage) : " Saying end is next door to 
 saying eudail," as the girl laughed back to 
 her sweetheart {eud is jealousy and eudail 
 my Treasure) : " The lark doesn't need 
 broggan (shoes) to climb the stairs of the 
 sky." 
 
 Among those which will not be new to 
 some readers, I have note of a rhyme about 
 the stars of the four seasons, and a saying 
 about the three kinds of love, and the four 
 stars of destiny. Wind comes from the 
 spring star, runs the first; heat from the 
 summer star, water from the autumn star, 
 and frost from the winter star. Barabal's 
 variant was " wind (air) from the spring star 
 in the east; fire (heat) from the summer star 
 in the south; water from the autumn star in 
 the west; wisdom, silence and death from the 
 271
 
 Barabal 
 
 star in the north." Both this season-rhyme 
 and that of the three kinds of love are well 
 known. The latter runs: — 
 
 Gaol nam fcar-diolain, mar shruth-lionaidh na mara; 
 Gaol nam fear-fuadain, mar ghaoith tuath 'thig o'n 
 
 charraig; 
 Gaol nam fear-posda, mar luing a' sedladh gu cala. 
 
 Lawless love is as the wild tides of the sea; 
 
 And the roamer's love cruel as the north wind blowing 
 
 from barren rocks; 
 But wedded love is like the ship coming safe home to 
 
 haven. 
 
 I have found these two and many others 
 of BarabaFs sayings and rhymes, except 
 those I have first given, in collections of 
 proverbs and folklore, but do not remember 
 having noted another, though doubtless " The 
 Four Stars of Destiny (or Fate) " will be 
 recalled by some. It ran somewhat as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 Reul Near (Star of the East), Give us kindly birth; 
 Reul Deas (Star of the South), Give us great love; 
 Reul Niar (Star of the West) , Give us quiet age ; 
 Reul Tuath (Star of the North), Give us Death. 
 
 It was from her I first heard of the fami- 
 liar legend of the waiting of Fionn and the 
 Feinn (popularly now Fingal and the Fin- 
 272
 
 Barahal 
 
 galians), " fo-gheasaibh," spellbound, till the 
 day of their return to the living world. In 
 effect the several legends are the same. That 
 which Barabal told was as an isleswoman 
 would more naturally tell it. A man so pure 
 that he could give a woman love and yet let 
 angels fan the flame in his heart, and so in- 
 nocent that his thoughts were white as a 
 child's thoughts, and so brave that none could 
 withstand him, climbed once to the highest 
 mountain in the Isles, where there is a great 
 cave that no one has ever entered. A huge 
 white hound slept at the entrance to the 
 cave. He stepped over it, and it did not 
 wake. He entered, and passed four tall de- 
 mons, with bowed heads and folded arms, 
 one with great wings of red, another with 
 wings of white, another with wings of 
 green, and another with wings of black. 
 They did not uplift their dreadful eyes. 
 Then he saw Fionn and the Feinn sitting in a 
 circle. 
 
 Their long hair trailed on the ground; 
 their eyebrows fell to their beards; their 
 beards lay upon their feet, so that nothing of 
 their bodies was seen but hands like scarped 
 rocks that clasped gigantic swords. Behind 
 them hung an elk-horn with a mouth of gold. 
 He blew this horn, but nothing happened, 
 
 273
 
 Barahat 
 
 except that the huge white hound came in, 
 and went to the hollow place round which the 
 Feinn sat, and in silence ate greedily of 
 treasures of precious stones. He blew the 
 horn again, and Fionn and all the Feinn 
 opened their great, cold, grey, lifeless eyes, 
 and stared upon him ; and for him it was 
 as though he stood at a grave and the dead 
 man in the grave put up strong hands and 
 held his feet, and as though his soul saw 
 Fear. 
 
 But with a mighty eflPort he blew the horn 
 a third time. The Feinn leaned on their 
 elbows, and Fionn said, " Is the end come? " 
 But the man could wait no more, and turned 
 and fled, leaving that ancient mighty com- 
 pany leaning upon its elbow, spellbound 
 thus, waiting for the end. So they shall be 
 found. The four demons fled into the air, 
 and tumultuous winds swung him from that 
 place. He heard the baying of the white 
 hound, and the mountain vanished. He was 
 found lying dead in a pasture in the little is- 
 land that was his home. I recall this here 
 because the legend was plainly in Barabal's 
 mind when her last ill came upon her. In 
 her delirium she cried suddenly, " The 
 Feinn ! The Feinn ! they are coming down 
 the hill!" 
 
 274
 
 Barabal 
 
 " 1 hear the bells of the ewes," she said 
 abruptly, just before the end: so by that we 
 knew she was already upon far pastures, and 
 heard the Shepherd calling upon the sheep 
 to come into the fold. 
 
 275
 
 THE WHITE HERON 
 
 It was in summer, when there is no night 
 among these Northern Isles. The slow, hot 
 days waned through a long after-glow of rose 
 and violet; and when the stars came, it was 
 only to reveal purple depths within depths. 
 
 Mary Macleod walked, barefoot, through 
 the dewy grass, on the long western slope of 
 Innisron, looking idly at the phantom flake 
 of the moon as it hung like a blown moth 
 above the rose-flush of the West. Below it, 
 beyond her, the ocean. It was pale, opal- 
 escent; here shimmering with the hues of the 
 moonbow; here dusked with violet shadow, 
 but, for the most part, pale, opalescent. No 
 wind moved, but a breath arose from the 
 momentary lips of the sea. The cool sigh 
 floated inland, and made a continual faint 
 tremor amid the salt grasses. The skuas 
 and guillemots stirred, and at long intervals 
 screamed. 
 
 The girl stopped, staring seaward. The 
 illimitable, pale, unlifted wave; the hinted 
 dusk of the quiet underwaters; the unfathom- 
 276
 
 The White Heron 
 
 able violet gulfs overhead ;— these silent 
 comrades were not alien to her. Their kin, 
 she was but a moving shadow on an isle; to 
 her, they were the veils of wonder beyond 
 which the soul knows no death, but looks 
 upon the face of Beauty, and upon the eyes 
 of Love, and upon the heart of Peace. 
 
 Amid these silent spaces two dark objects 
 caught the girl's gaze. Flying eastward, a 
 solander trailed a dusky wing across the sky. 
 So high its flight that the first glance saw it 
 as though motionless; yet, .even while Mary 
 looked, the skyfarer waned suddenly, and that 
 which had been was not. The other object 
 had wings too, but was not a bird. A fish- 
 ing-smack lay idly becalmed, her red-brown 
 sail now a patch of warm dusk. Mary knew 
 what boat it was — the Nighcan Dann, out of 
 Fionnaphort in Ithona, the westernmost of 
 the larraidh Isles. 
 
 There was no one visible on board the 
 Nighean Donn, but a boy's voice sang a mo- 
 notonous Gaelic cadence, indescribably sweet 
 as it came, remote and wild as an air out of 
 a dim forgotten world, across the still waters. 
 Mary Macleod knew the song, a strange 
 iorram or boat-song made by Pol the Freck- 
 led, and by him given to his friend Angus 
 Macleod of Ithona. She muttered the words 
 277
 
 The White Heron 
 
 over and over, as the lilt of the boyish voice 
 rose and fell — 
 
 It is not only when the sea is dark and chill and 
 desolate 
 I hear the singing of the queen who lives beneath 
 the ocean: 
 
 Oft have I heard her chanting voice when noon 
 o'erfioods his golden gate, 
 
 Or when the moonshine fills the wave with snow- 
 white mazy motion. 
 
 And some day will it hap to me, when the black 
 waves are leaping, 
 Or when within the breathless green I see her 
 shell-strewn door. 
 That singing voice will lure me where my sea- 
 drown'd love lies sleeping 
 Beneath the slow white hands of her who rules the 
 sunken shore. 
 
 For in my heart I hear the bells that ring their fatal 
 beauty, 
 The wild, remote, uncertain bells that chant their 
 lonely sorrow: 
 The lonely bells of sorrow, the bells of fatal beauty. 
 Oft in my heart I hear the bells, who soon shall 
 know no morrow. 
 
 The slow splashing of oars in the great 
 hollow cavern underneath her feet sent a 
 flush to her face. She knew who was there 
 — that it was the little boat of the Nighean 
 Donn, and that Angus Macleod was in it. 
 278
 
 The White Heron 
 
 She stood among the seeding grasses, in- 
 tent. The cluster of white moon-daisies that 
 reached to her knees was not more pale than 
 her white face; for a white silence was upon 
 Mary Macleod in her dreaming girlhood, as 
 in her later years. 
 
 She shivered once as she listened to An- 
 gus's echoing song, while he secured his boat, 
 and began to climb from ledge to ledge. He 
 too had heard the lad Uille Ban singing as 
 he lay upon a coil of rope, while the smack 
 lay idly on the unmoving waters; and hear- 
 ing, had himself taken up the song — 
 
 For in my heart I hear the bells that ring their fatal 
 beauty. 
 The wild, remote, uncertain bells that chant their 
 lonely sorrow: 
 The lonely bells of sorrow, the bells of fatal beauty. 
 Oft in my heart I hear the bells, who soon shall know 
 no morrow. 
 
 Mary shivered with the vague fear that 
 had come upon her. Had she not dreamed, 
 in the bygone night, that she heard some one 
 in the sea singing that very song — some one 
 with slow, white hands which waved idly 
 above a dead man? A moment ago she had 
 listened to the same song sung by the lad 
 Uille Ban; and now, for the third time, she 
 279
 
 The White Heron 
 
 heard Angus idly chanting it as he rose in- 
 visibly from ledge to ledge of the great 
 cavern below. Three idle songs yet she re- 
 membered that death was but the broken 
 refrain of an idle song. 
 
 When Angus leaped onto the slope and 
 came towards her, she felt her pulse quicken. 
 Tall and fair, he looked fairer and taller than 
 she had ever seen him. The light that was 
 still in the west lingered in his hair, which, 
 yellow as it was, now glistened as with the 
 sheen of bronze. He had left his cap in the 
 boat; and as he crossed swiftly towards her, 
 she realized anew that he deserved the Gaelic 
 name given him by Pol the poet-^Angus the 
 yellow-haired son of Youth. They had never 
 spoken of their love, and now both realised in 
 a flash that no words were needed. At mid- 
 summer noon no one says the sun shines. 
 
 Angus came forward with outreaching 
 hands. "Dear, dear love!" he whispered. 
 " Mhairi mo run, muirnean, mochree! " 
 
 She put her hands in his; she put her lips 
 to his; she put her head to his breast, and 
 listened, all her life throbbing in response to 
 the leaping pulse of the heart that loved 
 her. 
 
 " Dear, dear love! " he whispered again. 
 
 "Angus!" she murmured. 
 280
 
 The White Heron 
 
 They said no more, but moved slowly on- 
 ward, hand in hand. 
 
 The night had their secret. For sure, it 
 was in the low sighing of the deep when the 
 tide put its whispering lips against the sleep- 
 ing sea; it was in the spellbound silences of 
 the isle; it was in the phantasmal light of the 
 stars — the stars of dream, in a sky of dream, 
 in a world of dream. When, an hour — or 
 was it an eternity, or a minute? — later, they 
 turned, she to her home near the clachan of 
 Innisron, he to his boat, a light air had come 
 up on the forehead of the tide. The sail of 
 the Nighcan Donn flapped, a dusky wing in 
 the darkness. The penetrating smell of sea- 
 mist was in the air. 
 
 Mary had only one regret as she turned 
 her face inland, when once the invisibly gath- 
 ering mist hid from her even the blurred 
 semblance of the smack — that she had not 
 asked Angus to sing no more that song of Pol 
 the Freckled, which vaguely she feared, and 
 even hated. She had stood listening to the 
 splashing of the oars, and, later, to the voices 
 of Angus and Uille Ban; and now, coming 
 faintly and to her weirdly through the gloom, 
 she heard her lover's voice chanting the 
 words again. What made him sing that 
 song, in that hour, on this day of all days? 
 281
 
 The IVhite Heron 
 
 For in my heart I hear the bells that ring their fatal 
 beauty, 
 The wild, remote, uncertain bells that chant their 
 lonely sorrow: 
 The lonely bells of sorrow, the bells of fatal beauty, 
 Oft in my heart I hear the bells, who soon shall 
 know no morrow. 
 
 But long before she was back at the peat- 
 fire again she forgot that sad, ha'unting ca- 
 dence, and remembered only his words — the 
 dear words of him whom she loved, as he 
 came towards her, across the dewy grass, with 
 outstretched hands — 
 
 " Dear, dear love ! — Mhairi mo riin, muir- 
 nean, mochree! " 
 
 She saw them in the leaping shadows in 
 the little room; in the red glow that flickered 
 along the fringes of the peats ; in the darkness 
 which, like a sea, drowned the lonely croft. 
 She heard them in the bubble of the meal, 
 as slowly with wooden spurtle she stirred the 
 porridge; she heard them in the rising wind 
 that had come in with the tide; she heard 
 them in the long resurge and multitudinous 
 shingly inrush as the hands of the Atlantic 
 tore at the beaches of Innisron. 
 
 After the smooring of the peats, and when 
 the two old people, the father of her father 
 and his white-haired wife, were asleep, she 
 282
 
 The White Heron 
 
 sat for a long time in the warm darkness. 
 From a cranny in the peat ash a smouldering 
 flame looked out comfortingly. In the girl's 
 heart a great peace was come as well as a 
 great joy. She had dwelled so long with 
 silence that she knew its eloquent secrets; 
 and it was sweet to sit there in the dusk, and 
 listen, and commune with silence, and dream. 
 
 Above the long, deliberate rush of the tidal 
 waters round the piled beaches she could 
 hear a dull, rhythmic beat. It was the screw 
 of some great steamer, churning its way 
 through the darkness ; a stranger, surely, for 
 she knew the times and seasons of every 
 vessel that came near these lonely isles. 
 Sometimes it happened that the Uist or 
 Tiree steamers passed that way; doubtless 
 it was the Tiree boat, or possibly the big 
 steamer that once or twice in the summer 
 fared northward to far-ofif St. Kilda. 
 
 She must have slept, and the sound have 
 passed into her ears as an echo into a shell; 
 for when, with a start, she arose, she still 
 heard the thud-thud of the screw, although 
 the boat had long since passed away. 
 
 It was the cry of a sea-bird which had 
 startled her. Once — twice — the scream had 
 whirled about the house. Mary listened, in- 
 tent. Once more it came, and at the same 
 283
 
 The White Heron 
 
 moment she saw a drift of white press up 
 against the window. 
 
 She sprang to her feet, startled. 
 
 " It is the cry of a heron," she muttered, 
 with dry lips; "but who has heard tell of a 
 white heron? — and the bird there is white as 
 a snow-wreath." 
 
 Some uncontrollable impulse made her hes- 
 itate. She moved to go to the window, to 
 see if the bird w^ere wounded, but she could 
 not. Sobbing with inexplicable fear, she 
 turned and fled, and a moment later was in 
 her own little room. There all her fear 
 passed. Yet she could not sleep for long. 
 If only she could get the sound of that beat- 
 ing screw out of her ears, she thought. But 
 she could not, neither waking nor sleeping; 
 nor the following day ; nor any day thereafter ; 
 and when she died, doubtless she heard the 
 thud-thud of a screw as it churned the dark 
 waters in a night of shrouding mist. 
 
 For on the morrow she learned that the 
 Nighean Doini had been run down in the mist, 
 a mile south of Ithona, by an unknown 
 steamer. The great vessel came out of the 
 darkness, unheeding; unheeding she passed 
 into the darkness again. Perhaps the of^cer 
 in command thought that his vessel had run 
 into some floating wreckage; for there was 
 284
 
 The White Heron 
 
 no cry heard, and no lights had been seen. 
 Later, only one body was found — that of the 
 boy Uille Ban. 
 
 When heartbreaking sorrow comes, there 
 is no room for words. Mary Macleod said 
 little; what, indeed, was there to say? The 
 islanders gave what kindly comfort they 
 could. The old minister, when next he came 
 to Innisron, spoke of the will of God and the 
 Life Eternal. 
 
 Mary bowed her head. What had been, 
 was not: could any words, could any solace, 
 better that? 
 
 " You are young, Mary," said Mr. Mac- 
 donald, when he had prayed with her. " God 
 will not leave you desolate." 
 
 She turned upon him her white face, with 
 her great, brooding, dusky eyes: 
 
 " Will He give me back Angus ? " she said, 
 in her low, still voice, that had the hush in it 
 of lonely places. 
 
 He could not tell her so. 
 
 " It was to be," she said, breaking the long 
 silence that had fallen between them. 
 
 " Ay," the minister answered. 
 
 She looked at him, and then took his hand. 
 " I am thanking you, Mr. Macdonald, for 
 the good words you have put upon my sor- 
 row. But I am not wishing that any more 
 285
 
 The White Heron 
 
 be said to me. I must go now, for I have to 
 see to the milking, an' I hear the poor beasts 
 lowing on the hillside. The old folk too are 
 weary, and I must be getting them their por- 
 ridge." 
 
 After that no one ever heard Mary Mac- 
 leod speak of Angus. She was a good lass, 
 all agreed, and made no moan; and there 
 was no croft tidier than Scaur-a-van, and be- 
 cause of her it was; and she made butter bet- 
 ter than any on Innisron; and in the isles 
 there was no cheese like the Scaur-a-van 
 cheese. 
 
 Had there been any kith or kin of Angus, 
 she would have made them hers. She took 
 the consumptive mother of Uille Ban from 
 Ithona, and kept her safe-havened at Scaur- 
 a-van, till the woman sat up one night in her 
 bed, and cried in a loud voice that Uille Ban 
 was standing by her side and playing a wild 
 air on the strings of her heart, which he had 
 in his hands, and the strings were breaking, 
 she cried. They broke, and Mary envied her, 
 and the whispering joy she would be having 
 with Uille Ban. But Angus had no near kin. 
 Perhaps, she thought, he would miss her the 
 more where he had gone. He had a friend, 
 whom she had never seen. He was a man 
 of lona, and was named Eachain MacEachain 
 286
 
 The White Heron 
 
 Maclean. He and Angus had been boys in 
 the same boat, and sailed thrice to Iceland 
 together, and once to Peterhead, that maybe 
 was as far or further, or perhaps upon the 
 coast-lands further east. Mary knew little 
 geography, though she could steer by the 
 stars. To this friend she wrote, through the 
 minister, to say that if ever he was in trouble 
 he was to come to her. 
 
 It was on the third night after the sinking 
 of the Nighean Bonn that Mary walked alone, 
 beyond the shingle beaches, and where the 
 ledges of trap run darkly into deep water. It 
 was a still night and clear. The lambs and 
 ewes were restless in the moonshine; their 
 bleating filled the upper solitudes. A shoal 
 of mackerel made a sputtering splashing 
 sound beyond the skerries outside the haven. 
 The ebb, sucking at the weedy extremes of 
 the ledges, caused a continuous bubbling 
 sound. There was no stir of air, only a 
 breath upon the sea; but, immeasurably re- 
 mote, frayed clouds, like trailed nets in yel- 
 low gulfs of moonlight, shot flame-shaped 
 tongues into the dark, and seemed to lick 
 the stars as these shook in the wind. " No 
 mist to-night," Mary muttered; then, startled 
 by her own words, repeated, and again re- 
 peated, " There will be no mist to-night." 
 287
 
 The White Heron 
 
 Then she stood as though become stone. 
 Before her, on a solitary rock, a great 
 bird sat. It was a heron. In the moon- 
 shine its plumage glistened white as foam 
 of the sea; white as one of her lambs it 
 was. 
 
 She had never seen, never heard of, a white 
 heron. There was some old Gaelic song — 
 what was it? — no, she could not remember — 
 something about the souls of the dead. The 
 words would not come. 
 
 Slowly she advanced. The heron did not 
 stir. Suddenly she fell upon her knees, and 
 reached out her arms, and her hair fell about 
 her shoulders, and her heart beat against her 
 throat, and the grave gave up its sorrow, and 
 she cried — 
 
 "Oh, Angus, Angus, my beloved! An- 
 gus, Angus, my dear, dear love! " 
 
 She heard nothing, saw nothing, felt noth- 
 ing, knew nothing, till, numbed and weak, 
 she stirred with a cry, for some creeping thing 
 of the sea had crossed her hand. She rose 
 and stared about her. There was nothing to 
 give her fear. The moon rays danced on a 
 glimmering sea-pasture far out upon the 
 water; their lances and javelins flashed and 
 glinted merrily. A dog barked as she crossed 
 the flag-stones at Scaur-a-van, then suddenly 
 288
 
 The White Heron 
 
 began a strange furtive baying. She called, 
 "Luath! Luath!" 
 
 The dog was silent a moment, then threw 
 its head back and howled, abruptly breaking 
 again into a sustained baying. The echo 
 swept from croft to croft, and wakened every 
 dog upon the isle. 
 
 Mary looked back. Slowly circling behind 
 her she saw the white heron. With a cry, 
 she fled into the house. 
 
 For three nights thereafter she saw the 
 white heron. On the third she had no fear. 
 She followed the foam-white bird; and when 
 she could not see it, then she followed its 
 wild, plaintive cry. At dawn she was still at 
 Ardfeulan, on the western side of Innisron; 
 but her arms were round the drowned heart 
 whose pulse she had heard leap so swift in 
 joy, and her lips put a vain warmth against 
 the dear face that was wan as spent foam, 
 and as chill as that. 
 
 Three years after that day Mary saw again 
 the white heron. She was alone now, and she 
 was glad, for she thought Angus had come, 
 and she was ready. 
 
 Yet neither death nor sorrow happened. 
 Thrice, night after night, she saw the white 
 gleam of nocturnal wings, heard the strange 
 bewildering cry, 
 
 289
 
 The White Heron 
 
 It was on the fourth day, when a fierce 
 gale covered the isle with a mist of driving 
 spray. No Innisron boat was outside the 
 haven; for that, all were glad. But in the 
 late afternoon a cry went from mouth to 
 mouth. 
 
 There was a fishing-coble on the skerries! 
 That meant death for all on board, for noth- 
 ing could be done. The moment came 
 soon. A vast drowning billow leaped for- 
 ward, and when the cloud of spray had scat- 
 tered, there was no coble to be seen. Only 
 one man was washed ashore, nigh dead, 
 upon the spar he clung to. His name was 
 Eachain MacEachain, son of a Maclean of 
 lona. 
 
 And that was how Mary Macleod met the 
 friend of Angus, and he a ruined man, and 
 how she put her life to his, and they were 
 made one. 
 
 Her man . . . yes, he was her man, to whom 
 she was loyal and true, and whom she loved 
 right well for many years. But she knew, 
 and he too knew well, that she had wedded 
 one man in her heart, and that no other could 
 take his place there, then or for ever. She 
 had one husband only, but it was not he to 
 whom she was wed, but Angus, the son of 
 Alasdair — him whom she loved with the deep 
 290
 
 The White Heron 
 
 love that surpasseth all wisdom of the world 
 that ever was, or is, or shall be. 
 
 And Eachain her man lived out his years 
 with her, and was content, though he knew 
 that in her silent heart his wife, who loved 
 him well, had only one lover, one dream, one 
 hope, one passion, one remembrance, one 
 husband. 
 
 291
 
 THE SMOOTHING OF THE HAND 
 
 Glad am I that wherever and whenever I 
 listen intently I can hear the looms of Nature 
 weaving Beauty and Music. But some of 
 the most beautiful things are learned other- 
 wise — by hazard, in the Way of Pain, or at 
 the Gate of Sorrow. 
 
 I learned two things on the day when I 
 saw Seumas Mclan dead upon the heather. 
 He of whom I speak was the son of Ian 
 Mclan Alltnalee, but was known throughout 
 the home straths and the countries beyond 
 as Seumas Dhu, Black James, or, to render 
 the subtler meaning implied in this instance, 
 James the Dark One. I had wondered oc- 
 casionally at the designation, because Seu- 
 mas, if not exactly fair, was not dark. But 
 the name was given to him, as I learned 
 later, because, as commonly rumoured, he 
 knew that which he should not have 
 known. 
 
 I had been spending some weeks with Alas- 
 dair Mclan and his wife Silis (who was my 
 foster-sister), at their farm of Ardoch, high 
 292
 
 The Smoothing of the Hand 
 
 in a remote hill country. One night we were 
 sitting before the peats, listening to the wind 
 crying amid the corries, though, ominously 
 as it seemed to us, there was not a breath in 
 the rowan-tree that grew in the sun's way by 
 the house. Silis had been singing, but silence 
 had come upon us. In the warm glow from 
 the fire we saw each other's faces. There 
 the silence lay, strangely still and beautiful, 
 as snow in moonlight. Silis's song was one 
 of the Da)ia Spioradail, known in Gaelic as 
 the Hymn of the Looms. I cannot recall it, 
 nor have I ever heard or in any way encoun- 
 tered it again. 
 
 It had a lovely refrain, I know not whether 
 its own or added by Silis. I have heard her 
 chant it to other runes and songs. Now, 
 when too late, my regret is deep that I did 
 not take from her lips more of those sorrow- 
 ful, strange songs or chants, with their an- 
 cient Celtic melodies, so full of haunting 
 sweet melancholy, which she loved so well. 
 It was with this refrain that, after a long 
 stillness, she startled us that October night. 
 I remember the sudden light in the eyes 
 of Alasdair Mclan, and the beat at my 
 heart, when, like rain in a wood, her 
 voice fell unawares upon us out of the si- 
 lence : 
 
 293
 
 The Smoothing of the Hand 
 
 Oh! oh! ohrone, arone! Oh! oh! mo ghraidh, mo 
 
 chridhe! 
 Oh! oh! mo ghraidh, mo chridhe! ' 
 
 The wail, and the sudden break in the sec- 
 ond Hne, had ahvays upon me an effect of 
 inexpressible pathos. Often that sad wind- 
 song has been in my ears, when I have been 
 thinking of many things that are passed and 
 are passing. 
 
 I know not what made SiHs so abruptly 
 begin to sing, and with that wailing couplet 
 only, or why she lapsed at once into silence 
 again. Indeed, my remembrance of the in- 
 cident at all is due to the circumstance that 
 shortly after Silis had turned her face to the 
 peats again, a knock came to the door, and 
 then Seumas Dhu entered. 
 
 " Why do you sing that lament, Silis, sister 
 of my father? " he asked, after he had seated 
 himself beside me, and spread his thin hands 
 against the peat glow, so that the flame 
 seemed to enter within the flesh. 
 
 Silis turned to her nephew, and looked at 
 him, as I thought, questioningly. But she did 
 not speak. He, too, said nothing more, either 
 forgetful of his question, or content with what 
 
 ' Pronounce mogh-ray, mogh-ree (my heart's 
 delight — lit. my dear one, my heart). 
 294
 
 The Smoothing of the Hand 
 
 he had learned or failed to learn through her 
 silence. 
 
 The wind had come down from the corries 
 before Seumas rose to go. He said he was 
 not returning to Alltnalee, but was going upon 
 the hill, for a big herd of deer had come 
 over the ridge of Mel Mor, Seumas, though 
 skilled in all hill and forest craft, was not a 
 sure shot, as was his kinsman and my host, 
 Alasdair Mclan. 
 
 " You will need help," I remember Alas- 
 dair Ardoch saying mockingly, adding, " Co 
 dhiubh is fhearr let niise their sealladh na 
 faileadh dhiubh f " — that is to say, Whether 
 would you rather me to deprive them of sight 
 or smell? 
 
 This is a familiar saying among the old 
 sportsmen in my country, where it is believed 
 that a few favoured individuals have the 
 power to deprive deer of either sight or 
 smell, as the occasion suggests. 
 
 " Dhuit ciar nan cam! — The gloom of the 
 rocks be upon you ! " replied Seumas, sul- 
 lenly : " mayhap the hour is come when the 
 red stag will sniff at my nostrils." 
 
 With that dark saying he went. None of 
 us saw him again alive. 
 
 Was it a forewarning? I have often won- 
 dered. Or had he sight of the shadow? 
 295
 
 The Smoothing of the Hand 
 
 It was three days after this, and shortly- 
 after sunrise, that, on crossing the south slope 
 of Mel Mor with Alasdair Ardoch, we came 
 suddenly upon the body of Seumas, half sub- 
 merged in a purple billow of heather. It did 
 not, at the moment, occur to me that he was 
 dead. I had not known that his prolonged ab- 
 sence had been noted, or that he had been 
 searched for. As a matter of fact, he must 
 have died immediately before our approach, 
 for his limbs were still loose, and he lay as a 
 sleeper lies. 
 
 Alasdair kneeled and raised his kinsman's 
 head. When it lay upon the purple tussock, 
 the warmth and glow from the sunlit ling 
 gave a fugitive deceptive light to the pale 
 face. I know not whether the sun can have 
 any chemic action upon the dead. But it 
 seemed to me that a dream rose to the face of 
 Seumas, like one of those submarine flowers 
 that are said to rise at times and be visible 
 for a moment in the hollow of a wave. The 
 dream, the light, waned ; and there was a 
 great stillness and white peace where the 
 trouble had been. " It is the Smoothing of 
 the Hand," said Alasdair Mclan, in a hushed 
 voice. 
 
 Often I had heard this lovely phrase in 
 the Western Isles, but always as applied to 
 296
 
 The Smoothing of the Hand 
 
 sleep. When a fretful child suddenly falls 
 into quietude and deep slumber, an isles- 
 woman will say that it is because of the 
 Smoothing of the Hand. It is always a pro- 
 found sleep, and there are some who hold it 
 almost as a sacred thing, and never to be dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 So, thinking only of this, I whispered to 
 my friend to come away; that Seumas was 
 dead weary with hunting upon the hills; that 
 he would awake in due time. 
 
 Mclan looked at me, hesitated, and said 
 nothing. I saw him glance around. A few 
 yards away, beside a great boulder in the 
 heather, a small rowan stood, flickering its 
 feather-like shadows across the white wool of 
 a ewe resting underneath. He moved thither- 
 ward, slowly, plucked a branch heavy with 
 scarlet berries, and then, having returned, 
 laid it across the breast of his kinsman. 
 
 I knew now what was that passing of the 
 trouble in the face of Seumas Dhu, what 
 that sudden light was, that calming of the sea, 
 that inefifable quietude. It was the Smoothing 
 of the Hand. 
 
 297
 
 THE WHITE FEVER 
 
 One night, before the peats, I was told this 
 thing by old Cairstine Macdonald, in the isle 
 of Benbecula. It is in her words that I give it : 
 
 In the spring of the year that my boy Tor- 
 maid died, the moon-daisies were as thick as 
 a woven shroud over the place where Giorsal, 
 the daughter of Ian, the son of Ian MacLeod 
 of Bailie 'n Bad-a-sgailich, slept night and 
 day.^ 
 
 All that March the cormorants screamed, 
 famished. There were few fish in the sea, 
 and no kelp-weed was washed up by the high 
 tides. In the island and in the near isles, 
 ay, and far north through the mainland, the 
 blight lay. Many sickened. I knew young 
 mothers who had no milk. There are green 
 
 1 Bailie 'n Bad-a-sgailich: the Farm of the Sha- 
 dowy Clump of Trees. Cairstine, or Cairistine, is the 
 Gaelic for Christina (for Christian), as Tormaid is 
 for Norman, and Giorsal for Grace. "The quiet 
 havens" is the beautiful island phrase for graves. 
 Here, also, a swift and fatal consumption that falls 
 upon the doomed is called "The White Fever." 
 By "the mainland," Harris and the Lews are meant. 
 298
 
 The White Fever 
 
 mounds in Carnan kirkyard that will be tell- 
 ing you of what this meant. Here and there 
 are little green mounds, each so small that 
 you might cuddle it in your arm under your 
 plaid. 
 
 Tormaid sickened. A bad day was that 
 for him when he came home, weary with the 
 sea, and drenched to the skin, because of a 
 gale that caught him and his mates off Barra 
 Head. When the March winds tore down 
 the Minch, and leaped out from over the 
 Cuchullins, and came west, and lay against our 
 homes, where the peats were sodden and 
 there was little food, the minister told me 
 that my lad would be in the quiet havens be- 
 fore long. This was because of the white 
 fever. It was of that same that Giorsal 
 waned, and went out like a thin flame in sun- 
 light. 
 
 The son of my man (years ago weary no 
 more) said little ever. He ate nothing almost, 
 even of the next to nothing we had. At 
 nights he couldna sleep because of the cough. 
 The coming of May lifted him awhile. I 
 hoped he would see the autumn; and that if 
 he did, and the herring came, and the har- 
 vest was had, and what wi' this and what wi' 
 that, he would forget his Giorsal that lay i' 
 the mools in the quiet place yonder. Maybe 
 299
 
 The White Fever 
 
 then, I thought, the sorrow would go, and 
 take its shadow with it. 
 
 One gloaming he came in with all the white- 
 ness of his wasted body in his face. His 
 heart was out of its shell ; and mine, too, at 
 the sight of him.^ 
 
 This was the season of the hanging of the 
 dog's mouth. 
 
 "What is it, Tormaid-a-ghaolach ? " I 
 asked, with the sob that was in my throat. 
 
 " Thraisg mo chridhe," he muttered (My 
 heart is parched). Then, feeling the ask- 
 ing in my eyes, he said, " I have seen her." 
 
 I knew he meant Giorsal. My heart sank. 
 But I wore my nails into the palms of my 
 hands. Then I said this thing, that is an old 
 saying in the isles : " Those who are in the 
 quiet havens hear neither the wind nor the 
 sea." He was so weak he could not lie down 
 in the bed. He was in the big chair before 
 the peats, with his feet on a claar. 
 
 ' A cochall a' chridhe: his heart out of its shell — a 
 phrase often used to express sudden derangement 
 from any shock. The ensuing phrase means the 
 month from the 15th of July to the 15th of August, 
 Mios crochaidh nan con, so called as it is supposed to 
 be the hottest, if not the most waterless, month in 
 the isles. The word claar, used below, is the name 
 given a small wooden tub, into which the potatoes 
 are turned when boiled. 
 
 300
 
 The W J lite Fever 
 
 When the wind was still I read him the 
 Word. A little warm milk was all he would 
 take. I could hear the blood in his lungs sob- 
 bing like the ebb-tide in the sea-weed. This 
 was the thing that he said to me : 
 
 " She came to me, like a grey mist, beyond 
 the dyke of the green place, near the road. 
 The face of her was grey as a grey dawn, but 
 the voice was hers, though I heard it under a 
 wave, so dull and far was it. And these are 
 her words to me, and mine to her — and the 
 first speaking was mine, for the silence wore 
 me: 
 
 Am bheil thu' falbh, 
 O mo ghraidh? 
 B'idh mi falbh, 
 Muirnean! 
 
 C'uin a thilleas tu, 
 O mo ghraidh? 
 
 Cha till vni an rathad so; 
 Tha an't ait e cumhann — 
 
 O Muirnean, Muirnean! 
 B'idh mi falbh an drugh 
 Am tigh Pharais, 
 
 Muirnean! 
 
 Seol dhomh an rathad, 
 Mo ghraidh! 
 
 Thig an so, Miiirnean-mo, 
 Thig an so!
 
 The White Fever 
 
 Are you going, 
 My dear one? 
 
 Yea, now I am going. 
 Dearest. 
 
 When will you come again, 
 My dear one? 
 / will not return this way; 
 The place is narrow — 
 
 O my Darling! 
 I will be going to Paradise, 
 
 Dear, my dear one! 
 
 Show me the way, 
 Heart of my heart ! 
 Com.e hither, dearest, come hither. 
 Come with me! 
 
 " And then I saw that it was a mist, and 
 that I was alone. But now this night it is 
 that I feel the breath on the soles of my 
 feet." 
 
 And with that I knew there was no hope, 
 "Ma tha si)i an dan! ... if that be or- 
 dained," was all that rose to my lips. It was 
 that night he died. I fell asleep in the second 
 hour. When I woke in the grey dawn, his 
 face was greyer than that, and more cold. 
 
 302
 
 THE SEA-MADNESS 
 
 I know a man who keeps a little store in a 
 village by one of the lochs of Argyll. He is 
 about fifty, is insignificant, commonplace, in 
 his interests parochial, and on Sundays pain- 
 ful to see in his sleek respectability. He lives 
 within sight of the green and grey waters, 
 above which great mountains stand ; across 
 the kyle is a fair wilderness ; but to my 
 knowledge he never for pleasure goes upon 
 the hills, nor stands by the shore, unless it be 
 of a Saturday night to watch the herring-boats 
 come in, or on a Sabbath afternoon when he 
 has word with a friend. 
 
 Yet this man is one of the strangest men I 
 have met or am like to meet. From himself 
 I have never heard word but the commonest, 
 and that in a manner somewhat servile. I 
 know his one intimate friend, however. At 
 intervals (sometimes of two or three years, 
 latterly each year for three years in succes- 
 sion) this village chandler forgets, and is sud- 
 denly become what he was, or what some an- 
 cestor was, in unremembered days, 
 
 303
 
 The Sea-Madness 
 
 For a day or two he is listless, in a still 
 sadness; speaking, when he has to speak, in 
 a low voice; and often looking about him 
 with sidelong eyes. Then one day he will 
 leave his counter and go to the shed behind 
 his shop, and stand for a time frowning and 
 whispering, or perhaps staring idly, and then 
 go bareheaded up the hillside, and along tan- 
 gled ways of bog and heather, and be seen no 
 more for weeks. 
 
 He goes down through the wilderness lo- 
 cally called The Broken Rocks. When he is 
 there, he is a strong man, leaping like a goat 
 — swift and furtive. At times he strips him- 
 self bare, and sits on a rock staring at the 
 sun. Oftenest he walks along the shore, or 
 goes stumbling among weedy boulders, call- 
 ing loudly upon the sea. His friend, of whom 
 I have spoken, told me that he had again and 
 again seen Anndra stoop and lift handfuls 
 out of the running wave and throw the water 
 above his head while he screamed or shouted 
 strange Gaelic words, some incoherent, some 
 old as the grey rocks. Once he was seen strid- 
 ing into the sea, batting it with his hands, 
 smiting the tide-swell, and defying it and de- 
 riding it, with stifled laughters that gave way 
 to cries and sobs of broken hate and love. 
 
 He sang songs to it. He threw bracken, 
 
 304
 
 The Sea-Madness 
 
 and branches, and stones at it, cursing: then 
 falling on his knees would pray, and lift the 
 water to his lips, and put it on his head. He 
 loved the sea as a man loves a woman. It was 
 his light o' love : his love : his God. Than that 
 desire of his I have not heard of any more 
 terrible. To love the wind and the salt wave, 
 and be for ever mocked of the one and baffled 
 of the other ; to lift a heart of flame, and have 
 the bleak air quench it; to stoop, whispering, 
 and kiss the wave, and have its saltness sting 
 the lips and blind the eyes : this indeed is to 
 know that bitter thing of which so many have 
 died after tears, broken hearts, and madness. 
 
 His friend, whom I will call Neil, once 
 came upon him when he was in dread. Neil 
 was in a boat, and had sailed close inshore on 
 the flow. Anndra saw him, and screamed. 
 
 " I know who you are ! Keep away ! " he 
 cried. " Fear faire na liaon siila — I know 
 you for the One-Eyed Watcher ! " 
 
 Then, said Neil, " the salt wave went out 
 of his eyes and he knew me, and fell on his 
 knees, and wept, and said he was dying of an 
 old broken love. And with that he ran down 
 to the shore, and lifted a palmful of water to 
 his lips, so that for a moment foam hung 
 upon his tangled beard, and called out to his 
 love, and was sore bitter upon her, and then
 
 The Sea-Madness 
 
 up and laughed and scrambled out of sight, 
 though I heard him crying among the rocks." 
 
 I asked Neil who the One-Eyed Watcher 
 was. He said he was a man who had never 
 died and never lived. He had only one eye, 
 but that could see through anything except 
 grey granite, the grey crow's egg, and the 
 grey wave that swims at the bottom. He 
 could see the dead in the water, and watched 
 for them : he could see those on the land who 
 came down near the sea, if they had death on 
 them. On these he had no pity. But he was 
 unseen except at dusk and in the grey dawn. 
 He came out of a grave. He was not a man, 
 but he lived upon the deaths of men. It was 
 worse to be alive, and see him, than to be 
 dead and at his feet. 
 
 When the man Anndra's madness went 
 away from him — sometimes in a week or two 
 weeks, sometimes not for three weeks or 
 more — he would come back across the hill. 
 In the dark he would slip down through the 
 bracken and bog-myrtle, and wait a while 
 among the ragged fuchsias at the dyke of his 
 potato-patch. Then he would creep in at the 
 window of his room, or perhaps lift the door- 
 latch and go quietly to his bed. Once Neil was 
 there when he returned. Neil was speaking 
 to Anndra's sister, who kept house for the 
 306
 
 The Sea-Madness 
 
 poor man. They heard a noise, and the sud- 
 den flurried clucking of hens. 
 
 " It's Anndra," said the woman, with a 
 catch in her throat; and they sat in silence, 
 till the door opened. He had been away five 
 weeks, and hair and beard were matted, and 
 his face was death-white ; but he had already 
 slipped into his habitual clothes, and looked 
 the quiet respectable man he was. The two 
 who were waiting for him did not speak. 
 
 " It's a fine night," he said ; " it's a fine 
 night, an' no wind. — Marget, it's time we had 
 in mair o' thae round cheeses fra Inverary." 
 
 307
 
 EARTH, FIRE, AND WATER 
 
 In " The Sea-Madness " I have told of a 
 man — a quiet dull man, a chandler of a little 
 Argyll loch-town — who, at times, left his 
 counter, and small canny ways, and went out 
 into a rocky wilderness, and became mad with 
 the sea. I have heard of many afflicted in 
 some such wise, and have known one or two. 
 
 In a tale written a few years ago, " The 
 Ninth Wave," I wrote of one whom I knew, 
 one Ivor MacNeill, or " Carminish," so called 
 because of his farm between the hills Strond- 
 eval and Rondeval, near the Obb of Harris 
 in the Outer Hebrides. This man heard the 
 secret calling of the ninth wave. None may 
 hear that, when there is no wave on the sea, 
 or when perhaps he is inland, and not follow. 
 That following is always to the ending of all 
 following. For a long while Carminish put 
 his fate from him. He went to other isles : 
 wherever he went he heard the call of the sea. 
 " Come," it cried, " come, come away ! " He 
 passed at last to a kinsman's croft on Aird- 
 Vanish in the island of Taransay. He was 
 308
 
 Earth, Fire, and Water 
 
 not free there. He stopped at a place where 
 he had no kin, and no memories, and at 
 a hidden, quiet farm. This was at Eilean 
 Mhealastaidh, which is under the morning 
 shadow of Griomabhal on the mainland. His 
 nights there were a sleepless dread. He 
 went to other places. The sea called. He 
 went at last to his cousin Eachainn Mac- 
 Eachainn's bothy, near Callernish in the 
 Lews, where the Druid Stones stand by the 
 shore and hear nothing for ever but the noise 
 of the waves and the cry of the sea-wind. 
 There, weary in hope, he found peace at last. 
 He slept, and none called upon him. He be- 
 gan to smile, and to hope. 
 
 One night the two were at the porridge, 
 and Eachainn was muttering his Bui 'cheas 
 dha 'n Ti, the Thanks to the Being, when 
 Carminish leaped to his feet, and with a 
 white face stood shaking like a rope in the 
 wind. 
 
 In the grey dawn they found his body, stiff 
 and salt with the ooze. 
 
 I did not know, but I have heard of another 
 who had a like tragic end. Some say he was 
 witless. Others, that he had the Friday-Fate 
 upon him. I do not know what evil he had 
 done, but " some one " had met him and said 
 to him " Bidh ruith na h'Aoin' ort am 
 
 309
 
 Earth, Fire, and Water 
 
 Feasda," " The Friday-Fate will follow you 
 for ever." So it was said. But I was told 
 this of him : that he had been well and strong 
 and happy, and did not know he had a terrible 
 gift, that some have who are born by the sea. 
 It is not well to be born on a Friday night, 
 within sound of the sea ; or on certain days. 
 This gift is the " Eblas na h'Aoine," the 
 Friday-Spell. He who has this gift must 
 not look upon any other while bathing: if he 
 does, that swimmer must drown. This man, 
 whom I will call Finlay, had this eolas. Three 
 times the evil happened. But the third time 
 he knew what he did : the man who swam in 
 the sunlight loved the same woman as Finlay 
 loved ; so he stood on the shore, and looked, 
 and laughed. When the body was brought 
 home, the woman struck Finlay in the face. 
 He grew strange after a time, and at last wit- 
 less. A year later it was a cold February. 
 Finlay went to and fro singing an old Febru- 
 ary rhyme beginning: 
 
 Feadag, Feadag, mathair Faoillich fhuair! 
 
 (Plover, plover, Mother of the bleak Month.) 
 He was watching a man ploughing. Sud- 
 denly he threw down his cromak. He leaped 
 over a dyke, and ran to the shore, calling, 
 310
 
 Earth, Fire, and Water 
 
 "I'm coming! I'm coming! Don't pull me 
 — I'm coming!" He fell upon the rocks, 
 which had a blue bloom on them like fruit, 
 for they were covered with mussels; and he 
 was torn, so that his hands and face were 
 streaming red. "I am your red, red love," he 
 cried, " sweetheart, my love " ; and with that 
 he threw himself into the sea. 
 
 More often the sea-call is not a madness, 
 but an inward voice. I have been told of a 
 man who was a farmer in Carrick of Ayr. 
 He left wife and home because of the calling 
 of the sea. But when he was again in the 
 far isles, where he had lived formerly, he 
 was well once more. Another man heard the 
 sobbing of the tide among seaweed whenever 
 he dug in his garden; and gave up all, and 
 even the woman he loved, and left. She won 
 him back, by her love; but on the night be- 
 fore their marriage, in that inland place where 
 her farm was, he slipt away and was not seen 
 again. Again, there was the man of whom I 
 have spoken in " lona," who went to the 
 mainland, but could not see to plough because 
 the brown fallows became waves that 
 splashed noisily about him : and how he went 
 to Canada and got work in a great ware- 
 house, but among the bales of merchandise 
 heard continually the singular note of the 
 
 311
 
 Earth, Fire, and Water 
 
 sandpiper, while every hour the sea-fowl con- 
 fused him with their crying. 
 
 I have myself in lesser degree, known this 
 irresistible longing. I am not fond of towns, 
 but some years ago I had to spend a winter in 
 a great city. It was all-important to me not to 
 leave during January ; and in one way I was 
 not ill-pleased, for it was a wild winter. But 
 one night I woke, hearing a rushing sound in 
 the street — the sound of water. I would have 
 thought no more of it, had I not recognised 
 the troubled noise of the tide, and the suck- 
 ing and lapsing of the flow in weedy hollows. 
 I rose and looked out. It was moonlight, and 
 there was no water. When, after sleepless 
 hours, I rose in the grey morning I heard the 
 splash of waves. All that day and the next 
 I heard the continual noise of waves. I 
 could not write or read ; at last I could not 
 rest. On the afternoon of the third day the 
 waves dashed up against the house. I said 
 what I could to my friends, and left by the 
 night train. In the morning we (for a kins- 
 woman was with me) stood on Greenock Pier 
 waiting for the Hebriedean steamer, the 
 Clansman, and before long were landed on an 
 island, almost the nearest we could reach, and 
 one that I loved well. We had to be landed 
 some miles from the place I wanted to go to, 
 312
 
 Earth, Fire, and Water 
 
 and it was a long and cold journey. The 
 innumerable little waterfalls hung in icicles 
 among the mosses, ferns, and white birches 
 on the roadsides. Before we reached our des- 
 tination, we. saw a wonderful sight. From 
 three great mountains, their flanks flushed 
 with faint rose, their peaks white and sol- 
 emn, vast columns of white smoke ascended. 
 It was as though volcanic fires had once again 
 broken their long stillness. Then we saw 
 what it was: the north wind (unheard, unfelt, 
 where we stood) blew a hurricane against 
 the other side of the peaks, and, striking upon 
 the leagues of hard snow, drove it upward 
 like smoke, till the columns rose gigantic and 
 hung between the silence of the white peaks 
 and the silence of the stars. 
 
 That night, with the sea breaking less than 
 a score yards from where I lay, I slept, 
 though for three nights I had not been able 
 to sleep. When I woke, my trouble was 
 gone. 
 
 It was but a reminder to me. But to others 
 it is more than that. 
 
 I remember that winter for another thing, 
 which I may write of here. 
 
 From the fisherman's wife with whom I 
 lodged I learned that her daughter had re- 
 cently borne a son, but was now up and about 
 
 313
 
 Earth, Fire, and Water 
 
 again, though for the first time, that morning. 
 We went to her, about noon. She was not 
 in the house. A small cabbage-garden lay be- 
 hind, and beyond it the mossy edge of a wood 
 of rowans and birches broke steeply in 
 bracken and lonroid. The girl was there, and 
 had taken the child from her breast, and, 
 kneeling, was touching the earth with the 
 small lint-white head. 
 
 I asked her what she was doing. She said 
 it was the right thing to do ; that as soon as 
 possible after a child was born, the mother 
 should take it — and best, at noon, and facing 
 the sun — and touch its brow to the earth. 
 My friends (like many islanders of the Inner 
 Hebrides, they had no Gaelic) used an un- 
 famihar phrase : " It's the old Mothering." It 
 was, in truth, the sacrament of Our Mother, 
 but in a far, ancient sense. I do not doubt 
 the rite is among the most primitive of those 
 practised by the Celtic peoples. 
 
 I have not seen it elsewhere, though I have 
 heard of it. Probably it is often practised yet 
 in remote places. Even where we were, the 
 women were somewhat fearful lest " the 
 minister " heard of what the young mother 
 had done. They do not love these beautiful 
 symbolic actions, these " ministers," to whom 
 they are superstitions. This old, pagan, sac- 
 
 314
 
 Earth, Fire, and Water 
 
 ramental earth-rite is, certainly, beautiful. 
 How could one better be blessed, on coming 
 into life, than to have the kiss of that an- 
 cient Mother of whom we are all children? 
 There must be wisdom in that first touch. I 
 do not doubt that behind the symbol lies, at 
 times, the old miraculous communication. 
 For, even in this late day, some of us are 
 born with remembrance, with dumb worship, 
 with intimate and uplifting kinship to that 
 Mother. 
 
 Since then I have asked often, in many 
 parts of the Highlands and Islands, for what 
 is known of this rite, when and where prac- 
 tised, and what meanings it bears; and some 
 day I hope to put these notes on record. I 
 am convinced that the Earth-Blessing is more 
 ancient than the westward migration of the 
 Celtic peoples. 
 
 I have both read and heard of another 
 custom, though I have not known of it at 
 first-hand. The last time I was told of it 
 was of a crofter and his wife in North Uist. 
 The once general custom is remembered in 
 a familiar Gaelic saying, the English of 
 which is, " He got a turn through the smoke." 
 After baptism, a child was taken from the 
 breast, and handed by its mother (sometimes 
 the child was placed in a basket) to the 
 
 315
 
 Earth, Fire, and IVater 
 
 father, across the fire. I do not think, but 
 am not sure, if any signal meaning He in the 
 mother handing the child to the father. When 
 the rite is spoken of, as often as not it is only 
 " the parents " that the speaker alludes to. 
 The rite is universally recognised as a spell 
 against the dominion, or agency, of evil 
 spirits. In Coll and Tiree, it is to keep the 
 Hidden People from touching or singing to 
 the child. I think it is an ancient propitiatory 
 rite, akin to that which made our ancestors 
 touch the new-born to earth; as that which 
 makes some islanders still baptize a child with 
 a little spray from the running wave, or a 
 fingerful of water from the tide at the flow; 
 as that which made an old woman lift me as 
 a little child and hold me up to the south 
 wind, " to make me strong and fair and al- 
 ways young, and to keep back death and sor- 
 row, and to keep me safe from other winds 
 and evil spirits." Old Barabal has gone 
 where the south wind blows, in blossom and 
 flowers and green leaves, across the pastures 
 of Death ; and I . . . alas, I can but wish that 
 One stronger than she, for all her love, will 
 lift me, as a child again, to the Wind, and 
 pass me across the Fire, and set me down 
 again upon a new Earth. 
 
 316
 
 FROM ''GREEN FIRE"
 
 Be not troubled in the inward Hope. It lives in 
 beauty, and the hand of God slowly wakens it year by 
 year, and through the many ways of Sorrow. It is an 
 
 Immortal, and its name is Joy. 
 
 P.M. 
 
 318
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 On the night when Alan Carmichael with 
 his old servant and friend, Ian M'lan, arrived 
 in Balnaree (" Baile'-na-Righ "), the little 
 village wherein was all that Borosay had to 
 boast of in the way of civic life, he could not 
 disguise from himself that he was regarded 
 askance. 
 
 Rightly or wrongly, he took this to be re- 
 sentment because of his having wed (alas, he 
 recalled, wed and lost) the daughter of the 
 man who had killed Ailean Carmichael in a 
 duel. So possessed was he by this idea, that 
 he did not remember how little likely the 
 islanders were to know anything of him or his 
 beyond the fact that Ailean MacAlasdair 
 Rhona had died abroad. 
 
 The trouble became more than an imagi- 
 nary one when, on the morrow, he tried to 
 find a boat for the passage to Rona. But for 
 the Frozen Hand, as the triple-peaked hill 
 to the south of Balnaree was called, Rona 
 
 319
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 would have been visible; nor was it, with 
 a fair wind, more than an hour's sail dis- 
 tant. 
 
 Nevertheless, he could detect in every one 
 to whom he spoke a strange reluctance. At 
 last he asked an old man of his own surname 
 why there was so much difficulty. 
 
 In the island way, Seumas Carmichael re- 
 plied that the people on Elleray, the island 
 adjacent to Rona, were unfriendly. 
 
 "But unfriendly at what?" 
 
 " Well, at this and at that. But for one 
 thing, they are not having any dealings with 
 the Carmichaels. They are all Macneills 
 there, Macneills of Barra. There is a feud, 
 I am thinking ; though I know nothing of it ; 
 no, not I." 
 
 " But Seumas mac Eachainn, you know 
 well yourself that there are almost no Car- 
 michaels to have a feud with ! There are you 
 and your brother, and there is your cousin 
 over at Sgorr-Bhan on the other side of Boro- 
 say. Who else is there ? " 
 
 To this the man could say nothing. Dis- 
 tressed, Alan sought Ian and bade him find 
 out what he could. He also was puzzled and 
 uneasy. That some evil was at work could 
 not be doubted, and that it was secret 
 boded ill. 
 
 320
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 Ian was a stranger in Borosay because of 
 his absence since boyhood ; but, after all, Ian 
 mac Iain mhic Dhonuill was to the islanders 
 one of themselves; and though he came there 
 with a man under a shadow (though this 
 phrase was not used in lan's hearing), that 
 was not his fault. 
 
 And when he reminded them that for these 
 many years he had not seen the old woman, 
 his sister Giorsal ; and spoke of her, and of 
 their long separation, and of his wish to see 
 her again before he died, there was no more 
 hesitation, but only kindly willingness to 
 help. 
 
 Within an hour a boat was ready to take 
 the homefarers to the Isle of Caves, as Rona 
 is sometimes called. Before the hour was 
 gone, they, with the stores of food and other 
 things, were slipping seaward out of Boro- 
 say Haven. 
 
 The moment the headland was rounded, 
 the heights of Rona came into view. Great 
 gaunt cliffs they are, precipices of black ba- 
 salt; though on the south side they fall away 
 in grassy declivities which hang a greenness 
 over the wandering wave for ever sobbing 
 round that desolate shore. But it was not till 
 the Sgorr-Dhu, a conical black rock at the 
 south-east end of the island, was reached, that 
 321
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 the stone keep, known as Caisteal-Rhona, 
 came in sight. 
 
 It stands at the landward extreme of a 
 rocky ledge, on the margin of a green airidh. 
 Westward is a small dark-blue sea loch, no 
 more than a narrow haven. To the north- 
 west rise precipitous cliffs ; northward, above 
 the green pasture and a stretch of heather, is a 
 woodland belt of some three or four hun- 
 dred pine-trees. It well deserves its poetic 
 name of I-monair, as Aodh the Islander sang 
 of it ; for it echoes ceaselessly with wind and 
 wave. If the waves dash against it from the 
 south or east, a loud crying is upon the faces 
 of the rocks ; if from the north or north-east, 
 there are unexpected inland silences, but 
 amid the pines a continual voice. It is when 
 the wind blows from the south-west, or the 
 huge Atlantic billows surge out of the west, 
 that Rona is given over to an indescribable tu- 
 mult. Through the whole island goes the 
 myriad echo of a continuous booming; and 
 within this a sound as though waters were 
 pouring through vast hidden conduits in the 
 heart of every precipice, every rock, every 
 boulder. This is because of the sea-arcades 
 of which it consists, for from the westward 
 the island has been honeycombed by the 
 waves. No living man has ever traversed all 
 322
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 those mysterious, winding sea-galleries. Many 
 have perished in the attempt. In the olden 
 days the Uisteans and Harrovians sought 
 refuge there from the marauding Danes and 
 other pirates out of Lochlin; and in the time 
 when the last Scottish king took shelter in the 
 west, many of his island followers found 
 safety among these perilous arcades. 
 
 Some of them reach an immense height. 
 These are filled with a pale green gloom which 
 in fine weather, and at noon or toward sun- 
 down, becomes almost radiant. But most have 
 only a dusky green obscurity, and some are 
 at all times dark with a darkness that has seen 
 neither sun nor moon nor star for unknown 
 ages. Sometimes, there, a phosphorescent 
 wave will spill a livid or a cold blue flame, 
 and for a moment a vast gulf of dripping 
 basalt be revealed; but day and night, night 
 and day, from year to year, from age to age, 
 that awful wave-clamant darkness is un- 
 broken. 
 
 To the few who know some of the secrets 
 of the passages, it is possible, except when a 
 gale blows from any quarter but the north, 
 to thread these dim arcades in a narrow boat, 
 and so to pass from the Hebrid Seas to the 
 outer Atlantic. But for the unwary there 
 might well be no return; for in that maze 
 
 323
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 of winding galleries and sea-washed, shadowy- 
 arcades, confusion is but another name for 
 death. Once bewildered, there is no hope ; 
 and the lost adventurer will remain there 
 idly drifting from barren passage to passage, 
 till he perish of hunger and thirst, or, 
 maddened by the strange and appalling 
 gloom and the unbroken silence — for there 
 the muffled voice of the sea is no more 
 than a whisper — leap into the green waters 
 which for ever slide stealthily from ledge to 
 ledge. 
 
 Now, as Alan approached his remote home, 
 he thought of these death-haunted corridors, 
 avenues of the grave, as they are called in 
 the " Cumha Fhir-Mearanach Aonghas mhic 
 Dhonuill " — the Lament of mad Angus Mac- 
 donald. 
 
 When at last the unwieldy brown coble 
 sailed into the little haven, it was to create 
 unwonted excitement among the few fisher- 
 men who put in there frequently for bait. A 
 group of eight or ten was upon the rocky 
 ledge beyond Caisteal-Rhona, among them 
 the elderly woman who was sister to Ian mac 
 Iain. 
 
 At Alan's request, Ian went ashore in ad- 
 vance in a small punt. He was to wave his 
 hand if all were well, for Alan could not 
 
 324
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 but feel apprehensive on account of the 
 strange ill-will that had shown itself at 
 Borosay. 
 
 It was with relief that he saw the signal 
 when, after Ian had embraced his sister, and 
 shaken hands with all the fishermen, he had 
 explained that the son of Ailean Carmichael 
 was come out of the south, and had come to 
 live a while at Caisteal-Rhona. 
 
 'All there uncovered and waved their hats. 
 Then a shout of welcome went up, and Alan's 
 heart was glad. But the moment he had set 
 foot on land he saw a startled look come into 
 the eyes of the fishermen — a look that deep- 
 ened swiftly into one of aversion, almost of 
 fear. 
 
 One by one the men moved away, awkward 
 in their embarrassment. Not one came for- 
 ward with outstretched hand, or said a word 
 of welcome. 
 
 At first amazed, then indignant, Ian re- 
 proached them. They received his words in 
 shamed silence. Even when with a bitter 
 tongue he taunted them, they answered 
 nothing. 
 
 " Giorsal," said Ian, turning in despair to 
 his sister, " is it madness that you have ? " 
 
 But even she was no longer the same. Her 
 eyes were fixed upon Alan with a look of 
 
 325
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 dread, and indeed of horror. It was unmis- 
 takable, and Alan himself was conscious of 
 it with a strange sinking of the heart. " Speak, 
 woman ! " he demanded. " What is the 
 meaning of this thing? Why do you and 
 these men look at me askance ? " 
 
 " God forbid ! " answered Giorsal Macdon- 
 ald with white lips ; " God forbid that we look 
 at the son of Ailean Carmichael askance. 
 But " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 With that the woman put her apron over 
 her head and moved away, muttering strange 
 words. 
 
 " Ian, what is this mystery ? " 
 
 " How am I for knowing, Alan mac 
 Ailean? It is all a darkness to me also. But 
 I will be finding that out soon." 
 
 That, however, was easier for Ian to say 
 than to do. Meanwhile, the brown coble 
 tacked back to Borosay, and the fisherman 
 sailed away to the Barra coasts, and Alan and 
 Ian were left solitary in their wild and re- 
 mote home. 
 
 But in that very solitude Alan found heal- 
 ing. From what Giorsal hinted, he came to 
 believe that the fishermen had experienced 
 one of those strange dream-waves which, in 
 remote isles, occur at times, when whole 
 326
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 communities will be wrought by the self- 
 same fantasy. When day by day went past, 
 and no one came near, he at first was puz- 
 zled, and even resentful ; but this passed, and 
 soon he was glad to be alone. Ian, however, 
 knew that there was another cause for the 
 inexplicable aversion that had been shown. 
 But he was silent, and kept a patient watch 
 for the hour that the future held in its 
 shroud. As for Giorsal, she was dumb; but 
 no more looked at Alan askance. 
 
 And so the weeks went. Occasionally a 
 fishing smack came with the provisions, for 
 the weekly despatch of which Alan had ar- 
 ranged at Loch Boisdale, and sometimes the 
 Barra men put in at the haven, though they 
 would never stay long, and always avoided 
 Alan as much as was possible. 
 
 In that time Alan and Ian came to know 
 and love their strangely beautiful island 
 home. Hours and hours at a time they 
 spent exploring the dim, green, winding 
 sea-galleries, till at last they knew the chief 
 arcades thoroughly. 
 
 They had even ventured into some of the 
 narrow, snake-like inner passages, but never 
 for long, because of the awe and dread these 
 held, silent estuaries of the grave. 
 
 Week after week passed, and to Alan it 
 
 327
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 was as the going of the grey owl's wing, swift 
 and silent. 
 
 Then it was that, on a day of the days, he 
 was suddenly stricken with a new and start- 
 ling dread. 
 
 II 
 
 In the hour that this terror came upon 
 him Alan was alone upon the high slopes of 
 Rona, where the grass fails and the lichen 
 yellows at close on a thousand feet above the 
 sea. 
 
 The day had been cloudless since sunrise. 
 The sea was as the single vast petal of an 
 azure flower, all of one unbroken blue save 
 for the shadows of the scattered isles and the 
 slow-drifting mauve or purple of floating 
 weed. Countless birds congregated from 
 every quarter. Guillemots and puffins, cor- 
 morants and northern divers, everywhere 
 darted, swam, or slept upon the listless ocean, 
 whose deep breathing no more than lifted a 
 league-long calm here and there, to lapse 
 breathlike as it rose. Through the not less 
 silent quietudes of air the grey skuas swept 
 with curving flight, and the narrow-winged 
 terns made a constant white shimmer. At re- 
 
 328
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 mote altitudes the gannet motionlessly drifted. 
 Oceanward the great widths of calm were rent 
 now and again by the shoulders of the por- 
 poises which followed the herring trail, their 
 huge, black, revolving bodies looming large 
 above the silent wave. Not a boat was visible 
 anywhere; not even upon the most distant 
 horizons did a brown sail fleck itself duskily 
 against the skyward wall of steely blue. 
 
 In the great stillness which prevailed, the 
 noise of the surf beating around the promon- 
 tory of Aonaig was audible as a whisper; 
 though even in that windless hour the con- 
 fused rumour of the sea, moving through 
 the arcades of the island, filled the hollow of 
 the air overhead. Ever since the early morn- 
 ing Alan had moved under a strange gloom. 
 Out of that golden glory of midsummer a 
 breath of joyous life should have reached his 
 heart, but it was not so. For sure, there is 
 sometimes in the quiet beauty of summer an 
 air of menace, a premonition of suspended 
 force — a force antagonistic and terrible. All 
 who have lived in these lonely isles know the 
 peculiar intensity of this summer melancholy. 
 No noise of wind, no prolonged season of un- 
 timely rains, no long baffling of mists in all 
 the drear inclemencies of that remote region, 
 can produce the same ominous and even para- 
 
 329
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 lysing gloom sometimes born of ineffable 
 peace and beauty. Is it that in the human 
 soul there is mysterious kinship with the 
 outer soul which we call Nature; and 
 that in these few supreme hours which 
 come at the full of the year, we are, some- 
 times, suddenly aware of the tremendous 
 forces beneath and behind us, momently quies- 
 cent ? 
 
 Determined to shake off this dejection, 
 Alan wandered high among the upland soli- 
 tudes. There a cool air moved always, even 
 in the noons of August; and there, indeed, 
 often had come upon him a deep peace. But 
 whatsover the reason, only a deeper despond- 
 ency possessed him. An incident, significant 
 in that mood, at that time, happened then. A 
 few hundred yards away from where he 
 stood, half hidden in a little glen where a fall 
 of water tossed its spray among the shadows 
 of rowan and birch, was the bothie of a 
 woman, the wife of Neil MacNeill, a fisher- 
 man of Aoinaig. She was there, he knew, for 
 the summer pasturing; and even as he recol- 
 lected this, he heard the sound of her voice 
 as she sang somewhere by the burnside. 
 Moving slowly toward the corrie, he stopped 
 at a mountain ash which overhung a pool. 
 Looking down, he saw the woman, Morag 
 
 330
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 MacNeill, washing and peeling potatoes in the 
 clear brown water. And as she washed and 
 peeled, she sang an old-time shealing hymn 
 of the Virgin-Shepherdess, of Michael the 
 White, and of Columan the Dove. It was a 
 song that, years ago, far away in Brittany, 
 he had heard from his mother's lips. He lis- 
 tened now to every word of the doubly fa- 
 miliar Gaelic; and when Morag ended, the 
 tears were in his eyes, and he stood for a 
 while as one under a spell ^ 
 
 "A Mhicheil mhin! nan steud geala, 
 A choisin cios air Dragon fala, 
 Air ghaol Dia 'us Mhic Muire, 
 Sgaoil do sgiath oimn dian sinn uile, 
 Sgaoil do sgiath oimn dian sinn uile. 
 
 "A Mhoire ghradhach! Mathair Uain-ghil, 
 Cobhair oirnne, Oigh na h-uaisle; 
 A rioghainn uai'reach! a bhuachaille nan treud! 
 Cum ar cuallach cuartaich sinn le cheil, 
 Cum ar cuallach cuartaich sinn le cheil. 
 
 "A Chalum-Chille! chairdeil, chaoimh. 
 An ainm Athar, Mic, 'us Spioraid Naoimh, 
 Trid na Trithinn! trid na Triath! 
 Comraig sinne, gleidh ar trial, 
 Comraig sinne, gleidh ar trial. 
 
 ' This hymn was taken down in the Gaelic and 
 translated by Mr. Alexander Carmichael of South 
 Uist.
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 Athair! A Mhic! A Spioraid Naoimh! 
 Bi'eadh an Tri-Aon leinn, a la's a dh-oidhche! 
 'S air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann, 
 Bi'dh ar Mathair leinn, 's bith a lamh fo'r ceann, 
 Bi'dh ar Mathair leinn, 's bith a lamh fo'r ceann. 
 
 Thou gentle Michael of the white steed, 
 Who subdued the Dragon of blood, 
 For love of God and the Son of Mary, 
 Spread over us thy wing, shield us all! 
 Spread over us thy wing, shield us all! 
 
 Mary beloved! Mother of the White Lamb, 
 Protect us, thou Virgin of nobleness. 
 Queen of beauty! Shepherdess of the flocks! 
 Keep our cattle, surround us together, 
 Keep our cattle, surround us together. 
 
 Thou Colomba, the friendly, the kind. 
 
 In name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit 
 
 Holy, 
 Through the Three-in-One, through the Three, 
 Encompass us, guard our procession, 
 Encompass us, guard our procession. 
 
 Thou Father! thou Son! thou Spirit Holy! 
 Be the Three-in-One with us day and night. 
 And on the crested wave, or on the mountainside. 
 Our Mother is there, and her arm is under our 
 
 head, 
 Our Mother is there, and her arm is under our 
 
 head." 
 
 Alan found himself repeating whispering- 
 ly, and again and again —
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 "Bi 'eadh an Tri-Aon leinn, a la's a dh-oidhche! 
 'S air chul nan tonn, no air thaobh nam beann." 
 
 Suddenly the woman glanced upward, per- 
 haps because of the shadow that moved against 
 the green bracken below. With a startled 
 gesture she sprang to her feet. Alan looked 
 at her kindly, saying, with a smile, " Sure, 
 Morag nic Tormod, it is not fear you need be 
 having of one who is your friend." Then, 
 seeing that the woman stared at him with 
 something of terror as well as surprise, he 
 spoke to her again. 
 
 " Sure, Morag, I am no stranger that you 
 should be looking at me with those foreign 
 eyes." He laughed as he spoke, and made as 
 though he were about to descend to the burn- 
 side. Unmistakably, however, the woman did 
 not desire his company. He saw this, with 
 the pain and bewilderment which had come 
 upon him whenever the like happened, as so 
 often it had happened since he had come to 
 Rona. 
 
 " Tell me, Morag MacNeill, what is the 
 meaning of this strangeness that is upon you ? 
 Why do you not speak? Why do you turn 
 away your head ? " 
 
 Suddenly the woman flashed her black 
 eyes upon him. 
 
 333
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 " Have you ever heard of am Buachaill 
 Ban — am Buachaill Buidhe? " 
 
 He looked at her in amaze. Am Buachaill 
 Ban! . . . The fair-haired Herdsman, the 
 yellow-haired Herdsman! What could she 
 mean ? In days gone by, he knew, the island- 
 ers, in the evil time after Culloden, had so 
 named the fugitive Prince who had sought 
 shelter in the Hebrides ; and in some of the 
 runes of an older day still the Saviour of the 
 World was sometimes so called, just as Mary 
 was called Bhuachaile nan treud — Shep- 
 herdess of the Flock. But it could be no allu- 
 sion to either of these that was intended. 
 
 " Who is the Herdsman of whom you speak, 
 Morag?" 
 
 " Is it no knowledge you have of him at 
 all, Alan MacAilean?" 
 
 " None. I know nothing of the man, noth- 
 ing of what is in your mind. Who is the 
 Herdsman ? " 
 
 " You will not be putting evil upon me be- 
 cause that you saw me here by the pool be- 
 fore I saw you ? " 
 
 " Why should I, woman ? Why do you 
 think that I have the power of the evil eye? 
 Sure, I have done no harm to you or 
 yours, and wish none. But if it is for 
 peace to you to know it, it is no evil I wish 
 
 334
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 you, but only good. The Blessing of Him- 
 self be upon you and yours and upon your 
 house ! " 
 
 The woman looked relieved, but still cast 
 her furtive gaze upon Alan, who no longer 
 attempted to join her. 
 
 " I cannot be speaking the thing that is in 
 my mind, Alan MacAilean. It is not for me 
 to be saying that thing. But if you have no 
 knowledge of the Herdsman, sure it is only 
 another wonder of the wonders, and God has 
 the sun on that shadow, to the Stones be it 
 said." 
 
 " But tell me, Morag, who is the Herds- 
 man of whom you speak?" 
 
 For a minute or more the woman stood re- 
 garding him intently. Then slowly, and with 
 obvious reluctance, she spoke — 
 
 " Why have you appeared to the people 
 upon the isles, sometimes by moonlight, some- 
 times by day or in the dusk, and have fore- 
 told upon one and all who dwell here black 
 gloom and the red flame of sorrow? Why 
 have you, who are an outcast because of 
 what lies between you and another, pretended 
 to be a messenger of the Son — ay, for sure, 
 even, God forgive you, to be the Son Him- 
 self?" 
 
 Alan stared at the woman. For a time he 
 
 335
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 could utter no word. Had some extraordi- 
 nary delusion spread among the islanders, 
 and was there in the insane accusation of this 
 woman the secret of that which had so trou- 
 bled him? 
 
 " This is all an empty darkness to me, 
 Morag. Speak more plainly, woman. What 
 is all this madness that you say ? When have 
 I spoken of having any mission, or of being 
 other than I am? When have I foretold evil 
 upon you or yours, or upon the isles beyond? 
 What man has ever dared to say that Alan 
 MacAilean of Rona is an outcast? And what 
 sin is it that lies between me and another of 
 which you know ? " 
 
 It was impossible for Morag MacNeill to 
 doubt the sincerity of the man who spoke to 
 her. She crossed herself, and muttered the 
 words of a seun for the protection of the soul 
 against the demon powers. Still, even while 
 she believed in Alan's sincerity, she could not 
 reconcile it with that terrible and strange 
 mystery wiJ:h which rumour had filled her 
 ears. So, having nothing to say in reply to 
 his eager questions, she cast down her eyes 
 and kept silence. 
 
 "Speak, Morag, for Heaven's sake! Speak 
 if you are a true woman ; you that see a man 
 in sore pain, in pain, too, for that of which 
 
 336
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 he knows nothing, and of the ill of which he 
 is guiltless ! " 
 
 But, keeping her face averted, the woman 
 muttered simply, " I have no more to say." 
 With that she turned and moved slowly along 
 the pathway which led from the pool to her 
 hillside bothie. 
 
 With a sigh, Alan walked slowly away. 
 What wonder, he thought, that deep gloom 
 had been upon him that day? Here, in the 
 woman's mysterious words, was the shadow 
 of that shadow. 
 
 Slowly, brooding deep over what he had 
 heard, he crossed the Monadh-nan-Con, as 
 the hill-tract there was called, till he came to 
 the rocky wilderness known as the Slope of 
 the Caverns. 
 
 There for a time he leaned against a high 
 boulder, idly watching a few sheep nibbling 
 the short grass which grew about some of the 
 many caves which opened in slits or wide hol- 
 lows. Below and beyond he saw the pale blue 
 silence of the sea meet the pale blue silence of 
 the sky; south-westward, the grey film of the 
 coast of Ulster ; westward, again the illimita- 
 ble vast of sea and sky, infinitudes of calm, as 
 though the blue silence of heaven breathed in 
 that one motionless wave, as though that wave 
 sighed and drew the horizons to its heart. 
 
 337
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 From where he stood he could hear the mur- 
 mur of the surge whispering all round the 
 isle; the surge that, even on days of pro- 
 found stillness, makes a murmurous rumour 
 among the rocks and shingle of the island 
 shores. Not upon the moor-side, but in the 
 blank hollows of the caves around him, he 
 heard, as in gigantic shells, the moving of a 
 strange and solemn rhythm : wave-haunted 
 shells indeed, for the echo that was bruited 
 from one to the other came from beneath, 
 from out of those labyrinthine passages and 
 dim, shadowy sea-arcades, where among the 
 melancholy green glooms the Atlantic waters 
 lose themselves in a vain wandering. 
 
 For long he leaned there, revolving in his 
 mind the mystery of Morag MacNeill's 
 words. Then, abruptly, the stillness was 
 broken by the sound of a dislodged stone. 
 So little did he expect the foot of fellow-man, 
 that he did not turn at what he thought to be 
 the slip of a sheep. But when upon the slope 
 of the grass, a little way beyond where he 
 stood, a dusky blue shadow wavered fantas- 
 tically, he swung round with a sudden in- 
 stinct of dread. 
 
 And this was the dread which, after these 
 long weeks since he had come to Rona, was 
 upon Alan Carmichael. 
 
 338
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 For there, standing quietly by another 
 boulder, at the mouth of another cave, was a 
 man in all appearance identical with himself. 
 Looking at this apparition, he beheld one of 
 the same height as himself, with hair of the 
 same hue, with eyes the same and features 
 the same, with the same carriage, the same 
 smile, the same expression. No, there, and 
 there alone, was any difference. 
 
 Sick at heart, Alan wondered if he looked 
 upon his own wraith. Familiar with the leg- 
 ends of his people, it would have been no 
 strange thing to him that there, upon the hill- 
 side, should appear the wraith of himself. 
 Had not old Ian Mclain — and that, too, 
 though far away in a strange land — seen the 
 death of his mother moving upward from her 
 feet to her knees, from her knees to her 
 waist, from her waist to her neck, and, just 
 before the end, how the shroud darkened 
 along the face until it hid the eyes? Had 
 he not often heard from her, from Ian, of the 
 second self which so often appears beside the 
 living when already the shadow of doom is 
 upon him whose hours are numbered? Was 
 this, then, the reason of what had been his in- 
 explicable gloom? Was he indeed at the ex- 
 treme of life? Was his soul amid shallows, 
 already a rock upon a blank, inhospitable 
 
 339
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 shore? If not, who or what was this second 
 self which leaned there negligently, looking 
 at him with scornful smiling lips, but with 
 intent, unsmiling eyes. 
 
 Slowly there came into his mind this 
 thought: How could a phantom, that was 
 itself intangible, throw a shadow upon the 
 grass, as though it were a living body? 
 Sure, a shadow there was indeed. It lay be- 
 tween the apparition and himself. A legend 
 heard in boyhood came back to him ; instinct- 
 ively he stooped and lifted a stone and flung 
 it midway into the shadow. 
 
 " Go back into the darkness," he cried, " if 
 out of the darkness you came; but if you be 
 a living thing, put out your hands ! " 
 
 The shadow remained motionless. When 
 Alan looked again at his second self, he saw 
 that the scorn which had been upon the lips 
 was now in the eyes also. Ay, for sure, 
 scornful silent laughter it was that lay in those 
 cold wells of light. No phantom that; a man 
 he, even as Alan himself. His heart pulsed 
 like that of a trapped bird, but with the 
 spoken word his courage came back to him. 
 
 " Who are you ? " he asked, in a voice 
 strange even in his own ears. 
 
 " Am BuachaiU," replied the man in a voice 
 as low and strange. " I am the Herdsman." 
 
 340
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 A new tide of fear surged in upon Alan. 
 That voice, was it not his own ? that tone, 
 was it not famihar in his ears? When the 
 man spoke, he heard himself speak; sure, if 
 he were Am Bnachaill Ban, Alan, too, was 
 the Herdsman, though what fantastic destiny 
 might be his was all unknown to him. 
 
 " Come near," said the man, and now the 
 mocking light in his eyes was wild as cloud- 
 fire — "come near, oh Buachaill Ban!" 
 
 With a swift movement, Alan sprang for- 
 ward ; but as he leaped, his foot caught in a 
 spray of heather, and he stumbled and fell. 
 When he rose, he looked in vain for the man 
 who had called him. There was not a sign, 
 not a trace of any living being. For the first 
 few moments he believed it had all been a 
 delusion. Mortal being did not appear and 
 vanish in that ghostly way. Still, surely he 
 could not have mistaken the blank of that 
 place for a speaking voice, or out of nothing- 
 ness have fashioned the living phantom of 
 himself? Or could he? With that, he strode 
 forward and peered into the wide arch of the 
 cavern by which the man had stood. He 
 could not see far into it ; but so far as it was 
 possible to see, he discerned neither man nor 
 shadow of man, nor anything that stirred ; no, 
 not even the gossamer bloom of a bearnan- 
 
 341
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 bride, that grew on a patch of grass a yard 
 or two within the darkness, had lost one of 
 its delicate filmy spires. He drew back, dis- 
 mayed. Then, suddenly, his heart leaped 
 again, for beyond all question, all possible 
 doubt, there, in the bent thyme, just where 
 the man had stood, was the imprint of his 
 feet. Even now the green sprays were mov- 
 ing forward. 
 
 Ill 
 
 An hour passed, and Alan Carmichael had 
 not moved from the entrance to the cave. So 
 still was he that a ewe, listlessly wandering in 
 search of cooler grass, lay down after a while, 
 drowsily regarding him with her amber-co- 
 loured eyes. All his thought was upon the 
 mystery of what he had seen. No delusion 
 this, he was sure. That was a man whom he 
 had seen. But who could he be? On so small 
 an island, inhabited by less than a score of 
 crofters, it was scarcely possible for one to 
 live for many weeks and not know the name 
 and face of every soul. Still, a stranger 
 might have come. Only, if this were so, why 
 should he call himself the Herdsman ? There 
 was but one herdsman on Rhona and he An- 
 gus MacCormic, who lived at Einaval on the; 
 
 342
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 north side. In these outer isles, the shepherd 
 and the herdsman are appointed by the com- 
 munity, and no man is allowed to be one or 
 the other at will, any more than to be maor. 
 Then, too, if this man were indeed herds- 
 man, where was his iomair-ionailtair, his 
 browsing tract? Looking round him, Alan 
 could perceive nowhere any fitting pasture. 
 Surely no herdsman would be content with 
 such an iomair a bhuachaill — rig of the 
 herdsman — as that rocky wilderness where the 
 soft green grass grew in patches under this 
 or that boulder, on the sun side of this or 
 that rocky ledge. Again, he had given no 
 name, but called himself simply Am Bua- 
 chaill. This was how the woman Morag had 
 spoken; did she indeed mean this very man? 
 and if so, what lay in her words? But far 
 beyond all other bewilderment for him was 
 that strange, that indeed terrifying likeness 
 to himself — a likeness so absolute, so con- 
 vincing, that he knew he might himself easily 
 have been deceived, had he beheld the appari- 
 tion in any place where it was possible that a 
 reflection could have misled him. 
 
 "Brooding thus, eye and ear were both alert 
 for the faintest sight or sound. But from the 
 interior of the cavern not a breath came. 
 Once, from among the jagged rocks high on 
 
 343
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 the west slope of Ben Einaval, he fancied he 
 heard an unwonted sound — that of human 
 laughter, but laughter so wild, so remote, so 
 unmirthful, that fear was in his heart. It 
 could not be other than imagination, he said 
 to himself; for in that lonely place there was 
 none to wander idly at that season, and none 
 who, wandering, would laugh there solitary. 
 
 It was with an effort that Alan at last de- 
 termined to probe the mystery. Stooping, he 
 moved cautiously into the cavern, and groped 
 his way along the narrow passage which led, 
 as he thought, into another larger cave. But 
 this proved to be one of the innumerable 
 blind ways which intersect the honeycombed 
 slopes of the Isle of Caves. To wander far in 
 these lightless passages would be to track 
 death. Long ago the piper whom the Pri- 
 onnsa-Ban, the Fair Prince, loved to hear 
 in his exile — he that was called Rory M'Vur- 
 ich — penetrated one of the larger hollows to 
 seek there for a child that had idly wandered 
 into the dark. Some of the clansmen, with 
 the father and mother of the little one, waited 
 at the entrance to the cave. For a time there 
 was silence ; then, as agreed upon, the sound 
 of the pipes was heard, to which a man 
 named Lachlan M'Lachlan replied from the 
 outer air. The skirl of the pipes within grew 
 
 344
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 fainter and fainter. Louder and louder Lach- 
 lan played upon his chanter; deeper and 
 deeper grew the wild moaning of the drone ; 
 but for all that, fainter and fainter waned the 
 sound of the pipes of Rory M'Vurich. Gen- 
 erations have come and gone upon the isle, 
 and still no man has heard the returning air 
 which Rory was to play. He may have found 
 the little child, but he never found his back- 
 ward path, and in the gloom of that honey- 
 combed hill he and the child and the music of 
 the pipes lapsed into the same stillness. Re- 
 membering this legend, familiar to him since 
 his boyhood, Alan did not dare to venture 
 further. At any moment, too, he knew he 
 might fall into one of the crevices which 
 opened into the sea-corridors hundreds of feet 
 below. Ancient rumour had it that there 
 were mysterious passages from the upper 
 heights of Ben Einaval which led into the 
 heart of this perilous maze. But for a time 
 he lay still, straining every sense. Convinced 
 at last that the man whom he sought had 
 evaded all possible quest, he turned to re- 
 gain the light. Brief way as he had gone, this 
 was no easy thing to do. For a few moments, 
 indeed, Alan lost his self-possession when he 
 found a uniform dusk about him, and could 
 not discern which of the several branching 
 
 345
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 narrow corridors was that by which he had 
 come. But following the greener light, he 
 reached the cave, and soon, with a sigh of re- 
 lief, was upon the sun-sweet warm earth 
 again. 
 
 How more than ever beautiful the world 
 seemed ! how sweet to the eyes were upland 
 and cliff, the wide stretch of ocean, the fly- 
 ing birds, the sheep grazing on the scanty 
 pastures, and, above all, the homely blue 
 smoke curling faintly upward from the fisher 
 crofts on the headland east of Aonaig! 
 
 Purposely he retraced his steps by the way 
 of the glen : he would see the woman Morag 
 MacNeill again, and insist on some more ex- 
 plicit word. But when he reached the burn- 
 side once more, the woman was not there. 
 Possibly she had seen him coming, and guessed 
 his purpose; half he surmised this, for the 
 peats in the hearth were brightly aglow, and 
 on the hob beside them the boiling water 
 hissed in a great iron pot wherein were po- 
 tatoes. In vain he sought, in vain called. Im- 
 patient, he walked around the bothie and into 
 the little byre beyond. The place was de- 
 serted. This, small matter as it was, added 
 to his disquietude. Resolved to sift the mys- 
 tery, he walked swiftly down the slope. By 
 the old shealing of Cnoc-na-Monie, now for- 
 
 346
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 saken, his heart leaped at sight of Ian coming 
 to meet him. 
 
 When they met, Alan put his hands loving- 
 ly on the old man's shoulders, and looked at 
 him with questioning eyes. He found rest 
 and hope in those deep pools of quiet light, 
 whence the faithful love rose comfortingly to 
 meet his own yearning gaze. 
 
 " What is it, Alan-mo-ghray ; what is the 
 trouble that is upon you?" 
 
 " It is a trouble, Ian, but one of which I can 
 speak little, for it is little I know." 
 
 " Now, now, for sure you must tell me 
 what it is." 
 
 " I have seen a man here upon Rona whom 
 I have not seen or met before, and it is one 
 whose face is known to me, and whose voice 
 too, and one whom I would not meet again." 
 
 " Did he give you no name? " 
 
 " None." 
 
 " Where did he come from ? Where did 
 he go to? " 
 
 " He came out of the shadow, and into the 
 shadow he went." 
 
 Ian looked steadfastly at Alan, his wistful 
 gaze searching deep into his unquiet eyes, and 
 thence from feature to feature of the face 
 which had become strangely worn of late. 
 
 But he questioned no further. 
 
 347
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 " I, too, Alan MacAilean, have heard a 
 strange thing to-day. You know old Marsail 
 Macrae? She is ill now with a slow fever, 
 and she thinks that the shadow which she 
 saw lying upon her hearth last Sabbath, 
 when nothing was there to cause any sha- 
 dow, was her own death, come for her, and 
 now waiting there. I spoke to the old 
 woman, but she would not have peace, and 
 her eyes looked at me. 
 
 " ' What will it be now, Marsail ? ' I asked. 
 
 " ' Ay, ay, for sure,' she said, ' it was I 
 who saw you first.' 
 
 "'Saw me first, Marsail?' 
 
 " ' Ay, you and Alan MacAilean.' 
 
 " ' When and where was this sight upon 
 you? ' 
 
 " ' It was one month before you and he 
 came to Rhona.' 
 
 " I asked the poor old woman to be telling 
 me her meaning. At first I could make little 
 of what was said, for she muttered low, and 
 moved her head this way and that, and moaned 
 like a stricken ewe. But on my taking her 
 hand, she looked at me again, and then 
 told me this thing — 
 
 " * On the seventh day of the month before 
 you came — and by the same token it was on 
 the seventh day of the month following that 
 
 348
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 you and Alan MacAilean came to Caisteal- 
 Rhona — I was upon the shore at Aonaig, Hs- 
 tening to the crying of the wind against the 
 great cHff of Biola-creag. With me were 
 Ruaridh Macrae and Neil MacNeill, Morag 
 MacNeill, and her sister Elsa; and we were 
 singing the hymn for those who were out on 
 the wild sea that was roaring white against 
 the cliffs of Bemeray, for some of our peo- 
 ple were there, and we feared for them. 
 Sometimes one sang, and sometimes another. 
 And, sure, it is remembering I am, how, 
 when I had called out with my old wailing 
 voice — 
 
 " ' Bi 'eadh an Tri-aon leinn, a la's a dh-oidche; 
 ' S air chul nan tonn, A Mhoire ghradhach! 
 
 (Be the Three-in-One with us day and night ; 
 And on the crested wave, O Mary Beloved!) 
 
 " * Now when I had just sung this, and we 
 were all listening to the sound of it caught by 
 the wind and blown up against the black face 
 of Biola-creag, I saw a boat come sailing into 
 the haven. I called out to those about me, 
 but they looked at me with white faces, for 
 no boat was there, and it was a rough, wild 
 sea it was in that haven. 
 
 " ' And in that boat I saw three people sit- 
 
 349
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 ting; and one was you, Ian Maclain, and one 
 was Alan MacAilean, and one was a man who 
 had his face in shadow, and his eyes looked 
 into the shadow at his feet. I saw you clear, 
 and told those about me what I saw. And 
 Seumas MacNeill, him that is dead now, and 
 brother to Neil here at Aonaig, he said to me, 
 " Who was that whom you saw walking in 
 the dusk the night before last?" — " Ailean 
 MacAlasdair Carmichael," answered one at 
 that. Seumas muttered, looking at those 
 about him, " Mark what I say, for it is a true 
 thing — that Ailean Carmichael of Rhona is 
 dead now, because Marsail saw him walking 
 in the dusk when he was not upon the island ; 
 and now, you Neil, and you Rory, and all of 
 you, will be for thinking with me that one of 
 the men in the boat whom Marsail sees now 
 will be the son of him who has changed." 
 
 " ' Well, well, it is a true thing that we each 
 of us thought that thought, but when the 
 days went and nothing more came of it, the 
 memory of the seeing went too. Then there 
 came the day when the coble of Aulay Mac- 
 Aulay came out of Borosay into Caisteal- 
 Rhona haven. Glad we were to see your face 
 again, Ian Mclain, and to hear the sob of joy 
 coming out of the heart of Giorsal your sis- 
 ter; but when you and Alan MacAilean came 
 
 350
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 on shore, it was my voice that then went from 
 mouth to mouth, for I whispered to Morag 
 MacNeill who was next me that you were the 
 men I had seen in the boat.' 
 
 " Well, after that," Ian added, with a 
 grave smile, " I spoke gently to old Marsail, 
 and told her that there was no evil in that 
 seeing, and that for sure it was nothing at all, 
 at all, to see two people in a boat, and nothing 
 coming of that, save happiness for those two, 
 and glad content to be here. 
 
 " Marsail looked at me with big eyes. 
 
 " But when I asked her what she meant by 
 that, she would say no more. No asking of 
 mine would bring the word to her lips, only 
 she shook her head and kept her gaze from 
 my face. Then, seeing that it was useless, I 
 said to her — 
 
 " * Marsail, tell me this : Was this sight of 
 yours the sole thing that made the people 
 here on Rona look askance at Alan Mac- 
 Ailean ? ' 
 
 " For a time she stared at me with dim 
 eyes, then suddenly she spoke — 
 
 " ' It is not all.' 
 
 " ' Then what more is there, Marsail 
 Macrae ? ' 
 
 That is not for the saying. I have no 
 more to say. Let you, or Alan MacAilean, 
 
 351
 
 TJie Herdsman 
 
 go elsewhere. That which is to be, will be. 
 To each his own end.' 
 
 " ' Then be telling me this now at least,' I 
 asked : ' is there danger for him or me in this 
 island ? ' 
 
 " But the poor old woman would say no 
 more, and then I saw a swoon was on her." 
 
 After this, Alan and Ian walked slowly 
 home together, both silent, and each revolv- 
 ing in his mind as in a dim dusk that mys- 
 tery which, vague and unreal at first, had 
 now become a living presence, and haunted 
 them by day and night. 
 
 IV 
 
 " In the shadow of pain, one may hear the 
 footsteps of joy." So runs a proverb of old. 
 
 It was a true saying for Alan. That night 
 he lay down in pain, his heart heavy with the 
 weight of a mysterious burden. On the mor- 
 row he woke blithely to a new day — a day of 
 absolute beauty. The whole wide wilderness 
 of ocean was of living azure, aflame with 
 gold and silver. Around the promontories of 
 the isles the brown-sailed fishing-boats of 
 Barra and Berneray, of Borosay and Seila, 
 moved blithely hither and thither. Every- 
 
 352
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 where the rhythm of Hfe pulsed swift and 
 strong. The first sound which had awak- 
 ened Alan was of a loud singing of fishermen 
 who were putting out from Aonaig. The 
 coming of a great shoal of mackerel had 
 been signalled, and every man and woman of 
 the near isles was alert for the take. The 
 watchers had known it by the swift congrega- 
 tion of birds, particularly the gannets and 
 skuas. And as the men pulled at the oars, or 
 hoisted the brown sails, they sang a snatch of 
 an old-world tune, still chanted at the first 
 coming of the birds when spring-tide is on the 
 flow again — 
 
 "Bui' cheas dha 'n Ti thaine na Gugachan 
 
 Thaine's na h-Eoin-Mhora cuideriu, 
 
 Cailin dugh ciaru bo's a chro! 
 
 Bo dhonn ! bo dhonn ! bo dhonn bheadarrach ! 
 
 Bo dhonn a ruin a bhlitheadh am baine dhuit 
 
 Ho ro! mo gheallag! ni gu rodagach! 
 
 Cailin dugh ciaru bo's a chro — 
 
 Na h-eoin air tighinn! cluinneam an ceol!" 
 
 (Thanks to the Being, the Gannets have come. 
 Yes! and the Great Auks along with them. 
 Dark-haired girl! — a cow in the fold! 
 Brown cow! brown cow ! brown cow, beloved ho I 
 Brown cow! my love! the milker of milk to 
 
 thee! 
 Ho ro! my fair-skinned girl — a cow, in the fold, 
 And the birds have come ! — glad sight, I see !) 
 
 353
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 Eager to be of help, Ian put off in his boat, 
 and was soon among the fishermen, who in 
 their new excitement were forgetful of all 
 else than that the mackerel were come, and 
 that every moment was precious. For the 
 first time Ian found himself no unwelcome 
 comrade. Was it, he wondered, because that, 
 there upon the sea, whatever of shadow 
 dwelled about him, or rather about Alan 
 MacAilean, on the land, was no longer vis- 
 ible. 
 
 All through that golden noon he and the 
 others worked hard. From isle to isle went 
 the chorus of the splashing oars and splash- 
 ing nets ; of the splashing of the fish and the 
 splashing of gannets and gulls ; of the splash- 
 ing of the tide leaping blithely against the 
 sun-dazzle, and the illimitable rippling splash 
 moving out of the west; — all this blent with 
 the loud, joyous cries, the laughter, and the 
 hoarse shouts of the men of Barra and the 
 adjacent islands. It was close upon dusk be- 
 fore the Rhona boats put into the haven of 
 Aonaig again; and by that time none was 
 blither than Ian Maclain, who in that day 
 of happy toil had lost all the gloom and 
 apprehension of the day before, and now re- 
 turned to Caisteal-Rhona with lighter heart 
 than he had known for long. 
 
 354
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 When, however, he got there, there was no 
 sign of Alan. He had gone, said Giorsal, he 
 had gone out in the smaller boat midway 
 in the afternoon, and had sailed around to 
 Aoidhu, the great scaur which ran out be- 
 yond the precipices at the south-west of 
 Rhona. 
 
 This Alan often did, and of late more and 
 more often. Ever since he had come to the 
 Hebrid Isles his love of the sea had deepened 
 and had grown into a passion for its mystery 
 and beauty. Of late, too, something impelled 
 to a more frequent isolation, a deep longing 
 to be where no eye could see and no ear 
 hearken. 
 
 So at first Ian was in no way alarmed. 
 But when the sun had set, and over the faint 
 blue film of the Isle of Tiree the moon had 
 risen, and still no sign of Alan, he became 
 restless and uneasy. Giorsal begged him in 
 vain to eat of the supper she had prepared. 
 Idly he moved to and fro along the rocky 
 ledge, or down by the pebbly shore, or across 
 the green airidh, eager for a glimpse of him 
 whom he loved so well. 
 
 At last, unable longer to endure a growing 
 anxiety, he put out in his boat, and sailed 
 swiftly before the slight easterly breeze which 
 had prevailed since moonrise. So far as 
 
 355
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 Aoidhu, all the way from Aonaig, there was 
 not a haven anywhere, nor even one of the 
 sea caverns which honeycombed the isle 
 beyond the headland. A glance, therefore, 
 showed him that Alan had not yet come back 
 that way. It was possible, though unlikely, 
 that he had sailed right round Rona ; unlikely, 
 because in the narrow straits to the north, be- 
 tween Rona and the scattered islets known 
 as the Innsemhara, strong currents prevailed, 
 and particularly at the full of the tide, when 
 they swept north-eastward dark and swift as 
 a mill-race. 
 
 Once the headland was passed and the 
 sheer precipitous westward cliffs loomed 
 black out of the sea, he became more and 
 more uneasy. As yet, there was no danger; 
 but he saw that a swell was moving out of 
 the west; and whenever the wind blew that 
 way, the sea-arcades were filled with a lift- 
 ing, perilous wave. Later, escape might be 
 difficult, and often impossible. Out of the 
 score or more great passages which opened be- 
 tween Aoidhu and Ardgorm, it was difficult 
 to know into which to chance the search of 
 Alan. Together they had examined all of 
 them. Some twisted but slightly; others 
 wound sinuously till the green, serpentine 
 alleys, flanked by basalt walls hundreds of
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 feet high, lost themselves in an indistinguish- 
 able maze. 
 
 But that which was safest, and wherein a 
 boat could most easily make its way against 
 wind or tide, was the huge, cavernous pas- 
 sage known locally as the Uaimh-nan-roin, 
 the Cave of the Seals. 
 
 For this opening Ian steered his boat. 
 Soon he was within the wide corridor. Like 
 the great cave at Staffa, it was wrought as an 
 aisle in some natural cathedral; the rocks, 
 too, were columnar, and rose in flawless sym- 
 metry, as though graven by the hand of man. 
 At the far end of this gigantic aisle, there di- 
 verges a long, narrow arcade, filled by day 
 with the green shine of the water, and by 
 night, when the moon is up, with a pale froth 
 of light. It is one of the few where there 
 are open gateways for the sea and the wan- 
 dering light, and by its spherical shape almost 
 the only safe passage in a season of heavy 
 wind. Half-way along this arched arcade a 
 corridor leads to a round cup-like cavern, 
 midway in which stands a huge mass of 
 black basalt, in shape suggestive of a titanic 
 altar. Thus it must have impressed the imag- 
 ination of the islanders of old; for by them, 
 even in a remote day, it was called Teampull- 
 Alara, the Temple of the Sea. Owing to the 
 
 357
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 narrowness of the passage, and to the smooth, 
 unbroken walls which rise sheer from the 
 green depths into an invisible darkness, the 
 Strait of the Temple is not one wherein to 
 linger long, save in a time of calm. 
 
 Instinctively, however, Ian quietly headed 
 his boat along this narrow way. When, si- 
 lently, he emerged from the arcade, he could 
 just discern the mass of basalt at the far 
 end of the cavern. But there, seated in 
 his boat, was Alan, apparently idly adrift, 
 for one oar floated in the water alongside, 
 and the other swung listlessly from the 
 tholes. 
 
 His heart had a suffocating grip as he saw 
 him whom he had come to seek. Why that 
 absolute stillness, that strange, listless indif- 
 ference? For a dreadful moment he feared 
 death had indeed come to him in that lonely 
 place where, as an ancient legend had it, a 
 woman of old time had perished, and ever 
 since had wrought death upon any who came 
 thither solitary and unhappy. 
 
 But at the striking of the shaft of his oar 
 against a ledge, Alan moved, and looked at 
 him with startled eyes. Half rising from 
 where he crouched in the stern, he called to 
 him in a voice that had in it something 
 strangely unfamiliar. 
 
 358
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 " I will not hear ! " he cried. " I will not 
 hear ! Leave me ! Leave me ! " 
 
 Fearing that the desolation of the place had 
 wrought upon his mind, Ian swiftly moved 
 toward him, and the next moment his boat 
 glided alongside. Stepping from the one to 
 the other, he kneeled beside him. 
 
 " Ailean mo caraid, Ailean-aghray, what is 
 it? What gives you dread? There is no 
 harm here. All is well. Look! See, it is I, 
 lan^ — old Ian Maclain! Listen, mo ghaoil; 
 do you not know me — do you not know 
 who I am? It is I, Ian; Ian who loves 
 you ! " 
 
 Even in that obscure light he could clearly 
 discern the pale face, and his heart smote him 
 as he saw Alan's eyes turn upon him with a 
 glance wild and mournful. Had he indeed 
 succumbed to the sea madness which ever 
 and again strikes into a terrible melancholy 
 one here and there among those who dwell 
 in the remote isles? But even as he looked, 
 he noted another expression come into the 
 wild strained eyes ; and almost before he real- 
 ised what had happened, Alan was on his feet 
 and pointing with rigid arm. 
 
 For there, in that nigh unreachable and for 
 ever unvisited solitude, was the figure of a 
 man. He stood on the summit of the huge 
 
 359
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 basalt altar, and appeared to have sprung 
 from out the rock, or, himself a shadowy 
 presence, to have grown out of the obscure 
 unrealities of the darkness. Ian stared, fas- 
 cinated, speechless. 
 
 Then with a spring he was on the ledge. 
 Swift and sure as a wild cat, he scaled the 
 huge mass of the altar. 
 
 Nothing ; no one ! There was not a trace 
 of any human being. Not a bird, not a bat; 
 nothing. Moreover, even in that slowly 
 blackening darkness, he could see that there 
 was no direct connection between the summit 
 or side with the blank, precipitous wall of ba- 
 salt beyond. Overhead there was, so far as 
 he could discern, a vault. No human being 
 could have descended through that perilous 
 gulf. 
 
 Was the island haunted? he wondered, as 
 slowly he made his way back to the boat. Or 
 had he been startled into some wild fantasy, 
 and imagined a likeness where none had 
 been ? Perhaps even he had not really seen 
 any one. He had heard of such things. The 
 nerves can soon chase the mind into the 
 shadow wherein it loses itself. 
 
 Or was Alan the vain dreamer? That, in- 
 deed, might well be. Mayhap he had heard 
 some fantastic tale from Morag MacNeill, or 
 360
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 from old Marsail Macrae; the islanders had 
 sgcul after sgcul of a wild strangeness. 
 
 In silence he guided the boats back into the 
 outer arcade, where a faint sheen of moon- 
 light glistered on the water. Thence, in a 
 few minutes, he oared that wherein he and 
 Alan sat, with the other fastened astern, into 
 the open. 
 
 When the moonshine lay full on Alan's 
 face, Ian saw that he was thinking neither of 
 himself nor of where he was. His eyes were 
 heavy with dream. 
 
 What wind there was blew against their 
 course, so Ian rowed unceasingly. In silence 
 they passed once again the headland of 
 Aoidhu ; in silence they drifted past a single 
 light gleaming in a croft near Aonaig — a red 
 eye staring out into the shadow of the sea, 
 from the room where the woman Marsail lay 
 dying ; and in silence their keels grided on the 
 patch of shingle in Caisteal-Rhona haven. 
 
 For days thereafter Alan haunted that 
 rocky, cavernous wilderness where he had 
 seen the Herdsman. 
 
 It was in vain he had sought everywhere 
 for some tidings of this mysterious dweller 
 in those upland solitudes. At times he be- 
 lieved that there was indeed some one upon 
 
 361
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 the island of whom, for inexpHcable reasons, 
 none there would speak; but at last he came 
 to the conviction that what he had seen was 
 an apparition, ' projected by the fantasy of 
 overwrought nerves. Even from the woman 
 Morag MacNeill, to whom he had gone with 
 a frank appeal that won its way to her heart, 
 he learned no more than that an old legend, of 
 which she did not care to speak, was in some 
 way associated with his own coming to Rona. 
 
 Ian, too, never once alluded to the mys- 
 terious incident of the green arcades which 
 had so deeply impressed them both: never 
 after Alan had told him that he had seen a 
 vision. 
 
 But as the days passed, and as no word came 
 to either of any unknown person who was on 
 the island, and as Alan, for all his patient 
 wandering and furtive quest, both among the 
 upland caves and in the green arcades, found 
 absolutely no traces of him whom he sought, 
 the belief that he had been duped by his imag- 
 ination deepened almost to conviction. 
 
 As for Ian, he, unlike Alan, became more 
 and more convinced that what he had seen 
 was indeed no apparition. Whatever linger- 
 ing doubt he had was dissipated on the eve 
 of the night when old Marsail Macrae died. 
 It was dusk when word came to Caisteal- 
 362
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 Rhona that Marsail felt the cold wind on the 
 soles of her feet, Ian went to her at once, 
 and it was in the dark hour which followed 
 that he heard once more, and more fully, the 
 strange story which, like a poisonous weed, 
 had taken root in the minds of the islanders. 
 Already from Marsail he had heard of the 
 Prophet, though, strangely enough, he had 
 never breathed word of this to Alan, not 
 even when, after the startling episode of the 
 apparition in the Teampull-Mara, he had, as 
 he believed, seen the Prophet himself. But 
 there in the darkness of the low, turfed cot- 
 tage, with no light in the room save the dull 
 red gloom from the heart of the smoored 
 peats, Marsail, in the attenuated, remote 
 voice of those who have already entered into 
 the vale of the shadow, told him this thing, in 
 the homelier Gaelic — 
 
 "Yes, Ian mac Iain-Ban, I will be telling 
 you this thing before I change. You are for 
 knowing, sure, that long ago Uilleam, brother 
 of him who was father to the lad up at the 
 castle yonder, had a son? Yes, you know 
 that, you say, and also that he was called 
 Donnacha Ban? No, mo-caraid, that is not 
 a true thing that you have heard, that Donna- 
 cha Ban went under the waves years ago. He 
 was the seventh son, an' was born under the 
 
 363
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 full moon ; 'tis Himself will be knowing 
 whether that was for or against him. Of 
 these seven none lived beyond childhood ex- 
 cept the two youngest, Kenneth an' Donna- 
 cha. Kenneth was always frail as a February 
 flower, but he lived to be a man. He an' his 
 brother never spoke, for a feud was between 
 them, not only because that each was unlike 
 the other, an' the younger hated the older be- 
 cause through him he was the penniless one, 
 but most because both loved the same woman. 
 I am not for telling you the whole story now, 
 for the breath in my body will soon blow out in 
 the draught that is coming upon me ; but this I 
 will say to you : darker and darker grew the 
 gloom between these brothers. When Gior- 
 sal Macdonald gave her love to Kenneth, 
 Donnacha disappeared for a time. Then, one 
 day, he came back to Borosay, an' smiled 
 quietly with his cold eyes when they won- 
 dered at his coming again. Now, too, it was 
 noticed that he no longer had an ill-will upon 
 his brother, but spoke smoothly with him an' 
 loved to be in his company. But to this day 
 no one knows for sure what happened. For 
 there was a gloaming when Donnacha Ban 
 came back alone in his sailing-boat. He an' 
 Kenneth had sailed forth, he said, to shoot 
 seals in the sea-arcades to the west of Rona, 
 
 364
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 but in these dark and lonely passages they had 
 missed each other. At last he had heard 
 Kenneth's voice calling for help, but when 
 he had got to the place it was too late, for his 
 brother had been seized with the cramps, an' 
 had sunk deep into the fathomless water. 
 There is no getting a body again that sinks in 
 these sea-galleries. The crabs know that. 
 
 ■' Well, this and much more was what 
 Donnacha Ban told to his people. None be- 
 lieved him ; but what could any do ? There 
 was no proof ; none had ever seen them enter 
 the sea-caves together. Not that Donnacha 
 Ban sought in any way to keep back those who 
 would fain know more. Not so ; he strove to 
 help to find the body. Nevertheless, none be- 
 lieved ; an' Giorsal nic Dugall Mor least of 
 all. The blight of that sorrow went to her 
 heart. She had death soon, poor thing! but 
 before the cold greyness was upon her she 
 told her father, an' the minister that was 
 there, that she knew Donnacha Ban had mur- 
 dered his brother. One might be saying these 
 were the wild words of a woman ; but, for 
 sure, no one said that thing upon Borosay or 
 Rona, or any of these isles. When all was 
 done, the minister told what he knew, an' 
 what he thought, to the Lord of the South 
 Isles, and asked what was to be put upon 
 
 365
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 Donnacha Ban. ' Exile for ever,' said the 
 chief, ' or if he stays here, the doom of si- 
 lence. Let no man or woman speak to him or 
 give him food or drink, or give him shelter, or 
 let his shadow cross his or hers.' 
 
 " When this thing was told to Donnacha 
 Ban Carmichael, he laughed at first; but as 
 day after day slid over the rocks where all 
 days fall, he laughed no more. Soon he saw 
 that the chief's word was no empty word; 
 an' yet would not go away from his own 
 place. He could not stay upon Borosay, for 
 his father cursed him ; an' no man can stay 
 upon the island where a father's curse moves 
 this way an' that, for ever seeing him. 
 Then, some say a madness came upon him, 
 and others that he took wildness to be his 
 way, and others that God put upon him the 
 shadow of loneliness, so that he might meet 
 sorrow there and repent. Howsoever that 
 may be, Donnacha Ban came to Rona, an' 
 by the same token, it was the year of the 
 great blight, when the potatoes and the corn 
 came to naught, an' when the fish in the sea 
 swam away from the isles. In the autumn of 
 that year there was not a soul left on Rona 
 except Giorsal an' the old man Ian, her 
 father, who had guard of Caisteal-Rhona for 
 him who was absent. When, once more, 
 
 366
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 years after, smoke rose from the crofts, the 
 saying spread that Donnacha Ban, the mur- 
 derer, had made his home among the caves 
 of the upper part of the isle. None knew 
 how this saying rose, for he was seen of none. 
 The last man who saw him — an' that was a 
 year later — was old Padruig M'Vurich the 
 shepherd. Padruig said that, as he was driv- 
 ing his ewes across the north slope of Ben 
 Einaval in the gloaming, he came upon a si- 
 lent figure seated upon a rock, with his chin 
 in his hands, an' his elbows on his knees — 
 with the great, sad eyes of him staring at the 
 moon that was lifting itself out of the sea. 
 Padruig did not know who the man was. 
 The shepherd had few wits, poor man! 
 and he had known, or remembered, little 
 about the story of Donnacha Ban Carmichael ; 
 so when he spoke to the man, it was as 
 to a stranger. The man looked at him and 
 said — 
 
 " ' You are Padruig M'Vurich, the shep- 
 herd.' 
 
 " At that a trembling was upon old Pad- 
 ruig, who had the wonder that this stranger 
 should know who and what he was. 
 
 " ' And who will you be, and forgive the 
 saying? ' he asked. 
 
 " ' Am Faidh — the Prophet,' the man said. 
 
 367
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 " ' And what prophet will you be, and 
 what is your prophecy ? ' asked Padruig. 
 
 " ' I am here because I wait for what is 
 to be, and that will be the coming of the 
 Woman who is the Daughter of God.' 
 
 " And with that the man said no more, an' 
 the old shepherd went down through the 
 gloaming, an', heavy with the thoughts that 
 troubled him, followed his ewes down into 
 Aonaig. But after that neither he nor any 
 other saw or heard tell of the shadowy 
 stranger; so that all upon Rona felt sure that 
 Padruig had beheld no more than a vision. 
 There were some who thought that he had 
 seen the ghost of the outlaw Donnacha Ban; 
 an' mayhap one or two who wondered if the 
 stranger that had said he was a prophet was 
 not Donnacha Ban himself, with a madness 
 come upon him; but at last these sayings 
 went out to sea upon the wind, an' men for- 
 got. But, an' it was months and months 
 afterwards, an' three days before his own 
 death, old Padruig M'Vurich was sitting in 
 the sunset on the rocky ledge in front of his 
 brother's croft, where then he was staying, 
 when he heard a strange crying of seals. He 
 thought little of that; only, when he looked 
 closer, he saw, in the hollow of the wave hard 
 by that ledge, a drifting body. 
 368
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 "'Am Faidh — Am Faidh!' he cried; 'the 
 Prophet, the Prophet ! ' 
 
 " At that his brother an' his brother's wife 
 ran to see ; but it was nothing that they saw. 
 * It would be a seal,' said Pol M'Vurich ; but 
 at that Padruig had shook his head, an' said 
 no for sure, he had seen the face of the dead 
 man, an' it was of him whom he had met on 
 the hillside, an' that had said he was the 
 Prophet who was waiting there for the sec- 
 ond coming of God. 
 
 " And that is how there came about the 
 echo of the thought that Donnacha Ban had 
 at last, after his madness, gone under the 
 green wave and was dead. For all that, in 
 the months which followed, more than one 
 man said he had seen a figure high up on the 
 hill. The old wisdom says that when God 
 comes again, or the prophet who will come 
 before, it will be as a herdsman on a lonely 
 isle. More than one of the old people on 
 Rona and Borosay remembered that sgeul out 
 of the Seanachas that the tale-tellers knew. 
 There were some who said that Donnacha 
 Ban had never been drowned at all, an' that 
 he was this Prophet, this Herdsman. Others 
 would not have that saying at all, but believed 
 that the wraith was indeed Am Buachaill Ban, 
 the Fair-haired Shepherd, who had come 
 
 369
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 again to redeem the people out of their sor- 
 row. There were even those who said that 
 the Herdsman who haunted Rona was no 
 other than Kenneth Carmichael himself, who 
 had not died but had had the mind-dark there 
 in the sea-caves where he had been lost, an' 
 there had come to the knowledge of secret 
 things, and so was at last Am Faidh 
 Chriosd." 
 
 A great weakness came upon the old 
 woman when she had spoken thus far. Ian 
 feared that she would have breath for no 
 further word ; but after a thin gasping, and a 
 listless fluttering of weak hands upon the 
 coverlet, whereon her trembling fingers 
 plucked aimlessly at the invisible blossoms of 
 death, she opened her eyes once more, and 
 stared in a dim questioning at him who sat 
 by her bedside. 
 
 " Tell me," whispered Ian, " tell me. Mar- 
 sail, what thought it is that is in your own 
 mind? " 
 
 But already the old woman had begun to 
 wander. 
 
 "For sure, for sure," she muttered, "Am 
 Faidh . . . Am Faidh . . . an' a child will 
 be born . . . the Queen of Heaven, an' . . . 
 that will be the voice of Domhuill, my hus- 
 
 370
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 band, I am hearing ... an' dark it is, an' the 
 tide comin' in . . . an' " 
 
 Then, sure, the tide came in, and if in that 
 darkness old Marsail Macrae heard any voice 
 at all, it was that of Domhuill who years 
 agone had sunk into the wild seas off the 
 head of Barra. 
 
 An hour later Alan walked slowly under the 
 cloudy night. All he- had heard from Ian 
 came back to him with a strange familiarity. 
 Something of this, at least, he had known be- 
 fore. Some hints of this mysterious Herds- 
 man had reached his ears. In some inexplica- 
 ble way his real or imaginary presence there 
 upon Rona seemed a pre-ordained thing for 
 him. 
 
 He knew that the wild imaginings of the 
 islanders had woven the legend of the 
 Prophet, or of his mysterious message, out 
 of the loom of the deep longing whereon 
 is woven that larger tapestry, the shadow- 
 thridden life of the island Gael. Laughter 
 and tears, ordinary hopes and pleasures, and 
 even joy itself, and bright gaiety, and the 
 swift, spontaneous imaginations of susceptible 
 natures — all this, of course, is to be found 
 with the island Gael as with his fellows else- 
 where. But every here and there are some 
 who have in their minds the inheritance from 
 
 37^
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 the dim past of their race, and are oppressed 
 as no other people are oppressed by the gloom 
 of a strife between spiritual emotion and ma- 
 terial facts. It is the brains of dreamers such 
 as these which clear the mental life of the 
 community ; and it is in these brains are the 
 mysterious looms which weave the tragic and 
 sorrowful tapestries of Celtic thought. It 
 were a madness to suppose that life in the isles 
 consists of nothing but sadness or melancholy. 
 It is not so, or need not be so, for the Gael is a 
 creature of shadow and shine. But what- 
 ever the people is, the brain of the Gael hears 
 a music that is sadder than any music there 
 is, and has for its cloudy sky a gloom that 
 shall not go ; for the end is near, and upon 
 the westernmost shores of these remote isles 
 the voice of Celtic sorrow may be heard cry- 
 ing, " Cha till, cha till, cha till mi tuille": " I 
 will return, I will return, I will return no 
 more." 
 
 Alan knew all this well ; and yet he too 
 dreamed his dream — that, even yet, there 
 xnight be redemption for the people. He did 
 not share the wild hope which some of the 
 older islanders held, that Christ Himself shall 
 come again to redeem an oppressed race ; but 
 might not another saviour arise, another re- 
 deeming spirit come into the world? And if 
 
 372
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 so, might not that child of joy be born out of 
 suffering and sorrow and crime ; and if so, 
 might not the Herdsman be indeed a prophet, 
 the Prophet of the Woman in whom God 
 should come anew as foretold? 
 
 With startled eyes he crossed the thyme-set 
 ledge whereon stood Caisteal-Rhona. Was it, 
 after all, a message he had received, and was 
 that which had appeared to him in that lonely 
 cavern of the sea but a phantom of his own 
 destiny? Was he himself, Alan Carmichael, 
 indeed Am Fdidh, the predestined Prophet of 
 the isles? 
 
 V 
 
 Ever since the night of Marsail's death. Ian 
 had noticed that Alan no longer doubted, but 
 that in some way a special message had come 
 to him, a special revelation. On the other 
 hand, he had himself swung further into his 
 conviction that the vision he had seen in the 
 cavern was, in truth, that of a living man. 
 On Borosay, he knew, the fishermen believed 
 that the aonaran nan creag, the recluse of the 
 rocks, as commonly they spoke of him, was 
 no other than Donnacha Ban Carmichael, sur- 
 vived there through these many years, and 
 long since mad with his loneliness and be- 
 cause of the burden of his crime. 
 
 Z7Z
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 But by this time the islanders had come to 
 see that Alan MacAilean was certainly not 
 Donnacha Ban. Even the startling likeness 
 no longer betrayed them in this way. The 
 ministers and the priests on Berneray and 
 Barra scoffed at the whole story, and every- 
 where discouraged the idea that Donnacha 
 Ban could still be among the living. But for 
 the common belief that to encounter the 
 Herdsman, whether the lost soul of Donnacha 
 Ban or indeed the strange phantom of the 
 hills of which the old legends spoke, was to 
 meet inevitable disaster, the islanders might 
 have been persuaded to make such a search 
 among the caves of Rona as would almost 
 certainly have revealed the presence of any 
 who dwelt therein. 
 
 But as summer lapsed into autumn, and au- 
 tumn itself through its golden silences waned 
 into the shadow of the equinox, a strange, 
 brooding serenity came upon Alan. Ian him- 
 self now doubted his own vision of the mys- 
 terious Herdsman — if he indeed existed at 
 all except in the imaginations of those who 
 spoke of him either as the Buachaill Ban, or 
 as the aonaran nan creag. If a real man, Ian 
 believed that at last he had passed away. 
 None saw the Herdsman now ; and even Mo- 
 rag MacNeill, who had often on moonlight 
 
 374
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 nights been startled by the sound of a voice 
 chanting among the upper soHtudes, admitted 
 that she now heard nothing unusual. 
 
 St. Martin's summer came at last, and with 
 it all that wonderful, dreamlike beauty which 
 bathes the isles in a flood of golden light, and 
 draws over sea and land a veil of deeper 
 mystery. 
 
 One late afternoon, Ian, returning to Cais- 
 teal-Rhona after an unexplained absence of 
 several hours, found Alan sitting at a table. 
 Spread before him were the sheets of one of 
 the strange old Gaelic tales which he had ar- 
 dently begun to translate. Alan lifted and 
 slowly read the page or paraphrase which he 
 had just laid down. It was after the homelier 
 Gaelic of the Eachdaireachd Challum mhic 
 Cruimein. 
 
 " And when that king had come to the 
 island, he lived there in the shadow of men's 
 eyes; for none saw him by day or by night, 
 and none knew whence he came or whither 
 he fared; for his feet were shod with silence, 
 and his way with dusk. But men knew that he 
 was there, and all feared him. Months, even 
 years, tramped one on the heels of the other, 
 and perhaps the king gave no sign, but one day 
 he would give a sign ; and that sign was a 
 laughing that was heard somewhere, upon the 
 
 375
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 lonely hills, or on the lonely wave, or in the 
 heart of him who heard. And whenever the 
 king laughed, he who heard would fare ere 
 long from his fellows to join that king in the 
 shadow. But sometimes the king laughed 
 only because of vain hopes and wild imagin- 
 ings, for upon these he lives as well as upon 
 the strange savours of mortality." 
 
 That night Alan awakened Ian suddenly, 
 and taking him by the hand made him pro- 
 mise to go with him on the morrow to the 
 Teampull-Mara. 
 
 In vain Ian questioned him as to why he 
 asked this thing. All Alan would say was 
 that he must go there once again, and with 
 him, for he believed that a spirit out of 
 heaven had come to reveal to him a wonder. 
 Distressed by what he knew to be a madness, 
 and fearful that it might prove to be no pass- 
 ing fantasy, Ian would fain have persuaded 
 him against this intention. Even as he spoke, 
 however, he realised that it might be better to 
 accede to his wishes, and, above all, to be 
 there with him, so that it might not be one 
 only who heard or saw the expected revela- 
 tion. 
 
 And it was a strange faring indeed, that 
 which occurred on the morrow. At noon, 
 when the tide was an hour turned in the ebb, 
 376
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 they sailed westward from Caisteal-Rhona. 
 It was in silence they made that strange jour- 
 ney together ; for, while Ian steered, Alan 
 lay down in the hollow of the boat, with his 
 head against the old man's knees, and slept, 
 or at least lay still with his eyes closed. 
 
 When at last they passed the headland and 
 entered the first of the sea-arcades, Alan 
 rose and sat beside him. Hauling down the 
 now useless sail, Ian took an oar and, stand- 
 ing at the prow, urged the boat inward along 
 the narrow corridor which led to the huge 
 sea-cave of the Altar. 
 
 In the deep gloom — for even on that day of 
 golden light and beauty the green air of the 
 sea-cave was heavy with shadow — there was 
 a deathly chill. What dull light there was 
 came from the sheen of the green water which 
 lay motionless along the black basaltic ledges. 
 When at last the base of the Altar was 
 reached, Ian secured the boat by a rope passed 
 around a projecting spur, and then seated 
 himself in the stern beside Alan. 
 
 " Tell me, Alan-a-ghaoil, what is this thing 
 that you are thinking you will hear or see ? " 
 
 Alan looked at him strangely for a while, 
 but, though his lips moved, he said nothing. 
 
 " Tell me, my heart," Ian urged again, 
 " who is it you expect to see or hear ? " 
 
 377
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 " Am Buachaill Ban," Alan answered, " the 
 Herdsman." 
 
 For a moment Ian hesitated. Then, taking 
 Alan's hand in his and raising it to his lips, 
 he whispered in his ear — 
 
 " There is no Herdsman upon Rona. If a 
 man was there who lived solitary, the aonaran 
 nan creag is dead long since. What you have 
 seen and heard has been a preying upon you 
 of wild thoughts. Be thinking no more now 
 of this vision," 
 
 " This man," Alan answered quietly, " is 
 not Donnacha Ban, but the Prophet of whom 
 the people speak. He himself has told me this 
 thing. Yesterday I was here, and he bade 
 me come again. He spoke out of the shadow 
 that is about the Altar, though I saw him not. 
 I asked him if he were Donnacha Ban, and 
 he said ' No.' I asked him if he were Am 
 Faidh, and he said ' Yes.' I asked him if he 
 were indeed an immortal spirit and herald 
 of that which was to be, and he said ' Even 
 so.' " 
 
 For a long while after this no word was 
 spoken. The chill of that remote place be- 
 gan to affect Alan, and he shivered slightly at 
 times. But more he shivered because of the 
 silence, and because that he who had pro- 
 mised to be there gave no sign. Sure, he 
 
 378
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 thought, it could not be all a dream ; sure, the 
 Herdsman would come again. 
 
 Then at last, turning to Ian, he said, " We 
 must come on the morrow, for to-day he is 
 not here." 
 
 " I will do what you ask, Alan-mo-ghaol." 
 
 But of a sudden Alan stepped on the black 
 ledges at the base of the Altar, and slowly 
 mounted the precipitous rock. 
 
 Ian watched him till he became a shadow 
 in that darkness. His heart leaped when 
 suddenly he heard a cry fall out of the gloom. 
 
 " Alan, Alan ! " he cried, and a great fear 
 was upon him when no answer came ; but at 
 last he heard him clambering slowly down the 
 perilous slope of that obscure place. When he 
 reached the ledge Alan stood still regarding 
 him. 
 
 "Why do you not come into the boat?" 
 Ian asked, terrified because of what he saw 
 in Alan's eyes. 
 
 Alan looked at him with parted lips, his 
 breath coming and going like that of a caged 
 bird. 
 
 " What is it? " Ian whispered. 
 
 " Ian, when I reached the top of the Altar, 
 and in the dim light that was there, I saw the 
 dead body of a man lying upon the rock. His 
 head was lain back so that the gleam from a 
 
 379
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 crevice in the cliff overhead fell upon it. The 
 man had been dead many hours. He is a man 
 whose hair has been greyed by years and sor- 
 row, but the man is he who is of my blood ; 
 he whom I resemble so closely ; he that the 
 fishermen call the hermit of the rocks ; he 
 that is the Herdsman." 
 
 Ian stared, with moving lips : then in a 
 whisper he spoke — 
 
 " Would you be for following a herdsman 
 who could lead you to no fold? This man is 
 dead, Alan mac Alasdair; and it is well that 
 you brought me here to-day. That is a good 
 thing, and for sure God has willed it." 
 
 " It is not a man that is dead. It is my soul 
 that lies there. It is dead. God called me to 
 be His Prophet, and I hid in dreams. It is 
 the end." And with that, and death staring 
 out of his eyes, he entered the boat and sat 
 down beside Ian. 
 
 " Let us go," he said, and that was all. 
 
 Slowly Ian oared the boat across the sha- 
 dowy gulf of the cave, along the narrow pas- 
 sage, and into the pale green gloom of the 
 outer cavern, wherein the sound of the sea 
 made a forlorn requiem in his ears. 
 
 But the short November day was already 
 passing to its end. All the sea westward was 
 aflame with gold and crimson light, and in 
 380
 
 The Herdsman 
 
 the great dome of the sky a wonderful ra- 
 diance lifted above the paleness of the clouds, 
 whose pinnacled and bastioned heights tow- 
 ered in the south-west. 
 
 A faint wind blew eastwardly. Raising the 
 sail, Ian made it fast and then sat down be- 
 side Alan. But he, rising, moved along the 
 boat to the mast, and leaned there with his 
 face against the setting sun. 
 
 Idly they drifted onward. Deep silence lay 
 between them ; deep silence was all about 
 them, save for the ceaseless, inarticulate 
 murmur of the sea, the splash of low waves 
 against the rocks of Rona, and the sigh of 
 the surf at the base of the basalt precipices. 
 
 And this was their homeward sailing on 
 that day of revelation : Alan, with his back 
 against the mast, and his lifeless face irradia- 
 ted by the light of the setting sun ; Ian, steer- 
 ing, with his face in shadow. 
 
 381
 
 Love in Shadow has two sacred ministers. Oblivion 
 and Faith, one to heal, the other to renovate and up- 
 build.— Y. M.
 
 FRAGMENTS FROM "GREEN FIRE" 
 I 
 
 THE BIRDS OF ANGUS OG 
 
 " Then, in the violet forest all a-burgeon, Eucharis 
 said to me: It is Spring." — Arthur Rembaud. 
 
 After the dim purple bloom of a sus- 
 pended Spring, a green rhythm ran from larch 
 to thorn, from lime to sycamore : spread from 
 meadow to meadow, from copse to copse, 
 from hedgerow to hedgerow. The black- 
 thorn had already snowed upon the nettle- 
 garths. In the obvious nests, among the bare 
 boughs of ash and beech, the eggs of the 
 blackbird were blue-green as the sky that 
 March had bequeathed to April. For days 
 past, when the breath of the Equinox had 
 surged out of the west, the missel-thrushes 
 had bugled from the wind-swayed topmost 
 branches of the tallest elms. Everywhere the 
 green rhythm ran. 
 
 In every leaf that had uncurled there was 
 a delicate bloom, that which is upon all things 
 in the first hours of life. The spires of the 
 grass were washed in a green, dewy light. 
 
 383
 
 Fragments 
 
 Out of the brown earth a myriad living things 
 thrust tiny green shafts, arrow-heads, bulbs, 
 spheres, clusters. Along the pregnant soil 
 keener ears than ours would have heard the 
 stir of new life, the innumerous whisper of 
 the bursting seed: and, in the wind itself, 
 shepherding the shadow-chased sunbeams, 
 the voice of that vernal gladness which has 
 been man's clarion since Time began. Day 
 by day the wind-wings lifted a more multi- 
 tudinous whisper from the woodlands. The 
 deep hyperborean note, from the invisible 
 ocean of air, was still audible : within the 
 concourse of bare boughs which wrought 
 against it, that surging voice could not but 
 have an echo of its wintry roar. In the sun- 
 havens, however, along the southerly copses, 
 in daisied garths of orchard-trees, amid the 
 flowering currant and guelder and lilac bushes 
 in quiet places where the hives were all 
 a-murmur, the wind already sang its lilt of 
 Spring. From dawn till noon, from an hour 
 before sundown till the breaking foam along 
 the wild-cherry flushed fugitively because of 
 the crimson glow out of the west, there was 
 a ceaseless chittering of birds. The starlings 
 and the sparrows enjoyed the commune of 
 the homestead ; the larks and fieldfares and 
 green and yellow linnets congregated in the 
 
 384
 
 Fragments 
 
 meadows, where, too, the wild bee already 
 roved. Among the brown ridgy fallows there 
 was a constant flutter of black, white-gleam- 
 ing, and silver-grey wings, where the stalk- 
 ing rooks, the jerking peewits, and the wary, 
 uncertain gulls from the neighbouring sea 
 feasted tirelessly from the teeming earth. 
 Often, too, the wind-hover, that harbinger of 
 the season of the young broods, quivered his 
 curved wings in his arrested flight, while his 
 lance-like gaze penetrated the whins beneath 
 which a new-born rabbit crawled, or dis- 
 cerned in the tangle of a grassy tuft the 
 brown watchful eyes of a nesting quail. In 
 the remoter woodlands the three foresters of 
 April could be heard ; the woodpecker tapping 
 on the gnarled boles of the oaks, the wild dove 
 calHng in low crooning monotones to his silent 
 mate, the cuckoo tolling his infrequent peals 
 from skiey belfries built of sun and mist. 
 
 In the fields, where the thorns were green 
 as rivulets of melted snow and the grass had 
 the bloom of emerald, and the leaves of 
 docken, clover, cinquefoil, sorrel, and a thou- 
 sand plants and flowers, were wave-green, 
 the ewes lay, idly watching with their lumin- 
 ous amber eyes the frisking and leaping 
 of the close-curled, tuft-tailed, woolly-legged 
 lambs. In corners of the hedgerows, and in 
 
 385
 
 Fragments 
 
 hollows in the rolling meadows, the primrose, 
 the celandine, the buttercup, the dandelion, 
 and the daffodil spilled little eddies of 
 the sunflood which overbrimmed them with 
 light. All day long the rapture of the larks 
 filled the blue air with vanishing spirals of 
 music, swift and passionate in the ascent, 
 repetitive and less piercing in the narrowing 
 downward gyres. From every whin the poign- 
 ant monotonous note of the yellow ham- 
 mer re-echoed. Each pastoral hedge was 
 alive with robins, chaffinches, and the dusky 
 shadows of the wild mice darting here and 
 there among the greening boughs. 
 
 Whenever this green fire is come upon the 
 earth, the swift contagion spreads to the hu- 
 man heart. What the seedlings feel in the 
 brown mould, what the sap feels in every 
 creature from the newt in the pool to the 
 nesting bird, so feels the strange remember- 
 ing ichor that runs its red tides through 
 human hearts and brains. Spring has its sub- 
 tler magic for us, because of the dim mys- 
 teries of unremembering remembrance and of 
 the vague radiances of hope. Something in 
 us sings an ascendant song, and we expect we 
 know not what: something in us sings a de- 
 crescent song, and we realise vaguely the stir- 
 ring of immemorial memories. 
 
 386
 
 Fragments 
 
 There is none who will admit that Spring 
 is fairer elsewhere than in his own land. But 
 there are regions where the season is so 
 hauntingly beautiful that it would seem as 
 though Angus Og knew them for his chosen 
 resting-places in his green journey. 
 
 Angus Og, Angus MacGreine, Angus the 
 Ever Youthful, the Son of the Sun, a fair 
 god he indeed, golden-haired and wonderful 
 as Apollo Chrusokumos. Some say that he is 
 Love: some, that he is Spring: some, even, 
 that in him Thanatos, the Hellenic Celt that 
 was his far-ofif kin, is reincarnate. But why 
 seek riddles in flowing water? It may well 
 be that Angus Og is Love, and Spring, and 
 Death. The elemental gods are ever triune : 
 and in the human heart, in whose lost Eden 
 an ancient tree of knowledge grows, where- 
 from the mind has not yet gathered more than 
 a few windfalls, it is surely sooth that Death 
 and Love are oftentimes one and the same, 
 and that they love to come to us in the apparel 
 of Spring. 
 
 Sure, indeed, Angus Og is a name above 
 all sweet to lovers, for is he not the god — 
 the fair Youth of the Tuatha-de-Danann, the 
 Ancient People, with us still, though for ages 
 seen of us no more — from the meeting of 
 whose lips are born white birds, which fly 
 
 387
 
 Fragments 
 
 abroad and nest in lovers' hearts till the mo- 
 ment come when, on the yearning lips of love, 
 their invisible wings shall become kisses 
 again ? 
 
 Then, too, there is the old legend that An- 
 gus goes to and fro upon the world, a weaver 
 of rainbows. He follows the Spring, or is its 
 herald. Often his rainbows are seen in the 
 heavens : often in the rapt gaze of love. We 
 have all perceived them in the eyes of chil- 
 dren, and some of us have discerned them in 
 the hearts of sorrowful women, and in the 
 dim brains of the old. Ah, for sure, if An- 
 gus Og be the lovely Weaver of Hope, he is 
 deathless comrade of the Spring, and we may 
 well pray to him to let his green fire move in 
 our veins : whether he be but the Eternal 
 Youth of the World, or be also Love, whose 
 soul is youth; or even though he be like- 
 wise Death himself, Death to whom Love was 
 wedded long, long ago. 
 
 388
 
 Alan was a poet, and to dream was his 
 birthright. . . . He was ever occupied by 
 that wonderful past of his race which was to 
 him a Hving reahty. It was perhaps because 
 he so keenly perceived the romance of the 
 present — the romance of the general hour, of 
 the individual moment — that he turned so in- 
 satiably to the past with its deathless charm, 
 its haunting appeal. . . . His mind was as 
 irresistibly drawn to the Celtic world of the 
 past as the swallow to the sun-way. In a 
 word he was not only a poet but a Celtic poet ; 
 and not only a Celtic poet but a dreamer 
 of the Celtic dream. This was perhaps be- 
 cause of the double strain in his veins. 
 Doubtless, too, it was continuously enhanced 
 by his intimate knowledge of the Celtic lan- 
 guages, that of the Breton and that of the 
 Gael. It is language that is the surest sti- 
 mulus to the remembering nerves. We have 
 
 389
 
 Fragments 
 
 a memory within memory as layers of skin 
 underlie the epidermis. With most of us 
 this anterior remembrance remains dormant 
 throughout life: but to some are given swift 
 ancestral recollections. Alan was one of 
 these. 
 
 With this double key Alan unlocked many 
 doors. In his brain ran ever that Ossianic 
 tide which has borne so many marvellous 
 argosies through the troubled waters of the 
 modern mind. 
 
 Old ballad of his nature isles, with their 
 haunting Gaelic rhythm of idioms, their fre- 
 quent reminiscence of Norse viking and the 
 Danish summer-sailor. He had lived with 
 his hero Cuchullin from the days when the 
 boy shewed his royal blood at Emain-Macha 
 till that sad hour when his madness came 
 upon him and he died. He had fared forth 
 with many a Lifting of the Sunbeam, and had 
 followed Oisin step by step on that last mel- 
 ancholy journey when Maloma led the blind 
 old man along the lonely shores of Arran. 
 He had watched the crann-tara flare from 
 glen to glen, and at the bidding of that fiery 
 cross he had seen the whirling of the swords, 
 the dusky flight of arrow-rain, and from the 
 isles, the leaping forth of the war hirlinns to 
 meet the Viking galleys. How often, too, 
 
 390
 
 Fragments 
 
 he had followed trial of the nine Hostages 
 and seen the Irish Charlemagne ride victor 
 through Saxon London, or across the Nor- 
 man plains or with onward sword direct his 
 army against the white walls of the Alps! 
 ... It was thus this marvellous life of old 
 which wrought upon Alan's life as by a spell. 
 Often he recalled the words of a Gaelic Scan 
 he had heard Yann croon in his soft monot- 
 onous voice, — words which made a light 
 shoreward eddy of the present and were 
 solemn with the deep sea-sound of the past, 
 that is with us even as we speak. . . . 
 
 Truly his soul must have lived a thousand 
 years ago. In him, at least, the old Celtic 
 brain was reborn with a vivid intensity which 
 none guessed, for Alan himself only vaguely 
 surmised the extent and depth of this obses- 
 sion. In heart and brain the old world lived 
 anew. Himself a poet, all that was fair and 
 tragically beautiful was forever undergoing 
 in his mind a marvellous transformation — a 
 magical resurrection rather, wherein what 
 was remote and bygone, and crowned with 
 oblivious dust, became alive again with in- 
 tense and beautiful life. , . . 
 
 Deep passion instinctively moves toward 
 the shadow rather than toward the golden 
 
 391
 
 Fragments 
 
 noons of light. Passion hears what love at 
 most dreams of; passion sees what love may- 
 hap dimly discerns in a glass darkly. A mil- 
 lion of our fellows are " in love " at any or 
 every moment: and for these the shadowy 
 way is intolerable. But for the few, in whom 
 love is, the eyes are circumspect against the 
 dark hour which comes when heart and 
 brain and blood are aflame with the para- 
 mount ecstasy of love. . . . 
 
 Oh, flame that burns where fires of home 
 are lit! and oh, flame that burns in the heart 
 to whom life has not said, Awake! and oh, 
 flame that smoulders from death to life, in 
 the dumb lives of those to whom the primrose 
 way is closed! Everywhere the burning of 
 the burning, the flame of flame, pain and the 
 shadow of pain, joy and the wrapt breath of 
 joy, flame of the flame that, burning, destroy- 
 eth not, till the flame is no more! . . , 
 
 It is said of an ancient poet of the Druid 
 days that he had power to see the lines of the 
 living, and these as though they were phan- 
 toms, separate from the body. Was there 
 not a young king of Albainn who, in a peril- 
 ous hour, discovered this secret of old time, 
 and knew how a life may be hidden away from 
 the body so that none may know of it, save the 
 
 392
 
 Fragments 
 
 wind that whispers all things, and the tides of 
 day and night that hear all things upon their 
 dark flood? . . . 
 
 The fragrance of the forest intoxicated 
 him. Spring was come indeed. The wild 
 storm had ruined nothing, for at its fiercest it 
 had swept overhead. Everywhere the green 
 fire of Spring would be litten anew. A green 
 flame would pass from meadow to hedgerow, 
 from hedgerow to the tangled thickets of 
 bramble and dogrose, from the underwoods to 
 the inmost forest glades. 
 
 Everywhere song would be to the birds, 
 everywhere young life would pulse, every- 
 where the rhythm of a new rapture would 
 run rejoicing. The Miracle of Spring would 
 be accomplished in the sight of all men, of 
 all birds and beasts, of all green life. Each, 
 in its kind would have a swifter throb in the 
 red blood of the vivid sap. . . . 
 
 She was his Magic. The light of their 
 love was upon everything. Deeply as he 
 loved beauty he had learned to love it far 
 more keenly and understandingly because of 
 her. He saw now through the accidental 
 and everywhere discerned the Eternal Beauty, 
 the echoes of whose wandering are in every 
 heart and brain though few discern the white 
 vision or hear the haunting voice. . , . Thus it 
 
 393
 
 Fragments 
 
 was she had for him this immutable attrac- 
 tion which a few women have for a few men; 
 an appeal, a charm, that atmosphere of ro- 
 mance, that air of ideal beauty, wherein lies 
 the secret of all passionate art. 
 
 The world without wonder, the world with- 
 out mystery! That indeed is the rainbow 
 without colour, the sunrise without living 
 gold, the moon void of light. . . . 
 
 In deep love there is no height nor depth 
 between two hearts, no height nor depth nor 
 length nor breadth. There is simply love. 
 What if both at times were wrought too 
 deeply by this beautiful dream? What if the 
 inner life triumphed now and then, and each 
 forgot the deepest instinct of life that here 
 the body is overlord, and the soul beget a 
 divine consort? 
 
 There are three races of man. There is 
 the myriad race which loses all through (not 
 bestiality for the brute world is clean and 
 sane) perverted animalism; and there is a 
 myriad race which denounces humanity, and 
 pins all its faith and joy to a life the very con- 
 ditions of whose existence are incompatible 
 with the law to which we are subject — the 
 sole law, the law of nature. 
 
 Then there is that small untoward clan, 
 which knows the divine call of the spirit 
 
 394
 
 Fragments 
 
 through the brain, and the secret whisper of 
 the soul in one heart, and forever perceives 
 the veil of mystery and the rainbows of hope 
 upon our human horizons, which hears and 
 sees, and yet turns wisely, meanwhile, to the 
 life of the green earth, of which we are part, 
 to the common kindred of living things with 
 which we are one — is content, in a word, to 
 live because of the dream that makes living 
 so mysteriously sweet and poignant; and to 
 dream because of the commanding immediacy 
 of Hfe. . . . 
 
 What are dreams but the dust of wayfaring 
 thoughts? Or whence are they, and what air 
 is upon their shadowy wings? Do they come 
 out of the twilight of man's mind: are they 
 ghosts of exiles from vanished palaces of the 
 brain: or are they heralds with proclamations 
 of hidden tidings for the soul that dreams ? 
 
 395
 
 To live in Beauty is to sunt up in four words all 
 the spiritual aspiration of the soul of man. — F. M.
 
 II 
 
 THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD 
 
 " The Souls of the Living are the Beauty of the 
 World." — Bacon. 
 
 For out of his thoughts about Annaik 
 and Ynys arose a fuller, a deeper conception 
 of womanhood. How well he remembered 
 a legend that Ynys had once told him : a 
 legend of a fair spirit which goes to and fro 
 upon the world, the Weaver of Tears, He 
 loves the pathways of sorrow. His voice iS 
 low and sweet, with a sound like the bubbling 
 of waters in that fount whence the rainbows 
 rise. His eyes are in quiet places, and in the 
 dumb pain of animals as in the agony of the 
 human brain : but most he is found, oftenest 
 are the dewy traces of his feet, in the heart 
 of woman. 
 
 Tears, tears: they are not the saltest tears 
 which are on the lids of those who weep. 
 Fierce tears there are, hot founts of pain in 
 the mind of many a man, that are never shed, 
 but slowly crystallise in furrows on brow and 
 face, and in deep weariness in the eyes : fierce 
 
 397
 
 fragments 
 
 tears, unquenchable, in the heart of many a 
 woman, whose brave eyes look fearlessly at 
 life, whose dauntless courage goes forth 
 daily to die but never to be vanquished. 
 
 In truth the Weaver of Tears abides in the 
 heart of woman. O Mother of Pity, of Love, 
 of deep Compassion: with thee it is to yearn 
 for ever for the ideal human, to bring the 
 spiritual love into fusion with human desire, 
 endlessly to strive, endlessly to fail, always 
 to hope in spite of disillusion, to love un- 
 swervingly against all baffling and misunder- 
 standing, and even forgetfulness ! O Woman, 
 whose eyes are always stretched out to her 
 erring children, whose heart is big enough to 
 cover all the little children in the world, and 
 suflfer with their sufferings, and joy with their 
 joys: Woman, whose other divine names are 
 Strength and Patience, who is no girl, no 
 virgin, because she has drunk too deeply the 
 fount of Life to be very young or very joy- 
 ful. Upon her lips is the shadowy kiss of 
 death: in her eyes is the shadow of birth. 
 She is the veiled interpreter of the two mys- 
 teries. Yet what joyousness like hers, when 
 she wills: because of her unwavering hope, 
 her inexhaustible fount of love? 
 
 So it was that just as Alan had long recog- 
 nised as a deep truth, how the spiritual nature 
 
 398
 
 Fragments 
 
 of man has been revealed to humanity in many 
 divine incarnations, so he had come to believe 
 that the spiritual nature of woman has been 
 revealed in the many Marys, sisters of the 
 Beloved, who have had the keys of the soul 
 and the heart in their unconscious keeping. 
 In this exquisite truth he knew a fresh 
 and vivid hope. ... A Woman-Saviour, who 
 would come near to all of us, because in her 
 heart would be the blind tears of the child, 
 the bitter tears of the man, and the patient 
 tears of the woman : who would be the Com- 
 passionate One, with no end or aim but com- 
 passion — with no doctrine to teach, no way to 
 show, but only deep, wonderful, beautiful, in- 
 alienable, unquenchable compassion. 
 
 For in truth there is the divine eternal fem- 
 inine counterpart to the divine eternal male, 
 and both are needed to explain the mystery 
 of the dual spirit within us — the mystery of 
 the two in one, so infinitely stranger and more 
 wonderful than that triune life which the blind 
 leaders of the blind have made a rock of stum- 
 bling and offence out of a truth clear and ob- 
 vious as noon. 
 
 We speak of Mother Nature, but we 
 do not discern the living truth behind our 
 words. How few of us have the vision of this 
 great brooding Mother, whose garment is the 
 
 399
 
 Fragments 
 
 earth and sea, whose head is pillowed among 
 the stars: she, who, with death and sleep as 
 her familiar shapes, soothes and rests all the 
 weariness of the world, from the waning leaf 
 to the beating pulse, from the brief span of 
 a human heart to the furrowing of granite 
 brows by the uninterrupted sun, the hounds 
 of rain and wind, and the untrammelled airs 
 of heaven. 
 
 Not cruel, relentless, impotently anarchic, 
 chaotically potent, this Mater Genetrix. We 
 see her thus, who are flying threads in the 
 loom she weaves. But she is patient, abid- 
 ing, certain, inviolate, and silent ever. It is 
 only when we come to this vision of her whom 
 we call Isis, or Hera, or Orchil, or one of a 
 hundred other names, our unknown Earth- 
 Mother, that men and women will know each 
 other aright, and go hand in hand along the 
 road of life without striving to crush, to sub- 
 due, to usurp, to retaliate, to separate. 
 
 Ah, fair vision of humanity to come: man 
 and woman side by side, sweet, serene, true, 
 simple, natural, fulfilling earth's and heaven's 
 behests, unashamed, unsophisticated, unaf- 
 fected, each to each and for each, children of 
 one mother, inheritors of a like destiny, and, 
 at the last, artificers of an equal fate. 
 
 Pondering thus, Alan rose, and looked out 
 400
 
 Fragments 
 
 into the night. In that great stillness, where- 
 in the moonlight lay like the visible fragrance 
 of the earth, he gazed long and intently. How 
 shadowy, now, were those lives that had so 
 lately palpitated in this very place : how 
 strange their silence, their incommunicable 
 knowledge, their fathomless peace ! 
 
 Was it all lost . . . the long endurance of 
 pain, the pangs of sorrow? If so, what was 
 the lesson of life? Surely to live with sweet 
 serenity and gladness, content against the in- 
 evitable hour. There is solace of a kind in 
 the idea of a common end, of that terrible 
 processional march of life wherein the myr- 
 iad is momentary, and the immeasurable is 
 but a passing shadow. But, alas, it is only 
 solace of a kind : for what heart that has 
 beat to the pulse of love can relinquish the 
 sweet dream of life, and what coronal can 
 philosophy put upon the brows of youth in 
 place of eternity? 
 
 No, no : of this he felt sure. In the Beauty 
 of the World lies the ultimate redemption of 
 our mortality. When we shall become at one 
 with nature in a sense profounder even than 
 the poetic imaginings of most of us, we shall 
 understand what now we fail to discern. The 
 arrogance of those who would have the stars 
 as candles for our night, and the universe as 
 401
 
 Fragments 
 
 a pleasance for our thought, will be as im- 
 possible as their bHnd fatuity who say we are 
 of dust, briefly vitalised, that shall be dust 
 again, with no fragrance saved from the rude 
 bankruptcy of life, no beauty raised up 
 against the sun to bloom anew. 
 
 It is no idle dream, this : no idle dream that 
 we are a perishing clan among the sons of 
 God, because of this slow waning of our 
 joy, of our passionate delight, in the Beauty 
 of the World. We have been unable to look 
 out upon the shining of our star, for the 
 vision overcomes us ; and we have used veils 
 which we call " scenery," " picturesqueness," 
 and the like — poor, barren words that are so 
 voiceless and remote before the rustle of 
 leaves and the lap of water, before the an- 
 cient music of the wind, and all the sovran 
 eloquence of the tides of light. But a day 
 may come — nay, shall surely come — when in- 
 deed the poor and the humble shall inherit the 
 earth : they who have not made a league with 
 temporal evils and out of whose heart shall 
 arise the deep longing, that shall become uni- 
 versal, of the renewal of youth, 
 
 . . . Often, too, alone in his observatory, 
 where he was wont to spend much of his 
 time, Alan knew that strange nostalgia of the 
 402
 
 Fragments 
 
 mind for impossible things. Then, wrought 
 for a while from his vision of green life, and 
 flamed by another green fire than that born 
 of the earth, he dreamed his dream. With 
 him, the peopled solitude of night was a con- 
 course of confirming voices. He did not 
 dread the silence of the stars, the cold re- 
 moteness of the stellar fire. 
 
 In that other watch-tower in Paris, where 
 he had spent the best hours of his youth, he 
 had loved that nightly watch of the constella- 
 tions. Now, as then, in the pulse of the planets 
 he found assurances which faith had not 
 given him. In the vast majestic order of 
 that nocturnal march, that diurnal retreat, he 
 had learned the law of the whirling leaf and 
 the falling star, of the slow seon-delayed 
 comet and of the slower wane of solar fires. 
 Looking with visionary eyes into that con- 
 gregation of stars, he realised, not the little- 
 ness of the human dream, but its divine im- 
 pulsion. It was only when, after long vigils 
 into the quietudes of night, he turned his 
 gaze from the palaces of the unknown, and 
 thought of the baffled fretful swarming in the 
 cities of men, that his soul rose in revolt 
 against the sublime inaptitude of man's spir- 
 itual leaguer against destiny. 
 
 Destiny — " An Dan " — it was a word fa- 
 
 403
 
 Fragments 
 
 miliar to him since childhood, when first he 
 had heard it on the lips of old Ian Macdon- 
 ald. And once, on the eve of the Feast of 
 Paschal, when Alan had asked Daniel Dare 
 what was the word which the stars spelled 
 from zenith to nadir, the astronomer had 
 turned and answered simply, " C'est le Destin." 
 But Alan was of the few to whom this 
 talismanic word opens lofty perspectives, even 
 while it obscures those paltry vistas which we 
 deem unending and dignify with vain hopes 
 and void immortalities. 
 
 404
 
 A DREAM 
 
 To 
 G. R. S. MEAD
 
 Our thought, our consciousness, is but the scintilla- 
 tion of a wave: below us is a moving shadow, our brief 
 forecast and receding way; beneath the shadow are 
 depths sinking into depths, and then the unfathomable 
 unknown. — F. M,
 
 A Dream 
 
 I was on a vast, an illimitable plain, where 
 the dark blue horizons were sharp as the edges 
 of hills. It was the world, but there was noth- 
 ing in the world. There was not a blade of 
 grass nor the hum of an insect, nor the shadow 
 of a bird's wing. The mountains had sunk like 
 waves in the sea when there is no wind ; the 
 barren hills had become dust. Forests had 
 become the fallen leaf; and the leaf had 
 passed. I was aware of one who stood be- 
 side me, though that knowledge was of the 
 spirit only; and my eyes were filled with the 
 same nothingness as I beheld above and be- 
 neath and beyond. I would have thought I 
 was in the last empty glens of Death, were it 
 not for a strange and terrible sound that I 
 took to be the voice of the wind coming out 
 of nothing, travelling over nothingness and 
 moving onward into nothing. 
 
 " There is only the wind," I said to myself 
 in a whisper. 
 
 Then the voice of the dark Power beside 
 me, whom in my heart I knew to be Dalua, the 
 407
 
 A Dream 
 
 Master of Illusions, said : " Verily, this is 
 your last illusion." 
 
 I answered : " It is the wind." 
 
 And the voice answered : " That is not the 
 wind that you hear, for the wind is dead. It 
 is the empty, hollow echo of my laughter." 
 
 Then, suddenly, he who was beside me 
 lifted up a small stone, smooth as a pebble 
 of the sea. It was grey and flat, and yet to 
 me had a terrible beauty because it was the 
 last vestige of the life of the world. 
 
 The Presence beside me lifted up the stone 
 and said : " It is the end." 
 
 And the horizons of the world came in 
 upon me like a rippling shadow. And I 
 leaned over darkness and saw whirling stars. 
 These were gathered up like leaves blown 
 from a tree, and in a moment their lights were 
 quenched, and they were further from me than 
 grains of sand blown on a whirlwind of a 
 thousand years. 
 
 Then he, that terrible one. Master of Illu- 
 sions, let fall the stone, and it sank into the 
 abyss and fell immeasurably into the infinite. 
 And under my feet the world was as a falling 
 wave, and was not. And I fell, though with- 
 out sound, without motion. And for years 
 and years I fell below the dim waning of 
 light; and for years and years I fell through 
 408
 
 A Dream 
 
 universes of dusk; and for years and years 
 and years I fell through the enclosing deeps 
 of darkness. It was to me as though I fell 
 for centuries, for aeons, for unimaginable time. 
 I knew I had fallen beyond time, and that I 
 inhabited eternity, where were neither height, 
 nor depth, nor width, nor space. 
 
 But, suddenly, without sound, without mo- 
 tion, I stood steadfast upon a vast ledge. Be- 
 fore me, on that ledge of darkness become 
 rock, I saw this stone which had been lifted 
 from the world of which I was a shadow, 
 after shadow itself had died away. And as 
 I looked, this stone became fire and rose in 
 flame. Then the flame was not. And when 
 I looked the stone was water ; it was as a pool 
 that did not overflow, a wave that did not 
 rise or fall, a shaken mirror wherein nothing 
 was troubled. 
 
 Then, as dew is gathered in silence, the 
 water was without form or colour or motion. 
 And the stone seemed to me like a handful 
 of earth held idly in the poise of unseen 
 worlds. What I thought was a green flame 
 rose from it, and I saw that it had the green- 
 ness of grass, and had the mystery of life. 
 The green herb passed as green grass in a 
 drought ; and I saw the waving of wings. And 
 I saw shape upon shape, and image upon 
 409
 
 A Dream 
 
 image, and symbol upon symbol. Then I saw 
 a man, and he, too, passed; and I saw a 
 woman, and she, too, passed; and I saw a 
 child, and the child passed. Then the stone 
 was a Spirit. And it shone there like a lamp. 
 And I fell backward through deeps of dark- 
 ness, through unimaginable time. 
 
 And when I stood upon the world again it 
 was like a glory. And I saw the stone lying 
 at my feet. 
 
 And One said : " Do you not know me, 
 brother ? " 
 
 And I said : " Speak, Lord." 
 
 And Christ stooped and kissed me upon 
 the brow. 
 
 410
 
 NOTES
 
 Unity does not lie in the emotional life of expression 
 which we call Art, which discerns it; it does not lie in 
 nature, but in the Soul of man. — F, M.
 
 Notes to First Edition 
 
 THE DIVINE ADVENTURE 
 
 When " The Divine Adventure " appeared 
 in the Fortnightly Rcviciv in November and 
 December last, I received many comments 
 and letters. From these I infer that my pres- 
 ent readers will also be of two sections, those 
 who understand at once why, in this symboli- 
 cal presentment, I ignore the allegorical 
 method — and those who, accustomed to the 
 artificial method of allegory, would rather see 
 this " story of a soul " told in that method, 
 without actuality, or as an ordinary essay 
 stript of narrative. 
 
 But each can have only his own way of 
 travelling towards a desired goal. I chose 
 my way, because in no other, as it seemed to 
 me, could I convey what I wanted to convey. 
 Is it so great an effort of the imagination to 
 conceive of the Mind and the Soul actual as 
 the Body is actual? And is there any tragic 
 issue so momentous, among all the tragic 
 issues of life, as the problem of the Spirit, the 
 
 413
 
 Notes 
 
 Mind — the Will as I call it; that problem as 
 to whether it has to share the assured des- 
 tiny of the Body, or the desired and possible 
 destiny of the Soul? There is no spiritual 
 tragedy so poignant as this uncertainty of 
 the Will, the Spirit, what we call the thinking 
 part of us, before the occult word of the 
 Soul, inhabiting here but as an impatient 
 exile, and the inevitable end of that Body to 
 which it is so intimately allied, with which 
 are its immediate, and in a sense its most 
 vital interests, and in whose mortality it 
 would seem to have a dreadful share. 
 
 The symbolist, unlike the allegorist, cannot 
 disregard the actual, the reality as it seems : 
 he must, indeed, be supremely heedful of this 
 reality as it seems. The symbolist or the 
 mystic (properly they are one) abhors the 
 vague, what is called the " mystical " : he is 
 supremely a realist, but his realism is of the 
 spirit and the imagination, and not of exter- 
 nals, or rather not of these merely, for there, 
 too, he will not disregard actuality, but make 
 it his base, as the lark touches the solid earth 
 before it rises where it can see both Earth 
 and Heaven and sing a song that partakes of 
 each and belongs to both. " In the kingdom 
 of the imagination the ideal must ever be 
 faithful to the general laws of nature," wrote 
 414
 
 Notes 
 
 one of the wisest of mystics. Art is pellucid 
 mystery, and the only spiritually logical in- 
 terpretation of life; and her inevitable lan- 
 -guage is Symbol — by which (whether in 
 colour, or form, or sound, or word, or how- 
 ever the symbol be translated) a spiritual im- 
 age illumines a reality that the material fact 
 narrows or obscures. 
 
 For the rest, " The Divine Adventure " is 
 an eflfort to solve, or obtain light upon, the 
 profoundest human problem. It is by look- 
 ing inward that we shall find the way out- 
 ward. The gods — and what we mean by the 
 gods — the gods seeking God have ever pene- 
 trated the soul by two roads, that of nature 
 and that of art. Edward Calvert put it su- 
 premely well when he said " I go inward to 
 God: outward to the gods." It was Calvert 
 also who wrote: — 
 
 " To charm the truthfulness of eternal law 
 into a guise which it has not had before, and 
 clothe the invention with expression, this is 
 the magic with which the poet would lead the 
 listener into a world of his own, and make 
 him sit down in the charmed circle of his 
 own gods." 
 
 Page 96. The Felire na Naomh Neren- 
 nach (so spelt, more phonetically than cor- 
 
 415
 
 Notes 
 
 rectly) is an invaluable early " Chronicle 
 of Irish Saints." Uladh — or Ulla — is the 
 Gaelic for Ulster, though the ancient boun- 
 daries were not the same as those of the mod- 
 ern province ; and at periods Uladh stood for 
 all North Ireland. Tara in the south was 
 first the capital of a kingdom, and later the 
 federal capital. Thus, at the beginning of the 
 Christian era, Concobar mac Nessa was both 
 King of the Ultonians (the clans of Uladh) 
 and Ard-Righ or High-King of Ireland, a 
 nominal suzerainty. 
 
 The name of Mochaoi's abbacy, n' Aon- 
 druim, was in time anglicised to Antrim. 
 
 The characteristic Gaelic passage quoted in 
 English at p. 98 is not from the Fclirc na 
 Naonih Nercnnach, but from a Hebridean 
 source: excerpted from one of the many 
 treasures-trove rescued from extant or re- 
 cently extant Gaelic lore by Mr. Alexander 
 Carmichael, all soon to be published (the out- 
 come of a long life of unselfish devotion) un- 
 der the title Or agus Ob, though we may be 
 sure that there will be little " dross " and much 
 " gold." 
 
 Page loi. The allusion is to the story or 
 sketch called " The Book of the Opal " in The 
 Dominion of Dreams: a sketch true in essen- 
 416
 
 Notes 
 
 tials, but having at its close an arbitrary in- 
 terpolation of external symbolism which I 
 now regret as superfluous. I have since 
 realised that the only living and convincing 
 symbol is that which is conceived of the spirit 
 and not imagined by the mind. My friend's 
 life, and end, were strange enough — and sig- 
 nificant enough — without the eflfort to bring 
 home to other minds by an arbitrary formula 
 what should have been implicit. 
 
 Page 102. I have again and again, directly 
 or indirectly, since my first book Pharais to 
 the repeated record in this book, alluded to 
 Seumas Macleod; and as I have shown in 
 " Barabal," here, and in the dedication to this 
 book, it is to the old islander and to my Heb- 
 ridean nurse, Barabal, that I owe more than 
 to any other early influences. For those who 
 do not understand the character of the Island- 
 Gael, or do not realise that all Scotland is not 
 Presbyterian, it may be as well to add that 
 many of the islesmen are of the Catholic 
 faith (broadly, the Southern Hebrides are 
 wholly Catholic), and that therefore the 
 brooding imagination of an old islander — who 
 spoke Gaelic only, and had never visited the 
 mainland — might the more readily dwell upon 
 Mary the Mother: Mary of the Lamb, Mary 
 
 417
 
 Notes 
 
 the Shepherdess, as she is lovingly called. I 
 do not, for private reasons, name the island 
 where he lived: but I have written of him, or 
 of what he said, nothing but what was so, or 
 was thus said. He had suffered much, and 
 was lonely: but was, I think, the happiest, 
 and, I am sure, the wisest human being I 
 have known. What I cannot now recall is 
 whether liis belief in Mary's Advent was 
 based on an old prophecy, or upon a faith of 
 his own dreams and visions, coloured by the 
 visions and dreams of a like mind and long- 
 ing: perhaps, and likeliest, upon both. I 
 was not more than seven years old when that 
 happened of which I have written on p. 102, 
 and so recall with surety only that which I 
 saw and heard. 
 
 I am glad to know that another is hardly 
 less indebted to old Seumas Macleod. I am 
 not permitted to mention his name, but a 
 friend and kinsman allows me to tell this : 
 that when he was about sixteen he was on the 
 remote island where Seumas lived, and on 
 the morrow of his visit came at sunrise upon 
 the old man, standing looking seaward with 
 his bonnet removed from his long white 
 locks; and upon his speaking to Seumas 
 (when he saw he was not " at his prayers ") 
 was answered, in Gaelic of course, " Every 
 
 418
 
 Notes 
 
 morning like this I take off my hat to the 
 beauty of the world." 
 
 The untaught islander who could say this 
 had learned an ancient wisdom, of more ac- 
 count than wise books, than many philoso- 
 phies. 
 
 Let me tell one other story of him, which 
 I have meant often to tell, but have as often 
 forgotten. He had gone once to the Long 
 Island, with three fishermen, in their herring- 
 coble. The fish had been sold, and the boat 
 had sailed southward to a Lews haven where 
 Seumas had a relative. The younger men 
 had " hanselled " their good bargain overwell, 
 and were laughing and talking freely, as they 
 walked up the white road from the haven. 
 Something was said that displeased Seumas 
 greatly, and he might have spoken swiftly in 
 reproof; but just then a little naked child ran 
 laughing from a cottage, chased by his smil- 
 ing mother. Seumas caught up the child, 
 who was but an infant, and set him in their 
 midst, and then kneeled and said the few 
 words of a Hebridean hymn beginning: — 
 
 "Even as a little child 
 Most holy, pure. . . ." 
 
 No more was said, but the young men un- 
 derstood ; and he who long afterward told me 
 419
 
 Notes 
 
 of this episode added that though he had often 
 since acted weakly and spoken fooHshly, he 
 had never, since that day, uttered foul 
 words. Another hke characteristic anecdote 
 of Seumas (as the skipper who made his men 
 cease mocking- a " fool ") I have told in the 
 tale called " The Amadan " in The Dominion 
 of Dreams. 
 
 I could write much of this revered friend — 
 so shrewd and genial and worldly-wise, for 
 all his lonely life; so blithe in spirit and swift- 
 ly humorous; himself a poet, and remember- 
 ing countless songs and tales of old; strong 
 and daring, on occasion; good with the pipes, 
 as w^th the nets; seldom angered, but then 
 with a fierce anger, barbaric in its vehemence; 
 a loyal clansman; in all things, good and not 
 so good, a Gael of the Isles. 
 
 But since I have not done so, not gathered 
 into one place, I add this note. 
 
 Page 114. The kingdom of the Suderoer 
 (i.e. Southern Isles) was the Norse name for 
 the realm of the Hebrides and Inner Heb- 
 rides when the Isles were under Scandinav- 
 ian dominion. 
 
 Page 118. The ignorance or supineness 
 which characterises so many English writers 
 
 420
 
 Notes 
 
 on Celtic history is to be found even among 
 Highland and Irish clerics and others who 
 have not taken the trouble to study or even 
 become acquainted with their own ancient lit- 
 erature, but fallen into the foolish and dis- 
 creditable conventionalism which maintains 
 that before Columban or in pre-Christian 
 days the Celtic race consisted of wholly un- 
 civilised and broken tribes, rivals only in 
 savagery. 
 
 How little true that is; as wide of truth as 
 the statements that the far influences of Zona 
 ceased with the death of Columba. Not only 
 was the island for two centuries thereafter (in 
 the words of an eminent historian) " the nur- 
 sery of bishops, the centre of education, the 
 asylum of religious knowledge, the place of 
 union, the capital and necropolis of the Cel- 
 tic race," but the spiritual colonies of Zona 
 had everywhere leavened western Europe. 
 Charlemagne knew and reverenced " this 
 little people of lona," who from a remote is- 
 land in the wild seas beyond the almost as 
 remote countries of Scotland and England 
 had spread the Gospel everywhere. Not only 
 were many monasteries founded by monks 
 from lona in the narrower France of that 
 day, but also in Lorraine, Alsatia, in Switzer- 
 land, and in the German states; in distant 
 421
 
 Notes 
 
 Bavaria even, no fewer than sixteen were 
 thus founded. In the very year the Danes 
 made their first descent on the doomed is- 
 land, a monk of lona was Bishop of Tarento 
 in Italy. In a word, in that day, lona was 
 the brightest gem in the spiritual crown of 
 Rome. 
 
 Page 128. The " little-known namesake of 
 my own " alluded to is Fiona, or Fionaghal 
 Macleod, known (in common with her more 
 famous sister Mary) by the appellation Nig- 
 heaii Alasdair Riiadh, " Daughter of Alasdair 
 the Red," was born circa 1575. 
 
 Page 130. Columba, whose house-name was 
 Crimthan, " Wolf " — surviving in our Scoto- 
 Gaelic MacCrimmon — who was of royal 
 Irish blood and, through his mother of royal 
 Scottish (Pictish) blood also, came to lona 
 in A.D. 563, when he was in his forty-second 
 year. At that date, St. Augustine, " the Eng- 
 lish Columba," had not yet landed in Kent — 
 that more famous event occurring thirty-four 
 years later. In this year of 563, the East had 
 not yet awakened to its wonderful dream that 
 to-day has in number more dreamers than the 
 Cross of Christ; for it was not till six years 
 later, when Columba was on a perilous mis- 
 422
 
 Notes 
 
 slon of conversion among the Picts, that Ma- 
 homet was born. In 563, when Colum landed 
 on lona, the young Italian priest who was 
 afterwards to be called the Architect of the 
 Church and to become famous as Pope Greg- 
 ory the Great, was dreaming his ambitious 
 dreams; and farther East, in Constantinople, 
 then the capital of the Western World, the 
 great Roman Emperor Justinian was laying 
 the foundation of modern law. 
 
 With the advent of Charlemagne, two hun- 
 dred years later, " the old world " passed. 
 When the ninth century opened, the great 
 Gregory's dearest hopes were in the dust 
 where his bones lay; Justinian's metropolis 
 was fallen from her pride; and, on lona, the 
 heathen Danes drank to Odin. 
 
 Page 136. The Mor-Rigdn. This euhem- 
 erised Celtic queen is called by many names: 
 even those resembling that just given vary 
 much — Morrigu, Mor Reega, Morrigan, Mor- 
 gane, Mur-ree {Mor Ree), etc. The old word 
 Mor-Rigan means " the great queen." She is 
 the mother of the Gaelic Gods, as Bona Dea 
 of the Romans. " Anu is her name," says an 
 ancient writer. Anu suckled the elder gods. 
 Her name survives in Tuatha-De-Danann, in 
 
 423
 
 Notes 
 
 Vanu, Ana, and perhaps in that mysterious 
 Scoto-GaeHc name, Teampull Anait — the 
 temple of Anait — whom some writers collate 
 with an ancient Asiatic goddess, Anait (see p. 
 171). It has been suggested that the Celts 
 gave Bona Dea to the Romans, for these con- 
 sidered her Hyperborean. A less likely deri- 
 vation of the popular " Morrigu " is that Mor 
 Reega is Mor Reagh (wealth). Keating, it 
 may be added, speaks of Monagan, Badha, 
 and Macha as the three chief goddesses of the 
 Divine Race of Ana (the Tuatha De Danann). 
 Students of Celtic mythology and legend, 
 and of the Tain-bo-Cuailgne in particu- 
 lar, will remember that her white bull " Find- 
 Bennach " was " antagonist " to the famous 
 brown bull of Cuailgne. The Mor Rigan has 
 been identified with Cybele — as the Goddess 
 of Prosperity: but only speculatively. An- 
 other name of the Mother of all Gods is Aine 
 {Ami?). Prof. Rhys says Ri or Roi was the 
 Mother of the gods of the non-Celtic races. 
 It is suggestive that Ana is a Phoenician 
 word: that people had a (virgin?) goddess 
 named Ana-Percma. 
 
 Page 156. Finn — Oisin — Oscur — Gaul — 
 Diarmid — Cuchullin. These names as they 
 stand exhibit the uncertainty of Gaelic name- 
 424
 
 Notes 
 
 spelling. In the case of the first named there 
 is constant variation. The oldest writing is 
 Find (also Fend), or Fin. Some Gaelic 
 writers prefer, in modern use, Fionn. 
 Through a misapprehension, Macpherson 
 popularised the name in Scotland as Fingal, 
 and the Fein and Fianna ( for they are not the 
 same, as commonly supposed, the former being 
 the Clan or People of Finn, and the latter a 
 kind of militia raised for the defence of 
 Uladh), as the Fingalians. Some Irish critics 
 have been severe upon Macpherson's " im- 
 possible nomenclature"; but Fingal is not 
 " impossible," though it is certainly not old 
 Gaelic for Finn — for the word can quite well 
 stand for Fair Stranger, and might well have 
 been a name given to a Norse (or for that 
 matter a Gaelic) champion. 
 
 Fin MacCumhal (Fin MacCooal or Mac- 
 Cool) is now commonly rendered as Finn or 
 Fionn. The latter is good Gaelic and the 
 finer word, but the other is older. Fionn ob- 
 tains more in Gaelic Scotland. Fingal and 
 the Fingalians are modern, and due solely 
 to the great vogue given by Macpherson 
 — though many writers and even Gaelic 
 speakers have adopted them. 
 
 Fionn's famous son, again, is almost uni- 
 versally (outside Gaelic Scotland and Ireland) 
 
 425
 
 Notes 
 
 known as Ossian, because of Macpherson's 
 spelling of the name. Neither the Highland 
 nor Irish Gaels pronounce it so — but Osh- 
 shen, and the like — best represented by the 
 Gaelic Oishi or Oisein. Personally I prefer 
 Oisin to any other spelling; but perhaps it 
 would be best if the word were uniformly 
 spelt in the manner in which it is universally 
 familiar. Obviously, too, " Ossianic " is the 
 only suitable use of the name in adjective 
 form. Osciir is probably merely a Gaelic 
 spelling of the Norse Oscar ; though I recol- 
 lect a student of ancient Gaelic names telling 
 me that the name was Gaelic and only resem- 
 bled the familiar Scandinavian word. Gaul is 
 commonly so spelt; but Goll is probably more 
 correct. Diarmid has many variations, from 
 Diarmuid to Dermid ; but Diarmid is the best 
 English equivalent both in sound and correct- 
 ness. 
 
 It is still a moot point as to whether in 
 narration, Gaelic names should be given as 
 they are, or be anglicised — or Gaelic excla- 
 mations to phrases in their original spelling, 
 or more phonetically to an English ear. I 
 think it should depend on circumstances, and 
 within the writer's tact. I have myself been 
 taken to task again and again, by critics 
 eager with the eagerness of little knowledge, 
 426
 
 Notes 
 
 for partial anglicisation of names and pre- 
 sumed mistakes in Gaelic spelling, when, 
 surely, the intention was obvious that a com- 
 promise was being attempted. Let me give 
 an example. How would the English reader 
 like a story of, say, a Donald Macintyre and 
 a Grace Maclean and an Ivor Mackay if these 
 names were given in their Gaelic form, as 
 Domnhuil Mac-an-t-Saoir and Giorsal nic II- 
 leathain and Imhir Mac Aodh — or even if 
 simple names, like, say, Meave and Malvina, 
 were given as Medb or Malmhin? 
 
 It is a pity there is not one recognised way 
 of spelling the legendary name of Setanta, the 
 chief hero of the Gaelic chivalry. Probably 
 the best rendering is Cuchulain. The old form 
 is Cuculaind. But colloquially the name in 
 Gaelic is called Coohoolin or Coohullun ; 
 and so Cuculaind would mislead the ordinary 
 reader. The Scottish version is generally 
 Cuchullin — the ch soft: a more correct ren- 
 dering of the Macphersonian Cuthullin, a 
 misnomer responsible no doubt for the com- 
 mon mistake that the Coolin (Cuthullin) 
 mountains in Skye have any connection with 
 the great Gaelic hero (see p. 155). Setanta, 
 a prince of Uladh, was taught for a time in 
 the art of weaponry by one Culain or Culaind, 
 and after a certain famous act of prowess be- 
 427
 
 Notes 
 
 came known as The Hound of Culain — Cu 
 being a hound, whence Cuculain, or with the 
 sign of the genitive, Cuchulain. Every vari- 
 ation of the name, and all the legends of 
 the Cuchullin cycle, will be found in Miss 
 Eleanor Hull's excellent redaction, pubHshed 
 by Mr. Nutt. The interested reader should 
 see also the classical work of O'Curry: the 
 vivid and romantic chronicle of Mr. Standish 
 O'Grady; and the fascinating and scholarly 
 edition of The Feast of Bricrin, recently pub- 
 lished as the second volume of the Irish 
 Texts Society, by Dr. George Henderson, the 
 most scholarly of Highland specialists. 
 
 Page 162 seq. No one has collected so 
 much material on the subject of St. Michael 
 as Mr. Alexander Carmichael has done. Some 
 of his lore, in sheiling-hymns and fishing- 
 hymns, he has already made widely known, 
 directly and indirectly : but in his forthcoming 
 Or agus Ob, already alluded to, there will be 
 found a long and invaluable section devoted 
 to St. Micheil, as also, I understand, one of 
 like length and interest on St. Bride or Bri- 
 get, the most beloved of Hebridean saints, 
 and herself probably a Christian successor of 
 a much more ancient Brighde, a Celtic deity, 
 it is said, of Song and Beauty. 
 428
 
 Notei 
 
 Page i8i. Be'al. I do not think there is 
 any evidence to prove that the Be'al or Bel 
 often spelt Baal — whose name and worship 
 survive to this day in Bealltainn (Beltane), 
 May-day — of Gaelic mythology, is identical 
 with the Phoenician god Baal, though prob- 
 ably of a like significance. The Gaelic name, 
 which may be anglicised into Be'al, signifies 
 " Source of All." 
 
 I am inclined to believe that the Be'al or 
 Bel of the Gaels has his analogue in the Gaul- 
 ish mythology in Hesus (also Esua, Aesus, 
 and Heus), a mysterious (supreme?) god of 
 ancient Gaul, surviving still in Armorican 
 legend. If so, Hesus or Aesus may be iden- 
 tical with the " lost " Gaelic god Aesar or 
 Aes. Aesar means " fire-kindler," whence 
 the Creator. (In this connection I would ask 
 if Aed, an ancient Gaelic god of fire, also of 
 death, be identical with (as averred) a still 
 more ancient Greek name of Fire, or God of 
 ¥\vt=-Aed?). Be'al, the Source of All, may 
 take us back to the Phoenician Baal: but the 
 Gaelic Acs and the Gaulish Aesus (Hesus) 
 take us, with the Scandinavian Aesir, further 
 still : to the Persian Aser, the Hindoo Aeswar, 
 the Egyptian Asi (the Sun-bull), and the 
 Etruscan Aesar. The Bhagavat-Gita says of 
 Aeswar that " he resides in every mortal." 
 429
 
 Notes 
 
 Pages 199-203. This section, slightly 
 adapted, is from an unpublished book, in 
 gradual preparation, entitled The Chronicles 
 af the Sidhe. 
 
 Page 225. The Culdees. Though I have 
 alluded in the text to the probable meaning 
 of a word that has perplexed many people, I 
 add this note as I have just come upon an- 
 other theoretical statement about the Culdees 
 as though they were an oriental race or sect. 
 The writer evidently thinks they are the same 
 as Chaldaeans, and builds a startlingly unsci- 
 entific theory on that assumption. In all 
 probability the word is simply Cille-De, i.e., 
 [the man of the] Cell of God — Cille being 
 Cell, a Church — and so a Cille-De man would 
 be " man of God," a monk, a cleric. A much 
 more puzzling problem obtains in the appar- 
 ent traces of Buddha-worship in the Hebrides. 
 It may or may not be of much account that 
 the author of Lewisiana " admits reluctantly " 
 that " we must accept the possibility of a 
 Buddhist race passing north of Ireland." I 
 have not seen Lewisiana for some years, and 
 cannot recall on what grounds the author ar- 
 rives at his conclusion. But from my notes 
 on the subject I see that M. Coquebert-Mont- 
 bret, in the Soc. des Antiquaires de France, 
 
 430
 
 AN ALMANAC 
 
 Our Elder Brother is a Spirit of Joy: there- 
 fore, in this new year, Rejoice! 
 
 In January the Spirit dreams, 
 
 And in February weaves a Rainbow, 
 
 And in March smiles through Rains, 
 
 And in April is clad in White and Green, 
 
 And in May is the Youth of the World, 
 
 And in June is a Glory, 
 
 And in July is in two Worlds, 
 
 And in August is a Colour, 
 
 And in September dreams of Beauty, 
 
 And in October Sighs, 
 
 And in November Wearieth, 
 
 And in December Sleeps. 
 
 " I am Beauty itself amid Beautiful Things " 
 
 {Bhagavad Git a). 
 
 4"
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 By Mrs. William Sharp 
 
 The contents of this volume represent the earlier 
 and the later writings of William Sharp as "Fiona 
 Macleod," separated by an interval of ten years. 
 "The Tragic Landscapes" from The Sin-Eater were 
 written in 1893. "The Silence of Amor" written in 
 1895 formed a section of the ist Edition of From 
 the Hills of Dream (1896) and was published sep- 
 arately in book form in America in 1902 by Mr. T. 
 Mosher (Portland, Maine). One or two of these 
 prose poems were incorporated in later work — in 
 the Introduction to The Sin-Eater, and in "lona," 
 for example. 
 
 The Nature - Essays gathered together in the 
 posthumous volume Where the Forest Murmurs 
 (Newnes, 1906) were written during the years 
 1903-5 for Country Life, at the request of Mr. P. 
 Anderson Graham (to whom the volume was dedi- 
 cated) with the exception of "At the Turn of the 
 Tide" which appeared in The Fortnightly in 1906, 
 and of the fragment "Rest" found on the author's 
 writing table, after his death at Castello di Maniace, 
 Sicily. 
 
 The titular nature-paper "Where the Forest 
 
 Murmurs" forms a part of the second volume of se. 
 
 lected tales published in the Tauchnitz collection 
 
 in 1905 under the title of The Sunset of Old Tales. 
 
 412
 
 Bibliographical Note 
 
 The first volume, Wind and Wave, appeared in 1902; 
 both have been admirably translated into German 
 by Herr Winnibald Mey under the titles of Wind und 
 Wage and Das Reich der Trdume and published by 
 Herrn Eugen Diederichs (Jena and Leipzig). Sev- 
 eral of the tales have been translated into French 
 by Monsieur Henri Davray and have appeared in 
 Le Mercure de France, and will eventually be issued 
 in book form; they have also been translated into 
 Swedish and into Italian. The Tauchnitz volume 
 of The Sunset of Old Tales contains an "After Ded- 
 ication" which may very appropriately be re- 
 printed as conclusion to the present volume of 
 Nature-Essays: 
 
 " Had I known in time I would have added to the 
 Dedicatory Page the following tribute, which now 
 I must be content to add here: yet not wholly re- 
 gretfully so, for, with its recognition of a new and 
 beautiful justice, as well as a rare and beautiful 
 generosity, it forms, because of the great deed, which 
 it records, a fitting close to this book and Wind and 
 Wave. In both, perhaps, is heard too much, too 
 often, the refrain of Gaelic sorrow, the refrain of an 
 ancient people of the hills and glens and grey wan- 
 dering arms of the sea, in the days of farewell, or, 
 at best, of a dubious, a menacing transmutation. 
 Decade by decade, year by year, Scotland has been 
 more and more entangled in the mesh of the crudest 
 and most selfish landlordism. From the Hebrid 
 Isles and the mountains of Sutherland to the last 
 heather walls of Cheviot, the blight of a fraudu- 
 lent closing of the hills and the glens, the woods 
 and the waters, has shut away their own land from 
 the Scottish people. Surely one may hope at last 
 for the coming of the great Restitution, of a nobler 
 
 413
 
 Bibliographical Note 
 
 ideal ownership, when one has lived to witness so 
 great and so significant a public deed as that of Mr. 
 Cameron Corbett. 
 
 DEDICATED ALSO 
 TO 
 
 CAMERON CORBETT, M.P. 
 
 whose free gift to the people, for all time, of a 
 vast tract of Mountain-lands and Loch-shores, in 
 Eastern Argyll, is not only the noblest contempo- 
 rary gift bestowed on Scotland, but an augury of 
 the possible redemption of that all but 'preserved- 
 away' country from the grip of selfish landowners 
 and from the injustice of fraudulent and often in- 
 iquitous game-laws." 
 
 414
 
 Notes 
 
 argues at great length that the Asiatic Bud- 
 dhist missionaries who penetrated to Western 
 Europe, reached Ireland and Scotland. He 
 asks if the ancient Gaelic Deity named Biidd 
 or Budwas be not Buddh (Buddha). An- 
 other French antiquary avers that the Druids 
 were " an order of Eastern priests adoring 
 Buddwas." Some light on the problem is 
 thrown by the fact that in the Gaulo-Celtic 
 museum in St. Germain is an ancient Celtic 
 " god " — the fourth in kind that has been 
 found — with its legs crossed after the man- 
 ner of the Indian Buddha. It is more interest- 
 ing still to note that in the Hebrides spirits 
 are sometimes called Boduchas or Buddachs, 
 and that the same word is (or used to be) ap- 
 plied to heads of families, as the Master. 
 
 Pages 242, 248. These two sections, rear- 
 ranged, and in part rewritten, are excerpted 
 from what I wrote in lona, some five years 
 ago, for a preface to The Sin-Eater. 
 
 Page 256. In its original form this was 
 written about a book of great interest and 
 beauty, The Shadozv of Arvor: Legendary 
 Romances of Brittany. Translated and re- 
 told by Edith Wingate Rinder. 
 
 Arvor (or Armor) is one of the bardic 
 
 431
 
 Notes 
 
 equivalents of Armorica, as Brittany is called 
 in many old tales. The name means the Sea- 
 Washed Land, Vor or Mor being Breton for 
 " sea," as in the famous region Morbihan, the 
 Little Sea. Neither the Bretons nor their 
 Cymric kindred, however, call Brittany Arvor, 
 or the Latinised Armorica. Arvor is the 
 poetic name of a portion of Basse Bretagne 
 only. Bretons call Brittany Breis, and their 
 language Brezoned, and themselves Breizia- 
 ded (singular Breiziad) — as they keep to 
 the French differentiation of Bretagne and 
 Grande Bretagne in Bro-Zaos, the Saxon- 
 Land, as they speak of France (beyond Brit- 
 tany), as Bro-chall, the Land of Gaul. In 
 Gaelic I think Brittany is always spoken of 
 as Breatunn-Beag, Little Britain. The Welsh 
 call the country, its people, and language, 
 Llydaw, Llydawiaid, Llydawaeg. 
 
 F. M. 
 
 432
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 By Mrs. William Sharp 
 
 The first edition of The Divine Adventure: lona: 
 By Sundown Shores was published in 1900 by Messrs. 
 Chapman and Hall. The Titular Essay (since re- 
 vised) appeared first in The Fortnightly Review for 
 November and December, 1899. A large portion 
 of "lona" (though in different sequence) appeared 
 also in The Fortnightly, March and April, 1900. 
 Both "spiritual histories " were published separately 
 in book form in America by Mr. T. Mosher ; "lona," 
 curtailed and rearranged under the title of "The 
 Isle of Dreams," in 1905. The Essay "Celtic" in its 
 original form, first printed in The Contemporary 
 Review, will now be found, revised and materially 
 added to, in "The Winged Destiny." In this Uniform 
 Edition of the writings of "Fiona Macleod" (Will- 
 iam Sharp) the following stories, etc., have been 
 transferred to the present volume: "The White 
 Fever" and "The Smoothing of the Hand" from 
 The Sin-Eater; "The White Heron" which relates 
 to the earlier story of Mary Maclean in Pharais, is 
 from The Dominion of Dreams, and in its earliest 
 version appeared with illustrations in the Christmas 
 number of Harper in 1898. "A Dream" appeared 
 first in the Theosophical Review of September, 1904. 
 Finally I have added to this volume the latter por- 
 tion and some detached fragments from Green Fire, a 
 
 433
 
 Bibliographical Note 
 
 Romance by "Fiona Macleod" dealing with Brit- 
 tany and the Hebrid Isles and published in 1896 by 
 Messrs. A. Constable, and in America by Messrs. 
 Harper Bros. But William Sharp considered that 
 the book suffered from grave defects of design and 
 construction and decided that, when out of print, it 
 should not be republished. "The Herdsman," 
 however, is — as he stated in a note to the first Edi- 
 tion of The Dominion of Dreams "a re-written and 
 materially altered version of the Hebridean part of 
 Green Fire of which book it is all I care to preserve." 
 Nevertheless, in accordance with the wishes of sev- 
 eral friends, I have very willingly put together a 
 series of detached fragments from the book and 
 placed them beside "The Herdsman" as, in our 
 opinion equally worthy of preservation, since the 
 author's prohibition precludes the possibility of 
 reprinting the book in its entirety. 
 
 434
 
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