Slowly Alastair held Lora back from him, and looked long and searchingly into her eyes.
She shrank, in an apprehension that, like a bird, flew bewildered from the blinding light that flashed out of the darkness—a vain bewilderment of foredoom.
Then, with a great effort, she bade him tell her what he had to say.
Too well he knew there was no time to lose: that any day, any moment, his dark hour would come upon him, and that then it would be too late. Yet he would fain have waited.
"Lora, have you heard aught said by any one concerning my illness?"
"Dear, Father Mantus told me, on the day you went away, that you feared the trouble which came upon your father, and upon your father's father; and oh, Alastair my beloved, he told me what that trouble was."
"Then you know: you can understand?"
"What?"
"That which now appals me ... now kills me."
"Alastair!"
"Yes, Lora?"
"Oh, Alastair, Alastair, you do not mean that ... that ... you too ...youare ... are ... thatyouhave the ... the ... mind-dark?"
"Dear heart of mine, this sorrow has come to us. I——"
With a sharp cry Lora held him to her, despairingly, wildly, as though even at that moment he were to be snatched from her. Then, in a passion of sobbing, she shook in his arms as a withered aspen-leaf ere it fall to the wind.
The tears ran down his face; his mouth twitched; his long, thin fingers moved restlessly in her hair and upon her quivering shoulder.
No other sound than her convulsive sobs, than his spasmodic breathing, met in the quietude of whisper-music exhaled as an odour by the sea and by the low wind among the corries and upon the grasses of the isle.
A white moth came fluttering slowly toward them, hovering vaguely awhile overhead, and then drifting alow and almost to their feet. In the shadow it loomed grey and formless—an obscure thing that might have come out of the heart of the unguarded brain. Upward again it fluttered, idly this way and that: then suddenly alit upon the hair of Alastair, poising itself on spread wings, and now all agleam as with pale phosphorescent fire, where the moonlight filled it with sheen as of white water falling against the sun.
The gleam caught Lora's eyes as, with a weary sigh, she lifted her head.
A strange smile came into her face. Slowly she disengaged her right arm, and half raised it. Alastair was about to speak, but her eyes brought silence upon him.
"Hush!" she whispered at last.
He saw that her eyes looked beyond his, beyond him, as it seemed. What did she see? The trouble in his brain moved anew at this touch of mystery.
"What is it, Lora?"
"Hush, hush!... I see a sign from heaven upon your forehead ... the sign of the white peace that Seumas says is upon them who are of the company of the Belovëd."
"Lora, what are you saying? What is it? What do you see?"
His voice suddenly was harsh, fretful. Lora shrank for a moment; then, as the white moth rose and fluttered away into the dark, faintly agleam with moonfire till it reached the shadow, she pitifully raised her hand to his brow.
"Come, dear, let us go in. All will be well with us, whatever happens."
"Never ... never ... never!"
"O Alastair, if it be God's will?"
"Ay, and if it be God's will?"
"I cannot lose you; you will always be mine; no sorrow can part us; nothing can separate us; nothing but the Passing, and that ..."
"Lora!"
For answer she looked into his eyes.
"Lora, it is of that, of the Passing: ... are you ... are you brave enough not only to endure ... but to ... if we thought it well ... if I asked you...?"
A deep silence fell upon both. Hardly did either breathe. By some strange vagary of the strained mind, Lora thought the throb of her heart against her side was like the pulse of the engines of theClansmanto which she had listened with such intent expectation that very evening.
From the darkness to the north came the low monotone of the sea, as a muffled voice prophesying through the gates of Sleep and Death. Far to the east the tide-race tore through the Sound with a confused muttering of haste and tumult. Upon the isle the wind moved as a thing in pain, or idly weary: lifting now from cranny to corrie, and through glen and hollow, and among the birk-shaws and the rowans, with long sighs and whispers where by Uisghe-dhu the valley of moonflowers sloped to the sea on the west, or among the reeds, and the gale, and the salt grasses around the clachan that lay duskily still on the little brae above the haven.
"Lora ... would you ... would...?"
Only her caught breath at intervals gave answer. The short lisp and gurgle of the water in the sea-weed close by came nearer. The tide was on the flood, and the sand about their feet was already damp.
The immense semicircle of the sky domed sea and land with infinity. In the vast space the stars and planets fulfilled their ordered plan. Star by star, planet by planet, sun by sun, universe by universe moved jocund in the march of eternal death.
Beyond the two lonely figures, seaward, the moon swung, green-gold at the heart with circumambient flame of pearl.
Beautiful the suspended lamp of her glory—a censer swung before the Earth-Altar of the Unknown.
In their human pain the two drew closer still. The remote alien silences of the larger life around vaguely appalled them. Yet Lora knew what was in his thought; what he foreshadowed; what he wished.
"It shall be as you will, Alastair, heart of me, life of me," she whispered. Then, with clasping arms, and dear entreaty, she urged him homeward.
"Come, come home, Alastair,Alùinn. Enough of sorrow to-night. Speak to me to-morrow of all that is in your mind; but to-night ... to-night, no more! My heart will break. Come, dearest. Come,mo mùirnean! Hark! the wind is crying in the corrie: it is rising again on the other side of the isle: and we are already chill—oh, cold, so cold!"
Hand in hand, they moved slowly upward along the little pathway of mingled grass and shingle which led to the clachan from the ferry: he with bowed head, she with upward face.
A dog barked from a byre, another answered from a sheiling beyond. Suddenly there was a rushing sound, and Ghaoth, Alastair's dog, came leaping upon his master, whining and barking with joy. He stooped and fondled it; but in vain tried to quell its ecstasy in seeing him again.
Whether aroused by the barking of Ghaoth, or having awoke and found Lora absent from the cottage, Mrs. Maclean had risen, lit a candle, and now stood upon the threshold, looking intently at the twain as they approached.
Among the islefolk many words are not used. The over-arching majesty of the sky, the surrounding majesty of the sea, the loneliness of these little wind-swept spots of earth isled in remote waters, leave a hush upon the brain, and foster eloquent silences rather than idle words.
Mrs. Maclean knew intuitively that something of disaster was in this nocturnal return of Alastair: that he and Lora had met by chance, or through a summons unknown to her: and that now they came—to her, in their youth, so tragically piteous under the shadow of calamity—craving only for that impossible boon of the young in sorrow: peace.
When they drew near to her, she turned and placed the candle on the table. Then, facing them, she came forward, led them in by the hand, and closed the door. She saw that Alastair was hatless, and his clothes damp and travel-stained; so with quiet, home-sweet words, she persuaded him to change his things while she laid some food for him to break his long fast with.
But though wearily he did the one, he would have nothing of the other save a draught of warm milk.
A heavy drowsiness was now upon him. He could scarce uplift the lids from his eyes. His voice, when he spoke at all, was so low that it was barely audible.
After a silence, during which he had looked long at the fire, and closed his eyes at the last, with Lora's gaze hungrily set upon him, and the dark, sweet gloom of Mrs. Maclean's, wet with the dew of unshed tears, upon both of the twain, whom she loved so passing well, he murmured huskily and confusedly:
"By green pastures ... I will lay me down to sleep.... It calleth, calleth ..."
Suddenly Mrs. Maclean arose. Taking Lora's hand, she led her to the fireside and motioned her to kneel beside Alastair. Then, blowing out the candle-flame, she too knelt. Only the fireglow now lit the room, filled with brooding shadows in the corners and with warm dusk where the two women kneeled and the man slept.
With arms lifted as if in invocation, the elder woman—her face wan under her grey hair, though touched with an unreal glow from the flaming peats—in a low, crooning voice, repeated the ancient rest-words, the ancient prayer of her people, said at the covering up of the fire against the hours of sleep:
"Smàlaidh mis'n nochd an teine;Mar a smàlas Mac Moire.Gu'm bu slan an tigh's an teine,Gu'm bu slan a' chiudeachd uile.Co bhios air an lar?Peadair agus Pòl,Co bhios air an phaire nochd?Moire mhin-gheal's a Mac.Bial De a labhras,Aingeal geal a dh' innseas—Ga'r comhnadh's ga'r gleidheadhGus an tig an solus geal a maireach."I will cover up the fire aright,Even as directed by the Virgin's Son.Safe be the house, and safe the fire,And safe from harm be all the indwellers.Who is that that I see on the floor?Even Peter himself and Paul.Upon whom shall this night's vigil rest?Upon the blameless Virgin and her Son:God's mouth has spoken it.A white-robed angel shall be with us in the dark,Till the coming of the sun at morn.
"Smàlaidh mis'n nochd an teine;Mar a smàlas Mac Moire.Gu'm bu slan an tigh's an teine,Gu'm bu slan a' chiudeachd uile.Co bhios air an lar?Peadair agus Pòl,Co bhios air an phaire nochd?Moire mhin-gheal's a Mac.Bial De a labhras,Aingeal geal a dh' innseas—Ga'r comhnadh's ga'r gleidheadhGus an tig an solus geal a maireach."
"Smàlaidh mis'n nochd an teine;
Mar a smàlas Mac Moire.
Gu'm bu slan an tigh's an teine,
Gu'm bu slan a' chiudeachd uile.
Co bhios air an lar?
Peadair agus Pòl,
Co bhios air an phaire nochd?
Moire mhin-gheal's a Mac.
Bial De a labhras,
Aingeal geal a dh' innseas—
Ga'r comhnadh's ga'r gleidheadh
Gus an tig an solus geal a maireach."
I will cover up the fire aright,Even as directed by the Virgin's Son.Safe be the house, and safe the fire,And safe from harm be all the indwellers.Who is that that I see on the floor?Even Peter himself and Paul.Upon whom shall this night's vigil rest?Upon the blameless Virgin and her Son:God's mouth has spoken it.A white-robed angel shall be with us in the dark,Till the coming of the sun at morn.
I will cover up the fire aright,
Even as directed by the Virgin's Son.
Safe be the house, and safe the fire,
And safe from harm be all the indwellers.
Who is that that I see on the floor?
Even Peter himself and Paul.
Upon whom shall this night's vigil rest?
Upon the blameless Virgin and her Son:
God's mouth has spoken it.
A white-robed angel shall be with us in the dark,
Till the coming of the sun at morn.
When she ceased, there was no sound save the low sobbing of Lora and the quiet breathing of the sleeper in the high-backed chair.
Having made the sign of the cross upon her breast and over the fire, she covered up the flame with ash and charred peat. Quietly, then, she placed her strong arm around Alastair, and half guided, half lifted him to the bed in the adjoining room where he and Lora were wont to sleep. The girl-wife followed, and, with deft hands, unclad Alastair and laid him gently in the bed. Swiftly disrobing herself, she lay down by his side, her dark hair mingling on the pillow with his tangle of dull gold.
The gleam still emitted between the bars from beneath the covered peats passed into the room through the open doorway and fell upon the bed.
Alastair stirred; opened his eyes; looked with wild, startled gaze at Lora, then at Mrs. Maclean, who had again knelt, and with raised arms had begun her "Blessing of Peace."
With a sigh he closed his eyes, and the terror passed from his face. Once or twice he muttered parts of the lines of that ancient sleep-prayer, familiar to him since his boyhood, and before it was ended deep slumber had come upon him:
"Laidhidh misc 'nochdLe Moire 's le 'Mac,Le mathair mo Righ,'Ni mo dhion 'o dhroch-bheairt,Cha laidh mise leis an olc,'S cha laidh an t' olc leam;Ach laidhidh mì le Dia,'S laidhidh Dia Ma' rium.Lamh dheas Dhe fo'm cheann,Crois nan naoi aingeal leam.'O mhullach mo chinnGu craican mo bhonn,Guidheam Peadair, guidheam Pòl,Guidheam Moir-Oigh' 'sa Mac.Guidheam an da ostal deug,Gun mise 'dhol eug le'n cead.'Dhia 'sa Mhoire na gloire.'S a Mhic na oighe cubhraidhCumabh mise o na piantan dorcha,'S Micheal geal' an cò 'ail m'anama."This night I will lay me down to sleepWith Mary Virgin and her Son,Even with the mother of my King,Who protects me from all evil;Nor shall evil lie down to sleep with me,But I shall sleep with God:And with me shall God lie down.His right arm shall be under my head:The cross of the Nine Angels be about me,From the top of my headTo the soles of my feet.I supplicate Peter, I supplicate Paul,I supplicate Mary the Virgin and her Son,I supplicate the twelve Apostles,That evil befall us not this night.Mary, in thy goodness and glory,And Thou, Son of the sweet-savoured Virgin,Protect us this night from all the pains of darkness.And thou, Michael, guardian of souls, abide with us, watching.
"Laidhidh misc 'nochdLe Moire 's le 'Mac,Le mathair mo Righ,'Ni mo dhion 'o dhroch-bheairt,Cha laidh mise leis an olc,'S cha laidh an t' olc leam;Ach laidhidh mì le Dia,'S laidhidh Dia Ma' rium.Lamh dheas Dhe fo'm cheann,Crois nan naoi aingeal leam.'O mhullach mo chinnGu craican mo bhonn,Guidheam Peadair, guidheam Pòl,Guidheam Moir-Oigh' 'sa Mac.Guidheam an da ostal deug,Gun mise 'dhol eug le'n cead.'Dhia 'sa Mhoire na gloire.'S a Mhic na oighe cubhraidhCumabh mise o na piantan dorcha,'S Micheal geal' an cò 'ail m'anama."
"Laidhidh misc 'nochd
Le Moire 's le 'Mac,
Le mathair mo Righ,
'Ni mo dhion 'o dhroch-bheairt,
Cha laidh mise leis an olc,
'S cha laidh an t' olc leam;
Ach laidhidh mì le Dia,
'S laidhidh Dia Ma' rium.
Lamh dheas Dhe fo'm cheann,
Crois nan naoi aingeal leam.
'O mhullach mo chinn
Gu craican mo bhonn,
Guidheam Peadair, guidheam Pòl,
Guidheam Moir-Oigh' 'sa Mac.
Guidheam an da ostal deug,
Gun mise 'dhol eug le'n cead.
'Dhia 'sa Mhoire na gloire.
'S a Mhic na oighe cubhraidh
Cumabh mise o na piantan dorcha,
'S Micheal geal' an cò 'ail m'anama."
This night I will lay me down to sleepWith Mary Virgin and her Son,Even with the mother of my King,Who protects me from all evil;Nor shall evil lie down to sleep with me,But I shall sleep with God:And with me shall God lie down.His right arm shall be under my head:The cross of the Nine Angels be about me,From the top of my headTo the soles of my feet.I supplicate Peter, I supplicate Paul,I supplicate Mary the Virgin and her Son,I supplicate the twelve Apostles,That evil befall us not this night.Mary, in thy goodness and glory,And Thou, Son of the sweet-savoured Virgin,Protect us this night from all the pains of darkness.And thou, Michael, guardian of souls, abide with us, watching.
This night I will lay me down to sleep
With Mary Virgin and her Son,
Even with the mother of my King,
Who protects me from all evil;
Nor shall evil lie down to sleep with me,
But I shall sleep with God:
And with me shall God lie down.
His right arm shall be under my head:
The cross of the Nine Angels be about me,
From the top of my head
To the soles of my feet.
I supplicate Peter, I supplicate Paul,
I supplicate Mary the Virgin and her Son,
I supplicate the twelve Apostles,
That evil befall us not this night.
Mary, in thy goodness and glory,
And Thou, Son of the sweet-savoured Virgin,
Protect us this night from all the pains of darkness.
And thou, Michael, guardian of souls, abide with us, watching.
When she looked down, at the end of her prayer, Mary saw that Lora's eyes also were closed; though by the muttering of the lips she knew her dear one was not asleep.
Softly she closed the door behind her; then, passing by the fire, went into the third room of the cottage.
Soon she too was in bed, softly repeating, as the weariness of sleep came over her:
Cha laidh mise leis an olc,'S cha laidh an t' olc leam.
Cha laidh mise leis an olc,'S cha laidh an t' olc leam.
Cha laidh mise leis an olc,
'S cha laidh an t' olc leam.
Without, came the rising sound of the tide among the pebbles on the shore, the incessant chime of wave lapsing over wave on flat rocks. The sough of the wind fell from the corries of Craig-an-Iolair, and died in whispers among the fern and dew-cold grasses.
So went the hours from silence into silence. And in time came the dawn, and an ashen-grey upon the sea, and a grey gloom upon each leaf and every dusky frond and blade. But when the black of the mainland became gold, and a trouble of light moved, swiftly-throbbing, across the eastern water, Michael the Watcher withdrew.
At the window of the room where Alastair and Lora slept, the beautiful sunflood of the new day poured in rejoicingly.
One long streamer of light fell upon his yellow hair and kissed the eyelids of a veiled, subsiding mind. Downward it moved, and filled with its gleam the dark-brown hair which lay across the white breast of Lora. Then, surely, it passed beneath the flower of her bosom and into her heart, and warmed it with joy; for with a smile she awoke, murmuring,
"Pharais, Pharais."
Before the want of that day, the rumour went among the scant population of Innisròn that Alastair, son of Diarmid of Macleod, was mad: that, in the phrasing of the islesman, he had the mind-dark.
Men and women whispered the thing with awe. In the West, something almost of a hieratic significance is involved in the poetic phrase that God has filled with dusk the house of the brain. Not thus is spoken of the violence of insanity—the mere insurgence of delirium from the fever of hate, or from jealousy, or love, or evil of the blood, or the curse of drink. But that veil of darkness which comes down upon the mind of man or woman in the fullness of life, and puts an impermeable mist or a twilight of awful gloom about the soul, is looked upon not only with an exceeding tenderness, but with awe, and as of a bowing of the head before a divine mystery.
Yet the rumour was not true, for Alastair Macleod, though he stood within the shadow, had not yet sunk into the darkness.
As it had chanced, Mrs. Maclean was not the only person who had seen him and Lora on their return.
Late in the night Ian Maclean had come back from the western side of the isle, and was standing in the shadow of the byre when, hand in hand, Lora and Alastair approached.
The old man had been unhappy, and, after leaving his kinsman at Ardfeulan, had wandered up among the corries. In the wail of the wind along the heights, in the sough of it in the little glens and shelving uplands, he heard voices to which he would fain not have listened, for they spoke of a terror that was in the air.
The moment he saw Alastair's eyes, dark within the moonlit pallor of the face, he knew that his premonitions were no mere imaginings. On his forehead he saw the shadow of doom.
With a sigh he turned, and, having entered the byre and gone to the part of it shut off for his use, lay down upon his bed of fragrant fern. But, weary as he was, he could not sleep.
Again the vision came to him: and once more he saw Alastair move blindly in an unfamiliar place, with the mist no longer up to his waist only, but risen now to his throat, and with thin tongues reaching upward still.
The long night went drearily past. When the day was come, Ian rose and let out the kye. The sweet freshness of the air was as balm to his weariness. The wind blew cool upon his brows, and a breath of the sea mingled with the myriad suspiration of the earth and gave him the intoxication of the dawn. His eyes grew brighter, his step firmer, his mien no longer that of profound dejection; and when Ghaoth came leaping toward him, and barked about the half-amused, half-angry cows—who stopped to plash their hoofs in the thick white dew, against which the warm breaths fell revolvingly like grey whorls of steam, and to swing their great horns against their flanks, wild and shaggy as the brown hill-sides in autumn—then all the gloom of the night went from him.
"Mayhap it was but a dream," he muttered: "and who can tell the folly of the mind?"
Then, with Ghaoth's help, he got the steers from the neighbouring shed and "Righ-geal," the great tawny-shaggy bull, whose either horn could have pierced right through and beyond the biggest drover who ever crossed the Kyles at Colintraive, and urged all the kine upward to the higher pastures, where the thyme was so sweet, close-clustered as it was among the soft green hair of the isle-grass.
It seemed to him as though all the larks on Innisròn were singing at one time and just there, everywhere around and above him. In the birk-shaws, there was a mavis that was as a fount wherefrom music spilled intoxicatingly: by the burn, the merles called, recalled, and called yet again, and over and over, sweet and blithe, and with loud, reckless cries of mirth and joy. On every gorse-bush, yellow with bloom, fragrant almost to pain, and filled with the murmur of the wild-bee and the high, thin hum of the wood-wasp, a yellow-hammer flitted to and fro, or sang itstweet—tweet—tweet—o-o-oh sweet!—sweet!
The sky was almost cloudless save for an angry flush in the north-east—a deep, living blue of infinite, though indiscernibly faint gradation. Here and there, too, were thin, almost invisible grey mare's-tails swept upward, as though they were snow-dust or sea-spray, before the flying feet of the Weaver of the Winds.
As soon as Ian had reached the last dyke, and had seen "Righ-geal" lead his impatient following toward the uplands, he stood swaying his grey head slowly to and fro, with his right hand moving automatically in rhythmic accord, while he repeated the familiar "Rann Buacbailleac," or Rune on the driving of the cattle to the pasture:
I"Siubhal beinne, siubhal baile,Siubhal gu re fada farsuinn;Buachaille Mhic De m'ar casaibh,Gu mu slan a thig sibh dachaidh,Buachaille Mhic De m'ar casaibhGu mu slan a thig sibh dachaidh."II"Comraig, Dhia agus Chalum-Chille,Bhith m'ar timchioll a fabh's a tilleadh,Agus nan or-chiabh down!Agus Banachaig nan basa min-gheal,Bride nan or-chiabh down!"ITravel ye moorland, travel ye townland,Travel ye gently far and wide,God's Son be the Herdsman about your feet,Whole may ye home return.God's Son be the Herdsman about your feet,Whole may ye home return.IIThe protection of God and of Columba,Encompass your going and coming;And about you be the milkmaid of the smooth white palms,Bridget of the clustering hair, golden brown,And about you be the milkmaid of the smooth white palms,Bridget of the clustering hair, golden brown!
I"Siubhal beinne, siubhal baile,Siubhal gu re fada farsuinn;Buachaille Mhic De m'ar casaibh,Gu mu slan a thig sibh dachaidh,Buachaille Mhic De m'ar casaibhGu mu slan a thig sibh dachaidh."
I
"Siubhal beinne, siubhal baile,
Siubhal gu re fada farsuinn;
Buachaille Mhic De m'ar casaibh,
Gu mu slan a thig sibh dachaidh,
Buachaille Mhic De m'ar casaibh
Gu mu slan a thig sibh dachaidh."
II"Comraig, Dhia agus Chalum-Chille,Bhith m'ar timchioll a fabh's a tilleadh,Agus nan or-chiabh down!Agus Banachaig nan basa min-gheal,Bride nan or-chiabh down!"
II
"Comraig, Dhia agus Chalum-Chille,
Bhith m'ar timchioll a fabh's a tilleadh,
Agus nan or-chiabh down!
Agus Banachaig nan basa min-gheal,
Bride nan or-chiabh down!"
ITravel ye moorland, travel ye townland,Travel ye gently far and wide,God's Son be the Herdsman about your feet,Whole may ye home return.God's Son be the Herdsman about your feet,Whole may ye home return.
I
Travel ye moorland, travel ye townland,
Travel ye gently far and wide,
God's Son be the Herdsman about your feet,
Whole may ye home return.
God's Son be the Herdsman about your feet,
Whole may ye home return.
IIThe protection of God and of Columba,Encompass your going and coming;And about you be the milkmaid of the smooth white palms,Bridget of the clustering hair, golden brown,And about you be the milkmaid of the smooth white palms,Bridget of the clustering hair, golden brown!
II
The protection of God and of Columba,
Encompass your going and coming;
And about you be the milkmaid of the smooth white palms,
Bridget of the clustering hair, golden brown,
And about you be the milkmaid of the smooth white palms,
Bridget of the clustering hair, golden brown!
Turning aside, the shepherd searched here and there among the boulders and split rocks which everywhere obtruded from the sea of heather. For a time his quest was unrewarded; but just as he was about to relinquish it he gave an abrupt exclamation. He had seen theTorranan, that rare plant, of which he had often heard, but had never found: and, for sure, he would never have sought it there, for it was said to be a plant of the sea's lip—that is to say, of the shore, within reach of the tide-breath.
Muttering over and over, "Buainams' thu thorranain!"—Let me pluck thee, Torranan,—he gained the precious bloom at last, and then, holding it before him, half spoke, half chanted this ancient incantation, known in the isles as the "Eolas an Torranain," a spell of good service to keep the cows from the harm of the evil eye, and also to increase their milk:
"Buainams' thu thoranainLe'd uile bheannachd's le'd uile bhuaidh—"
"Buainams' thu thoranainLe'd uile bheannachd's le'd uile bhuaidh—"
"Buainams' thu thoranain
Le'd uile bheannachd's le'd uile bhuaidh—"
Let me pluck thee, Torranan!With all thy blessedness and all thy virtue.The nine blessings came with the nine parts,By the virtue of the Torranan.The hand of St. Bride with me.I am now to pluck thee.
Let me pluck thee, Torranan!With all thy blessedness and all thy virtue.The nine blessings came with the nine parts,By the virtue of the Torranan.The hand of St. Bride with me.I am now to pluck thee.
Let me pluck thee, Torranan!
With all thy blessedness and all thy virtue.
The nine blessings came with the nine parts,
By the virtue of the Torranan.
The hand of St. Bride with me.
I am now to pluck thee.
Let me pluck thee, Torranan!With thine increase as to sea and land;With the flowing tide that shall know no ebbingBy the assistance of the chaste St. Bride,The holy St. Columba directing me,Gentle Oran protecting me,And St. Michael, of high-crested steeds,Imparting virtue to the matter the while,Darling plant of all virtue,I am now plucking thee!
Let me pluck thee, Torranan!With thine increase as to sea and land;With the flowing tide that shall know no ebbingBy the assistance of the chaste St. Bride,The holy St. Columba directing me,Gentle Oran protecting me,And St. Michael, of high-crested steeds,Imparting virtue to the matter the while,Darling plant of all virtue,I am now plucking thee!
Let me pluck thee, Torranan!
With thine increase as to sea and land;
With the flowing tide that shall know no ebbing
By the assistance of the chaste St. Bride,
The holy St. Columba directing me,
Gentle Oran protecting me,
And St. Michael, of high-crested steeds,
Imparting virtue to the matter the while,
Darling plant of all virtue,
I am now plucking thee!
All the time the old man had been carefully disengaging the cream-white, dome-shaped flower, he had crooned over and over:
"Lamh Bhride leam,Tha mi 'nis ga'd bhuain!"The hand of St. Bride with meI am now to pluck thee!
"Lamh Bhride leam,Tha mi 'nis ga'd bhuain!"
"Lamh Bhride leam,
Tha mi 'nis ga'd bhuain!"
The hand of St. Bride with meI am now to pluck thee!
The hand of St. Bride with me
I am now to pluck thee!
So, too, now—now that he had the Torranan safe at last, he kept repeating:
"'Cuir buaidh anns an ni,Tha mo lus lurach a nis air a bhuain!"Darling plant of all virtue,I am now plucking thee!
"'Cuir buaidh anns an ni,Tha mo lus lurach a nis air a bhuain!"
"'Cuir buaidh anns an ni,
Tha mo lus lurach a nis air a bhuain!"
Darling plant of all virtue,I am now plucking thee!
Darling plant of all virtue,
I am now plucking thee!
But the line that was on his lips for long that day—even after he had given the flower to Mary Maclean, with assurance that it was gathered during the lift of the tide, wasRi lionadh gun tra'adh—"With the flowing tide that shall know no ebbing." Over and over he said this below his breath.Ri lionadh gun tra'adh; strange words these: what was the hidden thing in them? What was thelionadh, the flowing tide: was it life or death?
But now the rare bloom was found: he was glad of that. He doffed his weather-worn bonnet, and placed the flower in the hollow of it: then, calling Ghaoth from the already scattered kye, he turned and made his way back to the clachan.
When he entered Mrs. Maclean's cottage, where his breakfast of porridge was ready, he made and received the usual salutation of blessing: and then sat down in silence.
The room was full of sunlight—so full that Mrs. Maclean had hung a screen of bracken from an iron hook, so that it shielded the peat-fire and let the life of the flame burn unchecked.
He did not look at Alastair; and, indeed, all the morning-blitheness had gone out of the eyes of the old man. Not that any there noticed his taciturnity. Mrs. Maclean moved softly to and fro. Alastair sat broodingly in the leathern chair before the fire: Lora on a stool at his feet, with her right hand clasped in his left and her eyes fixed on his face. On the table the porridge was untouched, the new bread uncut, the warm milk grown tepid.
With a sigh, Alastair rose at last. Crossing the room, he went to the east window and stared forth unseeingly, or, at any rate, without sign of any kind. Then, restlessly, he began to pace to and fro. Repressing her tears, Lora seated herself at the table and tried to eat, hopeful that she might thus induce him to do likewise. Mrs. Maclean followed her example, but ate in silence. She had almost ended, when Lora saw that she had abruptly laid down her spoon and was looking intently at Ian.
The old man now followed every motion of the invalid with a look as of one fascinated. When, suddenly, Alastair turned, went to the door and crossed the threshold, Ian rose and followed.
A few seconds later he came back, his withered face almost as white as his hair.
Mrs. Maclean met him ere he could speak.
"Not a word beforeher" she whispered.
"Meet me at the byre: I shall be there in a minute or two."
But just then Lora rose and went out.
"Ian Maclean, what is it?"
"Mary, my kinswoman, he is not alone."
"Not alone?"
"I have seenthe other"
She knew now what he meant. He had seen the shadow-self, the phantasm of the living that, ere death, is often seen alongside the one who shall soon die. Mrs. Maclean knew well that this shadowy second-self simulated the real self, and that even all the actions of the body were reproduced with a grotesque verisimilitude. But she was also aware how, sometimes, one may learn from the mien of the phantasm what is hidden in the aspect of the doomed.
"Last night," Ian went on in a dull voice, "I had the sight again. I saw the mist of death as high about him as when a man is sunken in a peat-bog up to the eyes."
"Well? I know you have more to say."
"Ay."
"Speak, Ian!"
With a long, indrawn breath, the old man resumed in a slow, reluctant voice.
"When I came in, a little ago, I saw the sorrow there was on every face. My vision, too, came back upon me, and I had trouble. I meant to eat and go out quickly. But when Mr. Alastair began to move about, I saw that he was not alone. I knewthe otherat once. There could be no mistake. In dress, in height, in face, in movement, they were the same. But there was a difference."
Mrs. Maclean shuddered slightly, and her lips opened as though she were about to speak. With a gesture, however, she signed to Ian to continue.
"Ay, there was a difference. I hoped against my eyes; but when I followed him yonder I saw what I saw, and what killed my hope."
"Speak, speak, Ian!"
"In all things, the same but one, and that was in the eyes, in the expression. Those of Mr. Alastair were dull and lightless, and brooding low; those ofthe otherwere large and wild, and stared in terror and amaze; and on the face of the thing the Fear lay, and moved, and was alive."
"O Ian, Ian, what does it mean?"
"It means this, Mary, daughter of Donnacha, what, sure, you know well: that not only is the shadow of death near this house, but that upon Alastair Mac Diarmid is the mind-dark that lay upon his father and upon his father's father."
"The curse of Michael be upon this evil, Ian!"
"Even so,Mhoire nighean Donnacha."
"His father was the third of his race in succession, who, soon or late, fell under that shadow. And we all know, sure we all know, that after the third generation the veil is withdrawn. This thing is an evil dream of yours, Ian Maclean!"
"It is an evil doing ofsome one," muttered the old man, with sombre eyes.
"Perhaps"—
But before Mrs. Maclean could say what was in her mind, Alastair and Lora entered.
With downcast eyes Ian passed out, giving a furtive, terrified look behind him ere he closed the door.
It was through the old islesman that the rumour of Alastair Macleod's madness went abroad.
Long before the stormy afternoon which followed the beautiful youth of that day, with its ominous morning-red in the north-east, had waned to gloaming, there was not a soul on Innisròn who did not know of the sorrow.
Yet no one came near out of a cruel sympathy: no one spoke heedless words either of question or solace to Mrs. Maclean; for none could be said to the two most concerned, neither Alastair nor Lora having been seen throughout the day.
Nevertheless, a deep resentment prevailed against one person upon the island. Not only had the spring gone ill with the fishing, but the nets had been torn and trailed in a way that suggested something beyond the blind malice of wind and wave and the currents of the deep sea and the savage dog-fish. Several cows had ceased to give milk; hens had ceased to lay; and Gregor McGregor's white mare had dropped a dead foal, the first time such a thing had happened on the isle. And now that, unforeseen and in the heyday of youth and health, the worst of all troubles had come upon Alastair Macleod, many recalled how his father, Macleod of Dunvrechan, who had died on Innisròn, had not only once denounced old Ealasaid MacAodh as a woman of the evil eye, but had cursed her ere he died, and attributed his misery to a blight of her working.
As one spake to another, the same thought came into each mind: that the old widow who lived at Craig-Ruaidh, at the head of the Glen of the Dark Water, had put her malice upon Alastair Mac Diarmid.
Some one, in a group by the ferry, reminded her hearers that, by a mischance, every one on the isle save Widow MacAodh had been invited to the feast in the little mission-house, when "Lora nighean maighstir Tormaid" was wedded; and how it was well known that old Ealasaid had been full of anger and pain at the slight, and had since scarce spoken with any one save Mrs. Maclean, with whom no bitterness was ever long to endure.
"Ay, ay, it's her doing—it's her doing," was muttered all round; "she has put the spell of the evil eye upon him—foreigner that she is."
Many years had gone by since Duncan bàn MacAodh, a Hebridean, who had settled in Innisròn, brought thither a wife out of remote St. Kilda. Long since he had gone to his rest, and lay among the few dead under the great runic cross at the extreme of Ardfeulan, on the west of the isle; yet he was still "the man from Uist," as his widow was still the "outlander."
"Ian," said Pòl Macdonald, one of the oldest of the fishermen, "you too are said to havethe thingin you, though you always look through both eyes, and with good will to man and beast. Let you, and two others of us, go to-night to Widow Ealasaid's, do upon her and find out if she is accursed:...and then...and then...."
No one spoke, though a veiled consenting glance went between Macdonald and Ian and a young islesman, Ronald Macrae, who lived over by Ardfeulan.
It was not a subject to discuss further in that hour of uncertainty. One or two members of the group had already edged away, when Kathia Macdonald suddenly drew attention to the appearance of the first three of the returning herring-boats, anxiously expected for over an hour past.
The brown-sailed wherries came in under the lee of the isle in a smother of foam. Already a snarling north-easter was racing over the sea, still smelling of the ling and bracken it had flattened as it tore over the summits of the mainland hills.
The water was of a shifting emerald near the haven; of a dark bottle-green beyond; and, out in the open, black, fretted and torn with staring white splashes and a myriad-leaping surge.
The race of the sea-horses had begun, and no one on Innisròn was at ease till the last boat had come safely round from Ardgheal, the point whence on the yestereve Lora had so eagerly watched for the coming of her husband.
A fiery sunset disclosed the immense and swirling procession of clouds high over the isle—cloud not only racing after cloud, but often leaping one upon the other as flying sheep in panic. Toward the east, the vapours were larger and darker: the cohorts more densely massed. Above the mainland stretched one vast unbroken phalanx of purple-livid gloom, out of the incessant and spasmodically convulsive travail in whose depths swept monstrous cloudbirths.
As the night fell, there was audible beyond the hills the noise of a baffled thunderstorm—a tempest which had been caught among the mountains, and could no more lift itself over the summits than a screaming and wrestling eagle could tear itself from a stag in whose hide its talons had become irremovably gripped.
Above the peaks and along the flank of the mass of livid gloom, spears of lightning were swung against the wind; and with splinter and flash, there was a rain of whirled lances as against some unseen assault from below.
The tumult soared, hurled downward, and fell upon Innisròn. The isle-folk listened in the dark with awe. Roar and crash, and a frightful, terrifying howling followed every blast, as of a volcano belching forth avalanche after avalanche, and shaking to the valleys thedébrisof all the hills. Roar upon roar, crash upon crash, howl upon howl: with the strident raucous scream of the wind, yelling a pæan of triumph as it leaped before the javelins of the lightning and tore in its ruinous might far out across the heaving, swaying, moaning sea.
It was a night for all who fare by or upon the deep waters to remember with awe: for those whose lives, and kin, and gear had gone scatheless, to recollect with thanksgiving: for those whose weal went with it, to recall with bowed heads or wet eyes.
An hour or more after nightfall, three figures moved with the wind across the isle: blurred shadows astir in the tempest-riven dark. Ronald Macrae carried a lantern; but speedily laid it down by a cairn, for the flame could not live.
He and Ian and Pòl were grimly silent, not only on the path through the wind-swept heather, but when under shelter from a bight of hillside or overhanging crag. The business that took them out in that tempest lay heavy upon them.
If, out of her own mouth, or by sign or deed of her own, Ealasaid should convict herself of the use of the evil eye, her doom would be fixed. Even in the bitterness of superstition, however, the islesmen were not bent upon the extreme penalty, the meed of those who deal in witchcraft. The dwellers on Innisròn, as all who live among the outer isles in general, are too near the loneliness of life and death to be wanton in the taking away of that which is so great in the eyes of man and so small in the eyes of God.
The worst they intended was to make Ealasaid bring her own doom upon her: then, on the morrow, her sheiling would be burned to the ground and the ashes scattered to the four quarters, while she herself would be exiled from the island under ban of cross, mystic word, and the ancient Celtic anathema.
So wild was the wind and dark the way, that a full hour passed before they reached the Glen of the Dark Water, and heard the savage ramping and charging of the endless squadrons of the waves against the promontory of Ardfeulan.
As they drew near the little cottage, a lonely dwelling on the brae which sloped to the glen, they saw that the occupant had not yet gone to bed, for a red gleam of light stole comfortingly across the forlorn dark.
With a significant touch on the shoulder of each of his companions, Ian led them to within a yard or two of the window.
"Hush," he whispered, in a momentary lull; "make no noise as we look in. She might hear, and blast us with her evil eye. Perhaps she is even now talking with some warlock or fiend."
Trembling, the three men huddled under the wall. At last, slowly, and with hearts wildly a-throb, they raised themselves and looked within.
The room was bare in its clean poverty. On the rickety wooden table was a bowl with a little unfinished porridge in it. A yard away was an open Gaelic Bible, with a pair of horn spectacles laid across the open page. At a spinning stool between the table and the peat-fire was an old woman, kneeling, with her hands clasped and her face upraised. On the poor, tired, worn features was a look of pathetic yearning, straining from a white and beautiful peace.
So rapt was she that she did not see a hand move the outer latch of the window, or feel the sudden breath of the night-air.
Then those without, waiting to hearken to sorcery more appalling than the savagery of the tempest, heard old Ealasaid repeat this prayer:
"Tha 'n la nis air falbh ùainn,Tha 'n oidhche 'tighinn orm dlùth;'S ni mise luidhe gu dionFo dhubhar sgiath mo rùin.O gach cunnart 's o gach bàs,'S o gach nàmhaid th' aig Mac Dhe,O nàdur dhaoine borba,'S o choirbteachd mo nàduir fèin,Gabhaidh mis' a nis armachd Dhe,Gun bhi reubta no brisd','Sge b' oil leis an t' sàtan 's le phàirtBi'dh mis' air mo gheàrd a nis."The day is now gone;Dark night gathers around,And I will lay me safely down (to sleep)Under the shadow of my Beloved One's wing.Against all dangers, and death in every form,Against each enemy of God's good Son,Against the anger of the turbulent people,And against the corruption of my own nature,I will take unto me the armour of God—That shall protect me from all assaults:And in spite of Satan and all his following,I shall be well and surely guarded.
"Tha 'n la nis air falbh ùainn,Tha 'n oidhche 'tighinn orm dlùth;'S ni mise luidhe gu dionFo dhubhar sgiath mo rùin.O gach cunnart 's o gach bàs,'S o gach nàmhaid th' aig Mac Dhe,O nàdur dhaoine borba,'S o choirbteachd mo nàduir fèin,Gabhaidh mis' a nis armachd Dhe,Gun bhi reubta no brisd','Sge b' oil leis an t' sàtan 's le phàirtBi'dh mis' air mo gheàrd a nis."
"Tha 'n la nis air falbh ùainn,
Tha 'n oidhche 'tighinn orm dlùth;
'S ni mise luidhe gu dion
Fo dhubhar sgiath mo rùin.
O gach cunnart 's o gach bàs,
'S o gach nàmhaid th' aig Mac Dhe,
O nàdur dhaoine borba,
'S o choirbteachd mo nàduir fèin,
Gabhaidh mis' a nis armachd Dhe,
Gun bhi reubta no brisd',
'Sge b' oil leis an t' sàtan 's le phàirt
Bi'dh mis' air mo gheàrd a nis."
The day is now gone;Dark night gathers around,And I will lay me safely down (to sleep)Under the shadow of my Beloved One's wing.Against all dangers, and death in every form,Against each enemy of God's good Son,Against the anger of the turbulent people,And against the corruption of my own nature,I will take unto me the armour of God—That shall protect me from all assaults:And in spite of Satan and all his following,I shall be well and surely guarded.
The day is now gone;
Dark night gathers around,
And I will lay me safely down (to sleep)
Under the shadow of my Beloved One's wing.
Against all dangers, and death in every form,
Against each enemy of God's good Son,
Against the anger of the turbulent people,
And against the corruption of my own nature,
I will take unto me the armour of God—
That shall protect me from all assaults:
And in spite of Satan and all his following,
I shall be well and surely guarded.
When, after an interval of speechless prayer, the lonely old woman rose painfully to her feet, she noticed the open window, and heard the sough of the wind without.
With a tired sigh, she crossed the room to close the inside latch. But, at the window, she stood irresolute, held by the noise of the sea beating against the clamour of the wind. She stooped, and peered forth.
Not a thing was visible. Suddenly a broad wavering gleam of sheet-lightning lit up the whole brae. Almost, she fancied, she could have sworn she saw three human figures, with bowed heads, moving across the brow of the slope.
She could not know that three men, stricken with shame and remorse—remorse which would ere long bloom into the white flower of repentance, to be worn lovingly by all on the isle—were stealing homeward from a vain and wicked errand.
With a shudder, she crossed herself, fearing that the figures she had imagined, or had really seen, were the three dreadful Accursed who drove the spear into Christ's side and the nails into His hands and feet, and with mocking offered Him the bitter sponge.
Slowly repeating:
"O gach cunnart 's o gach bàs,'S o gach nàmhaid th' aig Mac Dhe,"
"O gach cunnart 's o gach bàs,'S o gach nàmhaid th' aig Mac Dhe,"
"O gach cunnart 's o gach bàs,
'S o gach nàmhaid th' aig Mac Dhe,"
she quenched with charred peat the flame of her fire, and was soon in a child-like rest "under the shadow of the wing of her Beloved One."
When midnight came upon the isle, the worst violence of the storm was over. Nevertheless, upon the sea was the awfulness of desolation, the rumour of a terrible wrath.
All slept at last: the innocent Ealasaid, the foolish seekers of evil, the isle-folk one and all—except two.
Alastair and Lora lay in each others' arms as children terrified in the dark.
That afternoon his madness had come upon him for a while; and he had smiled grimly at he knew not what, and laughed while the tears streamed from the eyes of Lora and Mary; and moaned betimes; and cried out against the calling of the sea; and closed his ears against the frightful wailing of a kelpie in the tarn beyond the byre; and, at the last, shook as in an ague before the fire, fearful of some informulate terror, but with such a crown of sorrow on his forehead that the two women bowed their faces in their hands, speechless with grief: with such a horror in his eyes that Ghaoth shrank from him with bristling fell and upcurled, snarling lip.
But with the night came yet another merciful lifting of the veil.
While the storm raged at its worst, the three kneeled, and Mrs. Maclean read from the beautiful Gaelic Scripture. Then, with all the tenderness of her childless passion of maternity, she prayed for God's balm and peace and the healing of His hand.
When, in time, she went to her own room, Alastair and Lora talked for long in a low voice.
On the day he had first heard that the seed of life had taken root in her womb, and knew that a child was to be born of their great love, he had known a thrill of such rapture that he could scarce see Lora for the blinding of the tears of joy.
Beautiful she was to all: to him, lovely and tender as twilight and dear beyond words: but at that moment, when he learned from her own lips of her only half explicable trouble, he knew he had passed into a Holy of Holies of love and reverent passion such as he had but vaguely dreamed of as possible.
But now, on this wild night of storm without and more awful dread within, he recalled with horror what had been driven from his mind.
Bitter as was the doom he and Lora had to face, tenfold bitter was it made by the thought that they were to bring into the world yet another soul shrouded in the shadow of his own intolerable ill.
And so it was that, at the last, Alastair and Lora Macleod, knowing his madness was at hand and could be cured of no man, and that their lives were spilled out as lees from a cup, and that they were witlessly dooming the unborn child to a heritage of grief, gave solemn troth to each other that on the morrow they would go forth hand in hand, and, together in death as in life, lay themselves beneath that ever-wandering yet ever-returning wave which beats day and night, and week by week, and year by year, and without end for ever, about the sea-gathered graveyard on the remote west of Innisròn.
Then was a great peace theirs. For the last time they laid themselves down on their bed: for the last time twined their arms around each other, while on the same pillow their heads lay side by side, the hair about his forehead wet with her falling tears: for the last time they kept vigil through the terror of the dark—an awful terror now, with the wrath of the sea without, with the shadow of Death within the room, with the blackness of oblivion creeping, creeping from chamber to chamber in the darkened house of a dulled, subsiding brain.
Ere dawn, Alastair slept. Lora lay awake, trembling, longing for the day, yet praying God to withhold it; sick with baffled hope, with the ache of weariness, with the sound of the moan and hollow boom of the sea. More deep and terrible in her ears grew that midnight Voice, reverberant in the room as in the whorl of a shell: a dreadful iterance of menace, a dirge that confusedly she seemed to know well, a swelling chant, a requiem.
An hour after sunrise there was not a cloud in the sky. The first day of June came clad in the fullness of summer. Sea and land seemed as though they had been immersed in that Fount of Life which wells from the hollow of the Hand which upholdeth Tir-na-h' Oighe, the isle of eternal youth.
The low island-trees had not suffered as had those on the mainland: yet everywhere were strewn branches, and, on the uplands, boughs wrenched away, and often hurled far from the parent tree.
But upon all the isle there was now a deep quiescence. In the warm languor, even the birds sang less wildly clear, though the high, remote, falling lark-music floated spirally earthward, poignantly sweet. An indescribably delicate shimmer of haze lay on the heights and pastures, and where the corries sloped jaggedly seaward, each with a singing burn splashing or wimpling adown its heart. From the uplands came the lowing of the kine, the bleating of the ewes and lambs, the rapid whirring gurgle of the grouse among the heather. The wailing of curlews rose and fell; the sharp cries of the cliff-hawks beat against Craig-Ruaidh. High overhead, as motionlessly in motion as the snow-white disc of the moon lying immeasurably more remote within the vast blue hollow of the sky, an eagle poised on outspread wings, and then, without visible effort or movement, drifted slowly out of sight like a cloud blown by the wind.
Only upon the sea was something of the tumult of the past night still a reality.
Around the isle, and in the wide Sound between it and the mainland, the "white sheep" moved in endless procession, no longer wildly dispersed and huddled and torn by the wolves of the tempest. Oceanward the sea-horses swept onward magnificently, champing and whirling white foam about their green flanks, and tossing on high their manes of sunlit rainbow gold, dazzling-white and multitudinous far as sight could reach.
Clamour of gulls, noise of waves, lisp and chime and flute-call of the shallows among the rock-holes and upon the whispering tongues of the sea-weed—what joy, and stir, and breath of life!
Hand in hand, in the hot noon, Lora and Alastair went idly along the sheep-path leading from the clachan to the promontory of Ardgheal. The smell of the brine from the sea and wrack-strewn shore, the sun-wrought fragrance of the grass and thyme, of bracken and gale, of birch and hawthorn and trailing briar, of the whole, beautiful, living, warm body of the earth so lay upon the tired senses with a healing as of balm, that even the tears in Lora's eyes ceased to gather, leaving there only a softness as of twilight-dew in violets.
It was to be their last walk in the sunshine of that day—their last participance in the sunshine of life.
All the morning had been spent by Alastair in writing and brooding. Once again he had talked over with Lora that projected deed, which to them seemed the one right and fitting end to the tragedy of circumstance. She had promised that even if the darkness came down upon his mind irretrievably she would fulfill her troth with him. Great love casteth out fear; but even if this had not been so with her, she bore in mind the menace of what he had said about the child.
She, too, had spent a little of that last morning in writing, though her letter was not to go across the sea to the mainland, but to be left with old Ian to give to Mary on the morrow.
It was close upon noon when she saw that Alastair's gloom was upon him again, though he was now as quiet as a child. Taking his hand, she led him forth, heedful to avoid the clachan, and vaguely wishful to visit once more that little eastern haven of Ardgheal where, but two days ago, she had longingly awaited Alastair's return, and where, months before, he had first won her love.
He seemed to take pleasure in the sight of the sea he loved so well, and in the songs of the birds, and to be vaguely displeased because Ghaoth would not leap to his caress as usual, or else would crouch at his feet with startled eyes and low whine.
When Lora spoke, he answered seldom; but when he did, she knew that he understood. Once or twice he looked at her strangely; and once, with a thrill of awe and dread, she saw that it was unrecognisingly.
She caught the fragment of anEolas, a spell, as his lips moved; and the fear was upon her because of the mystery behind the words: