IV

Give up thy milk to her who callsAcross the low green hills of HeavenAnd stream-cool meads of Paradise!

And sure enough, when Bride did this, the milk came: and she soothed her thirst, and went back to her guests rejoicing. It was sorrow to her not to let them stay where they were, but she could not, because of her oath.

The man Joseph was weary, and said he was too tired to seek far that night, and asked if there was no empty byre or stable where he and Mary could sleep till morning. At that, Bride was glad: for she knew there was a clean cool stable close to the byre where her kye were: and thereto she led them, and returned with peace at her heart.

When she was in the inn again, she was afraid once more: for lo, though Mary andJoseph had drunken deep of the jar and the flagon, each was now full as it had been. Of the food, too, none seemed to have been taken, though she had herself seen them break the scones and the oatcakes.

It was dusk when her reverie was broken by the sound of the pipes. Soon thereafter Dùghall Donn and his following rode up to the inn, and all were glad because of the cool water, and the grapes, and the green fruits of the earth, that they brought with them.

While her father was eating and drinking, merry because of the ale that was still in the flagon, Bride told him of the wayfarers. Even as she spoke, he made a sign of silence, because of a strange, unwonted sound that he heard.

“What will that be meaning?” he asked, in a low, hushed voice.

“Sure it is the rain at last, father. That is a glad thing. The earth will be green again. The beasts will not perish. Hark, I hear the noise of it coming down from the hills as well.” But Dùghall sat brooding.

“Aye,” he said at last, “is it not foretold that the Prince of the World is to be born inthis land, during a heavy falling of rain, after a long drought? And who is for knowing that Bethlehem is not the place, and that this is not the night of the day of the days? Brighid, Brighid, the woman Mary must be the mother of the Prince, who is to save all mankind out of evil and pain and death!”

And with that he rose and beckoned to her to follow. They took a lantern, and made their way through the drowsing camels and asses and horses, and past the byres where the kye lowed gently, and so to the stable.

“Sure that is a bright light they are having,” Dùghall muttered uneasily: for, truly, it was as though the shed were a shell filled with the fires of sunrise.

Lightly they pushed back the door. When they saw what they saw they fell upon their knees. Mary sat with her heavenly beauty upon her like sunshine on a dusk land: in her lap, a Babe laughing sweet and low.

Never had they seen a Child so fair. He was as though wrought of light.

“Who is it?” murmured Dùghall Donn, of Joseph, who stood near, with rapt eyes.

“It is the Prince of Peace.”

And with that Mary smiled, and the Child slept.

“Brighid, my sister dear”—and, as she whispered this, Mary held the little one to Bride.

The fair girl took the Babe in her arms, and covered it with her mantle. Therefore it is that she is known to this day as Brighde-nam-Brat, St. Bride of the Mantle.

And all through that night, while the mother slept, Bride nursed the Child, with tender hands and croodling crooning songs. And this was one of the songs that she sang:

Ah, Baby Christ, so dear to me,Sang Bridget Bride:How sweet thou art,My baby dear,Heart of my heart!Heavy her body was with thee,Mary, beloved of One in Three,Sang Bridget Bride—Mary, who bore thee, little lad:But light her heart was, light and gladWith God’s love clad.Sit on my knee,Sang Bridget Bride:Sit hereO Baby dear,Close to my heart, my heart:For I thy foster-mother am,My helpless lamb!O have no fear,Sang good St. Bride.None, none,No fear have I:So let me clingClose to thy sideWhilst thou dost sing,O Bridget Bride!My Lord, my Prince I sing:My baby dear, my King!Sang Bridget Bride.

Ah, Baby Christ, so dear to me,Sang Bridget Bride:How sweet thou art,My baby dear,Heart of my heart!

Heavy her body was with thee,Mary, beloved of One in Three,Sang Bridget Bride—Mary, who bore thee, little lad:But light her heart was, light and gladWith God’s love clad.

Sit on my knee,Sang Bridget Bride:Sit hereO Baby dear,Close to my heart, my heart:For I thy foster-mother am,My helpless lamb!O have no fear,Sang good St. Bride.

None, none,No fear have I:So let me clingClose to thy sideWhilst thou dost sing,O Bridget Bride!

My Lord, my Prince I sing:My baby dear, my King!Sang Bridget Bride.

It was on this night that, far away in Iona, the Arch-Druid Cathal died. But before the breath went from him he had his vision of joy, and his last words were:

Brighde ’dol air a glùn,Righ nan dùl a shuidh ’na h-uchd!(Bridget Bride upon her knee,The King of the Elements asleep on her breast!)

At the coming of dawn Mary awoke, and took the Child. She kissed Bride upon the brows, and said this thing to her: “Brighid, my sister dear, thou shalt be known unto all time as Muime Chriosd.”

No sooner had Mary spoken than Bride fell into a deep sleep. So profound was this slumber that when Dùghall Donn came to see to the wayfarers, and to tell them that the milk and the porridge were ready for the breaking of their fast, he could get no word of her at all. She lay in the clean, yellow straw beneath the manger, where Mary had laid the Child. Dùghall stared in amaze. There was no sign of the mother, nor of the Babe that was the Prince of Peace, nor of the douce, quiet man that was Joseph the carpenter. As for Bride, she not only slept so sound that no word of his fell against her ears, but she gave him awe. For as he looked at her he saw that she was surrounded by a glowing light. Something in his heartshaped itself into a prayer, and he knelt beside her, sobbing low. When he rose, it was in peace. Mayhap an angel had comforted his soul in its dark shadowy haunt of his body.

It was late when Bride awoke, though she did not open her eyes, but lay dreaming. For long she thought she was in Tir-Tairngire, the Land of Promise, or wandering on the honey-sweet plain of Magh-Mell; for the wind of dreamland brought exquisite odours to her, and in her ears was a most marvellous sweet singing.

All round her there was a music of rejoicing. Voices, lovelier than any she had ever heard, resounded; glad voices full of praise and joy. There was a pleasant tumult of harps and trumpets, and as from across blue hills and over calm water came the sound of the bagpipes. She listened with tears. Loud and glad were the pipes, at times full of triumph, as when the heroes of old marched with Cuculain or went down to battle with Fionn: again, they were low and sweet, like humming of bees when the heather is heavy with the honey-ooze. The songs and wildmusic of the angels lulled her into peace: for a time no thought of the woman Mary came to her, nor of the Child that was her foster-child.

Suddenly it was in her mind as though the pipes played the chant that is called the “Aoibhneas a Shlighe,” “the joy of his way,” a march played before a bridegroom going to his bride. Out of this glad music came a solitary voice, like a child singing on the hillside.

“The way of wonder shall be thine, O Brighid-Naomha!”

This was what the child-voice sang. Then it was as though all the harpers of the west were playing “air clàrsach”: and the song of a multitude of voices was this:

“Blessed art thou, O Brighid, who nursed the King of the Elements in thy bosom: blessed thou, the Virgin Sister of the Virgin Mother, for unto all time thou shalt be called Muime Chriosd, the Foster-Mother of Jesus that is the Christ.”

With that, Bride remembered all, and opened her eyes. Naught strange was there to see, save that she lay in the stable. Thenas she noted that the gloaming had come, she wondered at the soft light that prevailed in the shed, though no lamp or candle burned there. In her ears, too, still lingered a wild and beautiful music.

It was strange. Was it all a dream, she pondered. But even as she thought thus, she saw half of her mantle lying upon the straw in the manger. Much she marvelled at this, but when she took the garment in her hand she wondered more. For though it was no more than a half of the poor mantle wherewith she had wrapped the Babe, it was all wrought with mystic gold lines and with precious stones more glorious than ever Arch-Druid or Island Prince had seen. The marvel gave her awe at last, when, as she placed the garment upon her shoulder, it covered her completely.

She knew now that she had not dreamed, and that a miracle was done. So with gladness she went out of the stable, and into the inn. Dùghall Donn was amazed when he saw her, and then rejoiced exceedingly.

“Why are you so merry, my father?” she asked.

“Sure it is glad that I am. For now the folk will be laughing the wrong way. This very morning I was so pleased with the pleasure, that while the pot was boiling on the peats I went out and told every one I met that the Prince of Peace was come, and had just been born in the stable behind the ‘Rest and Be Thankful.’ Well, that saying was just like a weasel among the rabbits, only it was an old toothless weasel: for all Bethlehem mocked me, some with jeers, some with hard words, and some with threats. Sure, I cursed them right and left. No, not for all my cursing—and by the blood of my fathers, I spared no man among them, wishing them sword and fire, the black plague and the gray death—would they believe. So back it was that I came, and going through the inn I am come to the stable. ‘Sorrow is on me like a gray mist,’ said Oisìn, mourning for Oscur, and sure it was a gray mist that was on me when not a sign of man, woman, or child was to be seen, and you so sound asleep that a March gale in the Moyle wouldn’t have roused you. Well, I went back and told this thing, and all thepeople in Bethlehem mocked at me. And the Elders of the People came at last, and put a fine upon me: and condemned me to pay three barrels of good ale, and a sack of meal, and three thin chains of gold, each three yards long: and this for causing a false rumour, and still more for making a laughing-stock of the good folk of Bethlehem. There was a man called Murdoch-Dhu, who is the chief smith in Nazareth, and it’s him I’m thinking will have laughed the Elders into doing this hard thing.”

It was then that Bride was aware of a marvel upon her, for she blew an incantation off the palm of her hand, and by that frith she knew where the dues were to be found.

“By what I see in the air that is blown off the palm of my hand, father, I bid you go into the cellar of the inn. There you will find three barrels full of good ale, and beside them a sack of meal, and the sack is tied with three chains of gold, each three yards long.”

But while Dùghall Donn went away rejoicing, and found that which Bride had foretold, she passed out into the street. Nonesaw her in the gloaming, or as she went towards the Gate of the East. When she passed by the Lazar-house she took her mantle off her back and laid it in the place of offerings. All the jewels and fine gold passed into invisible birds with healing wings: and these birds flew about the heads of the sick all night, so that at dawn every one arose, with no ill upon him, and went on his way rejoicing. As each went out of Bethlehem that morning of the mornings he found a clean white robe and new sandals at the first mile; and, at the second, food and cool water; and, at the third, a gold piece and a staff.

The guard that was at the Eastern Gate did not hail Bride. All the gaze of him was upon a company of strange men, shepherd-kings, who said they had come out of the East led by a star. They carried rare gifts with them when they first came to Bethlehem: but no man knew whence they came, what they wanted, or whither they went.

For a time Bride walked along the road that leads to Nazareth. There was fear in her gentle heart when she heard the howlingof hyenas down in the dark hollows, and she was glad when the moon came out and shone quietly upon her.

In the moonlight she saw that there were steps in the dew before her. She could see the black print of feet in the silver sheen on the wet grass, for it was on a grassy hill that she now walked, though a day ago every leaf and sheath there had lain brown and withered. The footprints she followed were those of a woman and of a child.

All night through she tracked those wandering feet in the dew. They were always fresh before her, and led her away from the villages, and also where no wild beasts prowled through the gloom. There was no weariness upon her, though often she wondered when she should see the fair wondrous face she sought. Behind her also were footsteps in the dew, though she knew nothing of them. They were those of the Following Love. And this was theLorgadh-Brighdeof which men speak to this day: the Quest of the holy St. Bride.

All night she walked; now upon the high slopes of a hill. Never once did she have aglimpse of any figure in the moonlight, though the steps in the dew before her were newly made, and none lay in the glisten a short way ahead.

Suddenly she stopped. There were no more footprints. Eagerly she looked before her. On a hill beyond the valley beneath her she saw the gleaming of yellow stars. These were the lights of a city. “Behold, it is Jerusalem,” she murmured, awe-struck, for she had never seen the great town.

Sweet was the breath of the wind that stirred among the olives on the mount where she stood. It had the smell of heather, and she could hear the rustle of it among the bracken on a hill close by.

“Truly, this must be the Mount of Olives,” she whispered. “The Mount of which I have heard my father speak, and that must be the hill called Calvary.”

But even as she gazed marvelling, she sighed with new wonder; for now she saw that the yellow stars were as the twinkling of the fires of the sun along the crest of a hill that is set in the east. There was a living joy in the dawntide. In her ears was asweet sound of the bleating of ewes and lambs. From the hollows in the shadows came the swift singing rush of the flowing tide. Faint cries of the herring gulls filled the air; from the weedy boulders by the sea the skuas called wailingly.

Bewildered, she stood intent. If only she could see the footprints again, she thought. Whither should she turn, whither go? At her feet was a yellow flower. She stooped and plucked it.

“Tell me, O little sun-flower, which way shall I be going?” and as she spoke a small golden bee flew up from the heart of it, and up the hill to the left of her. So it is that from that day the dandelion is called am-Bèarnàn-Bhrighde.

Still she hesitated. Then a sea-bird flew by her with a loud whistling cry.

“Tell me, Oeisireùn,” she called, “which way shall I be going?”

And at this theeisireùnswerved in its flight, and followed the golden bee, crying, “This way, O Bride, Bride, Bride, Bride, Bri-i-i-ide!”

So it is that from that day theoyster-catcher has been called the Gille-Brighde, the Servant of St. Bridget.

Then it was that Bride said this sian:

Dia romham;Moire am dheaghuidh;’S am Mac a thug Righ nan Dul!Mis’ air do shlios, a Dhia,Is Dia ma’m luirg.Mac’ ’oire, a’s Righ nan Dul,A shoillseachadh gach ni dheth so,Le a ghras, mu’m choinneamh.God before me;The Virgin Mary after me;And the Son sent by the King of the Elements.I am to windward of thee, O God!And God on my footsteps.May the Son of Mary, King of the Elements,Reveal the meaning of each of these thingsBefore me, through His grace.

God before me;The Virgin Mary after me;And the Son sent by the King of the Elements.I am to windward of thee, O God!And God on my footsteps.May the Son of Mary, King of the Elements,Reveal the meaning of each of these thingsBefore me, through His grace.

And as she ended she saw before her two quicken-trees, of which the boughs were interwrought so that they made an arch. Deep in the green foliage was a white merle that sang a wondrous sweet song. Above it the small branches were twisted into the shape of a wreath or crown, lovely with thesunlit rowan-clusters, from whose scarlet berries red drops as of blood fell.

Before her flew a white dove, all aglow as with golden light.

She followed, and passed beneath the quicken arch.

Sweet was the song of the merle, that was then no more; sweet the green shadow of the rowans, that now grew straight as young pines. Sweet the far song in the sky, where the white dove flew against the sun.

Bride looked, and her eyes were glad. Bonnie the blooming of the heather on the slopes of Dun-I. Iona lay green and gold, isled in her blue waters. From the sheiling of Dùvach, her father, rose a thin column of pale blue smoke. The collies, seeing her, barked loudly with welcoming joy.

The bleating of the sheep, the lowing of the kye, the breath of the salt wind from the open sea beyond, the song of the flowing tide in the Sound beneath: dear the homing.

With a strange light in her eyes she moved down through the heather and among the green bracken: white, wonderful, fair to see.

“But now I have grown nothing, being all,And the whole world weighs down upon my heart.”Fergus and the Druid.

“But now I have grown nothing, being all,And the whole world weighs down upon my heart.”

Fergus and the Druid.

WHEN old Sine nic Leòid came back to the croft, after she had been to the burn at the edge of the greenairidh, where she had washed theclaarthat was for the potatoes at the peeling, she sat down before the peats.

She was white with years. The mountain wind was chill, too, for all that the sun had shone throughout the midsummer day. It was well to sit before the peat-fire.

The croft was on the slope of a mountain, and had the south upon it. North, south, east, and west, other great slopes reached upward, like hollow green waves frozen into silence by the very wind that curved them so, and freaked their crests into peaks and jagged pinnacles. Stillness was in that place for ever and ever. What though the Gorromalt Water foamed down Ben Nair, where the croft was, and made a hoarse voice for ayesurrendering sound to silence? What though at times the stones fell from the ridges of Ben Chaisteal and Maolmòr, and clattered down the barren declivities till they were slung in the tangled meshes of whin and juniper? What though on stormy dawns the eagle screamed as he fought against the wind that graved a thin line upon the aged front of Ben Mulad, where his eyrie was: or that the kestrel cried above the rabbit-burrows in the strath: or that the hill-fox barked, or that the curlew wailed, or that the scattered sheep made an endless mournful crying? What were these but the ministers of silence?

There was no blue smoke in the strath except from the one turf cot. In the hidden valley beyond Ben Nair there was a hamlet, and nigh upon three-score folk lived there: but that was over three miles away. Sine Macleod was alone in that solitary place, save for her son Alasdair Mòr Òg. “Young Alasdair” he was still, though the gray feet of fifty years had marked his hair. Alasdair Òg he was while Alasdair Ruadh mac Chalum mhic Leòid, that was his father, lived. But when Alasdair Ruadh changed, and Sine was left amourning woman, he that was their son was Alasdair Òg still.

She had sore weariness that day. For all that, it was not the weight of the burden that made her go in out of the afternoon sun, and sit by the red glow of the peats, brooding deep.

When, nigh upon an hour later, Alasdair came up the slope and led the kye to the byre, she did not hear him: nor had she sight of him, when his shadow flickered in before him and lay along the floor.

“Poor old woman,” he said to himself, bending his head because of the big height that was his, and he there so heavy and strong, and tender, too, for all the tangled black beard and the wild hill-eyes that looked out under bristling gray-black eyebrows.

“Poor old woman, and she with the tired heart that she has. Ay, ay, for sure the weeks lap up her shadow, as the sayin’ is. She will be thinking of him that is gone. Ay, or maybe the old thoughts of her are goin’ back on their own steps, down this glen an’ over that hill an’ away beyont thatstrath, an’ this corrie an’ that moor. Well, well, it is a good love, that of the mother. Sure a bitter pain it will be to me when there’s no old gray hair there to stroke. It’s quiet here, terrible quiet, God knows, to Himself be the blessin’ for this an’ for that: but when she has the white sleep at last, then it’ll be a sore day for me, an’ one that I will not be able to bear to hear the sheep callin’, callin’, callin’ through the rain on the hills here, and Gorromalt Water an’ no other voice to be with me on that day of the days.”

She heard a faint sigh, and stirred a moment, but did not look round.

“Muim’-à-ghraidh, is it tired you are, an’ this so fine a time, too?”

With a quick gesture, the old woman glanced at him.

“Ah, child, is that you indeed? Well, I am glad of that, for I have the trouble again.”

“What trouble,Muim’-ghaolaiche?”

But the old woman did not answer. Wearily she turned her face to the peat-glow again.

Alasdair seated himself on the big wooden chair to her right. For a time he stayedsilent thus, staring into the red heart of the peats. What was the gloom upon the old heart that he loved? What trouble was it?

At last he rose and put meal and water into the iron pot, and stirred the porridge while it seethed and sputtered. Then he poured boiling water upon the tea in the brown jenny, and put the new bread and the sweet-milk scones on the rude deal board that was the table.

“Come, dear tired old heart,” he said, “and let us give thanks to the Being.”

“Blessings and thanks,” she said, and turned round.

Alasdair poured out the porridge, and watched the steam rise. Then he sat down, with a knife in one hand and the brown-white loaf in the other.

“O God,” he said, in the low voice he had in the kirk when the bread and wine were given—“O God, be giving us now thy blessing, and have the thanks. And give us peace.”

Peace there was in the sorrowful old eyes of the mother. The two ate in silence. The big clock that was by the bedtick-tacked,tick-tacked. A faint sputtering came out ofa peat that had bog-gas in it. Shadows moved in the silence, and met and whispered and moved into deep, warm darkness. There was peace.

There was still a red flush above the hills in the west when the mother and son sat in the ingle again.

“What is it, mother-my-heart?” Alasdair asked at last, putting his great red hand upon the woman’s knee.

She looked at him for a moment. When she spoke she turned away her gaze again.

“Foxes have holes, and the fowls of the air have their places of rest, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.”

“And what then, dear? Sure, it is the deep meaning you have in that gray old head that I’m loving so.”

“Ay,lennav-aghray, there is meaning to my words. It is old I am, and the hour of my hours is near. I heard a voice outside the window last night. It is a voice I will not be hearing, no, not for seventy years. It was cradle-sweet, it was.”

She paused, and there was silence for a time.

“Well, dear,” she began again, wearily, and in a low, weak voice, “it is more tired and more tired I am every day now this last month. Two Sabbaths ago I woke, and there were bells in the air: and you are for knowing well, Alasdair, that no kirk-bells ever rang in Strath Nair. At edge o’ dark on Friday, and by the same token the thirteenth day it was, I fell asleep, and dreamed the mools were on my breast, and that the roots of the white daisies were in the hollows where the eyes were that loved you, Alasdair, my son.”

The man looked at her with troubled gaze. No words would come. Of what avail to speak when there is nothing to be said? God sends the gloom upon the cloud, and there is rain: God sends the gloom upon the hill, and there is mist: God sends the gloom upon the sun, and there is winter. It is God, too, sends the gloom upon the soul, and there is change. The swallow knows when to lift up her wing over against the shadow that creeps out of the north: the wild swan knows when the smell of snow is behind the sun: the salmon, lone in thebrown pool among the hills, hears the deep sea, and his tongue pants for salt, and his fins quiver, and he knows that his time is come, and that the sea calls. The doe knows when the fawn hath not yet quaked in her belly: is not the violet more deep in the shadowy dewy eyes? The woman knows when the babe hath not yet stirred a little hand: is not the wild-rose on her cheek more often seen, and are not the shy tears moist on quiet hands in the dusk? How, then, shall the soul not know when the change is nigh at last? Is it a less thing than a reed, which sees the yellow birch-gold adrift on the lake, and the gown of the heather grow russet when the purple has passed into the sky, and the white bog-down wave gray and tattered where the loneroid grows dark and pungent—which sees, and knows that the breath of the Death-Weaver at the Pole is fast faring along the frozen norland peaks? It is more than a reed, it is more than a wild doe on the hills, it is more than a swallow lifting her wing against the coming of the shadow, it is more than a swan drunken with the savour of the blue wine of the waves when the greenArctic lawns are white and still. It is more than these, which has the Son of God for brother, and is clothed with light. God doth not extinguish at the dark tomb what he hath litten in the dark womb.

Who shall say that the soul knows not when the bird is aweary of the nest, and the nest is aweary of the wind? Who shall say that all portents are vain imaginings? A whirling straw upon the road is but a whirling straw; yet the wind is upon the cheek almost ere it is gone.

It was not for Alasdair Òg, then, to put a word upon the saying of the woman that was his mother, and was age-white, and could see with the seeing of old wise eyes.

So all that was upon his lips was a sigh, and the poor prayer that is only a breath out of the heart.

“You will be telling me, gray sweetheart,” he said lovingly, at last—“you will be telling me what was behind the word that you said: that about the foxes that have holes for the hiding, poor beasts, and the birdeens wi’ their nests, though the Son o’ Man hath not where to lay his head?”

“Ay, Alasdair, my son that I bore long syne an’ that I’m leaving soon, I will be for telling you that thing, an’ now too, for I am knowing what is in the dark this night o’ the nights.”

Old Sine put her head back wearily on the chair, and let her hands lie, long and white, palm-downward upon her knees. The peat-glow warmed the dull gray that lurked under her closed eyes and about her mouth, and in the furrowed cheeks. Alasdair moved nearer, and took her right hand in his, where it lay like a tired sheep between two scarped rocks. Gently he smoothed her hand, and wondered why so frail and slight a creature as this small old wizened woman could have mothered a great swarthy man like himself—he a man, now, with his two score and ten years, and yet but a boy there at the dear side of her.

“It was this way, Alasdair-mochree,” she went on in her low thin voice,—like a wind-worn leaf, the man that was her son thought. “It was this way. I went down to the burn to wash theclaar, and when I was there I saw a wounded fawn in the bracken. Thebig sad eyes of it were like those of Maisie, poor lass, when she had the birthing that was her going-call. I went through the bracken, and down by the Gorromalt, and into the Shadowy Glen.

“And when I was there, and standing by the running water, I saw a man by the stream-side. He was tall, but spare and weary: and the clothes upon him were poor and worn. He had sorrow. When he lifted his head at me, I saw the tears. Dark, wonderful, sweet eyes they were. His face was pale. It was not the face of a man of the hills. There was no red in it, and the eyes looked in upon themselves. He was a fair man, with the white hands that a woman has, a woman like the Bantighearna of Glenchaisteal over yonder. His voice, too, was a voice like that: in the softness, and the sweet, quiet sorrow, I am meaning.

“The word that I gave him was in the English: for I thought he was like a man out of Sasunn, or of the southlands somewhere. But he answered me in the Gaelic: sweet, good Gaelic like that of the Bioball over there, to Himself be the praise.

“‘And is it the way down the Strath you are seeking?’ I asked: ‘and will you not be coming up to the house yonder, poor cot though it is, and have a sup of milk, and a rest if it’s weary you are?’

“‘You are having my thanks for that,’ he said, ‘and it is as though I had both the good rest and the cool sweet drink. But I am following the flowing water here.’

“‘Is it for the fishing?’ I asked.

“‘I am a Fisher,’ he said, and the voice of him was low and sad. He had no hat on his head, and the light that streamed through a rowan-tree was in his long hair. He had the pity of the poor in his sorrowful gray eyes.

“‘And will you not sleep with us?’ I asked again: ‘that is, if you have no place to go to, and are a stranger in this country, as I am thinking you are; for I have never had sight of you in the home-straths before.’

“‘I am a stranger,’ he said, ‘and I have no home, and my father’s house is a great way off.’

“‘Do not tell me, poor man,’ I said gently, for fear of the pain, ‘do not tell me if youwould fain not; but it is glad I will be if you will give me the name you have.’

“‘My name is Mac-an-t’-Saoir,’ he answered with the quiet deep gaze that was his. And with that he bowed his head, and went on his way, brooding deep.

“Well, it was with a heavy heart I turned, and went back through the bracken. A heavy heart, for sure, and yet, oh peace too, cool dews of peace. And the fawn was there: healed, Alasdair, healed, and whinny-bleating for its doe, that stood on a rock wi’ lifted hoof an’ stared down the glen to where the Fisher was.

“When I was at the burnside, a woman came down the brae. She was fair to see, but the tears were upon her.

“‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘have you seen a man going this way?’

“‘Ay, for sure,’ I answered, ‘but what man would he be?’

“‘He is called Mac-an-t’-Saoir.’

“‘Well, there are many men that are called Son of the Carpenter. What will his own name be?’

“‘Iosa,’ she said.

“And when I looked at her, she was weaving the wavy branches of a thorn near by, and sobbing low, and it was like a wreath or crown that she made.

“‘And who will you be, poor woman?’ I asked.

“‘O my Son, my Son,’ she said, and put her apron over her head and went down into the Shadowy Glen, she weeping sore, too, at that, poor woman.

“So now, Alasdair, my son, tell me what thought you have about this thing that I have told you. For I know well whom I met on the brae there, and who the Fisher was. And when I was at the peats here once more I sat down, and my mind sank into myself. And it is knowing the knowledge I am.”

“Well, well, dear, it is sore tired you are. Have rest now. But sure there are many men called Macintyre.”

“Ay, and what Gael that you know will be for giving you his surname like that?”

Alasdair had no word for that. He rose to put some more peats on the fire. When he had done this, he gave a cry.

The whiteness that was on the mother’s hair was now in the face. There was no blood there, or in the drawn lips. The light in the old, dim eyes was like water after frost.

He took her hand in his. Clay-cold it was. He let it go, and it fell straight by the chair, stiff as the cromak he carried when he was with the sheep.

“O my God and my God,” he whispered, white with the awe, and the bitter cruel pain.

Then it was that he heard a knocking at the door.

“Who is there?” he cried hoarsely.

“Open, and let me in.” It was a low, sweet voice; but was that gray hour the time for a welcome?

“Go, but go in peace, whoever you are. There is death here.”

“Open, and let me in.”

At that, Alasdair, shaking like a reed in the wind, unclasped the latch. A tall, fair man, ill-clad and weary, pale, too, and with dreaming eyes, came in.

“Beannachd Dhe an Tigh,” he said; “God’s blessing on this house, and on all here.”

“The same upon yourself,” Alasdair said, with a weary pain in his voice. “And who will you be? and forgive the asking.”

“I am called Mac-an-t’-Saoir, and Iosa is the name I bear—Jesus, the Son of the Carpenter.”

“It is a good name. And is it good you are seeking this night?”

“I am a Fisher.”

“Well, that’s here an’ that’s there. But will you go to the Strath over the hill, and tell the good man that is there, the minister, Lachlan MacLachlan, that old Sine nic Leòid, wife of Alasdair Ruadh, is dead.”

“I know that, Alasdair Òg.”

“And how will you be knowing that, and my name, too, you that are called Macintyre?”

“I met the white soul of Sine as it went down by the Shadowy Glen a brief while ago. She was singing a glad song, she was. She had green youth in her eyes. And a man was holding her by the hand. It was Alasdair Ruadh.”

At that Alasdair fell on his knees. When he looked up, there was no one there.Through the darkness outside the door, he saw a star shining white, and leaping like a pulse.

It was three days after that day of shadow that Sine Macleod was put under the green turf.

On each night, Alasdair Òg walked in the Shadowy Glen, and there he saw a man fishing, though ever afar off. Stooping he was, always, and like a shadow at times. But he was the man that was called Iosa Mac-an-t’-Saoir—Jesus, the Son of the Carpenter.

And on the night of the earthing he saw the Fisher close by.

“Lord God,” he said, with the hush on his voice, and deep awe in his wondering eyes: “Lord God!”

And the Man looked at him.

“Night and day, Alasdair MacAlasdair,” he said, “night and day I fish in the waters of the world. And these waters are the waters of grief, and the waters of sorrow, and the waters of despair. And it is the souls of the living I fish for. And lo, I say this thing unto you, for you shall not see me again:Go in peace.Go in peace, good soul of a poor man, for thou hast seen the Fisher of Men.”

“... and there shall beBeautiful things made new....”Hyperion.

“... and there shall beBeautiful things made new....”

Hyperion.

THE last time that the Fisher of Men was seen in Strath Nair was not of Alasdair Macleod but of the little child, Art Macarthur, him that was born of the woman Mary Gilchrist, that had known the sorrow of women.

He was a little child, indeed, when, because of his loneliness and having lost his way, he lay sobbing among the bracken by the stream-side in the Shadowy Glen.

When he was a man, and had reached the gloaming of his years, he was loved of men and women, for his songs are many and sweet, and his heart was true, and he was a good man and had no evil against any one.

It is he who saw the Fisher of Men, when he was but a little lad; and some say that it was on the eve of the day that Alasdair Òg died, though of this I know nothing. And what he saw, and what he heard, was a moonbeamthat fell into the dark sea of his mind, and sank therein, and filled it with light for all the days of his life. A moonlit mind was that of Art Macarthur: him that is known best as Ian Mòr, Ian Mòr of the Hills, though why he took the name of Ian Cameron is known to none now but one person, and that need not be for the telling here. He had music always in his mind. I asked him once why he heard what so few heard, but he smiled and said only: “When the heart is full of love, cool dews of peace rise from it and fall upon the mind: and that is when the song of Joy is heard.” It must have been because of this shining of his soul that some who loved him thought of him as one illumined. His mind was a shell that held the haunting echo of the deep seas: and to know him was to catch a breath of the infinite ocean of wonder and mystery and beauty of which he was the quiet oracle. He has peace now, where he lies under the heather upon a hillside far away: but the Fisher of Men will send him hitherward again, to put a light upon the wave, and a gleam upon the brown earth.

I will tell thissgeulas Ian Mòr, that was the little child Art Macarthur, told it to me.

Often and often it is to me all as a dream that comes unawares. Often and often have I striven to see into the green glens of the mind whence it comes, and whither, in a flash, in a rainbow gleam, it vanishes. When I seek to draw close to it, to know whether it is a winged glory out of the soul, or was indeed a thing that happened to me in my tender years, lo—it is a dawn drowned in day, a star lost in the sun, the falling of dew.

But I will not be forgetting: no, never; no, not till the silence of the grass is over my eyes: I will not be forgetting that gloaming.

Bitter tears are those that children have. All that we say with vain words is said by them in this welling spray of pain. I had the sorrow that day. Strange hostilities lurked in the familiar bracken. The soughing of the wind among the trees, the wash of the brown water by my side, that had been companionable, were voices of awe. The quiet light upon the grass flamed.

The fierce people that lurked in shadow hadeyes for my helplessness. When the dark came I thought I should be dead, devoured of I knew not what wild creature. Would mother never come, never come with saving arms, with eyes like soft candles of home?

Then my sobs grew still, for I heard a step. With dread upon me, poor wee lad that I was, I looked to see who came out of the wilderness. It was a man, tall and thin and worn, with long hair hanging adown his face. Pale he was as a moonlit cot on the dark moor, and his voice was low and sweet. When I saw his eyes, I had no fear upon me at all. I saw the mother-look in the gray shadow of them.

“And is that you, Artlennavan-mo?” he said, as he stooped and lifted me.

I had no fear. The wet was out of my eyes.

“What is it you will be listening to, now, my little lad?” he whispered, as he saw me lean, intent, to catch I know not what.

“Sure,” I said, “I am not for knowing; but I thought I heard a music away down there in the wood.”

I heard it, for sure. It was a wondrous sweet air, as of one playing thefeadanin a dream.Callum Dall, the piper, could give no rarer music than that was; and Callum was a seventh son, and was born in the moonshine.

“Will you come with me this night of the nights, little Art?” the man asked me, with his lips touching my brow and giving me rest.

“That I will indeed and indeed,” I said. And then I fell asleep.

When I woke we were in the huntsman’s booth that is at the far end of the Shadowy Glen.

There was a long rough-hewn table in it, and I stared when I saw bowls and a great jug of milk and a plate heaped with oatcakes, and beside it a brown loaf of rye-bread.

“Little Art,” said he who carried me, “are you for knowing now who I am?”

“You are a prince, I’m thinking,” was the shy word that came to my mouth.

“Sure,lennav-aghray, that is so. It is called the Prince of Peace I am.”

“And who is to be eating all this?” I asked.

“This is the last supper,” the prince said, so low that I could scarce hear; and itseemed to me that he whispered, “for I die daily, and ever ere I die the Twelve break bread with me.”

It was then I saw that there were six bowls of porridge on the one side and six on the other.

“What is your name, O Prince?”

“Iosa.”

“And will you have no other name than that?”

“I am called Iosa mac Dhe.”

“And is it living in this house you are?”

“Ay. But Art, my little lad, I will kiss your eyes, and you shall see who sup with me.”

And with that the prince that was called Iosa kissed me on the eyes, and I saw.

“You will never be quite blind again,” he whispered, and that is why all the long years of my years I have been glad in my soul.

What I saw was a thing strange and wonderful. Twelve men sat at that table, and all had eyes of love upon Iosa. But they were not like any men I had ever seen. Tall and fair and terrible they were, like morningin a desert place; all save one, who was dark, and had a shadow upon him and in his wild eyes.

It seemed to me that each was clad in radiant mist. The eyes of them were as stars through that mist.

And each, before he broke bread, or put spoon to the porridge that was in the bowl before him, laid down upon the table three shuttles. Long I looked upon that company, but Iosa held me in his arms, and I had no fear.

“Who are these men?” he asked me.

“The Sons of God,” I said; I not knowing what I said, for it was but a child I was.

He smiled at that. “Behold,” he spoke to the twelve men who sat at the table, “behold the little one is wiser than the wisest of ye.” At that all smiled with the gladness and the joy, save one: him that was in the shadow. He looked at me, and I remembered two black lonely tarns upon the hillside, black with the terror because of the kelpie and the drowner.

“Who are these men?” I whispered, withthe tremor on me, that was come of the awe I had.

“They are the Twelve Weavers, Art, my little child.”

“And what is their weaving?”

“They weave for my Father, whose web I am.”

At that I looked upon the prince, but I could see no web.

“Are you not Iosa the Prince?”

“I am the Web of Life, Artlennavan-mo.”

“And what are the three shuttles that are beside each Weaver?”

I know now that when I turned my child’s eyes upon these shuttles I saw that they were alive and wonderful, and never the same to the seeing.

“They are calledBeautyandWonderandMystery.”

And with that Iosa mac Dhe sat down and talked with the Twelve. All were passing fair, save him who looked sidelong out of dark eyes. I thought each, as I looked at him, more beautiful than any of his fellows; but most I loved to look at the twain who sat on either side of Iosa.

“He will be a Dreamer among men,” said the prince; “so tell him who ye are.”

Then he who was on the right turned his eyes upon me. I leaned to him, laughing low with the glad pleasure I had because of his eyes and shining hair, and the flame as of the blue sky that was his robe.

“I am the Weaver of Joy,” he said. And with that he took his three shuttles that were called Beauty and Wonder and Mystery, and he wove an immortal shape, and it went forth of the room and out into the green world, singing a rapturous sweet song.

Then he that was upon the left of Iosa the Life, looked at me, and my heart leaped. He, too, had shining hair, but I could not tell the colour of his eyes for the glory that was in them. “I am the Weaver of Love,” he said; “and I sit next the heart of Iosa.” And with that he took his three shuttles that were called Beauty and Wonder and Mystery, and he wove an immortal shape, and it went forth of the room and out into the green world, singing a rapturous sweet song.

Even then, child as I was, I wished tolook on no other. None could be so passing fair, I thought, as the Weaver of Joy and the Weaver of Love.

But a wondrous sweet voice sang in my ears, and a cool, soft hand laid itself upon my head, and the beautiful lordly one who had spoken said, “I am the Weaver of Death,” and the lovely whispering one who had lulled me with rest said, “I am the Weaver of Sleep.” And each wove with the shuttles of Beauty and Wonder and Mystery, and I knew not which was the more fair, and Death seemed to me as Love, and in the eyes of Dream I saw Joy.

My gaze was still upon the fair wonderful shapes that went forth from these twain,—from the Weaver of Sleep, an immortal shape of star-eyed Silence, and from the Weaver of Death a lovely Dusk with a heart of hidden flame—when I heard the voice of two others of the Twelve. They were like the laughter of the wind in the corn, and like the golden fire upon that corn. And the one said, “I am the Weaver of Passion,” and when he spoke I thought that he was both Love and Joy, and Death and Life, and I put out myhands. “It is Strength I give,” he said; and he took and kissed me. Then, while Iosa took me again upon his knee, I saw the Weaver of Passion turn to the white glory beside him,—him that Iosa whispered to me was the secret of the world, and that was called “The Weaver of Youth.” I know not whence nor how it came, but there was a singing of skyey birds when these twain took the shuttles of Beauty and Wonder and Mystery and wove each an immortal shape, and bade it go forth out of the room into the green world, to sing there for ever and ever in the ears of man a rapturous sweet song.

“O Iosa,” I cried, “are these all thy brethren? for each is fair as thee, and all have lit their eyes at the white fire I see now in thy heart.”

But, before he spake, the room was filled with music. I trembled with the joy, and in my ears it has lingered ever, nor shall ever go. Then I saw that it was the breathing of the seventh and eighth, of the ninth and the tenth of those star-eyed ministers of Iosa whom he called the Twelve: and the names of them were the Weaver of Laughter, theWeaver of Tears, the Weaver of Prayer, and the Weaver of Peace. Each rose and kissed me there. “We shall be with you to the end, little Art,” they said: and I took hold of the hand of one, and cried, “O beautiful one, be likewise with the woman my mother,” and there came back to me the whisper of the Weaver of Tears: “I will, unto the end.”

Then, wonderingly, I watched him likewise take the shuttles that were ever the same and yet never the same, and weave an immortal shape. And when this soul of Tears went forth of the room, I thought it was my mother’s voice singing that rapturous sweet song, and I cried out to it.

The fair immortal turned and waved to me. “I shall never be far from thee, little Art,” it sighed, like summer rain falling on leaves: “but I go now to my home in the heart of women.”

There were now but two out of the Twelve. Oh the gladness and the joy when I looked at him who had his eyes fixed on the face of Iosa that was the Life! He lifted the three shuttles of Beauty and Wonder and Mystery, and he wove a Mist of Rainbows in thatroom; and in the glory I saw that even the dark twelfth one lifted up his eyes and smiled.

“O what will the name of you be!” I cried, straining my arms to the beautiful lordly one. But he did not hear, for he wrought Rainbow after Rainbow out of the mist of glory that he made, and sent each out into the green world, to be for ever before the eyes of men.

“He is the Weaver of Hope,” whispered Iosa mac Dhe, “and he is the soul of each that is here.”

Then I turned to the twelfth, and said, “Who art thou, O lordly one with the shadow in the eyes?”

But he answered not, and there was silence in the room. And all there, from the Weaver of Joy to the Weaver of Peace, looked down, and said nought. Only the Weaver of Hope wrought a rainbow, and it drifted into the heart of the lonely Weaver that was twelfth.

“And who will this man be, O Iosa mac Dhe?” I whispered.

“Answer the little child,” said Iosa, and his voice was sad.

Then the Weaver answered.

“I am the Weaver of Glory”—he began, but Iosa looked at him, and he said no more.

“Art, little lad,” said the Prince of Peace, “he is the one who betrayeth me for ever. He is Judas, the Weaver of Fear.”

And at that the sorrowful shadow-eyed man that was the twelfth took up the three shuttles that were before him.

“And what are these, O Judas?” I cried eagerly, for I saw that they were black.

When he answered not one of the Twelve leaned forward and looked at him. It was the Weaver of Death who did this thing.

“The three shuttles of Judas the Fear-Weaver, O little Art,” said the Weaver of Death, “are called Mystery, and Despair, and the Grave.”

And with that Judas rose and left the room. But the shape that he had woven went forth with him as his shadow: and each fared out into the dim world, and the Shadow entered into the minds and into the hearts of men, and betrayed Iosa that was the Prince of Peace.

Thereupon, Iosa rose, and took me by the hand and led me out of that room. When, once, I looked back I saw none of the Twelve save only the Weaver of Hope, and he sat singing a wild sweet song that he had learned of the Weaver of Joy, sat singing amid a mist of rainbows and weaving a radiant glory that was dazzling as the sun.

And at that I woke, and was against my mother’s heart, and she with the tears upon me, and her lips moving in a prayer.

ONE day this summer I sailed with Padruic Macrae and Ivor McLean, boatmen of Iona, along the southwestern reach of the Ross of Mull.

The whole coast of the Ross is indescribably wild and desolate. From Feenafort (Fhionn-phort) opposite Balliemore of Icolmkill, to the hamlet of Earraid Lighthouse, it were hardly exaggeration to say that the whole tract is uninhabited by man and unenlivened by any green thing. It is the haunt of the cormorant and the seal.

No one who has not visited this region can realise its barrenness. Its one beauty is the faint bloom which lies upon it in the sunlight—a bloom which becomes as the glow of an inner flame when the sun westers without cloud or mist. This is from the ruddy hue of the granite, of which all that wilderness is wrought.

It is a land tortured by the sea, scourged by the sea-wind. A myriad lochs, fiords, inlets, passages, serrate its broken frontiers. Innumerable islets and reefs, fanged like ravenous wolves, sentinel every shallow, lurk in every strait. He must be a skilled boatman who would take the Sound of Earraid and penetrate the reaches of the Ross.

There are many days in the months of peace, as the islanders call the period from Easter till the autumnal equinox, when Earraid and the rest of Ross seem under a spell. It is the spell of beauty. Then the yellow light of the sun is upon the tumbled masses and precipitous shelves and ledges, ruddy petals or leaves of that vast Flower of Granite. Across it the cloud shadows trail their purple elongations, their scythe-sweep curves, and abrupt evanishing floodings of warm dusk. From wet boulder to boulder, from crag to shelly crag, from fissure to fissure, the sea ceaselessly weaves a girdle of foam. When the wide luminous stretch of waters beyond—green near the land, and farther out all of a living blue, interspersed with wide alleys of amethyst—is white with thesea-horses, there is such a laughter of surge and splash all the way fromSlugan-dubhto theRudha-nam-Maol-Mòra, or to the tide-swept promontory of theSgeireig-a’-Bhochdaidh, that, looking inland, one sees through a rainbow-shimmering veil of ever-flying spray.

But the sun spell is even more fugitive upon the face of this wild land than the spell of beauty upon a woman. So runs one of our proverbs: as the falling of the wave, as the fading of the leaf, so is the beauty of a woman, unless—ah, thatunless, and the indiscoverable fount of joy that can only be come upon by hazard once in life, and thereafter only in dreams, and the Land of the Rainbow that is never reached, and the green sea-doors ofTir-na-thonn, that open now no more to any wandering wave!

It was from Ivor McLean, on that day, I heard the strange tale of his kinsman Murdoch, the tale of “The Ninth Wave” that I have told elsewhere. It was Padruic, however, who told me of the Sea-witch of Earraid.

“Yes,” he said, “I have heard of theuisge-each” (the sea-beast, sea-kelpie, or water-horse), “but I have never seen it with the eyes. My father and my brother knew of it. But this thing I know, and this what we callan-cailleach-uisge” (the siren or water-witch); “thecailliach, mind you, not themaighdeann-mhàra” (the mermaid), “who means no harm. May she hear my saying it! Thecailliachis old and clad in weeds, but her voice is young, and she always sits so that the light is in the eyes of the beholder. She seems to him young also, and fair. She has two familiars in the form of seals, one black as the grave, and the other white as the shroud that is in the grave; and these sometimes upset a boat, if the sailor laughs at theuisge-cailliach’s song.

“A man netted one of those seals, more than a hundred years ago, with his herring-trawl, and dragged it into the boat; but the other seal tore at the net so savagely, with its head and paws over the bows, that it was clear no net would long avail. The man heard them crying and screaming, and then talking low and muttering, like women ina frenzy. In his fear he cast the nets adrift, all but a small portion that was caught in the thwarts. Afterwards, in this portion, he found a tress of woman’s hair. And that is just so: to the Stones be it said.

“The grandson of this man, Tomais McNair, is still living, a shepherd on Eilean-Uamhain, beyond Lunga in the Cairnburg Isles. A few years ago, off Callachan Point, he saw the two seals, and heard, though he did not see, thecailliach. And that which I tell you,—Christ’s Cross before me—is a true thing.”

All the time that Padruic was speaking I saw that Ivor McLean looked away: either as though he heard nothing, or did not wish to hear. There was dream in his eyes; I saw that, so said nothing for a time.

“What is it, Ivor?” I asked at last, in a low voice. He started, and looked at me strangely.

“What will you be asking that for? What are you doing in my mind, that is secret?”

“I see that you are brooding over something. Will you not tell me?”

“Tell her,” said Padruic quietly.

But Ivor kept silent. There was a look in his eyes which I understood. Thereafter we sailed on, with no word in the boat at all.

That night, a dark, rainy night it was, with an uplift wind beating high over against the hidden moon, I went to the cottage where Ivor McLean lived with his old deaf mother,—deaf nigh upon twenty years, ever since the night of the nights when she heard the women whisper that Callum, her husband, was among the drowned, after a death-wind had blown.

When I entered, he was sitting before the flaming coal-fire; for on Iona, now, by decree of MacCailin Mòr, 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 because 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 ancientsgeul, Ivor?”

“Ay. I am not for knowing the age of these things. It may be as old as the days of the Féinn 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 Brighde, it was he told it to the mother of my mother, and she to me.”

“What is it called?”

“Well, this and that; but there is no harm in saying it is called the Dark Nameless One.”

“The Dark Nameless One!”

“It is this way. But will you ever have been hearing of the MacOdrums of Uist?”

“Ay: theSliochd-nan-ròn.”

“That is so. God knows. TheSliochd-nan-ròn... 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 theFaoilleach Geamhraidh, the day that is calledAm fheill Brighde.

The holy man had wandered on to where the rocks are, opposite to Soa. He was praying 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 cleave its shroud.

Of a sudden he came upon a great black seal, lying silent on the rocks, with wicked eyes.

“My blessing upon you, O Ròn,” he said with the good kind courteousness that was his.

“Droch spadadh 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 Columthe 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 Ròn?”

“Maybe ay and maybe no.”

Back to Index Next