It is I, Mànus MacCodrum,I am telling you that, you, Anndra of my blood,And you, Neil my grandfather, and you, and you, and you!Ay, ay, Mànus my name is, Mànus MacMànus!It is I myself, and no other,Your brother, O Seals of the Sea!Give me blood of the red fish,And a bite of the flying sgadan;The green wave on my belly,And the foam in my eyes!I am your bull-brother, O Bulls of the Sea,Bull-better than any of you, snarling bulls!Come to me, mate, seal of the soft furry womb,White am I still, though red shall I be,Red with the streaming red blood if any dispute me!Aoh, aoh, aoh, arò, arò, ho-rò!A man was I, a seal am I,My fangs churn the yellow foam from my lips:Give way to me, give way to me, Seals of the Sea;Give way, for I am fëy of the seaAnd the sea-maiden I see there,And my name, true, is Mànus MacCodrum,The bull-seal that was a man, Arà! Arà!
It is I, Mànus MacCodrum,I am telling you that, you, Anndra of my blood,And you, Neil my grandfather, and you, and you, and you!Ay, ay, Mànus my name is, Mànus MacMànus!It is I myself, and no other,Your brother, O Seals of the Sea!Give me blood of the red fish,And a bite of the flying sgadan;The green wave on my belly,And the foam in my eyes!I am your bull-brother, O Bulls of the Sea,Bull-better than any of you, snarling bulls!Come to me, mate, seal of the soft furry womb,White am I still, though red shall I be,Red with the streaming red blood if any dispute me!Aoh, aoh, aoh, arò, arò, ho-rò!A man was I, a seal am I,My fangs churn the yellow foam from my lips:Give way to me, give way to me, Seals of the Sea;Give way, for I am fëy of the seaAnd the sea-maiden I see there,And my name, true, is Mànus MacCodrum,The bull-seal that was a man, Arà! Arà!
It is I, Mànus MacCodrum,I am telling you that, you, Anndra of my blood,And you, Neil my grandfather, and you, and you, and you!Ay, ay, Mànus my name is, Mànus MacMànus!It is I myself, and no other,Your brother, O Seals of the Sea!Give me blood of the red fish,And a bite of the flying sgadan;The green wave on my belly,And the foam in my eyes!I am your bull-brother, O Bulls of the Sea,Bull-better than any of you, snarling bulls!Come to me, mate, seal of the soft furry womb,White am I still, though red shall I be,Red with the streaming red blood if any dispute me!Aoh, aoh, aoh, arò, arò, ho-rò!A man was I, a seal am I,My fangs churn the yellow foam from my lips:Give way to me, give way to me, Seals of the Sea;Give way, for I am fëy of the seaAnd the sea-maiden I see there,And my name, true, is Mànus MacCodrum,The bull-seal that was a man, Arà! Arà!
It is I, Mànus MacCodrum,
I am telling you that, you, Anndra of my blood,
And you, Neil my grandfather, and you, and you, and you!
Ay, ay, Mànus my name is, Mànus MacMànus!
It is I myself, and no other,
Your brother, O Seals of the Sea!
Give me blood of the red fish,
And a bite of the flying sgadan;
The green wave on my belly,
And the foam in my eyes!
I am your bull-brother, O Bulls of the Sea,
Bull-better than any of you, snarling bulls!
Come to me, mate, seal of the soft furry womb,
White am I still, though red shall I be,
Red with the streaming red blood if any dispute me!
Aoh, aoh, aoh, arò, arò, ho-rò!
A man was I, a seal am I,
My fangs churn the yellow foam from my lips:
Give way to me, give way to me, Seals of the Sea;
Give way, for I am fëy of the sea
And the sea-maiden I see there,
And my name, true, is Mànus MacCodrum,
The bull-seal that was a man, Arà! Arà!
By this time he was close upon the great black seal, which was still monotonously swaying its gory head, with its sightless eyes rolling this way and that. The sea-folk seemed fascinated. None moved, even when the dancer in the moonshine trampled upon them.
When he came within arm-reach he stopped.
“Are you the Ceann-Cinnidh?” he cried.“Are you the head of this clan of the sea-folk?”
The huge beast ceased its swaying. Its curled lips moved from its fangs.
“Speak, Seal, if there’s no curse upon you! Maybe, now, you’ll be Anndra himself, the brother of my father! Speak!H’st—are you hearing that music on the shore!’Tis the Dàn-nan-Ròn! Death o’ my soul, it’s the Dàn-nan-Ròn! Aha, ’tis Gloom Achanna out of the Grave. Back, beast, and let me move on!”
With that, seeing the great bull did not move, he struck it full in the face with clenched fist. There was a hoarse strangling roar, and the seal champion was upon him with lacerating fangs.
Mànus swayed this way and that. All he could hear now was the snarling and growling and choking cries of the maddened seals. As he fell, they closed in upon him. His screams wheeled through the night like mad birds. With desperate fury he struggled to free himself. The great bull pinned him to the rock; a dozen others tore at his white flesh, till his spouting blood made therocks scarlet in the white shine of the moon.
For a few seconds he still fought savagely, tearing with teeth and hands. Once, only, a wild cry burst from his lips: when from the shore end of the reef came loud and clear the lilt of the rune of his fate.
The next moment he was dragged down and swept from the reef into the sea. As the torn and mangled body disappeared from sight, it was amid a seething crowd of leaping and struggling seals, their eyes wild with affright and fury, their fangs red with human gore.
And Gloom Achanna, turning upon the reef, moved swiftly inland, playing low on hisfeadanas he went.
It should be explained that the sin-relinquishing superstition—a superstition probably pre-Celtic, perhaps of the remotest antiquity—hardly exists to-day, or, if at all, in its crudest guise. The last time I heard of it, even in a modified form, was not in the west, but in a remote part of the Aberdeenshire highlands. Then, it was salt, not bread, that was put on the breast of the dead: and the salt was thrown away, nor was any wayfarer called upon to perform this or any other function.
Sin.Taste this bread, this substance: tell meIs it bread or flesh?[The Senses approach.]The Smell.Its smellIs the smell of bread.Sin.Touch, come. Why tremble?Say what’s this thou touchest?The Touch.Bread.Sin.Sight, declare what thou discernestIn this object.The Sight.Bread alone.Calderon,Los Encantos de la Culpa.
Sin.Taste this bread, this substance: tell meIs it bread or flesh?[The Senses approach.]The Smell.Its smellIs the smell of bread.Sin.Touch, come. Why tremble?Say what’s this thou touchest?The Touch.Bread.Sin.Sight, declare what thou discernestIn this object.The Sight.Bread alone.Calderon,Los Encantos de la Culpa.
Sin.Taste this bread, this substance: tell meIs it bread or flesh?
Sin.
Taste this bread, this substance: tell me
Is it bread or flesh?
[The Senses approach.]
[The Senses approach.]
The Smell.Its smellIs the smell of bread.
The Smell.
Its smell
Is the smell of bread.
Sin.Touch, come. Why tremble?Say what’s this thou touchest?
Sin.
Touch, come. Why tremble?
Say what’s this thou touchest?
The Touch.Bread.
The Touch.
Bread.
Sin.Sight, declare what thou discernestIn this object.
Sin.
Sight, declare what thou discernest
In this object.
The Sight.Bread alone.
The Sight.
Bread alone.
Calderon,Los Encantos de la Culpa.
Calderon,Los Encantos de la Culpa.
A wet wind out of the south mazed and mooned through the sea-mist that hung over the Ross. In all the bays and creeks was a continuous weary lapping of water. There was no other sound anywhere.
Thus was it at daybreak: it was thus at noon: thus was it now in the darkening of the day. A confused thrusting and falling of sounds through the silence betokened the hour of the setting. Curlews wailed in the mist: on the seething limpet-covered rocks the skuas and terns screamed, or uttered hoarse, rasping cries. Ever and again the prolonged note of the oyster-catcher shrilled against the air, as an echo flying blindly along a blank wall of cliff. Out of weedy places, wherein the tide sobbed with long, gurgling moans, came at intervals the barking of a seal.
Inland, by the hamlet of Contullich, there is a reedy tarn called the Loch-a-chaoruinn.[5]By the shores of this mournful water a man moved. It was a slow, weary walk that of the man Neil Ross. He had come from Duninch, thirty miles to the eastward, and had not rested foot, nor eaten, nor had word of man or woman, since his going west an hour after dawn.
At the bend of the loch nearest the clachanhe came upon an old woman carrying peat. To his reiterated question as to where he was, and if the tarn were Feur-Lochan above Fionnaphort that is on the strait of Iona on the west side of the Ross of Mull, she did not at first make any answer. The rain trickled down her withered brown face, over which the thin grey locks hung limply. It was only in the deep-set eyes that the flame of life still glimmered, though that dimly.
The man had used the English when first he spoke, but as though mechanically. Supposing that he had not been understood, he repeated his question in the Gaelic.
After a minute’s silence the old woman answered him in the native tongue, but only to put a question in return.
“I am thinking it is a long time since you have been in Iona?”
The man stirred uneasily.
“And why is that, mother?” he asked, in a weak voice hoarse with damp and fatigue; “how is it you will be knowing that I have been in Iona at all?”
“Because I knew your kith and kin there, Neil Ross.”
“I have not been hearing that name, mother, for many a long year. And as for the old face o’ you, it is unbeknown to me.”
“I was at the naming of you, for all that. Well do I remember the day that Silis Macallum gave you birth; and I was at the house on the croft of Ballyrona when Murtagh Ross—that was your father—laughed. It was an ill laughing that.”
“I am knowing it. The curse of God on him!”
“’Tis not the first, nor the last, though the grass is on his head three years agone now.”
“You that know who I am will be knowing that I have no kith or kin now on Iona?”
“Ay; they are all under grey stone or running wave. Donald your brother, and Murtagh your next brother, and little Silis, and your mother Silis herself, and your two brothers of your father, Angus and Ian Macallum, and your father Murtagh Ross, and his lawful childless wife, Dionaid, and his sister Anna—one and all, they lie beneath the green wave or in the brown mould. It is said there is a curse upon all who liveat Ballyrona. The owl builds now in the rafters, and it is the big sea-rat that runs across the fireless hearth.”
“It is there I am going.”
“The foolishness is on you, Neil Ross.”
“Now it is that I am knowing who you are. It is old Sheen Macarthur I am speaking to.”
“Tha mise… it is I.”
“And you will be alone now, too, I am thinking, Sheen?”
“I am alone. God took my three boys at the one fishing ten years ago; and before there was moonrise in the blackness of my heart my man went. It was after the drowning of Anndra that my croft was taken from me. Then I crossed the Sound, and shared with my widow sister Elsie McVurie: tillshewent: and then the two cows had to go: and I had no rent: and was old.”
In the silence that followed, the rain dribbled from the sodden bracken and dripping loneroid. Big tears rolled slowly down the deep lines on the face of Sheen. Once there was a sob in her throat, but she put her shaking hand to it, and it was still.
Neil Ross shifted from foot to foot. The ooze in that marshy place squelched with each restless movement he made. Beyond them a plover wheeled, a blurred splatch in the mist, crying its mournful cry over and over and over.
It was a pitiful thing to hear: ah, bitter loneliness, bitter patience of poor old women. That he knew well. But he was too weary, and his heart was nigh full of its own burthen. The words could not come to his lips. But at last he spoke.
“Tha mo chridhe goirt,” he said, with tears in his voice, as he put his hand on her bent shoulder; “my heart is sore.”
She put up her old face against his.
“’S tha e ruidhinn mo chridhe,” she whispered; “it is touching my heart you are.”
After that they walked on slowly through the dripping mist, each dumb and brooding deep.
“Where will you be staying this night?” asked Sheen suddenly, when they had traversed a wide boggy stretch of land; adding, as by an afterthought—“Ah, it is asking you were if the tarn there were Feur-Lochan.No; it is Loch-a-chaoruinn, and the clachan that is near is Contullich.”
“Which way?”
“Yonder: to the right.”
“And you are not going there?”
“No. I am going to the steading of Andrew Blair. Maybe you are for knowing it? It is called the Baile-na-Chlais-nambuidheag.”[6]
“I do not remember. But it is remembering a Blair I am. He was Adam, the son of Adam, the son of Robert. He and my father did many an ill deed together.”
“Ay, to the stones be it said. Sure, now, there was, even till this weary day, no man or woman who had a good word for Adam Blair.”
“And why that … why till this day?”
“It is not yet the third hour since he went into the silence.”
Neil Ross uttered a sound like a stifled curse. For a time he trudged wearily on.
“Then I am too late,” he said at last, but as though speaking to himself. “I had hoped to see him face to face again, and curse him between the eyes. It was he who madeMurtagh Ross break his troth to my mother, and marry that other woman, barren at that, God be praised! And they say ill of him, do they?”
“Ay, it is evil that is upon him. This crime and that, God knows; and the shadow of murder on his brow and in his eyes. Well, well, ’tis ill to be speaking of a man in corpse, and that near by. ’Tis Himself only that knows, Neil Ross.”
“Maybe ay and maybe no. But where is it that I can be sleeping this night, Sheen Macarthur?”
“They will not be taking a stranger at the farm this night of the nights, I am thinking. There is no place else for seven miles yet, when there is the clachan, before you will be coming to Fionnaphort. There is the warm byre, Neil, my man; or, if you can bide by my peats, you may rest, and welcome, though there is no bed for you, and no food either save some of the porridge that is over.”
“And that will do well enough for me, Sheen; and Himself bless you for it.”
And so it was.
After old Sheen Macarthur had given the wayfarer food—poor food at that, but welcome to one nigh starved, and for the heartsome way it was given, and because of the thanks to God that was upon it before even spoon was lifted—she told him a lie. It was the good lie of tender love.
“Sure now, after all, Neil, my man,” she said, “it is sleeping at the farm I ought to be, for Maisie Macdonald, the wise woman, will be sitting by the corpse, and there will be none to keep her company. It is there I must be going; and if I am weary, there is a good bed for me just beyond the dead-board, which I am not minding at all. So, if it is tired you are sitting by the peats, lie down on my bed there, and have the sleep; and God be with you.”
With that she went, and soundlessly, for Neil Ross was already asleep, where he sat on an upturnedclaar, with his elbows on his knees, and his flame-lit face in his hands.
The rain had ceased; but the mist still hung over the land, though in thin veils now, and these slowly drifting seaward. Sheen stepped wearily along the stony path thatled from her bothy to the farm-house. She stood still once, the fear upon her, for she saw three or four blurred yellow gleams moving beyond her, eastward, along the dyke. She knew what they were—the corpse-lights that on the night of death go between the bier and the place of burial. More than once she had seen them before the last hour, and by that token had known the end to be near.
Good Catholic that she was, she crossed herself, and took heart. Then, muttering
Crois nan naoi aingeal leam’O mhullach mo chinnGu craican mo bhonn(The cross of the nine angels be about me,From the top of my headTo the soles of my feet),
Crois nan naoi aingeal leam’O mhullach mo chinnGu craican mo bhonn(The cross of the nine angels be about me,From the top of my headTo the soles of my feet),
Crois nan naoi aingeal leam’O mhullach mo chinnGu craican mo bhonn
Crois nan naoi aingeal leam
’O mhullach mo chinn
Gu craican mo bhonn
(The cross of the nine angels be about me,From the top of my headTo the soles of my feet),
(The cross of the nine angels be about me,
From the top of my head
To the soles of my feet),
she went on her way fearlessly.
When she came to the White House, she entered by the milk-shed that was between the byre and the kitchen. At the end of it was a paved place, with washing-tubs. At one of these stood a girl that served in the house,—an ignorant lass called Jessie McFall, out of Oban. She was ignorant, indeed, not to know that to wash clothes with a newlydead body near by was an ill thing to do. Was it not a matter for the knowing that the corpse could hear, and might rise up in the night and clothe itself in a clean white shroud?
She was still speaking to the lassie when Maisie Macdonald, the deid-watcher, opened the door of the room behind the kitchen to see who it was that was come. The two old women nodded silently. It was not till Sheen was in the closed room, midway in which something covered with a sheet lay on a board, that any word was spoken.
“Duit sìth mòr, Beann Macdonald.”
“And deep peace to you, too, Sheen; and to him that is there.”
“Och, ochone, mise ’n diugh; ’tis a dark hour this.”
“Ay; it is bad. Will you have been hearing or seeing anything?”
“Well, as for that, I am thinking I saw lights moving betwixt here and the green place over there.”
“The corpse-lights?”
“Well, it is calling them that they are.”
“Ithoughtthey would be out. And I have been hearing the noise of the planks—thecracking of the boards, you know, that will be used for the coffin to-morrow.”
A long silence followed. The old women had seated themselves by the corpse, their cloaks over their heads. The room was fireless, and was lit only by a tall wax death-candle, kept against the hour of the going.
At last Sheen began swaying slowly to and fro, crooning low the while. “I would not be for doing that, Sheen Macarthur,” said the deid-watcher in a low voice, but meaningly; adding, after a moment’s pause, “The mice have all left the house.”
Sheen sat upright, a look half of terror half of awe in her eyes.
“God save the sinful soul that is hiding,” she whispered.
Well she knew what Maisie meant. If the soul of the dead be a lost soul it knows its doom. The house of death is the house of sanctuary; but before the dawn that follows the death-night the soul must go forth, whosoever or whatsoever wait for it in the homeless, shelterless plains of air around and beyond. If it be well with the soul, it need have no fear: if it be not ill with the soul, it mayfare forth with surety; but if it be ill with the soul, ill will the going be. Thus is it that the spirit of an evil man cannot stay, and yet dare not go; and so it strives to hide itself in secret places anywhere, in dark channels and blind walls; and the wise creatures that live near man smell the terror, and flee. Maisie repeated the saying of Sheen; then, after a silence, added—
“Adam Blair will not lie in his grave for a year and a day because of the sins that are upon him; and it is knowing that, they are, here. He will be the Watcher of the Dead for a year and a day.”
“Ay, sure, there will be dark prints in the dawn-dew over yonder.”
Once more the old women relapsed into silence. Through the night there was a sighing sound. It was not the sea, which was too far off to be heard save in a day of storm. The wind it was, that was dragging itself across the sodden moors like a wounded thing, moaning and sighing.
Out of sheer weariness, Sheen twice rocked forward from her stool, heavy with sleep. At last Maisie led her over to the niche-bedopposite, and laid her down there, and waited till the deep furrows in the face relaxed somewhat, and the thin breath laboured slow across the fallen jaw.
“Poor old woman,” she muttered, heedless of her own grey hairs and greyer years; “a bitter, bad thing it is to be old, old and weary. ’Tis the sorrow, that. God keep the pain of it!”
As for herself, she did not sleep at all that night, but sat between the living and the dead, with her plaid shrouding her. Once, when Sheen gave a low, terrified scream in her sleep, she rose, and in a loud voice cried, “Sheeach-ad! Away with you!” And with that she lifted the shroud from the dead man, and took the pennies off the eyelids, and lifted each lid; then, staring into these filmed wells, muttered an ancient incantation that would compel the soul of Adam Blair to leave the spirit of Sheen alone, and return to the cold corpse that was its coffin till the wood was ready.
The dawn came at last. Sheen slept, and Adam Blair slept a deeper sleep, and Maisie stared out of her wan, weary eyes against the red and stormy flares of light that came into the sky.
When, an hour after sunrise, Sheen Macarthur reached her bothy, she found Neil Ross, heavy with slumber, upon her bed. The fire was not out, though no flame or spark was visible; but she stooped and blew at the heart of the peats till the redness came, and once it came it grew. Having done this, she kneeled and said a rune of the morning, and after that a prayer, and then a prayer for the poor man Neil. She could pray no more because of the tears. She rose and put the meal and water into the pot for the porridge to be ready against his awaking. One of the hens that was there came and pecked at her ragged skirt. “Poor beastie,” she said. “Sure, that will just be the way I am pulling at the white robe of the Mother o’ God. ’Tis a bit meal for you, cluckie, and for me a healing hand upon my tears. O, och, ochone, the tears, the tears!”
It was not till the third hour after sunrise of that bleak day in that winter of the winters, that Neil Ross stirred and arose. He ate in silence. Once he said that he smelt the snow coming out of the north. Sheen said no word at all.
After the porridge, he took his pipe, butthere was no tobacco. All that Sheen had was the pipeful she kept against the gloom of the Sabbath. It was her one solace in the long weary week. She gave him this, and held a burning peat to his mouth, and hungered over the thin, rank smoke that curled upward.
It was within half-an-hour of noon that, after an absence, she returned.
“Not between you and me, Neil Ross,” she began abruptly, “but just for the asking, and what is beyond. Is it any money you are having upon you?”
“No.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Then how will you be getting across to Iona? It is seven long miles to Fionnaphort, and bitter cold at that, and you will be needing food, and then the ferry, the ferry across the Sound, you know.”
“Ay, I know.”
“What would you do for a silver piece, Neil, my man?”
“You have none to give me, Sheen Macarthur; and, if you had, it would not be taking it I would.”
“Would you kiss a dead man for a crown-piece—a crown-piece of five good shillings?”
Neil Ross stared. Then he sprang to his feet.
“It is Adam Blair you are meaning, woman! God curse him in death now that he is no longer in life!”
Then, shaking and trembling, he sat down again, and brooded against the dull red glow of the peats.
But, when he rose, in the last quarter before noon, his face was white.
“The dead are dead, Sheen Macarthur. They can know or do nothing. I will do it. It is willed. Yes, I am going up to the house there. And now I am going from here. God Himself has my thanks to you, and my blessing too. They will come back to you. It is not forgetting you I will be. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Neil, son of the woman that was my friend. A south wind to you! Go up by the farm. In the front of the house you will see what you will be seeing. Maisie Macdonald will be there. She will tell you what’s for the telling. There is no harm in it, sure: sure, the dead are dead. It is praying for you I will be, Neil Ross. Peace to you!”
“And to you, Sheen.”
And with that the man went.
When Neil Ross reached the byres of the farm in the wide hollow, he saw two figures standing as though awaiting him, but separate, and unseen of the other. In front of the house was a man he knew to be Andrew Blair; behind the milk-shed was a woman he guessed to be Maisie Macdonald.
It was the woman he came upon first.
“Are you the friend of Sheen Macarthur?” she asked in a whisper, as she beckoned him to the doorway.
“I am.”
“I am knowing no names or anything. And no one here will know you, I am thinking. So do the thing and begone.”
“There is no harm to it?”
“None.”
“It will be a thing often done, is it not?”
“Ay, sure.”
“And the evil does not abide?”
“No. The … the … person … the person takes them away, and …”
“Them?”
“For sure, man! Them … the sins of the corpse. He takes them away; and are you for thinking God would let the innocent suffer for the guilty? No … the person … the Sin-Eater, you know … takes them away on himself, and one by one the air of heaven washes them away till he, the Sin-Eater, is clean and whole as before.”
“But if it is a man you hate … if it is a corpse that is the corpse of one who has been a curse and a foe … if …”
“Sst!Be still now with your foolishness. It is only an idle saying, I am thinking. Do it, and take the money and go. It will be hell enough for Adam Blair, miser as he was, if he is for knowing that five good shillings of his money are to go to a passing tramp because of an old, ancient silly tale.”
Neil Ross laughed low at that. It was for pleasure to him.
“Hush wi’ ye! Andrew Blair is waiting round there. Say that I have sent you round, as I have neither bite nor bit to give.”
Turning on his heel, Neil walked slowly round to the front of the house. A tall man was there, gaunt and brown, with hairless faceand lank brown hair, but with eyes cold and grey as the sea.
“Good day to you, an’ good faring. Will you be passing this way to anywhere?”
“Health to you. I am a stranger here. It is on my way to Iona I am. But I have the hunger upon me. There is not a brown bit in my pocket. I asked at the door there, near the byres. The woman told me she could give me nothing—not a penny even, worse luck,—nor, for that, a drink of warm milk. ’Tis a sore land this.”
“You have the Gaelic of the Isles. Is it from Iona you are?”
“It is from the Isles of the West I come.”
“From Tiree? … from Coll?”
“No.”
“From the Long Island … or from Uist … or maybe from Benbecula?”
“No.”
“Oh well, sure it is no matter to me. But may I be asking your name?”
“Macallum.”
“Do you know there is a death here, Macallum?”
“If I didn’t, I would know it now, because of what lies yonder.”
Mechanically Andrew Blair looked round. As he knew, a rough bier was there, that was made of a dead-board laid upon three milking-stools. Beside it was aclaar, a small tub to hold potatoes. On the bier was a corpse, covered with a canvas sheeting that looked like a sail.
“He was a worthy man, my father,” began the son of the dead man, slowly; “but he had his faults, like all of us. I might even be saying that he had his sins, to the Stones be it said. You will be knowing, Macallum, what is thought among the folk … that a stranger, passing by, may take away the sins of the dead, and that, too, without any hurt whatever … any hurt whatever.”
“Ay, sure.”
“And you will be knowing what is done?”
“Ay.”
“With the bread … and the water…?”
“Ay.”
“It is a small thing to do. It is a Christian thing. I would be doing it myself, and that gladly, but the … the … passer-by who …”
“It is talking of the Sin-Eater you are?”
“Yes, yes, for sure. The Sin-Eater as he iscalled—and a good Christian act it is, for all that the ministers and the priests make a frowning at it—the Sin-Eater must be a stranger. He must be a stranger, and should know nothing of the dead man—above all, bear him no grudge.”
At that Neil Ross’s eyes lightened for a moment.
“And why that?”
“Who knows? I have heard this, and I have heard that. If the Sin-Eater was hating the dead man he could take the sins and fling them into the sea, and they would be changed into demons of the air that would harry the flying soul till Judgment-Day.”
“And how would that thing be done?”
The man spoke with flashing eyes and parted lips, the breath coming swift. Andrew Blair looked at him suspiciously; and hesitated, before, in a cold voice, he spoke again.
“That is all folly, I am thinking, Macallum. Maybe it is all folly, the whole of it. But, see here, I have no time to be talking with you. If you will take the bread and the water you shall have a good meal if you want it, and … and … yes, look you, my man, I will be giving you a shilling too, for luck.”
“I will have no meal in this house, Anndra-mhic-Adam; nor will I do this thing unless you will be giving me two silver half-crowns. That is the sum I must have, or no other.”
“Two half-crowns! Why, man, for one half-crown …”
“Then be eating the sins o’ your father yourself, Andrew Blair! It is going I am.”
“Stop, man! Stop, Macallum. See here: I will be giving you what you ask.”
“So be it. Is the … Are you ready?”
“Ay, come this way.”
With that the two men turned and moved slowly towards the bier.
In the doorway of the house stood a man and two women; farther in, a woman; and at the window to the left, the serving-wench, Jessie McFall, and two men of the farm. Of those in the doorway, the man was Peter, the half-witted youngest brother of Andrew Blair; the taller and older woman was Catreen, the widow of Adam, the second brother; and the thin, slight woman, with staring eyes and drooping mouth, was Muireall, the wife of Andrew. The old woman behind these was Maisie Macdonald.
Andrew Blair stooped and took a saucer out of theclaar. This he put upon the covered breast of the corpse. He stooped again, and brought forth a thick square piece of new-made bread. That also he placed upon the breast of the corpse. Then he stooped again, and with that he emptied a spoonful of salt alongside the bread.
“I must see the corpse,” said Neil Ross simply.
“It is not needful, Macallum.”
“I must be seeing the corpse, I tell you—and for that, too, the bread and the water should be on the naked breast.”
“No, no, man; it …”
But here a voice, that of Maisie the wise woman, came upon them, saying that the man was right, and that the eating of the sins should be done in that way and no other.
With an ill grace the son of the dead man drew back the sheeting. Beneath it, the corpse was in a clean white shirt, a death-gown long ago prepared, that covered him from his neck to his feet, and left only the dusky yellowish face exposed.
While Andrew Blair unfastened the shirtand placed the saucer and the bread and the salt on the breast, the man beside him stood staring fixedly on the frozen features of the corpse. The new laird had to speak to him twice before he heard.
“I am ready. And you, now? What is it you are muttering over against the lips of the dead?”
“It is giving him a message I am. There is no harm in that, sure?”
“Keep to your own folk, Macallum. You are from the West you say, and we are from the North. There can be no messages between you and a Blair of Strathmore, no messages foryouto be giving.”
“He that lies here knows well the man to whom I am sending a message”—and at this response Andrew Blair scowled darkly. He would fain have sent the man about his business, but he feared he might get no other.
“It is thinking I am that you are not a Macallum at all. I know all of that name in Mull, Iona, Skye, and the near isles. What will the name of your naming be, and of your father, and of his place?”
Whether he really wanted an answer, orwhether he sought only to divert the man from his procrastination, his question had a satisfactory result.
“Well, now, it’s ready I am, Anndra-mhic-Adam.”
With that, Andrew Blair stooped once more and from theclaarbrought a small jug of water. From this he filled the saucer.
“You know what to say and what to do, Macallum.”
There was not one there who did not have a shortened breath because of the mystery that was now before them, and the fearfulness of it. Neil Ross drew himself up, erect, stiff, with white, drawn face. All who waited, save Andrew Blair, thought that the moving of his lips was because of the prayer that was slipping upon them, like the last lapsing of the ebb-tide. But Blair was watching him closely, and knew that it was no prayer which stole out against the blank air that was around the dead.
Slowly Neil Ross extended his right arm. He took a pinch of the salt and put it in the saucer, then took another pinch and sprinkled it upon the bread. His hand shook for amoment as he touched the saucer. But there was no shaking as he raised it towards his lips, or when he held it before him when he spoke.
“With this water that has salt in it, and has lain on thy corpse, O Adam mhic Anndra mhic Adam Mòr, I drink away all the evil that is upon thee …”
There was throbbing silence while he paused.
“… And may it be upon me and not upon thee, if with this water it cannot flow away.”
Thereupon, he raised the saucer and passed it thrice round the head of the corpse sun-ways; and, having done this, lifted it to his lips and drank as much as his mouth would hold. Thereafter he poured the remnant over his left hand, and let it trickle to the ground. Then he took the piece of bread. Thrice, too, he passed it round the head of the corpse sun-ways.
He turned and looked at the man by his side, then at the others, who watched him with beating hearts.
With a loud clear voice he took the sins.
“Thoir dhomh do ciontachd, O Adam mhicAnndra mhic Adam Mòr!Give me thy sins to take away from thee! Lo, now, as I stand here, I break this bread that has lain on thee in corpse, and I am eating it, I am, and in that eating I take upon me the sins of thee, O man that was alive and is now white with the stillness!”
Thereupon Neil Ross broke the bread and ate of it, and took upon himself the sins of Adam Blair that was dead. It was a bitter swallowing, that. The remainder of the bread he crumbled in his hand, and threw it on the ground, and trod upon it. Andrew Blair gave a sigh of relief. His cold eyes lightened with malice.
“Be off with you, now, Macallum. We are wanting no tramps at the farm here, and perhaps you had better not be trying to get work this side Iona; for it is known as the Sin-Eater you will be, and that won’t be for the helping, I am thinking! There: there are the two half-crowns for you … and may they bring you no harm, you that areScapegoatnow!”
The Sin-Eater turned at that, and stared like a hill-bull.Scapegoat!Ay, that’s whathe was. Sin-Eater, Scapegoat! Was he not, too, another Judas, to have sold for silver that which was not for the selling? No, no, for sure Maisie Macdonald could tell him the rune that would serve for the easing of this burden. He would soon be quit of it.
Slowly he took the money, turned it over, and put it in his pocket.
“I am going, Andrew Blair,” he said quietly, “I am going now. I will not say to him that is there in the silence,A chuid do Pharas da!—nor will I say to you,Gu’n gleidheadh Dia thu,—nor will I say to this dwelling that is the home of thee and thine,Gu’n beannaicheadh Dia an tigh!”[7]
Here there was a pause. All listened. Andrew Blair shifted uneasily, the furtive eyes of him going this way and that, like a ferret in the grass.
“But, Andrew Blair, I will say this: when you fare abroad,Droch caoidh ort!and when you go upon the water,Gaoth gun direadh ort!Ay, ay, Anndra-mhic-Adam,Dia adaghaidh ’s ad aodann … agus bas dunach ort! Dhonas ’s dholas ort, agus leat-sa!”[8]
The bitterness of these words was like snow in June upon all there. They stood amazed. None spoke. No one moved.
Neil Ross turned upon his heel, and, with a bright light in his eyes, walked away from the dead and the living. He went by the byres, whence he had come. Andrew Blair remained where he was, now glooming at the corpse, now biting his nails and staring at the damp sods at his feet.
When Neil reached the end of the milk-shed he saw Maisie Macdonald there, waiting.
“These were ill sayings of yours, Neil Ross,” she said in a low voice, so that she might not be overheard from the house.
“So, it is knowing me you are.”
“Sheen Macarthur told me.”
“I have good cause.”
“That is a true word. I know it.”
“Tell me this thing. What is the rune that is said for the throwing into the sea of the sins of the dead? See here, Maisie Macdonald. There is no money of that man that I would carry a mile with me. Here it is. It is yours, if you will tell me that rune.”
Maisie took the money hesitatingly. Then, stooping, she said slowly the few lines of the old, old rune.
“Will you be remembering that?”
“It is not forgetting it I will be, Maisie.”
“Wait a moment. There is some warm milk here.”
With that she went, and then, from within, beckoned to him to enter.
“There is no one here, Neil Ross. Drink the milk.”
He drank; and while he did so she drew a leather pouch from some hidden place in her dress.
“And now I have this to give you.”
She counted out ten pennies and two farthings.
“It is all the coppers I have. You are welcome to them. Take them, friend of my friend. They will give you the food you need, and the ferry across the Sound.”
“I will do that, Maisie Macdonald, and thanks to you. It is not forgetting it I will be, nor you, good woman. And now, tell me, is it safe that I am? He called me a ‘scapegoat’; he, Andrew Blair! Can evil touch me between this and the sea?”
“You must go to the place where the evil was done to you and yours—and that, I know, is on the west side of Iona. Go, and God preserve you. But here, too, is a sian that will be for the safety.”
Thereupon, with swift mutterings she said this charm: an old, familiar Sian against Sudden Harm:—