Chapter I: HAD called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the (4)

“MacLure, of coorse, was clean scandalised,” continued Drumsheugh,
“an’ pooed awa’ his hand as if it hed been burned.

“Nae man can thole that kind o’ fraikin’, and a’ never heard o’ sic
a thing in the parish, but we maun excuse Bell, neeburs; it wes an
occasion by ordinar,” and Drumsheugh made Bell’s apology to
Drumtochty for such an excess of feeling.

“A’ see naethin’ tae excuse,” insisted Jamie, who was in great
fettle that Sabbath; “the doctor hes never been burdened wi’ fees,
and a’m judgin’ he coonted a wumman’s gratitude that he saved frae
weedowhood the best he ever got.”

“A’ gaed up tae the Manse last nicht,” concluded Drumsheugh, “an’
telt the minister hoo the doctor focht aucht oors for Saunders’
life, an’ won, an’ ye never saw a man sae carried. He walkit up an’
doon the room a’ the time, and every other meenut he blew his nose
like a trumpet.

“‘I’ve a cold in my head to-night, Drumsheugh,’ says he; ‘never mind
me.’”

“A’ve hed the same masel’ in sic circumstances; they come on
sudden,” said Jamie.

“A’ wager there ’ill be a new bit in the laist prayer the day, an’
somethin’ worth hearin’.”

And the fathers went into kirk in great expectation.

“We beseech Thee for such as be sick, that Thy hand may be on them
for good, and that Thou wouldst restore them again to health and
strength,” was the familiar petition of every Sabbath.

The congregation waited in a silence that might be heard, and were
not disappointed that morning, for the minister continued:

“Especially we tender Thee hearty thanks that Thou didst spare Thy
servant who was brought down into the dust of death, and hast given
him back to his wife and children, and unto that end didst
wonderfully bless the skill of him who goes out and in amongst us,
the beloved physician of this parish and adjacent districts.”

“Didna a’ tell ye, neeburs?” said Jamie, as they stood at the
kirkyard gate before dispersing, “there’s no a man in the coonty cud
hae dune it better. ‘Beloved physician,’ an’ his ‘skill,’ tae, an’
bringing in ‘adjacent districts’; that’s Glen Urtach; it wes
handsome, and the doctor earned it, ay, every word.

“It’s an awfu’ peety he didna hear yon; but dear knows whar he is
the day, maist likely up——”

Jamie stopped suddenly at the sound of a horse’s feet, and there,
coming down the avenue of beech trees that made a long vista from
the kirk gate, they saw the doctor and Jess.

One thought flashed through the minds of the fathers of the
commonwealth.

It ought to be done as he passed, and it would be done if it were
not Sabbath. Of course it was out of the question on Sabbath.

The doctor is now distinctly visible, riding after his fashion.

There was never such a chance, if it were only Saturday; and each
man read his own regret in his neighbour’s face.

The doctor is nearing them rapidly; they can imagine the shepherd’s
tartan.

Sabbath or no Sabbath, the Glen cannot let him pass without some
tribute of their pride.

Jess has recognised friends, and the doctor is drawing rein.

“It hes tae be dune,” said Jamie desperately, “say what ye like.”
Then they all looked towards him, and Jamie led.

“Hurrah!” swinging his Sabbath hat in the air, “hurrah!” and once
more, “hurrah!” Whinnie Knowe, Drumsheugh, and Hillocks joining
lustily, but Tammas Mitchell carrying all before him, for he had
found at last an expression for his feelings that rendered speech
unnecessary.

It was a solitary experience for horse and rider, and Jess bolted
without delay. But the sound followed and surrounded them, and as
they passed the corner of the kirkyard, a figure waved his college
cap over the wall and gave a cheer on his own account.

“God bless you, doctor, and well done!”

“If it isna the minister,” cried Drumsheugh, “in his goon an’ bans;
tae think o’ that; but a’ respeck him for it.”

Then Drumtochty became self-conscious and went home in confusion of
face and unbroken silence, except Jamie Soutar, who faced his
neighbours at the parting of the ways without shame.

“A’ wud dae it a’ ower again if a’ hed the chance; he got naethin’
but his due.”

It was two miles before Jess composed her mind, and the doctor and
she could discuss it quietly together.

“A’ can hardly believe me ears, Jess, an’ the Sabbath tae; their
verra jidgment hes gane frae the fouk o’ Drumtochty.

“They’ve heard about Saunders, a’m thinkin’, wumman, and they’re
pleased we brocht him roond; he’s fairly on the mend, ye ken, noo.

“A’ never expeckit the like o’ this, though, and it wes juist a wee
thingie mair than a’ cud hae stude.

“Ye hev yir share in’t tae, lass; we’ve hed mony a hard nicht and
day thegither, an’ yon wes oor reward. No mony men in this warld
’ill ever get a better, for it cam’ from the hert o’ honest fouk.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE DÀN-NAN-RÒN[11]
By FIONA MACLEOD

Footnote 11:

From _The Dominion of Dreams, Under the Dark Star_. By permission
of Mrs. William Sharp. Copyright, 1910, by Duffield & Company.

WHEN Anne Gillespie, that was my friend in Eilanmore, left the
island after the death of her uncle, the old man Robert Achanna, it
was to go far west.

Among the men of the Outer Isles who for three summers past had been
at the fishing off Eilanmore there was one named Mànus MacCodrum. He
was a fine lad to see, but though most of the fisher-folk of the
Lews and North Uist are fair, either with reddish hair and grey
eyes, or blue-eyed and yellow-haired, he was of a brown skin with
dark hair and dusky brown eyes. He was, however, as unlike to the
dark Celts of Arran and the Inner Hebrides as to the northmen. He
came of his people, sure enough. All the MacCodrums of North Uist
had been brown-skinned and brown-haired and brown-eyed: and herein
may have lain the reason why, in by-gone days, this small clan of
Uist was known throughout the Western Isles as the _Sliochd non
Ròn_, the offspring of the Seals.

Not so tall as most of the men of North Uist and the Lews, Mànus
MacCodrum was of a fair height, and supple and strong. No man was a
better fisherman than he, and he was well liked of his fellows, for
all the morose gloom that was upon him at times. He had a voice as
sweet as a woman’s when he sang, and he sang often, and knew all the
old runes of the islands, from the Obb of Harris to the Head of
Mingulay. Often, too, he chanted the beautiful _orain spioradail_ of
the Catholic priests and Christian Brothers of South Uist and Barra,
though where he lived in North Uist he was the sole man who adhered
to the ancient faith.

It may have been because Anne was a Catholic too, though, sure, the
Achannas were so also, notwithstanding that their forebears and
kindred in Galloway were Protestant (and this because of old Robert
Achanna’s love for his wife, who was of the old Faith, so it is
said)—it may have been for this reason, though I think her lover’s
admiring eyes and soft speech and sweet singing had more to do with
it, that she pledged her troth to Mànus. It was a south wind for him
as the saying is; for with her rippling brown hair and soft, grey
eyes and cream-white skin, there was no comelier lass in the isles.

So when Achanna was laid to his long rest, and there was none left
upon Eilanmore save only his three youngest sons, Mànus MacCodrum
sailed northeastward across the Minch to take home his bride. Of the
four eldest sons, Alasdair had left Eilanmore some months before his
father died, and sailed westward, though no one knew whither or for
what end or for how long, and no word had been brought from him, nor
was he ever seen again in the island which had come to be called
Eilan-nan-Allmharachain, the Isle of the Strangers; Allan and
William had been drowned in a wild gale in the Minch; and Robert had
died of the white fever, that deadly wasting disease which is the
scourge of the isles. Marcus was now “Eilanmore,” and lived there
with Gloom and Seumas, all three unmarried, though it was rumoured
among the neighbouring islanders that each loved Marsail nic
Ailpean,[12] in Eilean-Rona of the Summer Isles hard by the coast of
Sutherland.

Footnote 12:

Marsail nic Ailpean is the Gaelic of which an English translation
would be Marjory MacAlpine. _Nic_ is a contraction for _nighean
mhic_, “daughter of the line of.”

When Mànus asked Anne to go with him she agreed. The three brothers
were ill-pleased at this, for apart from their not wishing their
cousin to go so far away, they did not want to lose her, as she not
only cooked for them and did all that a woman does, including
spinning and weaving, but was most sweet and fair to see, and in the
long winter nights sang by the hour together, while Gloom played
strange wild airs upon his _feadan_, a kind of oaten pipe or flute.

She loved him, I know; but there was this reason also for her going,
that she was afraid of Gloom. Often upon the moor or on the hill she
turned and hastened home, because she heard the lilt and fall of
that feadan. It was an eerie thing to her, to be going through the
twilight when she thought the three men were in the house, smoking
after their supper, and suddenly to hear beyond and coming toward
her the shrill song of that oaten flute, playing “The Dance of the
Dead,” or “The Flow and Ebb,” or “The Shadow-Reel.”

That, sometimes at least, he knew she was there was clear to her,
because, as she stole rapidly through the tangled fern and gale, she
would hear a mocking laugh follow her like a leaping thing.

Mànus was not there on the night when she told Marcus and his
brothers that she was going. He was in the haven on board the
_Luath_, with his two mates, he singing in the moonshine as all
three sat mending their fishing gear.

After the supper was done, the three brothers sat smoking and
talking over an offer that had been made about some Shetland sheep.
For a time, Anne watched them in silence. They were not like
brothers, she thought. Marcus, tall, broad-shouldered, with yellow
hair and strangely dark blue-black eyes and black eyebrows; stern,
with a weary look on his sun-brown face. The light from the peats
glinted upon the tawny curve of thick hair that trailed from his
upper lip, for he had the _caisean-feusag_ of the Northmen. Gloom,
slighter of build, dark of hue and hair, but with hairless face;
with thin, white, long-fingered hands that had ever a nervous
motion, as though they were tide-wrack. There was always a frown on
the centre of his forehead, even when he smiled with his thin lips
and dusky, unbetraying eyes. He looked what he was, the brain of the
Achannas. Not only did he have the English as though native to that
tongue, but could and did read strange unnecessary books. Moreover,
he was the only son of Robert Achanna to whom the old man had
imparted his store of learning, for Achanna had been a school-master
in his youth, in Galloway, and he had intended Gloom for the
priesthood. His voice, too, was low and clear, but cold as
pale-green water running under ice. As for Seumas, he was more like
Marcus than Gloom, though not so fair. He had the same brown hair
and shadowy hazel eyes, the same pale and smooth face, with
something of the same intent look which characterised the long-time
missing, and probably dead, eldest brother, Alasdair. He, too, was
tall and gaunt. On Seumas’s face there was that indescribable, as to
some of course imperceptible, look which is indicated by the phrase
“the dusk of the shadow,” though few there are who know what they
mean by that, or, knowing, are fain to say.

Suddenly, and without any word or reason for it, Gloom turned and
spoke to her.

“Well, Anne, and what is it?”

“I did not speak, Gloom.”

“True for you, _mo cailinn_. But it’s about to speak you were.”

“Well, and that is true. Marcus, and you Gloom, and you Seumas, I
have that to tell which you will not be altogether glad for the
hearing. ’Tis about—about—me and—and Mànus.”

There was no reply at first. The three brothers sat looking at her
like the kye at a stranger on the moorland. There was a deepening of
the frown on Gloom’s brow, but when Anne looked at him his eyes fell
and dwelt in the shadow at his feet. Then Marcus spoke in a low
voice:

“Is it Mànus MacCodrum you will be meaning?”

“Ay, sure.”

Again silence. Gloom did not lift his eyes, and Seumas was now
staring at the peats. Marcus shifted uneasily.

“And what will Mànus MacCodrum be wanting?”

“Sure, Marcus, you know well what I mean. Why do you make this thing
hard for me? There is but one thing he would come here wanting. And
he has asked me if I will go with him; and I have said yes; and if
you are not willing that he come again with the minister, or that we
go across to the kirk in Berneray of Uist in the Sound of Harris,
then I will not stay under this roof another night, but will go away
from Eilanmore at sunrise in the _Luath_, that is now in the haven.
And that is for the hearing and knowing, Marcus and Gloom and
Seumas!”

Once more, silence followed her speaking. It was broken in a strange
way. Gloom slipped his feadan into his hands, and so to his mouth.
The clear, cold notes of the flute filled the flame-lit room. It was
as though white polar birds were drifting before the coming of snow.

The notes slid in to a wild, remote air: cold moonlight on the dark
o’ the sea, it was. It was the _Dàn-nan-Ròn_.

Anne flushed, trembled, and then abruptly rose. As she leaned on her
clenched right hand upon the table, the light of the peats showed
that her eyes were aflame.

“Why do you play _that_, Gloom Achanna?”

The man finished the bar, then blew into the oaten pipe, before,
just glancing at the girl, he replied:

“And what harm will there be in _that_, Anna-ban?”

“Do you know why Gloom played the ‘Dàn-nan-Ròn’?”

“Ay, and what then, Anna-ban?”

“What then? Are you thinking I don’t know what you mean by playing
the ‘Song o’ the Seals’?”

With an abrupt gesture Gloom put the feadan aside. As he did so, he
rose.

“See here, Anne,” he began roughly, when Marcus intervened.

“That will do just now, Gloom. Anne-à-ghraidh, do you mean that you
are going to do this thing?”

“Ay, sure.”

“Do you know why Gloom played the ‘Dàn-nan-Ròn’?”

“It was a cruel thing.”

“You know what is said in the isles about—about—this or that man,
who is under _gheasan_, who is spell-bound and—and—about the seals—”

“Yes, Marcus, it is knowing it that I am: ‘_Tha iad a’ cantuinn gur
h-e daoine fo gheasan a th’ anns no roin._’”

“‘_They say that seals_,’” he repeated slowly. “‘_They say that
seals are men under magic spells._’ And have you ever pondered that
thing, Anne, my cousin?”

“I am knowing well what you mean.”

“Then you will know that the MacCodrums of North Uist are called the
_Sliochd-nan-Ròn_?”

“I have heard.”

“And would you be for marrying a man that is of the race of the
beasts, and himself knowing what that _geas_ means, and who may any
day go back to his people?”

“Ah, now, Marcus, sure it is making a mock of me you are. Neither
you nor any here believe that foolish thing. How can a man born of a
woman be a seal, even though his _sinnsear_ were the offspring of
the sea-people, which is not a saying I am believing either, though
it may be; and not that it matters much, whatever, about the
far-back forebears.”

Marcus frowned darkly, and at first made no response. At last he
answered, speaking sullenly:

“You may be believing this or you may be believing that,
Anna-nic-Gilleasbuig, but two things are as well known as that the
east wind brings the blight and the west wind the rain. And one is
this: that long ago a Seal-man wedded a woman of North Uist, and
that he or his son was called Neil MacCodrum; and that the sea-fever
of the seal was in the blood of his line ever after. And this is the
other: that twice within the memory of living folk, a MacCodrum has
taken upon himself the form of a seal, and has so met his death,
once Neil MacCodrum of Ru’ Tormaid, and once Anndra MacCodrum of
Berneray in the Sound. There’s talk of others, but these are known
of us all. And you will not be forgetting now that Neildonn was the
grandfather, and that Anndra was the brother of the father of Mànus
MacCodrum?”

“I am not caring what you say, Marcus. It is all foam of the sea.”

“There’s no foam without wind or tide, Anne, an’ it’s a dark tide
that will be bearing you away to Uist, and a black wind that will be
blowing far away behind the East, the wind that will be carrying his
death-cry to your ears.”

The girl shuddered. The brave spirit in her, however, did not quail.

“Well, so be it. To each his fate. But, seal or no seal, I am going
to wed Mànus MacCodrum, who is a man as good as any here, and a true
man at that, and the man I love, and that will be my man, God
willing, the praise be His!”

Again Gloom took up the feadan, and sent a few cold, white notes
floating through the hot room, breaking, suddenly, into the wild,
fantastic, opening air of the “Dàn-nan-Ròn.”

With a low cry and passionate gesture Anne sprang forward, snatched
the oat-flute from his grasp, and would have thrown it in the fire.
Marcus held her in an iron grip, however.

“Don’t you be minding Gloom, Anne,” he said quietly, as he took the
feadan from her hand and handed it to his brother: “sure he’s only
telling you in _his_ way what I am telling you in mine.”

She shook herself free, and moved to the other side of the table. On
the opposite wall hung the dirk which had belonged to old Achanna.
This she unfastened. Holding it in her right hand, she faced the
three men.—

“On the cross of the dirk I swear I will be the woman of Mànus
MacCodrum.”

The brothers made no response. They looked at her fixedly.

“And by the cross of the dirk I swear that if any man come between
me and Mànus, this dirk will be for his remembering in a certain
hour of the day of the days.”

As she spoke, she looked meaningly at Gloom, whom she feared more
than Marcus or Seumas.

“And by the cross of the dirk I swear that if evil come to Mànus,
this dirk will have another sheath, and that will be my milkless
breast; and by that token I now throw the old sheath in the fire.”

As she finished, she threw the sheath on to the burning peats. Gloom
quietly lifted it, brushed off the sparks of flame as though they
were dust, and put it in his pocket.

“And by the same token, Anne,” he said, “your oaths will come to
nought.”

Rising, he made a sign to his brothers to follow. When they were
outside he told Seumas to return, and to keep Anne within, by peace
if possible, by force if not. Briefly they discussed their plans,
and then separated. While Seumas went back, Marcus and Gloom made
their way to the haven.

Their black figures were visible in the moonlight, but at first they
were not noticed by the men on board the _Luath_, for Mànus was
singing.

When the islesman stopped abruptly, one of his companions asked him
jokingly if his song had brought a seal alongside, and bid him
beware lest it was a woman of the sea-people.

His face darkened, but he made no reply. When the others listened
they heard the wild strain of the “Dàn-nan-Ròn” stealing through the
moonshine. Staring against the shore, they could discern the two
brothers.

“What will be the meaning of that?” asked one of the men, uneasily.

“When a man comes instead of a woman,” answered Mànus, slowly, “the
young corbies are astir in the nest.”

So, it meant blood. Aulay MacNeil and Donull Macdonull put down
their gear, rose, and stood waiting for what Mànus would do.

“Ho, there!” he cried.

“Ho-ro!”

“What will you be wanting, Eilanmore?”

“We are wanting a word of you, Mànus MacCodrum. Will you come
ashore?”

“If you want a word of me, you can come to me.”

“There is no boat here.”

“I’ll send the _bàta-beag_.”

When he had spoken, Mànus asked Donull, the younger of his mates, a
lad of seventeen, to row to the shore.

“And bring back no more than one man,” he added, “whether it be
Eilanmore himself or Gloom-mhic-Achanna.”

The rope of the small boat was unfastened, and Donull rowed it
swiftly through the moonshine. The passing of a cloud dusked the
shore, but they saw him throw a rope for the guiding of the boat
alongside the ledge of the landing place; then the sudden darkening
obscured the vision. Donull must be talking, they thought, for two
or three minutes elapsed without sign, but at last the boat put off
again, and with two figures only. Doubtless the lad had had to argue
against the coming of both Marcus and Gloom.

This, in truth, was what Donull had done. But while he was speaking
Marcus was staring fixedly beyond him.

“Who is it that is there?” he asked, “there, in the stern?”

“There is no one there.”

“I thought I saw the shadow of a man.”

“Then it was my shadow, Eilanmore.”

Achanna turned to his brother.

“I see a man’s death there in the boat.”

Gloom quailed for a moment, then laughed low.

“I see no death of a man sitting in the boat, Marcus, but if I did I
am thinking it would dance to the air of the ‘Dàn-nan-Ròn,’ which is
more than the wraith of you or me would do.”

“It is not a wraith I was seeing, but the death of a man.”

Gloom whispered, and his brother nodded sullenly. The next moment a
heavy muffler was round Donull’s mouth; and before he could resist,
or even guess what had happened, he was on his face on the shore,
bound and gagged. A minute later the oars were taken by Gloom, and
the boat moved swiftly out of the inner haven.

As it drew near Mànus stared at it intently.

“That is not Donull that is rowing, Aulay!”

“No: it will be Gloom Achanna, I’m thinking.”

MacCodrum started. If so, that other figure at the stern was too big
for Donull. The cloud passed just as the boat came alongside. The
rope was made secure, and then Marcus and Gloom sprang on board.

“Where is Donull MacDonull?” demanded Mànus sharply.

Marcus made no reply, so Gloom answered for him.

“He has gone up to the house with a message to
Anne-nic-Gilleasbuig.”

“And what will that message be?”

“That Mànus MacCodrum has sailed away from Eilanmore, and will not
see her again.”

MacCodrum laughed. It was a low, ugly laugh.

“Sure, Gloom Achanna, you should be taking that feadan of yours and
playing the _Cod-hail-nan-Pairtean_, for I’m thinkin’ the crabs are
gathering about the rocks down below us, an’ laughing wi’ their
claws.”

“Well, and that is a true thing,” Gloom replied slowly and quietly.
“Yes, for sure I might, as you say, be playing the ’meeting of the
Crabs.’ Perhaps,” he added, as by a sudden afterthought, “perhaps,
though it is a calm night, you will be hearing the _comh-thonn_. The
‘Slapping of the Waves’ is a better thing to be hearing than the
’meeting of the Crabs.’”

“If I hear the _comh-thonn_ it is not in the way you will be
meaning, Gloom-mhic-Achanna. ’Tis not the ‘Up Sail and Good-bye’
they will be saying, but ‘Home wi’ the Bride.’”

Here Marcus intervened.

“Let us be having no more words, Mànus MacCodrum. The girl Anne is
not for you. Gloom is to be her man. So get you hence. If you will
be going quiet, it is quiet we will be. If you have your feet on
this thing, then you will be having that too which I saw in the
boat.”

“And what was it you saw in the boat, Achanna?”

“The death of a man.”

“So—. And now” (this after a prolonged silence, wherein the four men
stood facing each other, “is it a blood-matter if not of peace?”

“Ay. Go, if you are wise. If not, ’tis your own death you will be
making.”

There was a flash as of summer lightning. A bluish flame seemed to
leap through the moonshine. Marcus reeled, with a gasping cry; then,
leaning back, till his face blenched in the moonlight, his knees
gave way. As he fell, he turned half round. The long knife which
Mànus had hurled at him had not penetrated his breast more than an
inch at most, but as he fell on the deck it was driven into him up
to the hilt.

In the blank silence that followed, the three men could hear a sound
like the ebb-tide in sea-weed. It was the gurgling of the bloody
froth in the lungs of the dead man.

The first to speak was his brother, and then only when thin
reddish-white foam-bubbles began to burst from the blue lips of
Marcus.

“It is murder.”

He spoke low, but it was like the surf of breakers in the ears of
those who heard.

“You have said one part of a true word, Gloom Achanna. It is
murder—that you and he came here for!”

“The death of Marcus Achanna is on you, Mànus MacCodrum.”

“So be it, as between yourself and me, or between all of your blood
and me; though Aulay MacNeil, as well as you, can witness that
though in self-defence I threw the knife at Achanna, it was his own
doing that drove it into him.”

“You can whisper that to the rope when it is round your neck.”

“And what will _you_ be doing now, Gloom-mhic-Achanna?”

For the first time Gloom shifted uneasily. A swift glance revealed
to him the awkward fact that the boat trailed behind the _Luath_, so
that he could not leap into it, while if he turned to haul it close
by the rope he was at the mercy of the two men.

“I will go in peace,” he said quietly.

“Ay,” was the answer, in an equally quiet tone, “in the white
peace.”

Upon this menace of death the two men stood facing each other.

Achanna broke the silence at last.

“You’ll hear the ‘Dàn-nan-Ròn’ the night before you die, Mànus
MacCodrum, and lest you doubt it you’ll hear it again in your
death-hour.”

“_Ma tha sin an Dàn_—if that be ordained.” Mànus spoke gravely. His
very quietude, however, boded ill. There was no hope of clemency;
Gloom knew that.

Suddenly he laughed scornfully. Then, pointing with his right hand
as if to some one behind his two adversaries, he cried out: “Put the
death-hand on them, Marcus! Give them the Grave!” Both men sprang
aside, the heart of each nigh upon bursting. The death-touch of the
newly slain is an awful thing to incur, for it means that the wraith
can transfer all its evil to the person touched.

The next moment there was a heavy splash. Mànus realised that it was
no more than a ruse, and that Gloom had escaped. With feverish haste
he hauled in the small boat, leaped into it, and began at once to
row so as to intercept his enemy.

Achanna rose once, between him and the _Luath_. MacCodrum crossed
the oars in the thole-pins and seized the boat-hook.

The swimmer kept straight for him. Suddenly he dived. In a flash,
Mànus knew that Gloom was going to rise under the boat, seize the
keel, and upset him, and thus probably be able to grip him from
above. There was time and no more to leap; and, indeed, scarce had
he plunged into the sea ere the boat swung right over, Achanna
clambering over it the next moment.

At first Gloom could not see where his foe was. He crouched on the
upturned craft, and peered eagerly into the moonlit water. All at
once a black mass shot out of the shadow between him and the smack.
This black mass laughed—the same low, ugly laugh that had preceded
the death of Marcus.

He who was in turn the swimmer was now close. When a fathom away he
leaned back and began to tread water steadily. In his right hand he
grasped the boat-hook. The man in the boat knew that to stay where
he was meant certain death. He gathered himself together like a
crouching cat. Mànus kept treading the water slowly, but with the
hook ready so that the sharp iron spike at the end of it should
transfix his foe if he came at him with a leap. Now and again he
laughed. Then in his low sweet voice, but brokenly at times between
his deep breathings, he began to sing:

The tide was dark, an’ heavy with the burden that it bore;
I heard it talkin’, whisperin’, upon the weedy shore;
Each wave that stirred the sea-weed was like a closing door;
’Tis closing doors they hear at last who hear no more, no more.
My Grief,
No more!

The tide was in the salt sea-weed, and like a knife it tore;
The wild sea-wind went moaning, sooing, moaning o’er and o’er;
The deep sea-heart was brooding deep upon its ancient lore—
I heard the sob, the sooing sob, the dying sob at its core,
My Grief,
Its core!

The white sea-waves were wan and gray its ashy lips before,
The yeast within its ravening mouth was red with streaming gore;
O red sea-weed, O red sea-waves, O hollow baffled roar,
Since one thou hast, O dark dim Sea, why callest thou for more,
My Grief,
For more!

In the quiet moonlight the chant, with its long, slow cadences, sung
as no other man in the isles could sing it, sounded sweet and remote
beyond words to tell. The glittering shine was upon the water of the
haven, and moved in waving lines of fire along the stone ledges.
Sometimes a fish rose, and split a ripple of pale gold; or a
sea-nettle swam to the surface, and turned its blue or greenish
globe of living jelly to the moon dazzle.

The man in the water made a sudden stop in his treading and listened
intently. Then once more the phosphorescent light gleamed about his
slow-moving shoulders. In a louder chanting voice came once again:

Each wave that stirs the sea-weed is like a closing door;
’Tis closing doors they hear at last who hear no more—no more,
My Grief,
No more!

Yes, his quick ears had caught the inland strain of a voice he knew.
Soft and white as the moonshine came Anne’s singing as she passed
along the corrie leading to the haven. In vain his travelling gaze
sought her; she was still in the shadow, and, besides, a slow
drifting cloud obscured the moonlight. When he looked back again a
stifled exclamation came from his lips. There was not a sign of
Gloom Achanna. He had slipped noiselessly from the boat, and was now
either behind it, or had dived beneath it, or was swimming under
water this way or that. If only the cloud would sail by, muttered
Mànus, as he held himself in readiness for an attack from beneath or
behind. As the dusk lightened, he swam slowly toward the boat, and
then swiftly round it. There was no one there. He climbed on to the
keel, and stood, leaning forward, as a salmon-leisterer by
torchlight, with his spear-pointed boat-hook raised. Neither below
nor beyond could he discern any shape. A whispered call to Aulay
MacNeil showed that he, too, saw nothing. Gloom must have swooned,
and sunk deep as he slipped through the water. Perhaps the dog-fish
were already darting about him.

Going behind the boat Mànus guided it back to the smack. It was not
long before, with MacNeil’s help, he righted the punt. One oar had
drifted out of sight, but as there was a sculling-hole in the stern
that did not matter.

“What shall we do with it?” he muttered, as he stood at last by the
corpse of Marcus.

“This is a bad night for us, Aulay!”

“Bad it is; but let us be seeing it is not worse. I’m thinking we
should have left the boat.”

“And for why that?”

“We could say that Marcus Achanna and Gloom Achanna left us again,
and that we saw no more of them nor of our boat.”

MacCodrum pondered a while. The sound of voices, borne faintly
across the water, decided him. Probably Anne and the lad Donull were
talking. He slipped into the boat, and with a sail-knife soon ripped
it here and there. It filled, and then, heavy with the weight of a
great ballast-stone which Aulay had first handed to his companion,
and surging with a foot-thrust from the latter, it sank.

“We’ll hide the—the man there—behind the windlass, below the spare
sail, till we’re out at sea, Aulay. Quick, give me a hand!”

It did not take the two men long to lift the corpse, and do as Mànus
had suggested. They had scarce accomplished this, when Anne’s voice
came hailing silver-sweet across the water.

With death-white face and shaking limbs, MacCodrum stood holding the
mast, while with a loud voice, so firm and strong that Aulay MacNeil
smiled below his fear, he asked if the Achannas were back yet, and
if so for Donull to row out at once, and she with him if she would
come.

It was nearly half an hour thereafter that Anne rowed out toward the
_Luath_. She had gone at last along the shore to a creek where one
of Marcus’s boats was moored and returned with it. Having taken
Donull on board, she made way with all speed, fearful lest Gloom or
Marcus should intercept her.

It did not take long to explain how she had laughed at Seumas’s vain
efforts to detain her, and had come down to the haven. As she
approached, she heard Mànus singing, and so had herself broken into
a song she knew he loved. Then, by the water-edge she had come upon
Donull lying upon his back, bound and gagged. After she had released
him they waited to see what would happen, but as in the moonlight
they could not see any small boat come in, bound to or from the
smack, she had hailed to know if Mànus were there.

On his side he said briefly that the two Achannas had come to
persuade him to leave without her. On his refusal they had departed
again, uttering threats against her as well as himself. He heard
their quarrelling voices as they rowed into the gloom, but could not
see them at last because of the obscured moonlight.

“And now, Ann-mochree,” he added, “is it coming with me you are, and
just as you are? Sure, you’ll never repent it, and you’ll have all
you want that I can give. Dear of my heart, say that you will be
coming away this night of the nights! By the Black Stone on
Icolmkill I swear it, and by the Sun, and by the Moon, and by
Himself!”

“I am trusting you, Mànus dear. Sure it is not for me to be going
back to that house after what has been done and said. I go with you,
now and always, God save us.”

“Well, dear lass o’ my heart, it’s farewell to Eilanmore it is, for
by the Blood of the Cross I’ll never land on it again!”

“And that will be no sorrow to me, Mànus, my home!”

* * * * *

And this was the way that my friend, Anne Gillespie, left Eilanmore
to go to the isles of the west.

It was a fair sailing, in the white moonshine, with a whispering
breeze astern. Anne leaned against Mànus, dreaming her dream. The
lad Donull sat drowsing at the helm. Forward, Aulay MacNeil, with
his face set against the moonshine to the west, brooded dark.

Though no longer was land in sight, and there was peace among the
deeps of the quiet stars and upon the sea, the shadow of fear was
upon the face of Mànus MacCodrum.

This might well have been because of the as yet unburied dead that
lay beneath the spare sail by the windlass. The dead man, however,
did not affright him. What went moaning in his heart, and sighing
and calling in his brain, was a faint falling echo he had heard, as
the _Luath_ glided slow out of the haven. Whether from the water or
from the shore he could not tell, but he heard the wild, fantastic
air of the “Dàn-nan-Ròn,” as he had heard it that very night upon
the feadan of Gloom Achanna.

It was his hope that his ears had played him false. When he glanced
about him, and saw the sombre flame in the eyes of Aulay MacNeil,
staring at him out of the dusk, he knew that which Oisìn the son of
Fionn cried in his pain: “his soul swam in mist.”

II

For all the evil omens, the marriage of Anne and Mànus MacCodrum
went well. He was more silent than of yore, and men avoided rather
than sought him; but he was happy with Anne, and content with his
two mates, who were now Callum MacCodrum and Ranald MacRanald. The
youth Donull had bettered himself by joining a Skye skipper who was
a kinsman, and Aulay MacNeil had surprised every one, except Mànus,
by going away as a seaman on board one of the _Loch_ line of ships
which sail for Australia from the Clyde.

Anne never knew what had happened, though it is possible she
suspected somewhat. All that was known to her was that Marcus and
Gloom Achanna had disappeared, and were supposed to have been
drowned. There was now no Achanna upon Eilanmore, for Seumas had
taken a horror of the place and his loneliness. As soon as it was
commonly admitted that his two brothers must have drifted out to
sea, and been drowned, or at best picked up by some ocean-going
ship, he disposed of the island-farm, and left Eilanmore forever.
All this confirmed the thing said among the islanders of the west,
that old Robert Achanna had brought a curse with him. Blight and
disaster had visited Eilanmore over and over in the many years he
had held it, and death, sometimes tragic or mysterious, had
overtaken six of his seven sons, while the youngest bore upon his
brows the “dusk of the shadow.” True, none knew for certain that
three out of the six were dead, but few for a moment believed in the
possibility that Alasdair and Marcus and Gloom were alive. On the
night when Anne had left the island with Mànus MacCodrum, he,
Seumas, had heard nothing to alarm him. Even when, an hour after she
had gone down to the haven, neither she nor his brothers had
returned, and the _Luath_ had put out to sea, he was not in fear of
any ill. Clearly, Marcus and Gloom had gone away in the smack,
perhaps determined to see that the girl was duly married by priest
or minister.

He would have perturbed himself a little for days to come, but for a
strange thing that happened that night. He had returned to the house
because of a chill that was upon him, and convinced, too, that all
had sailed in the _Luath_. He was sitting brooding by the peat-fire,
when he was startled by a sound at the window at the back of the
room. A few bars of a familiar air struck painfully upon his ear,
though played so low that they were just audible. What could it be
but the “Dàn-nan-Ròn,” and who would be playing that but Gloom? What
did it mean? Perhaps after all, it was fantasy only, and there was
no feadan out there in the dark. He was pondering this when, still
low but louder and sharper than before, there rose and fell the
strain which he hated, and Gloom never played before him, that of
the _Dàvsa-na mairv_, the “Dance of the Dead.” Swiftly and silently
he rose and crossed the room. In the dark shadows cast by the byre
he could see nothing, but the music ceased. He went out, and
searched everywhere, but found no one. So he returned, took down the
Holy Book, with awed heart, and read slowly till peace came upon
him, soft and sweet as the warmth of the peat-glow.

But as for Anne, she had never even this hint that one of the
supposed dead might be alive, or that, being dead, Gloom might yet
touch a shadowy feadan into a wild remote air of the grave.

When month after month went by, and no hint of ill came to break
upon their peace, Mànus grew light-hearted again. Once more his
songs were heard as he came back from the fishing, or loitered
ashore mending his nets. A new happiness was nigh to them, for Anne
was with child. True, there was fear also, for the girl was not well
at the time when her labor was near, and grew weaker daily. There
came a day when Mànus had to go to Loch Boisdale in South Uist: and
it was with pain and something of foreboding that he sailed away
from Berneray in the Sound of Harris, where he lived. It was on the
third night that he returned. He was met by Katreen MacRanald, the
wife of his mate, with the news that on the morrow after his going
Anne had sent for the priest who was staying at Loch Maddy, for she
had felt the coming of death. It was that very evening she died, and
took the child with her.

Mànus heard as one in a dream. It seemed to him that the tide was
ebbing in his heart, and a cold, sleety rain falling, falling
through a mist in his brain.

Sorrow lay heavily upon him. After the earthing of her whom he
loved, he went to and fro solitary: often crossing the Narrows and
going to the old Pictish Towre under the shadow of Ban Breac. He
would not go upon the sea, but let his kinsman Callum do as he liked
with the _Luath_.

Now and again Father Allan MacNeil sailed northward to see him. Each
time he departed sadder. “The man is going mad, I fear,” he said to
Callum, the last time he saw Mànus.

The long summer nights brought peace and beauty to the isles. It was
a great herring-year, and the moon-fishing was unusually good. All
the Uist men who lived by the sea-harvest were in their boats
whenever they could. The pollack, the dog-fish, the otters, and the
seals, with flocks of sea-fowl beyond number, shared in the common
joy. Mànus MacCodrum alone paid no heed to herring or mackerel. He
was often seen striding along the shore, and more than once had been
heard laughing; sometimes, too, he was come upon at low tide by the
great Reef of Berneray, singing wild strange runes and songs, or
crouching upon a rock and brooding dark.

The midsummer moon found no man on Berneray except MacCodrum, the
Rev. Mr. Black, the minister of the Free Kirk, and an old man named
Anndra McIan. On the night before the last day of the middle month,
Anndra was reproved by the minister for saying that he had seen a
man rise out of one of the graves in the kirkyard, and steal down by
the stone-dykes towards Balnahunnur-sa-mona,[13] where Mànus
MacCodrum lived.

Footnote 13:

_Baille-’na-aonar’sa mhonadh_, “the solitary farm on the
hill-slope.”

“The dead do not rise and walk, Anndra.”

“That may be, maigstir, but it may have been the Watcher of the
Dead. Sure it is not three weeks since Padruig McAlistair was laid
beneath the green mound. He’ll be wearying for another to take his
place.”

“Hoots, man, that is an old superstition. The dead do not rise and
walk, I tell you.”

“It is right you may be, maigstir, but I heard of this from my
father, that was old before you were young, and from his father
before him. When the last-buried is weary with being the Watcher of
the Dead he goes about from place to place till he sees man, woman,
or child with the death-shadow in the eyes, and then he goes back to
his grave and lies down in peace, for his vigil it will be over
now.”

The minister laughed at the folly, and went into his house to make
ready for the Sacrament that was to be on the morrow. Old Anndra,
however, was uneasy. After the porridge, he went down through the
gloaming to Balnahunnur-sa-mona. He meant to go in and warn Mànus
MacCodrum. But when he got to the west wall, and stood near the open
window, he heard Mànus speaking in a loud voice, though he was alone
in the room.

“_B’ionganntach do ghràdh dhomhsa, a’ toirt barrachd air gràdh nam
ban!_”...[14]

Footnote 14:

“Thy love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women.”

This, Mànus cried in a voice quivering with pain. Anndra stopped
still, fearful to intrude, fearful also, perhaps, to see some one
there beside MacCodrum, whom eyes should not see. Then the voice
rose into a cry of agony.

“_Aoram dhuit, ay andéigh dhomh fàs aosda!_”[15]

Footnote 15:

“I shall worship thee, ay, even after I have become old.”

With that, Anndra feared to stay. As he passed the byre he started,
for he thought he saw the shadow of a man. When he looked closer he
could see nought, so went his way, trembling and sore troubled.

It was dusk when Mànus came out. He saw that it was to be a cloudy
night; and perhaps it was this that, after a brief while, made him
turn in his aimless walk and go back to the house. He was sitting
before the flaming heart of the peats, brooding in his pain, when
suddenly he sprang to his feet.

Loud and clear, and close as though played under the very window of
the room, came the cold, white notes of an oaten flute. Ah, too well
he knew that wild, fantastic air. Who could it be but Gloom Achanna,
playing upon his feadan; and what air of all airs could that be but
the “Dàn-nan-Ròn”?

Was it the dead man, standing there unseen in the shadow of the
Grave? Was Marcus beside him, Marcus with the knife still thrust up
to the hilt, and the lung-foam upon his lips? Can the sea give up
its dead? Can there be strain of any feadan that ever was made of
man, there in the Silence?

In vain Mànus MacCodrum tortured himself thus. Too well he knew that
he had heard the “Dàn-nan-Ròn,” and that no other than Gloom Achanna
was the player.

Suddenly an access of fury wrought him to madness. With an abrupt
lilt the tune swung into the _Davsà-na mairv_, and thence, after a
few seconds, and in a moment, into that mysterious and horrible
_Codhail-nan-Pairtean_ which none but Gloom played.

There could be no mistake now, nor as to what was meant by the
muttering, jerking air of the “Gathering of the Crabs.”

With a savage cry Mànus snatched up a long dirk from its place by
the chimney, and rushed out.

There was not the shadow of a sea-gull even in front; so he sped
round by the byre. Neither was anything unusual discoverable there.

“Sorrow upon me,” he cried; “man or wraith, I will be putting it to
the dirk!”

But there was no one; nothing; not a sound.

Then, at last, with a listless droop of his arms, MacCodrum turned
and went into the house again. He remembered what Gloom Achanna had
said: “_You’ll hear the ‘Dàn-nan-Ròn’ the night before you die,
Mànus MacCodrum, and lest you doubt it, you’ll hear it in your
death-hour._”

He did not stir from the fire for three hours; then he rose, and
went over to his bed and lay down without undressing.

He did not sleep, but lay listening and watching. The peats burned
low, and at last there was scarce a flicker along the floor. Outside
he could hear the wind moaning upon the sea. By a strange rustling
sound he knew that the tide was ebbing across the great reef that
runs out from Berneray. By midnight the clouds had gone. The moon
shone clear and full. When he heard the clock strike in its
worm-eaten, rickety case, he sat up, and listened intently. He could
hear nothing. No shadow stirred. Surely if the wraith of Gloom
Achanna were waiting for him it would make some sign, now, in the
dead of night.

An hour passed. Mànus rose, crossed the room on tiptoe, and
soundlessly opened the door. The salt wind blew fresh against his
face. The smell of the shore, of wet sea-wrack and pungent
bog-myrtle, of foam and moving water, came sweet to his nostrils. He
heard a skua calling from the rocky promontory. From the slopes
behind, the wail of a moon-restless lapwing rose and fell
mournfully.

Crouching, and with slow, stealthy step, he stole round by the
seaward wall. At the dyke he stopped, and scrutinised it on each
side. He could see for several hundred yards, and there was not even
a sheltering sheep. Then, soundlessly as ever, he crept close to the
byre. He put his ear to chink after chink: but not a stir of a
shadow even. As a shadow, himself, he drifted lightly to the front,
past the hay-rick; then, with swift glances to right and left,
opened the door and entered. As he did so, he stood as though
frozen. Surely, he thought, that was a sound as of a step, out there
by the hay-rick. A terror was at his heart. In front, the darkness
of the byre, with God knows what dread thing awaiting him; behind, a
mysterious walker in the night, swift to take him unawares. The
trembling that came upon him was nigh overmastering. At last, with a
great effort, he moved towards the ledge, where he kept a candle.
With shaking hand he struck a light. The empty byre looked ghostly
and fearsome in the flickering gloom. But there was no one, nothing.
He was about to turn, when a rat ran along a loose-hanging beam, and
stared at him, or at the yellow shine. He saw its black eyes shining
like peat-water in moonlight.

The creature was curious at first, then indifferent. At last, it
began to squeak, and then made a swift scratching with its
fore-paws. Once or twice came an answering squeak; a faint rustling
was audible here and there among the straw.

With a sudden spring Mànus seized the beast. Even in the second in
which he raised it to his mouth and scrunched its back with his
strong teeth, it bit him severely. He let his hands drop, and groped
furtively in the darkness. With stooping head he shook the last
breath out of the rat, holding it with his front teeth, with
back-curled lips. The next moment he dropped the dead thing,
trampled upon it, and burst out laughing. There was a scurrying of
pattering feet, a rustling of straw. Then silence again. A draught
from the door had caught the flame and extinguished it. In the
silence and darkness MacCodrum stood, intent, but no longer afraid.
He laughed again, because it was so easy to kill with the teeth. The
noise of his laughter seemed to him to leap hither and thither like
a shadowy ape. He could see it; a blackness within the darkness.
Once more he laughed. It amused him to see the _thing_ leaping about
like that.

Suddenly he turned, and walked out into the moonlight. The lapwing
was still circling and wailing. He mocked it, with loud shrill
_pēē-wēēty, pēē-wēēty, pēē-wēēt_. The bird swung waywardly, alarmed:
its abrupt cry, and dancing flight aroused its fellows. The air was
full of the lamentable crying of plovers.