Chapter II

That night the wind had a dreadful soughing in its voice--a lamentable voice that came along the rain-wet face of the hills, with a prolonged moaning and sobbing.

Down in the big room, that was kitchen and sitting-room in one, where Gorromalt sat--for he had risen from his bed, for all that he was so weak and giddy--there was darkness. His wife had pleaded for the oil-lamp, because the shadows within and the wild wind without--though, I am thinking, most the shadows within her brain--filled her with dread; but he would not have it, no, not a candle even. The peats glowed, red-hot; above them the small narrow pine-logs crackled in a scarlet and yellow blaze.

Hour after hour went by in silence. There were but the three of us. Morag? Ah, did Gorromalt think she would stay at Teenabrae, and Muireall near by, and in the clutch of the death-frost, and she, her sister dear, not go to her? He had put the ban upon us, soon as the blood was out of his brain, and he could half rise from his pillow. No one was to go to see her, no one was to send word to her, no one was to speak of her.

At that, Aunt Elspeth had fallen on her knees beside the bed, and prayed to him to show pity. The tears rained upon the relentless heavy hand she held and kissed. “At the least,” she moaned, “at the least, let some one go to her, Archibald; at least a word, only one word!”

“Not a word, woman, not a word. She has sinned, but that’s the way o’ women o’ that kind. Let her be. The wind’ll blow her soul against God’s heavy hand, this very night o’ the nights. It’s not for you nor for me. But I’m saying this, I am: curse her, ay, curse her again and again, for that she let the son of the stranger, the son of our enemy, who would drive us out of the home we have, the home of our fathers, ay, back to the time when no English foot ever trod the heather of Argyll, that she would let him do her this shame and disgrace, her and me, an’ you too, ay, and all of our blood, and the Strath too, for that--ay, by God, and the clan, the whole clan!”

But though Gorromalt’s word was law there, there was one who had the tide coming in at one ear and going out at the other. As soon as the rainy gloom deepened into dark, she slipped from the house; I wanted to go with her, but she whispered to me to stay. It was well I did. I was able to keep back from him, all night, the story of Morag’s going. He thought she was in her bed. So bitter on the man was his wrath, that, ill as he was, he would have risen, and ridden or driven over to Kilbrennan, had he known Morag was gone there.

Angus Macallum, Gorromalt’s chief man, was with the horses in the stable. He tried to prevent Morag taking out Gealcas, the mare, she that went faster and surer than any there. He even put hand upon the lass, and said a rough word. But she laughed, I am told; and I am thinking that whoever heard Morag laugh, when she was “strange,” for all that she was so white and soft, she with her hair o’ sunlight, and the blue, blue eyes o’ her!--whoever heard _that_ would not be for standing in her way.

So Angus had stood back, sullenly giving no help, but no longer daring to interfere. She mounted Gealcas, and rode away into the dark rainy night where the wind went louping to and fro among the crags on the braes as though it were mad with fear or pain, and complaining wild, wild--the lamentable cry of the hills.

Hour after hour we sat there. We could hear the roaring sound of Gorromalt Water as it whirled itself over the linn. The stream was in spate, and would be boiling black, with livid clots of foam flung here and there on the dripping heather overhanging the torrent. The wind’s endless sough came into the house, and wailed in the keyholes and the chinks. Rory, the blind collie, lay on a mat near the door, and the long hair of his felt was blown upward, and this way and that, by the ground-draught.

Once or twice Aunt Elspeth rose, and stirred the porridge that seethed and bubbled in the pot. Her husband took no notice. He was in a daze, and sat in his flanked leathern arm-chair, with his arms laid along the sides, and his down-clasping hands catching the red gleam of the peats, and his face, white and set, like that of a dead man looking out of a grated prison.

Once or twice, an hour or so before, when she had begun to croon some hymn, he had harshly checked her. But now when she hummed, and at last openly sang the Gaelic version of “The Lord’s my Shepherd,” he paid no heed. He was not hearing that, or anything she did. I could make nothing of the cold bitterness that was on his face. He brooded, I doubt not, upon doom for the man, and the son of the man, who had wrought him this evil.

His wife saw this, and so had her will at last. She took down the great Gaelic Bible, and read Christ’s words about little children. The rain slashed against the window-panes. Beyond, the wind moaned, and soughed, and moaned. From the kennel behind the byre a mournful howling rose and fell; but Gorromalt did not stir.

Aunt Elspeth looked at me despairingly. Poor old woman; ah, the misery and pain of it, the weariness and long pain of starved hearts and barren hopes. Suddenly an idea came to her. She rose again, and went over to the fire. Twice she passed in front of her husband. He made no sign.

“He hates those things,” she muttered to me, her eyes wet with pain, and with something of shame, too, for admitting that she believed in incantations. And why not, poor old woman? Sure there are stranger things than _sian_ or _rosad_, charm or spell; and who can say that the secret old wisdom is mere foam o’ thought. “He hates those things, but I am for saving my poor lass if I can. I will be saying that old ancient _eolas_, that is called the _Eolas an t-Snaithnean_.”

“What is that, Aunt Elspeth? What are the three threads?”

“That _eolas_ killed the mother of my mother, dearie; she that was a woman out of the isle of Benbecula.”

“Killed her!” I repeated, awe-struck.

“Ay; ’tis a charm for the doing away of bewitchment, and sure it is my poor Muireall who has been bewitched. But my mother’s mother used the _eolas_ for the taking away of a curse upon a cow that would not give milk. She was saying the incantation for the third time, and winding the triple thread round the beast’s tail, when in a moment all the ill that was in the cow came forth and settled upon her, so that she went back to her house quaking and sick with the blight, and died of it next day, because there was no one to take it from her in turn by that or any other _eolas_.”

I listened in silence. The thing seemed terrible to me then; no, no, not then only, but now, too, whenever I think of it.

“Say it then, Aunt Elspeth,” I whispered; “say it, in the name of the Holy Three.”

With that she went on her knees, and leaned against her chair, though with her face towards her husband, because of the fear that was ever in her. Then in a low voice, choked with sobs, she said this old _eolas_, after she had first uttered the holy words of the “Pater Noster”:

_“Chi suil thu,_
_Labhraidh bial thu;_
_Smuainichidh cridhe thu._
_Tha Fear an righthighe_
_Gad’ choisreagadh,_
_An t-Athair, am Mac, ’s an Spiorad Naomh._

_“Ceathrar a rinn do chron--_
_Fear agus bean,_
_Gille agus nighean._
_Co tha gu sin a thilleadh?_
_Tri Pearsannan na Trianaid ro-naomh,_
_An t-Athair, am Mac, ’s an Spioraid Naomh._

_“Tha mi ’cur fianuis gu Moire, agus gu Brighde,_
_Ma ’s e duine rinn do chron,_
_Le droch run,_
_No le droch shuil,_
_No le droch chridhe,_
_Gu’m bi thusa, Muireall gu math,_
_Ri linn so a chur mu’n cuairt ort._
_An ainm an Athar, a’ Mhic, ’s an Spioraid Naomh!”_

(“An eye will see you,
Tongue will speak of you,
Heart will think of you,
The Man of Heaven
Blesses you--
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

“Four caused your hurt--
Man and Wife,
Young man, and maiden.
Who is to frustrate that?
The three Persons of the most Holy Trinity,
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

“I call the Virgin Mary and St Bridget to witness
That if your hurt was caused by man,
Through ill-will,
Or the evil eye,
Or a wicked heart,
That you, Muireall, my daughter, may be whole--
And this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!”)

Just as she finished, and as she was lingering on the line, “_Gu’m bi thusa, Muireall gu math_” Rory, the blind collie, rose, whimpered, and stood with snarling jaws.

Strangely enough, Gorromalt heard this, though his ears had been deaf to all else, or so it seemed, at least.

“Down, Rory! down, beast!” he exclaimed, in a voice strangely shrill and weak.

But the dog would not be still. His sullen fear grew worse. Suddenly he sidled and lay on his belly, now snarling, now howling, his blind eyes distended, his nostrils quivering, his flanks quaking. My uncle rose and stared at the dog.

“What ails the beast?” he asked angrily, looking now at Rory, now at us. “Has any one come in? Has any one been at the door?”

“No one, Archibald.”

“What have you been doing, Elspeth?”

“Nothing.”

“Woman, I heard your voice droning at your prayers. Ah, I see--you have been at some of your _sians_ and _eolais_ again. Sure, now, one would be thinking you would have less foolishness, and you with the greyness upon your years. What _eolas_ did she say, lass?”

I told him. “Aw, silly woman that she is, the _eolas an t-Snaithnean_! madness and folly!… Where is Morag?”

“In bed.” I said this with truth in my eyes. God’s forgiveness for that good lie!

“And it’s time you were there also, and you too, Elspeth. Come now, no more of this foolishness. We have nothing to wait for. Why are we waiting here?”

At that moment Rory became worse than ever. I thought the poor blind beast would take some dreadful fit. Foam was on his jaws; his hair bristled. He had sidled forward, and crouched low. We saw him look again and again towards the blank space to his right, as if, blind though he was, he saw some one there, some one that gave him fear, but no longer a fierce terror. Nay, more than once we saw him swish his tail, and sniff as though recognisingly. But when he turned his head towards the door his sullen fury grew, and terror shook upon every limb. It was now that Gorromalt was speaking.

Suddenly the dog made a leap forward--a terrible bristling wolf he seemed to me, though no wolf had I ever seen, or imagined any more fearsome, than Rory, now.

He dashed himself against the door, snarling and mouthing, with his snout nosing the narrow slip at the bottom.

Aunt Elspeth and I shook with fear. My uncle was death-white, but stood strangely brooding. He had his right elbow upon his breast, and supported it with his left arm, while with his right hand he plucked at his beard.

“For sure,” he said at last, with an effort to seem at ease; “for sure the dog is fëy with his age and his blindness.” Then, more slowly still, “And if that were not so, it might look as though he had the fear on him, because of some one who strove to come in.”

“It is Muireall,” I whispered, scarce above my breath.

“No,” said Aunt Elspeth, and the voice of her now was as though it had come out of the granite all about us, cold and hard as that. “No! Muireall is already in the room.”

We both turned and looked at her. She sat quite still, on the chair betwixt the fire and the table. Her face was rigid, ghastly, but her eyes were large and wild.

A look first of fear, then almost of tenderness, came into her husband’s face.

“Hush, Elspeth,” he said, “that is foolishness.”

“It is not foolishness, Archibald,” she resumed in the same hard, unemotional voice, but with a terrible intensity. “Man, man, because ye are blind, is there no sight for those who can see?”

“There is no one here but ourselves.”

But now Aunt Elspeth half rose, with supplicating arms:

“Muireall! Muireall! Muireall! O muirnean, muirnean!”

I saw Archibald Campbell shaking as though he were a child and no strong man. “Will you be telling us this, Elspeth,” he began in a hoarse voice--“will you be telling me this: if Muireall is in the room, beyond Rory there, who will be at the door? Who is trying to come in at the door?”

“It’s a man. I do not know the man. It is a man. It is Death, maybe. I do not know the man. O muirnean, mo muirnean!”

But now the great gaunt black dog--terrible in his seeing blindness he was to me--began again his savage snarling, his bristling insensate fury. He had ceased a moment while our voices filled the room, and had sidled a little way towards the place where Aunt Elspeth saw Muireall, whining low as he did so, and swishing his tail furtively along the whitewashed flagstones.

I know not what awful thing would have happened. It seemed to me that Death was coming to all of us.

But at that moment we all heard the sound of a galloping horse. There was a lull in the wind, and the rain lashed no more like a streaming whistling whip. Even Rory crouched silent, his nostrils quivering, his curled snout showing his fangs.

Gorromalt stood, listening intently.

“By the living God,” he exclaimed suddenly, his eyes like a goaded bull’s--“I know that horse. Only one horse runs like that at the gallop. ’Tis the grey stallion I sold three months ago to the man at Drumdoon--ay, ay, for the son of the man at Drumdoon! A horse to ride for the shooting--a good horse for the hills--that was what he wanted! Ay, ay, by God, a horse for the son of the man at Drumdoon! It’s the grey stallion: no other horse in the Straths runs like that--d’ye hear? d’ye hear? Elspeth, woman, is there hearing upon you for _that_? Hey, _tlot-a-tlot, tlot-a-tlot, tlot-tlot-tlot-tlot, tlot-a-tlot, tlot-tlot-tlot_! I tell you, woman, it’s the grey stallion I sold to Drumdoon: it’s that and no other! Ay, by the Sorrow, it’s Drumdoon’s son that will be riding here!”

By this time the horse was close by. We heard his hoofs clang above the flagstones round the well at the side of the house. Then there was a noise as of scattered stones, and a long scraping sound: then silence.

Gorromalt turned and put his hand to the door. There was murder in his eyes, for all the smile, a grim terrible smile, that had come to his lips.

Aunt Elspeth rose and ran to him, holding him back. The door shook. Rory the hound tore at the splinters at the base of the door, his fell again bristling, his snarling savagery horrible to hear. The pine-logs had fallen into a smouldering ash. The room was full of gloom, though the red sullen eye of the peat-glow stared through the obscurity.

“Don’t be opening the door! Don’t be opening the door!” she cried, in a thin screaming voice.

“What for no, woman? Let me go! Hell upon this dog--out o’ the way, Rory--get back! Down wi’ ye!”

“No, no, Archibald! Wait! Wait!”

Then a strange thing happened.

Rory ceased, sullenly listened, and then retreated, but no longer snarling and bristling.

Gorromalt suddenly staggered.

“Who touched me just now?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

No one answered.

“Who touched me just now? Who passed? Who slid past me?” His voice rose almost to a scream.

Then, shaking off his wife, he swung the door open.

There was no one there. Outside could be heard a strange sniffling and whinnying. It was the grey stallion.

Gorromalt strode across the threshold. Scarcely had I time to prevent Aunt Elspeth from falling against the lintel in a corner, yet in a moment’s interval I saw that the stallion was riderless.

“Archibald!” wailed his wife faintly out of her weakness. “Archibald, come back! Come back!”

But there was no need to call. Archibald Campbell was not the man to fly in the face of God. He knew that no mortal rider rode that horse to its death that night. Even before he closed the door we heard the rapid, sliding, catching gallop. The horse had gone: rider or riderless I know not.

He was ashy-grey. Suddenly he had grown quite still. He lifted his wife, and helped her to her own big leathern arm-chair at the other side of the ingle.

“Light the lamp, lass,” he said to me, in a hushed strange voice. Then he stooped and threw some small pine-logs on the peats, and stirred the blaze till it caught the dry splintered edges.

Rory, poor blind beast, came wearily and with a low whine to his side, and then lay down before the warm blaze.

“Bring the Book,” he said to me.

I brought the great leather-bound Gaelic Bible, and laid it on his knees.

He placed his hand in it, and opened at random.

“With Himself be the word,” he said.

“Is it Peace?” asked Aunt Elspeth in a tremulous whisper.

“It is Peace,” he answered, his voice gentle, his face stern as a graven rock. And what he read was this, where his eye chanced upon as he opened at the place where is the Book of the Vision of Nahum the Elkoshite:

“_What do ye imagine against the Lord? He will make a full end._”

After that there was a silence. Then he rose, and told me to go and lie down and sleep; for, on the morrow, after dawn, I was to go with him to where Muireall was.

I saw Aunt Elspeth rise and put her arms about him. They had peace. I went to my room, but after a brief while returned, and sat, in the quietness there, by the glowing peats, till dawn.

* * * * *

The greyness came at last; with it, the rain ceased. The wind still soughed and wailed among the corries and upon the rocky braes; with low moans sighing along the flanks of the near hills, and above the stony watercourse where the Gorromalt surged with swirling foam and loud and louder tumult.

My eyes had closed in my weariness, when I heard Rory give a low growl, followed by a contented whimper. Almost at the same moment the door opened. I looked up, startled.

It was Morag.

She was so white, it is scarce to be wondered at that I took her at first for a wraith. Then I saw how drenched she was, chilled to the bone too. She did not speak as I led her in, and made her stand before the fire, while I took off her soaked dress and shoes. In silence she made all the necessary changes, and in silence drank the tea I brewed for her.

“Come to my room with me,” she whispered, as with quiet feet we crossed the stone flags and went up the wooden stair that led to her room.

When she was in bed she bade me put out the light and lie down beside her. Still silent, we lay there in the darkness, for at that side of the house the hill-gloom prevailed, and moreover the blind was down-drawn. I thought the weary moaning of the wind would make my very heart sob.

Then, suddenly, Morag put her arms about me, and the tears streamed warm about my neck.

“Hush, Morag-aghray, hush, mo-rùn,” I whispered in her ear. “Tell me what it is, dear! Tell me what it is!”

“Oh, and I loved him so! I loved him!”

“I know it, dear; I knew it all along.”

I thought her sobs would never cease till her heart was broken, so I questioned her again.

“Yes,” she said, gaspingly, “yes, I loved him when Muireall and I were in the South together. I met him a month or more before ever she saw him. He loved me, and I promised to marry him: but I would not go away with him as he wished: for he said his father would never agree. And then he was angry, and we quarrelled. And I--Oh! I was glad too, for I did not wish to marry an Englishman--or to live in a dreary city; but … but … and then he and Muireall met, and he gave all his thought to her; and she her love to him.”

“And now?”

“Now?… _Now_ Muireall is dead.”

“Dead? O Morag, _dead_? Oh, poor Muireall that we loved so! But did you see her? was she alive when you reached her?”

“No; but she was alone. And now, listen. Here is a thing I have to tell you. When Ealasaid Cameron, that was my mother’s mother, was a girl, she had a cruel sorrow. She had two sisters whom she loved with all her heart. They were twins, Silis and Morag. One day an English officer at Fort William took Silis away with him as his wife; but when her child was heavy within her she discovered that she was no wife, for the man was already wedded to a woman in the South. She left him that night. It was bitter weather, and midwinter. She reached home through a wild snowdrift. It killed her; but before she died she said to Morag, ‘He has killed me and the child.’ And Morag understood. So it was that before any wind of spring blew upon that snow, the man was dead.”

When Morag stopped here, and said no more, I did not at first realise what she meant to tell me. Then it flashed upon me.

“O Morag, Morag!” I exclaimed, terrified. “But, Morag, you do not … you will not …”

“_Will_ not?” she repeated, with a catch in her voice.

“Listen,” she resumed suddenly after a long, strained silence. “While I lay beside my darling Muireall, weeping and moaning over her, and she so fair, with such silence where the laughter had always been, I heard the door open. I looked up: it was Jasper Morgan.

“‘You are too late,’ I said. I stared at the man who had brought her, and me, this sorrow. There was no light about him at all, as I had always thought. He was only a man as other men are, but with a cold selfish heart and loveless eyes.

“‘She sent for me to come back to her,’ he answered, though I saw his face grow ashy-grey as he looked at Muireall and saw that she was dead.

“‘She is dead, Jasper Morgan.’

“‘_Dead … Dead?_’

“‘Ay, dead. It is upon you, her death. Her you have slain, as though with your sword that you carry: her, and the child she bore within her, and that was yours.’

“At that he bit his lip till the blood came.

“‘It is a lie,’ he cried. ‘It is a lie, Morag. If she said that thing, she lied.’

“I laughed.

“‘Why do you laugh, Morag?’ he asked, in a swift anger.

“Once more I laughed.

“‘Why do you laugh like that, girl?’

“But I did not answer. ‘Come,’ I said, ‘come with me. I have something to say to you. You can do no good here now. She has taken poison, because of the shame and the sorrow.’

“‘Poison!’ he cried, in horror; and also, I could see in the poor cowardly mind of him, in a sudden sick fear.

“But when I rose to leave the room he made ready to follow me. I kissed Muireall for the last time. The man approached, as though to do likewise. I lifted my riding-whip. He bowed his head, with a deep flush on his face, and came out behind me.

“I told the inn-folk that my father would be over in the morning. Then I rode slowly away. Jasper Morgan followed on his horse, a grey stallion that Muireall and I had often ridden, for he was from Teenabrae farm.

“When we left the village it was into a deep darkness. The rain and the wind made the way almost impassable at times. But at last we came to the ford. The water was in spate, and the rushing sound terrified my horse. I dismounted, and fastened Gealcas to a tree. The man did the same.

“‘What is it, Morag?’ he asked in a quiet steady voice--‘Death?’

“‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Death.’

“Then he suddenly fell forward, and snatched my hand, and begged me to forgive him, swearing that he had loved me and me only, and imploring me to believe him, to love him, to … Ah, the _hound_!

“But all I said was this:

“‘Jasper Morgan, soon or late I would kill you, because of this cruel wrong you did to her. But there is one way: best for _her_ … best for _me_ … best for _you_.’

“‘What is that?’ he said hoarsely, though I think he knew now. The roar of the Gorromalt Water filled the night.

“‘There is one way. It is the only way … Go!’

“He gave a deep quavering sigh. Then without word he turned, and walked straight into the darkness.”

Morag paused here. Then, in answer to my frightened whisper, she added simply:

“They will find his body in the shallows, down by Drumdoon. The spate will carry it there.”

* * * * *

After that we lay in silence. The rain had begun to fall again, and slid with a soft stealthy sound athwart the window. A dull light grew indiscernibly into the room. Then we heard someone move downstairs. In the yard, Angus, the stableman, began to pump water. A cow lowed, and the cluttering of hens was audible.

I moved gently from Morag’s side. As I rose, Maisie passed beneath the window on her way to the byre. As her wont was, poor wild wildered lass, she was singing fitfully. It was the same ballad again. But we heard a single verse only.

“For I have killed a man,” she said,
“A better man than you to wed:
I slew him when he clasped my head,
And now he sleepeth with the dead.”

Then the voice was lost in the byre, and in the sweet familiar lowing of the kine. The new day was come.

_THE DAN-NAN-RON_

_NOTE_

This story is founded upon a superstition familiar throughout the Hebrides. The legend exists in Ireland, too; for Mr Yeats tells me that last summer he met an old Connaught fisherman, who claimed to be of the Sliochd-nan-Ron--an ancestry, indeed, indicated in the man’s name: Rooney.

As to my use of the forename ‘Gloom’ (in this story, in its sequel “Green Branches,” and in “The Anointed Man”), I should explain that the designation is, of course, not a real name. At the same time, I have actual warrant for its use; for I knew a Uist man who, in the bitterness of his sorrow, after his wife’s death in childbirth, named his son _Mulad_ (_i.e._ the gloom of sorrow: grief).

THE DAN-NAN-RON

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 Lewis 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 bygone days, this small clan of Uist was known throughout the Western Isles as the _Sliochd nan Ròn_, the offspring of the Seals.

Not so tall as most of the North Uist and Long Island men, 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 north-eastward across the Minch to take home his bride. Of the four eldest sons, Alison 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 Sheumais, all three unmarried, though it was rumoured among the neighbouring islanders that each loved Marsail nic Ailpean,[1] in Eilean-Rona of the Summer Isles, hard by the coast of Sutherland.

[1] 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 towards 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 schoolmaster 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 Sheumais, 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, Alison. He, too, was tall and gaunt. On Sheumais’ 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 Sheumais, 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 Sheumais 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 Sheumais!”

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 into 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?”

“You know it is harm. That is 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 of the Seal?”

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. Ann-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 and …”

“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 that himself knows what _geas_ means, and 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 believes 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 Neil-donn 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 Sheumais.

“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 Sheumais to return, and to keep Anne within, by peace if possible--by force if not. Briefly they discussed their plans, and then separated. While Sheumais 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 isleman 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.

He gloomed morosely, but 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 MacNeill 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 through the gloom 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 Anna-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 Codhail-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 ’ic Achanna. ’Tis not the ‘up sail and goodbye’ 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 blanched 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 two inches 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 MacNeill 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-nic-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 sìn 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 someone 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. In a second 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 realised 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 grey, 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 spilt 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 towards 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 MacNeill showed that he, too, saw nothing. Gloom must have swooned, and sank deep as he slipped through the water. Perhaps the dogfish were already darting about him.

Going behind the boat, Mànus guided it back to the smack. It was not long before, with MacNeill’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 MacNeill 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 towards the _Luath_. She had gone at last along the shore to a creek where one of Marcus’ 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 Sheumais’ 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 on 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 MacNeill, 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 MacNeill, 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.”