sheep nibbling the short grass which grew about some of the many caves
which opened in slits or wide hollows. Below and beyond he saw the pale
blue silence of the sea meet the pale blue silence of the sky;
south-westward, the grey film of the coast of Ulster; westward, again
the illimitable vast of sea and sky, infinitudes of calm, as though the
blue silence of heaven breathed in that one motionless wave, as though
that wave sighed and drew the horizons to its heart. From where he
stood he could hear the murmur of the surge whispering all round the
isle; the surge that, even on days of profound stillness, makes a
murmurous rumour among the rocks and shingle of the island shores. Not
upon the moor-side, but in the blank hollows of the caves around him, he
heard, as in gigantic shells, the moving of a strange and solemn rhythm:
wave-haunted shells indeed, for the echo that was bruited from one to
the other came from beneath, from out of those labyrinthine passages and
dim, shadowy sea-arcades, where among the melancholy green glooms the
Atlantic waters lose themselves in a vain wandering.
For long he leaned there, revolving in his mind the mystery of Morag
MacNeill's words. Then, abruptly, the stillness was broken by the sound
of a dislodged stone. So little did he expect the foot of fellow-man,
that he did not turn at what he thought to be the slip of a sheep. But
when upon the slope of the grass, a little way beyond where he stood, a
dusky blue shadow wavered fantastically, he swung round with a sudden
instinct of dread.
And this was the dread which, after these long weeks since he had come
to Rona, was upon Alan Carmichael.
For there, standing quietly by another boulder, at the mouth of another
cave, was a man in all appearance identical with himself. Looking at
this apparition, he beheld one of the same height as himself, with hair
of the same hue, with eyes the same and features the same, with the same
carriage, the same smile, the same expression. No, there, and there
alone, was any difference.
Sick at heart, Alan wondered if he looked upon his own wraith. Familiar
with the legends of his people, it would have been no strange thing to
him that there, upon the hillside, should appear the wraith of himself.
Had not old Ian McIain--and that, too, though far away in a strange
land--seen the death of his mother moving upward from her feet to her
knees, from her knees to her waist, from her waist to her neck, and,
just before the end, how the shroud darkened along the face until it hid
the eyes? Had he not often heard from her, from Ian, of the second self
which so often appears beside the living when already the shadow of doom
is upon him whose hours are numbered? Was this, then, the reason of what
had been his inexplicable gloom? Was he indeed at the extreme of life?
Was his soul amid shallows, already a rock upon a blank, inhospitable
shore? If not, who or what was this second self which leaned there
negligently, looking at him with scornful smiling lips, but with intent,
unsmiling eyes.
Slowly there came into his mind this thought: How could a phantom, that
was itself intangible, throw a shadow upon the grass, as though it were
a living body? Sure, a shadow there was indeed. It lay between the
apparition and himself. A legend heard in boyhood came back to him;
instinctively he stooped and lifted a stone and flung it midway into the
shadow.
"Go back into the darkness," he cried, "if out of the darkness you came;
but if you be a living thing, put out your hands!"
The shadow remained motionless. When Alan looked again at his second
self, he saw that the scorn which had been upon the lips was now in the
eyes also. Ay, for sure, scornful silent laughter it was that lay in
those cold wells of light. No phantom that; a man he, even as Alan
himself. His heart pulsed like that of a trapped bird, but with the
spoken word his courage came back to him.
"Who are you?" he asked, in a voice strange even in his own ears.
"_Am Buachaill_," replied the man in a voice as low and strange. "I am
the Herdsman."
A new tide of fear surged in upon Alan. That voice, was it not his own?
that tone, was it not familiar in his ears? When the man spoke, he heard
himself speak; sure, if he were _Am Buachaill Ban_, Alan, too, was the
Herdsman, though what fantastic destiny might be his was all unknown to
him.
"Come near," said the man, and now the mocking light in his eyes was
wild as cloud-fire--"come near, oh _Buachaill Ban_!"
With a swift movement, Alan sprang forward; but as he leaped, his foot
caught in a spray of heather, and he stumbled and fell. When he rose, he
looked in vain for the man who had called him. There was not a sign, not
a trace of any living being. For the first few moments he believed it
had all been a delusion. Mortal being did not appear and vanish in that
ghostly way. Still, surely he could not have mistaken the blank of that
place for a speaking voice, or out of nothingness have fashioned the
living phantom of himself? Or could he? With that, he strode forward and
peered into the wide arch of the cavern by which the man had stood. He
could not see far into it; but so far as it was possible to see, he
discerned neither man nor shadow of man, nor anything that stirred; no,
not even the gossamer bloom of a bearnan-bride, that grew on a patch of
grass a yard or two within the darkness, had lost one of its delicate
filmy spires. He drew back, dismayed. Then, suddenly, his heart leaped
again, for beyond all question, all possible doubt, there, in the bent
thyme, just where the man had stood, was the imprint of his feet. Even
now the green sprays were moving forward.
III
An hour passed, and Alan Carmichael had not moved from the entrance to
the cave. So still was he that a ewe, listlessly wandering in search of
cooler grass, lay down after a while, drowsily regarding him with her
amber-coloured eyes. All his thought was upon the mystery of what he had
seen. No delusion this, he was sure. That was a man whom he had seen.
But who could he be? On so small an island, inhabited by less than a
score of crofters, it was scarcely possible for one to live for many
weeks and not know the name and face of every soul. Still, a stranger
might have come. Only, if this were so, why should he call himself the
Herdsman? There was but one herdsman on Rona and he Angus MacCormic, who
lived at Einaval on the north side. In these outer isles, the shepherd
and the herdsman are appointed by the community, and no man is allowed
to be one or the other at will, any more than to be a _maor_. Then, too,
if this man were indeed herdsman, where was his _iomair-ionailtair_, his
browsing tract? Looking round him, Alan could perceive nowhere any
fitting pasture. Surely no herdsman would be content with such an
_iomair a bhuachaill_--rig of the herdsman--as that rocky wilderness
where the soft green grass grew in patches under this or that boulder,
on the sun side of this or that rocky ledge. Again, he had given no
name, but called himself simply _Am Buachaill_. This was how the woman
Morag had spoken; did she indeed mean this very man? and if so, what lay
in her words? But far beyond all other bewilderment for him was that
strange, that indeed terrifying likeness to himself--a likeness so
absolute, so convincing, that he knew he might himself easily have been
deceived, had he beheld the apparition in any place where it was
possible that a reflection could have misled him.
Brooding thus, eye and ear were both alert for the faintest sight or
sound. But from the interior of the cavern not a breath came. Once, from
among the jagged rocks high on the west slope of Ben Einaval, he
fancied he heard an unwonted sound--that of human laughter, but laughter
so wild, so remote, so unmirthful, that fear was in his heart. It could
not be other than imagination, he said to himself; for in that lonely
place there was none to wander idly at that season, and none who,
wandering, would laugh there solitary.
It was with an effort that Alan at last determined to probe the mystery.
Stooping, he moved cautiously into the cavern, and groped his way along
the narrow passage which led, as he thought, into another larger cave.
But this proved to be one of the innumerable blind ways which intersect
the honeycombed slopes of the Isle of Caves. To wander far in these
lightless passages would be to track death. Long ago the piper whom the
Prionnsa-Ban, the Fair Prince, loved to hear in his exile--he that was
called Rory M'Vurich--penetrated one of the larger hollows to seek there
for a child that had idly wandered into the dark. Some of the clansmen,
with the father and mother of the little one, waited at the entrance to
the cave. For a time there was silence; then, as agreed upon, the sound
of the pipes was heard, to which a man named Lachlan M'Lachlan replied
from the outer air. The skirl of the pipes within grew fainter and
fainter. Louder and louder Lachlan played upon his chanter; deeper and
deeper grew the wild moaning of the drone; but for all that, fainter and
fainter waned the sound of the pipes of Rory M'Vurich. Generations have
come and gone upon the isle, and still no man has heard the returning
air which Rory was to play. He may have found the little child, but he
never found his backward path, and in the gloom of that honeycombed hill
he and the child and the music of the pipes lapsed into the same
stillness. Remembering this legend, familiar to him since his boyhood,
Alan did not dare to venture further. At any moment, too, he knew he
might fall into one of the crevices which opened into the sea-corridors
hundreds of feet below. Ancient rumour had it that there were mysterious
passages from the upper heights of Ben Einaval which led into the heart
of this perilous maze. But for a time he lay still, straining every
sense. Convinced at last that the man whom he sought had evaded all
possible quest, he turned to regain the light. Brief way as he had gone,
this was no easy thing to do. For a few moments, indeed, Alan lost his
self-possession when he found a uniform dusk about him, and could not
discern which of the several branching narrow corridors was that by
which he had come. But following the greener light, he reached the cave,
and soon, with a sigh of relief, was upon the sun-sweet warm earth
again.
How more than ever beautiful the world seemed! how sweet to the eyes
were upland and cliff, the wide stretch of ocean, the flying birds, the
sheep grazing on the scanty pastures, and, above all, the homely blue
smoke curling faintly upward from the fisher crofts on the headland east
of Aonaig!
Purposely he retraced his steps by the way of the glen: he would see the
woman Morag MacNeill again, and insist on some more explicit word. But
when he reached the burnside once more, the woman was not there.
Possibly she had seen him coming, and guessed his purpose; half he
surmised this, for the peats in the hearth were brightly aglow, and on
the hob beside them the boiling water hissed in a great iron pot wherein
were potatoes. In vain he sought, in vain called. Impatient, he walked
around the bothie and into the little byre beyond. The place was
deserted. This, small matter as it was, added to his disquietude.
Resolved to sift the mystery, he walked swiftly down the slope. By the
old shealing of Cnoc-na-Monie, now forsaken, his heart leaped at sight
of Ian coming to meet him.
When they met, Alan put his hands lovingly on the old man's shoulders,
and looked at him with questioning eyes. He found rest and hope in those
deep pools of quiet light, whence the faithful love rose comfortingly to
meet his own yearning gaze.
"What is it, Alan-mo-ghray; what is the trouble that is upon you?"
"It is a trouble, Ian, but one of which I can speak little, for it is
little I know."
"Now, now, for sure you must tell me what it is."
"I have seen a man here upon Rona whom I have not seen or met before,
and it is one whose face is known to me, and whose voice too, and one
whom I would not meet again."
"Did he give you no name?"
"None."
"Where did he come from? Where did he go to?"
"He came out of the shadow, and into the shadow he went."
Ian looked steadfastly at Alan, his wistful gaze searching deep into his
unquiet eyes, and thence from feature to feature of the face which had
become strangely worn of late.
But he questioned no further.
"I, too, Alan MacAilean, have heard a strange thing to-day. You know old
Marsail Macrae? She is ill now with a slow fever, and she thinks that
the shadow which she saw lying upon her hearth last Sabbath, when
nothing was there to cause any shadow, was her own death, come for her,
and now waiting there. I spoke to the old woman, but she would not have
peace, and her eyes looked at me.
"'What will it be now, Marsail?' I asked.
"'Ay, ay, for sure,' she said, 'it was I who saw you first.'
"'Saw me first, Marsail?'
"'Ay, you and Alan MacAilean.'
"'When and where was this sight upon you?'
"'It was one month before you and he came to Rona.'
"I asked the poor old woman to be telling me her meaning. At first I
could make little of what was said, for she muttered low, and moved her
head this way and that, and moaned like a stricken ewe. But on my taking
her hand, she looked at me again, and then told me this thing--
"'On the seventh day of the month before you came--and by the same token
it was on the seventh day of the month following that you and Alan
McAilean came to Caisteal-Rhona--I was upon the shore at Aonaig,
listening to the crying of the wind against the great cliff of
Biola-creag. With me were Ruaridh Macrae and Neil MacNeill, Morag
MacNeill, and her sister Elsa; and we were singing the hymn for those
who were out on the wild sea that was roaring white against the cliffs
of Berneray, for some of our people were there, and we feared for them.
Sometimes one sang, and sometimes another. And sure, it is remembering I
am, how, when I had called out with my old wailing voice--
"'Bi 'eadh an Tri-aon leinn, a la's a dh-oidche;
'S air chul nan tonn, A Mhoire ghradhach!
(Be the Three-in-One with us day and night;
And on the crested wave, O Mary Beloved!)
"'Now when I had just sung this, and we were all listening to the sound
of it caught by the wind and blown up against the black face of
Biola-creag, I saw a boat come sailing into the haven. I called out to
those about me, but they looked at me with white faces, for no boat was
there, and it was a rough, wild sea it was in that haven.
"'And in that boat I saw three people sitting; and one was you, Ian
MacIain, and one was a man who had his face in shadow, and his eyes
looked into the shadow at his feet. I saw you clear, and told those
about me what I saw.' And Seumas MacNeill, him that is dead now, and
brother to Neil here at Aonaig, he said to me, 'Who was that whom you
saw walking in the dusk the night before last?'--'Ailean MacAlasdair
Carmichael,' answered one at that. Seumas muttered, looking at those,
about him, 'Mark what I say, for it is a true thing--that Ailean
Carmichael of Rona is dead now, because Marsail saw him walking in the
dusk when he was not upon the island; and now, you Neil, and you Rory,
and all of you, will be for thinking with me that one of the men in the
boat whom Marsail sees now will be the son of him who has changed.'
"Well, well, it is a true thing that we each of us thought that thought,
but when the days went and nothing more came of it, the memory of the
seeing went too. Then there came the day when the coble of Aulay
MacAulay came out of Borosay into Caisteal-Rhona haven. Glad we were to
see your face again, Ian McIain, and to hear the sob of joy coming out
of the heart of Giorsal your sister; but when you and Alan MacAilean
came on shore, it was my voice that then went from mouth to mouth, for
I whispered to Morag MacNeill who was next me that you were the men I
had seen in the boat.'
"Well, after that," Ian added, with a grave smile, "I spoke gently to
old Marsail, and told her that there was no evil in that seeing, and
that for sure it was nothing at all, at all, to see two people in a
boat, and nothing coming of that, save happiness for those two, and glad
content to be here.
"Marsail looked at me with big eyes.
"But when I asked her what she meant by that, she would say no more. No
asking of mine would bring the word to her lips, only she shook her head
and kept her gaze from my face. Then, seeing that it was useless, I said
to her--
"'Marsail, tell me this: Was this sight of yours the sole thing that
made the people here on Rona look askance at Alan MacAilean?'
"For a time she stared at me with dim eyes, then suddenly she spoke--
"'It is not all.'
"'Then what more is there, Marsail Macrae?'
"'That is not for the saying. I have no more to say. Let you, or Alan
MacAilean, go elsewhere. That which is to be, will be. To each his own
end.'
"'Then be telling me this now at least,' I asked: 'is there danger for
him or me in this island?'
"But the poor old woman would say no more, and then I saw a swoon was on
her."
After this, Alan and Ian walked slowly home together, both silent, and
each revolving in his mind as in a dim dusk that mystery which, vague
and unreal at first, had now become a living presence, and haunted them
by day and night.
IV
"In the shadow of pain, one may hear the footsteps of joy." So runs a
proverb of old.
It was a true saying for Alan. That night he lay down in pain, his heart
heavy with the weight of a mysterious burden. On the morrow he woke
blithely to a new day--a day of absolute beauty. The whole wide
wilderness of ocean was of living azure, aflame with gold and silver.
Around the promontories of the isles the brown-sailed fishing-boats of
Barra and Berneray, of Borosay and Seila, moved blithely hither and
thither. Everywhere the rhythm of life pulsed swift and strong. The
first sound which had awakened Alan was of a loud singing of fishermen
who were putting out from Aonaig. The coming of a great shoal of
mackerel had been signalled, and every man and woman of the near isles
was alert for the take. The watchers had known it by the swift
congregation of birds, particularly the gannets and skuas. And as the
men pulled at the oars, or hoisted the brown sails, they sang a snatch
of an old-world tune, still chanted at the first coming of the birds
when spring-tide is on the flow again--
"Bui' cheas dha 'n Ti thaine na Gugachan
Thaine's na h-Eoin-Mhora cuideriu,
Cailin dugh ciaru bo's a chro!
Bo dhonn! bo dhonn! bo dhonn bheadarrach!
Bo dhonn a ruin a bhlitheadh am baine dhuit
Ho ro! mo gheallag! ni gu rodagach!
Cailin dugh ciaru bo's a chro--
Na h-eoin air tighinn! cluinneam an ceol!"
(Thanks to the Being, the Gannets have come,
Yes! and the Great Auks along with them.
Dark-haired girl!--a cow in the fold!
Brown cow! brown cow! brown cow, beloved ho!
Brown cow! my love! the milker of milk to thee!
Ho ro! my fair-skinned girl--a cow, in the fold,
And the birds have come!--glad sight, I see!)
Eager to be of help, Ian put off in his boat, and was soon among the
fishermen, who in their new excitement were forgetful of all else than
that the mackerel were come, and that every moment was precious. For the
first time Ian found himself no unwelcome comrade. Was it, he wondered,
because that, there upon the sea, whatever of shadow dwelled about him,
or rather about Alan MacAilean, on the land, was no longer visible.
All through that golden noon he and the others worked hard. From isle to
isle went the chorus of the splashing oars and splashing nets; of the
splashing of the fish and the splashing of gannets and gulls; of the
splashing of the tide leaping blithely against the sun-dazzle, and the
illimitable rippling splash moving out of the west;--all this blent with
the loud, joyous cries, the laughter, and the hoarse shouts of the men
of Barra and the adjacent islands. It was close upon dusk before the
Rona boats put into the haven of Aonaig again; and by that time none was
blither than Ian MacIain, who in that day of happy toil had lost all the
gloom and apprehension of the day before, and now returned to
Caisteal-Rhona with lighter heart than he had known for long.
When, however, he got there, there was no sign of Alan. He had gone,
said Giorsal, he had gone out in the smaller boat midway in the
afternoon, and had sailed around to Aoidhu, the great scaur which ran
out beyond the precipices at the south-west of Rona.
This Alan often did, and of late more and more often. Ever since he had
come to the Hebrid Isles his love of the sea had deepened and had grown
into a passion for its mystery and beauty. Of late, too, something
impelled to a more frequent isolation, a deep longing to be where no eye
could see and no ear hearken.
So at first Ian was in no way alarmed. But when the sun had set, and
over the faint blue film of the Isle of Tiree the moon had risen, and
still no sign of Alan, he became restless and uneasy. Giorsal begged him
in vain to eat of the supper she had prepared. Idly he moved to and fro
along the rocky ledge, or down by the pebbly shore, or across the green
_airidh_, eager for a glimpse of him whom he loved so well.
At last, unable longer to endure a growing anxiety, he put out in his
boat, and sailed swiftly before the slight easterly breeze which had
prevailed since moonrise. So far as Aoidhu, all the way from Aonaig,
there was not a haven anywhere, nor even one of the sea caverns which
honeycombed the isle beyond the headland. A glance, therefore, showed
him that Alan had not yet come back that way. It was possible, though
unlikely, that he had sailed right round Rona; unlikely, because in the
narrow straits to the north, between Rona and the scattered islets known
as the Innsemhara, strong currents prevailed, and particularly at the
full of the tide, when they swept north-eastward dark and swift as a
mill-race.
Once the headland was passed and the sheer precipitous westward cliffs
loomed black out of the sea, he became more and more uneasy. As yet,
there was no danger; but he saw that a swell was moving out of the west;
and whenever the wind blew that way, the sea-arcades were filled with a
lifting, perilous wave. Later, escape might be difficult, and often
impossible. Out of the score or more great passages which opened between
Aoidhu and Ardgorm, it was difficult to know into which to chance the
search of Alan. Together they had examined all of them. Some twisted but
slightly; others wound sinuously till the green, serpentine alleys,
flanked by basalt walls hundreds of feet high, lost themselves in an
indistinguishable maze.
But that which was safest, and wherein a boat could most easily make its
way against wind or tide, was the huge, cavernous passage known locally
as the Uaimh-nan-roin, the Cave of the Seals.
For this opening Ian steered his boat. Soon he was within the wide
corridor. Like the great cave at Staffa, it was wrought as an aisle in
some natural cathedral; the rocks, too, were columnar, and rose in
flawless symmetry, as though graven by the hand of man. At the far end
of this gigantic aisle, there diverges a long, narrow arcade, filled by
day with the green shine of the water, and by night, when the moon is
up, with a pale froth of light. It is one of the few where there are
open gateways for the sea and the wandering light, and by its spherical
shape almost the only safe passage in a season of heavy wind. Half-way
along this arched arcade a corridor leads to a round cup-like cavern,
midway in which stands a huge mass of black basalt, in shape suggestive
of a titanic altar. Thus it must have impressed the imagination of the
islanders of old; for by them, even in a remote day, it was called
Teampull-Mara, the Temple of the Sea. Owing to the narrowness of the
passage, and to the smooth, unbroken walls which rise sheer from the
green depths into an invisible darkness, the Strait of the Temple is not
one wherein to linger long, save in a time of calm.
Instinctively, however, Ian quietly headed his boat along this narrow
way. When, silently, he emerged from the arcade, he could just discern
the mass of basalt at the far end of the cavern. But there, seated in
his boat, was Alan, apparently idly adrift, for one oar floated in the
water alongside, and the other swung listlessly from the tholes.
His heart had a suffocating grip as he saw him whom he had come to seek.
Why that absolute stillness, that strange, listless indifference? For a
dreadful moment he feared death had indeed come to him in that lonely
place where, as an ancient legend had it, a woman of old time had
perished, and ever since had wrought death upon any who came thither
solitary and unhappy.
But at the striking of the shaft of his oar against a ledge, Alan moved,
and looked at him with startled eyes. Half rising from where he crouched
in the stern, he called to him in a voice that had in it something
strangely unfamiliar.
"I will not hear!" he cried. "I will not hear! Leave me! Leave me!"
Fearing that the desolation of the place had wrought upon his mind, Ian
swiftly moved toward him, and the next moment his boat glided alongside.
Stepping from the one to the other, he kneeled beside him.
"_Ailean mo caraid, Ailean-aghray_, what is it? What gives you dread?
There is no harm here. All is well. Look! See, it is I, Ian--old Ian
MacIain! Listen, _mo ghaoil_; do you not know me--do you not know who I
am? It is I, Ian; Ian who loves you!"