It was a fair wind that blew beneath the stars that night. At dawn the
mountains of Skye were like turrets of a great Dûn against the east.
But Torcall the Blind Harper did not see that thing. Sleep, too, was
upon him. He smiled in that sleep, for in his mind he saw the dead
men, that were of the alien people, his foes, draw near the stream
that was in a far place. The shaking of them, poor, tremulous frostbit
leaves they were, thin and sere, made the only breath there was in
that desert.
At the ford--this is what he saw in his vision--they fell down like
stricken deer with the hounds upon them.
"What is this stream?" they cried in the thin voice of rain across the
moors.
"The River of Blood," said a voice.
"And who are you that are in the silence?"
"I am the Washer of the Ford."
And with that each red soul was seized and thrown into the water of
the ford; and when white as a sheep-bone on the hill, was taken in
one hand by the Washer of the Ford and flung into the air, where no
wind was and where sound was dead, and was then severed this way and
that, in four whirling blows of the sword from the four quarters of
the world. Then it was that the Washer of the Ford trampled upon what
fell to the ground, till under the feet of her was only a white sand,
white as powder, light as the dust of the yellow flowers that grow in
the grass.
It was at that Torcall Dall smiled in his sleep. He did not hear the
washing of the sea; no, nor any idle plashing of the unoared boat.
Then he dreamed, and it was of the woman he had left, seven
summer-sailings ago, in Lochlin. He thought her hand was in his, and
that her heart was against his.
"Ah, dear, beautiful heart of woman," he said, "and what is the pain
that has put a shadow upon you?"
It was a sweet voice that he heard coming out of sleep.
"Torcall, it is the weary love I have."
"Ah, heart o' me, dear! sure 'tis a bitter pain I have had, too, and
I away from you all these years."
"There's a man's pain, and there's a woman's pain."
"By the blood of Balder, Hildyr, I would have both upon me to take it
off the dear heart that is here."
"Torcall!"
"Yes, white one."
"We are not alone, we two in the dark."
And when she had said that thing, Torcall felt two baby arms go round
his neck, and two leaves of a wild rose press cool and sweet against
his lips.
"Ah! what is this?" he cried, with his heart beating, and the blood in
his body singing a glad song.
A low voice crooned in his ear: a bitter-sweet song it was,
passing-sweet, passing-bitter.
"Ah, white one, white one," he moaned; "ah, the wee fawn o' me! Baby
o' foam, bonnie wee lass, put your sight upon me that I may see the
blue eyes that are mine too and Hildyr's."
But the child only nestled closer. Like a fledgling in a great nest
she was. If God heard her song, He was a glad God that day. The blood
that was in her body called to the blood that was in his body. He
could say no word. The tears were in his blind eyes.
Then Hildyr leaned into the dark, and took his harp, and played upon
it. It was of the fonnsheen he had learned, far, far away, where the
isles are.
She sang: but he could not hear what she sang.
Then the little lips, that were like a cool wave upon the dry sand of
his life, whispered into a low song: and the wavering of it was like
this in his brain--
Where the winds gather
The souls of the dead,
O Torcall, my father,
My soul is led!
In Hildyr-mead
I was thrown, I was sown:
Out of thy seed
I am sprung, I am blown!
But where is the way
For Hildyr and me,
By the hill-moss gray
Or the gray sea?
For a river is here,
And a whirling sword--
And a Woman washing
By a Ford!
With that, Torcall Dall gave a wild cry, and sheathed an arm about the
wee white one, and put out a hand to the bosom that loved him. But
there was no white breast there, and no white babe: and what was
against his lips was his own hand red with blood.
"O Hildyr!" he cried.
But only the splashing of the waves did he hear.
"O white one!" he cried.
But only the scream of a sea-mew, as it hovered over that boat filled
with dead men, made answer.