A year and a day before God bade Colum arise to the Feast of Eternity,
Pòl the Freckled, the youngest of the brethren, came to him, on a
night of the nights.
"The moon is among the stars, O Colum. By his own will, and yours, old
Murtagh that is this day with God, is to be laid in the deep dry sand
at the east end of the isle."
So the holy Saint rose from his bed of weariness, and went and blessed
the place that Murtagh lay in, and bade neither the creeping worm nor
any other creature to touch the sacred dead. "Let God only," he said,
"let God alone strip that which he made to grow."
But on his way back sleep passed from him. The sweet salt smell of the
sea was in his nostrils; he heard the running of a wave in all his
blood.
At the cells he turned, and bade the brethren go in. "Peace be with
you," he sighed wearily.
Then he moved downwards to the sea.
A great tenderness, of late, was upon Colum the Bishop. Ever since he
had blessed the fishes and the flies, the least of the children of
God, his soul had glowed in a whiter flame. There were deep seas of
compassion in his gray-blue eyes. One night he had waked, because God
was there.
"O Christ," he cried, bowing low his old gray head. "Sure, ah sure,
the gladness and the joy, because of the hour of the hours."
But God said: "Not so, Colum, who keepest me upon the Cross. It is
Murtagh, Murtagh the druid that was, whose soul I am taking to the
glory."
With that Colum rose in awe and great grief. There was no light in his
cell. In the deep darkness, his spirit quailed. But lo, the beauty of
his heart wrought a soft gleam about him, and in that moonshine of
good deeds he rose and made his way to where Murtagh slept.
The old monk slept indeed. It was a sweet breath he drew--he, young
and fair now, and laughing with peace under the apples in Paradise.
"O Murtagh," Colum cried, "and thee I thought the least of the
brethren, because that thou wast a druid, and loved not to see thy
pagan kindred put to the sword if they would not repent. But, true, in
my years I am becoming as a boy who learns, knowing nothing. God wash
the sin of pride out of my life!"
At that a soft white shining, as of one winged and beautiful, stood
beside the dead.
"Art thou Murtagh?" whispered Colum, in deep awe.
"No, I am not Murtagh," came as the breath of vanishing song.
"What art thou?"
"I am Peace," said the glory.
Thereupon Colum sank to his knees, sobbing with joy, for the sorrow
that had been and was no more.
"Tell me, O White Peace," he murmured, "can Murtagh hearken there
under the apples, where God is?"
"God's love is a wind that blows hitherward and hence. Speak, and
thou shalt hear."
Colum spake. "O Murtagh my brother, tell me in what way it is that I
still keep God crucified upon the Cross."
There was a sound in the cell as of the morning-laughter of children,
of the singing of birds, of the sunlight streaming through the blue
fields of Heaven.
Then Murtagh's voice came out of Paradise, sweet with the sweetness:
honey-sweet it was, and clothed with deep awe because of the glory.
"Colum, servant of Christ, arise!"
Colum rose, and was as a leaf there, a leaf that is in the wind.
"Colum, thine hour has not yet come. I see it, bathing in the white
light which is the Pool of Eternal Life, that is in the abyss where
deep-rooted are the Gates of Heaven."
"And my sin, O Murtagh, my sin?"
"God is weary because thou hast not repented."
"O my God and my God! Sure, Murtagh, if that is so, it is so, but it
is not for knowledge to me. Sure, O God, it is a blessing I have put
on man and woman, on beast and bird and fish, on creeping things and
flying things, on the green grass and the brown earth and the flowing
wave, on the wind that cometh and goeth, and on the mystery of the
flame! Sure, O God, I have sorrowed for all my sins: there is not one
I have not fasted and prayed for. Sorrow upon me!--Is it accursed I
am, or what is the evil that holdeth me by the hand?"
Then Murtagh, calling through sweet dreams and the rainbow-rain of
happy tears that make that place so wondrous and so fair, spake once
more:
"O Colum, blind art thou. Hast thou yet repented because that after
thou didst capture the great black seal, that is a man under spells,
thou, with thy monks, didst crucify him upon the great rock at the
place where, long ago, thy coracle came ashore?"
"O Murtagh, favoured of God, will you not be explaining to Him that is
King of the Elements, that this was because the seal who was called
Black Angus wrought evil upon a mortal woman, and that of the sea-seed
was sprung one who had no soul?"
But no answer came to that, and when Colum looked about him, behold
there was no soft shining, but only the body of Murtagh the old monk.
With a heavy heart, and his soul like a sinking boat in a sea of pain,
he turned and went out into the night.
A fine, wonderful night it was. The moon lay low above the sea, and
all the flowing gold and flashing silver of the rippling running water
seemed to be a flood going that way and falling into the shining
hollow splendour.
Through the sea-weed the old Saint moved, weary and sad. When he came
to a sandy place he stopped. There, on a rock, he saw a little child.
Naked she was, though clad with soft white moonlight. In her hair were
brown weeds of the sea, gleaming golden because of the glow. In her
hands was a great shell, and at that shell was her mouth. And she was
singing this song; passing sweet to hear, it was, with the sea-music
that was in it:
A little lonely child am I
That have not any soul:
God made me but a homeless wave,
Without a goal.
A seal my father was, a seal
That once was man:
My mother loved him tho' he was
'Neath mortal ban.
He took a wave and drownèd her,
She took a wave and lifted him:
And I was born where shadows are
I' the sea-depths dim.
All through the sunny blue-sweet hours
I swim and glide in waters green;
Never by day the mournful shores
By me are seen.
But when the gloom is on the wave
A shell unto the shore I bring:
And then upon the rocks I sit
And plaintive sing.
O what is this wild song I sing,
With meanings strange and dim?
No soul am I, a wave am I,
And sing the Moon-Child's hymn.
Softly Colum drew nigh.
"Peace," he said. "Peace, little one. Ah, tender little heart, peace!"
The child looked at him with wide sea-dusky eyes.
"Is it Colum the Holy you will be?"
"No, my fawn, my white dear babe: it is not Colum the Holy I am, but
Colum the poor fool that knew not God!"
"Is it you, O Colum, that put the sorrow on my mother, who is the
Sea-woman that lives in the whirlpool over there?"
"Ay, God forgive me!"
"Is it you, O Colum, that crucified the seal that was my father: him
that was a man once, and that was called Black Angus?"
"Ay, God forgive me!"
"Is it you, O Colum, that bade the children of Hy run away from me,
because I was a moon-child, and might win them by the sea-spell into
the green wave?"
"Ay, God forgive me!"
"Sure, dear Colum, it was to the glory of God, it was?"
"Ay, he knoweth it, and can hear it, too, from Murtagh, who died this
night."
"Look!"
And at that Colum looked, and in a moon-gold wave he saw Black Angus,
the seal-man, drifting dark, and the eyes in his round head were the
eyes of love. And beside the man-seal swam a woman fair to see, and
she looked at him with joy, and with joy at the Moon-Child that was
her own, and at Colum with joy.