[7] These four short episodes are reprinted, by courteous consent
of the Editor of _Harper's Magazine_, where they appeared,
interpolated in "From the Hebrid Isles."
The "vision," or second-sight, is more common in the Western Isles
than in the Highlands; now at least, when all things sacred to the
Celtic race, from the ancient language to the degenerate and indeed
all but vanished Beltane and Samh'in rites, are smiled at by the
gentle and mocked by the vulgar. A day will come when men will lament
more what is irrecoverable than ever a nation mourned for lapsed
dominion. It is a bitter cruel thing that strangers must rule the
hearts and brains, as well as the poor fortunes, of the mountaineers
and islanders. Yet in doing their best to thrust Celtic life and
speech and thought into the sea, they are working a sore hurt for
themselves that they shall discern in the day of adversity. We of the
passing race know this thing: that in a day to come the sheep-runs
shall not be in the Isles and the Highlands only--for we see the
forests moving south, and there will be lack, then, not of deer and of
sheep, but of hunters and shepherds.
That which follows is only a memento of what was told me last summer
by a fisherman of Iona. If I were to write all I have heard about what
is called second-sight, it would be a volume and not a few pages I
should want. The "sight" has been a reality to me almost from the
cradle, for my Highland nurse had the faculty, and I have the memory
of more than one of her trances.
There is an old man on the island named Daibhidh (David) Macarthur.[8]
It was Ivor McLean, my boatman friend, who took me to him. He is a
fine old man, though "heavy" a little; with years, perhaps, for his
head is white as the crest of a wave. He is one of the very few of
Iona, perhaps of the two or three at most, who do not speak any
English.
[8] As there are several Macarthurs on Iona, I may say that the
old man I allude to was not so named. Out of courtesy I disguise
his name: though, since the above was written, he is no more.
"No," he told me, "he had never had the sight himself. Ivor was wrong
in saying that he had."
This, I imagine, was shyness, or, rather, that innate reticence of the
Celt in all profoundly intimate and spiritual matters; for, from what
Ivor told me, I am convinced that old Macarthur had more than once
proved himself a seer.