One night, before the peats, I was told this thing by old Cairstine
Macdonald, in the isle of Benbecula. It is in her words that I give
it:
* * * * *
In the spring of the year that my boy Tormaid died, the moon-daisies
were as thick as a woven shroud over the place where Giorsal, the
daughter of Ian, the son of Ian MacLeod of Baille 'n Bad-a-sgailich,
slept night and day.[11]
[11] _Baille 'n Bad-a-sgailich_: the Farm of the Shadowy Clump of
Trees. _Cairstine_, or _Cairistine_, is the Gaelic for
_Christian_, as _Tormaid_ is for Norman, and _Giorsal_ for Grace.
"The quiet havens" is the beautiful island phrase for graves.
Here, also, a swift and fatal consumption that falls upon the
doomed is called "The White Fever." By "the mainland," Harris and
Lewis are meant.
All that March the cormorants screamed, famished. There were few fish
in the sea, and no kelp-weed was washed up by the high tides. In the
island and in the near isles, ay, and far north through the mainland,
the blight lay. Many sickened. I knew young mothers who had no milk.
There are green mounds in Carnan kirk-yard that will be telling you of
what this meant. Here and there are little green mounds, each so small
that you might cuddle it in your arm under your plaid.
Tormaid sickened. A bad day was that for him when he came home, weary
with the sea, and drenched to the skin, because of a gale that caught
him and his mates off Barra Head. When the March winds tore down the
Minch, and leaped out from over the Cuchullins, and came west, and lay
against our homes, where the peats were sodden and there was little
food, the minister told me that my lad would be in the quiet havens
before long. This was because of the white fever. It was of that same
that Giorsal waned, and went out like a thin flame in sunlight.
The son of my man (years ago weary no more) said little ever. He ate
nothing almost, even of the next to nothing we had. At nights he
couldna sleep because of the cough. The coming of May lifted him
awhile. I hoped he would see the autumn; and that if he did, and the
herring came, and the harvest was had, and what wi' this and what wi'
that, he would forget his Giorsal that lay i' the mools in the quiet
place yonder. Maybe then, I thought, the sorrow would go, and take its
shadow with it.
One gloaming he came in with all the whiteness of his wasted body in
his face. His heart was out of its shell; and mine, too, at the sight
of him.[12]
[12] _A cochall a' chridhe_: his heart out of its shell--a phrase
often used to express sudden derangement from any shock. The
ensuing phrase means the month from the 15th of July to the 15th
of August, _Mios crochaidh nan con_, so called as it is supposed
to be the hottest if not the most waterless month in the isles.
The word _claar_ used below, is the name given a small wooden tub,
into which the potatoes are turned when boiled.
This was in the season of the hanging of the dog's mouth.
"What is it, Tormaid-a-ghaolach?" I asked, with the sob that was in my
throat.
"_Thraisg mo chridhe_," he muttered (my heart is parched). Then,
feeling the asking in my eyes, he said, "I have seen her."
I knew he meant Giorsal. My heart sank. But I wore my nails into the
palms of my hands. Then I said this thing, that is an old saying in
the isles: "Those who are in the quiet havens hear neither the wind
nor the sea." He was so weak he could not lie down in the bed. He was
in the big chair before the peats, with his feet on a _claar_.
When the wind was still I read him the Word. A little warm milk was
all he would take. I could hear the blood in his lungs sobbing like
the ebb-tide in the sea-weed. This was the thing that he said to me:
"She came to me, like a gray mist, beyond the dyke of the green place,
near the road. The face of her was gray as a gray dawn, but the voice
was hers, though I heard it under a wave, so dull and far was it. And
these are her words to me, and mine to her--and the first speaking was
mine, for the silence wore me:
Am bheil thu' falbh,
O mo ghraidh?
_B'idh mi falbh,
Mùirnean!_
C'uin a thilleas tu,
O mo ghraidh?
_Cha till mi an rathad so;
Tha an't ait e cumhann--
O mùirnean, mùirnean!
B'idh mi falbh an drùgh
Am tigh Pharais,
Mùirnean!_
Sèol dhomh an rathad,
Mo ghraidh!
_Thig an so Mùirnean-mo,
Thig an so!_
* * * * *
Are you going,
My dear one?
_Yea, now I am going,
Dearest._
When will you come again,
My dear one?
_I will not return this way;
The place is narrow--
O my darling!
I will be going to Paradise,
Dear, my dear one!_
Show me the way,
Heart of my heart!
_Come hither, dearest, come hither,
Come with me!_
"And then I saw that it was a mist, and that I was alone. But now
this night it is that I feel the breath on the soles of my feet."
And with that I knew there was no hope. "_Ma tha sin an dàn!_ ... if
that be ordained," was all that rose to my lips. It was that night he
died. I fell asleep in the second hour. When I woke in the gray dawn,
his face was grayer than that and more cold.