"I can see every colour in the water except gray," said the lady who was
something of a sceptic.
"That," said the humorist, tilting back his straw hat, "is the very
reason they call it the Gray Lake. The world bristles with misnomers."
"Which explains," said the lady sceptic, "why they call Eamonn a
_seannachie_."
"Hi!" called out the humorist. "Do you hear that, Eamonn?"
"_Cad tá ort?_" asked Eamonn. He had been leaning out over the prow of
the boat, looking vaguely into the water, and now turned round. Eamonn
was always asking people, "_Cad tá ort?_" and before they had time to
answer he was saying, or thinking, something else.
"Why do they call this the Gray Lake?" asked the lady sceptic. "It never
looked really gray, did it?"
"Of course it did," said Eamonn. "The first man who ever saw it beheld
it in the gray light of dawn, and so he called it _Baile Loch Riabhach_,
the Town of the Gray Lough."
"When might that be?" asked the lady sceptic drily.
"The morning after the town was drowned," said Eamonn.
"What town?"
"The town we are now rowing over."
"Good heavens! Is there a town beneath us?"
"_Seadh_", said Eamonn. "Just now I was trying if I could see anything
of the ruins at the bottom of the lake."
"And you did, of course."
"I think so."
"What did you see?"
"Confusion and the vague, glimmering gable of a house or two. Then the
oars splashed and the water became dense."
"But tell us how the town came to be at the bottom of the lake," said
the man who rowed, shipping his oars. The boat rocked in the quick wash
of the waves. The water was warming in vivid colours under the glow of
the sunset. Eamonn leaned back in his seat at the prow of the boat. His
eyes wandered away over the water to the slope of meadows, the rise of
hills.
"_Anois, Eamonn_," said the lady sceptic, still a little drily. "The
story!"
* * * * *
Long and long ago, said Eamonn, there was a sleepy old town lying snug
in the dip of a valley. It was famous for seven of the purest springs of
water which ever sparkled in the earth. They called it the Seven
Sisters. Round the springs they built an immense and costly well. Over
the well was a great leaden lid of extraordinary weight, and by a
certain mechanical device this lid was closed on the well every evening
at sundown. The springs became abnormally active between sundown and
sunrise, so that there was always a danger that they might flood the
valley and destroy the people. As security against this the citizens had
built the great well with its monster lid, and each evening the lid was
locked over the well by means of a secret lock and a secret key.
The most famous person in the town of the Seven Sisters was the Keeper
of the Key. He was a man of dignified bearing, important airs, wearing
white silk knee-breeches, a green swallow-tail coat, and a cocked hat.
On the sleeve of his coat was embroidered in gold the image of a key and
seven sprays of water. He had great privileges and authority, and could
condemn or reprieve any sort of criminal except, of course, a sheep
stealer. He lived in a mansion beside the town, and this mansion was
almost as famous as the seven famous springs. People travelled from far
places to see it. A flight of green marble steps led to a broad door of
oak. On the broad oaken door he had fashioned one of the most remarkable
knockers and the most beautiful door knob that were known to Europe.
Both were of beaten gold. The knocker was wrought in the shape of a key.
The door knob was a group of seven water nymphs. A sensation was created
which agitated all Ireland when this work of art was completed by five
of the foremost goldsmiths in the land. The Keeper of the Key of the
Seven Sisters issued a Proclamation declaring that there was a flaw in
the rounding of one of the ankles of the group of seven water nymphs. He
had the five goldsmiths suddenly arrested and put on their trial. "The
Gael," said the Keeper of the Key, "must be pure-blooded in his art. I
am of the Clann Gael, I shall not allow any half-artist to come to my
door, there work under false pretence and go unpunished." The goldsmiths
protested that their work was the work of artists and flawless as the
design. Not another word would they be allowed to speak. Bards and
artists, scholars and men skilled in controversy, flocked from all parts
to see the door knob. A terrible controversy ensued. Sides were taken,
some for, others against, the ankle of the water nymph. They came to be
known as the Ankleites and the anti-Ankleites. And in that tremendous
controversy the Keeper of the Key proved the masterly manner of man he
was. He had the five goldsmiths convicted for failure as supreme
artists, and they were sentenced to banishment from the country. On
their way from the shore to the ship that was to bear them away their
curragh sprang a sudden leak, and they were all drowned. That was the
melancholy end of the five chief goldsmiths of Eirinn.
Every morning at daybreak trumpets were blown outside the mansion of
the Keeper of the Key. The gates of a courtyard swung open and out
marched an armed guard, men in saffron kilts, bearing spears and swords.
They formed up before the flight of marble steps. A second fanfare of
the trumpets, and back swung the great oaken door, disclosing the Keeper
of the Key in his bright silks and cocked hat. Out he would come on the
doorstep, no attendants by him, and pulling to the great door by the
famous knob he would descend the marble steps, the guard would take up
position, and, thus escorted, he would cross the drawbridge of the moat
and enter the town of the Seven Sisters, marching through the streets to
the great well. People would have gathered there even at that early
hour, women bearing vessels to secure their supply of the water, which,
it was said, had an especial virtue when taken at the break of day. No
mortal was allowed nearer than fifty yards to the well while the Keeper
proceeded to unlock the lid. His guard would stand about, and with a
haughty air he would approach the well solus. The people would see him
make some movements, and back would slide the enormous lid. A blow on
the trumpets proclaimed that the well was open, and the people would
approach it, laughing and chattering, and the Keeper of the Key would
march back to his mansion in the same military order, ascend the steps,
push open the great door, and the routine of daily life would ensue. For
the closing of the well at sundown a similar ceremony was observed. The
only additional incident was the marching of a crier through the
streets, beating great wooden clappers, and standing at each street
corner calling out in a loud voice: "Hear ye people that the lock is on
the Seven Sisters. All's well!"
In those days there was a saying among the people which was in common
usage all over Ireland. When a man became possessed of any article or
property to which he had a doubtful title his neighbours said, with a
significant wag of the head, "He got it where the Keeper gets the Key."
This saying arose out of a mysterious thing in the life of the Keeper of
the Key. Nobody ever saw the secret key. It was not in his hands when he
came forth from the mansion morning and evening to fulfil his great
office. He did not carry it in his pockets, for the simple reason that
he had had no pockets. He kept no safe nor secret panel nor any private
drawer in his mansion that the most observant among his retainers could
espy. Yet that there was a secret key, and that it was inserted in a
lock, anybody could see for himself, even at a distance of fifty yards,
twice a day at the well. It was as if at that moment the key came into
his hand out of the air and again vanished into air when the proper
business was over. Indeed, there were people of even those remote and
enlightened days who attributed some wizardy to the Keeper of the Key.
It added to the awe in which he was held and to the sense of security
which the proceedings of his whole life inspired in his fellow-citizens.
Nevertheless had the Keeper of the Key his enemies. A man of distinction
and power can no more tread the paths of his ambitions without stirring
up rivalries and hostilities than can the winds howl across the earth
and leave the dust on the roads undisturbed. The man who assumes power
will always, sooner or later, have his power to hold put to the test. So
it was with the Keeper of the Key. There were people who nursed the
ambition of laying hands on the secret key. That secured, they would be
lords of the town of the Seven Sisters. The reign of the great Keeper
would be over. His instinct told him that these dangers were always
about. He was on the alert. He had discovered treachery even within the
moat of his own keep. His servants and guards had been tampered with.
But all the attempts upon his key and his power had been in vain. He
kept to the grand unbroken simplicity of his masterly routine. He had
crushed his enemies whenever they had arisen. "One who has survived the
passions of Ireland's poets," he would say--for the poets had all been
Ankleites--"is not likely to bow the knee before snivelling little
thieves." A deputation which had come to him proposing that the well
should be managed by a constitutional committee of the citizens was
flogged by the guards across the drawbridge. The leader of this
deputation was a deformed tailor, who soon after planned an audacious
attack on the mansion of the Keeper of the Key. The Keeper, his guards,
servants and retainers were all one night secretly drugged and for
several hours of the night lay unconscious in the mansion. Into it
swarmed the little tailor and his constitutional committee; they pulled
the whole interior to pieces in search of the key. The very pillows
under the head of the Keeper had been stabbed and ransacked. It was
nearing daybreak when the Keeper awoke, groggy from the effects of the
narcotic. The guard was roused. The whole place was in confusion. The
robbers had fled, leaving the great golden knocker on the door hanging
from its position; they were removing it when surprised. The nymphs were
untouched. The voice of the Keeper of the Key was deliberate,
authoritative, commanding, amid the confusion. The legs of the guards
quaked beneath them, their heads swam, and they said to each other, "Now
surely is the key gone!" But their master hurried them to their morning
duty, and they escorted him to the well a little beyond daybreak, and,
lo, at the psychological moment, there was the key and back rolled the
lid from the precious well. "Surely," they said, "this man is blessed,
for the key comes to him as a gift from Heaven. The robbers of the earth
are powerless against him." When the citizens of the Seven Sisters
heard of what had taken place in the evil hours of the night they poured
across the drawbridge from the town and acclaimed the Keeper of the Key
before his mansion. He came out on the watch tower, his daughter by his
side, and with dignified mien acknowledged the acclamations of the
citizens. And before he put the lid on the well that night the deformed
tailor and his pards were all dragged through the streets of the Seven
Sisters and cast into prison.
Never was the popularity of the Keeper at so high a level as after this
episode. They would have declared him the most perfect as the most
powerful of men were it not for one little spot on the bright sun of his
fame. They did not like his domestic habits. The daughter who stood by
his side on the watch tower was a young girl of charm, a fair, frail
maiden, a slender lily under the towering shadow of her dark father. The
citizens did not, perhaps, understand his instincts of paternity; and,
indeed, if they understood them they would not have given them the
sanction of their approval. The people only saw that the young girl, his
only child, was condemned to what they called a life of virtual
imprisonment in the mansion. She was a warm-blooded young creature, and
like all warm-blooded creatures, inclined to gaiety of spirits, to
impulsive friendships to a joyous and engaging frankness. These traits,
the people saw, the father disapproved of and checked, and the young
girl was regarded with great pity. "Ah," they would say, "he is a
wonderful Keeper of the Key, but, alas, how harsh a father!" He would
not allow the girl any individual freedom; she was under eternal escort
when abroad; she was denied the society of those of her years; she was a
flower whose fragrance it was not the privilege of the people to enjoy.
It may be that the people, in murmuring against all this, did not make
sufficient allowance for the circumstances of the life of the Keeper of
the Key. He was alone, he stood apart from all men. His only passion in
life had been the strict guardianship of a trust. In these circumstances
his affections for his only child were direct and crude and, too, maybe
a little unconsciously harsh. His love for his child was the love of the
oyster for its pearl. The people saw nothing but the rough, tight
shells which closed about the treasure in the mansion of the Keeper of
the Key. More than one considerable wooer had approached that mansion,
laying claim to the pearl which it held. All were met with the same
terrible dark scowl and sent about their business. "You, sir," the
Keeper of the Key would say, "come to my door, knock upon my knocker,
lay hands upon my door knob--my golden door knob--and ask for my
daughter's hand! Sir, your audacity is your only excuse. Let it also be
your defence against my wrath. Now, sir, a very good day!" And when the
citizens heard that yet another gallant wooer had come and been
dismissed they would say, "The poor child, the poor child, what a pity!"
The truth was that the daughter of the Keeper of the Key was not in the
least unhappy. She had a tremendous opinion of her father; she lavished
upon him all the warm affection of her young ardour. She reigned like a
young queen within the confines of her home. She was about the gardens
and the grounds all day, as joyous as a bird. Once or twice her
governess gave her some inkling as to the suitors who came to the
mansion requesting her hand, for that is an affair that cannot be kept
from the most jealously-guarded damsel. The governess had a sense of
humour and entertained the girl with accounts of the manner of lovers
who, as she put it, washed up the marble steps of the mansion to the oak
door, like waves on a shore, and were sent back again into the ocean of
rejections. The young girl was much amused and secretly flattered at
these events. "Ah," she would say, in a little burst of rapture, "how
splendid is my father!" The pearl rejoices in the power of the oyster to
shut it away from the world.
Now (continued Eamonn), on the hilly slopes of the country called
Sunnach there was a shepherd boy, and people who saw that he was a rare
boy in looks and intelligence were filled with pity for his unhappy lot.
The bodach for whom he herded was a dour, ill-conditioned fellow, full
of curses and violent threats, but the boy was content in the life of
the hillsides, and troubled very little about the bodach's dour looks.
"Some day," he would say to himself laughingly, "I will compose terrible
verses about his black mouth." One day the shepherd boy drove a little
flock of the bodach's lively sheep to the fair in the town of the Seven
Sisters. As he passed the mansion of the Keeper of the Key he cried out,
"How up! how up! how up!" His voice was clear and full, the notes as
round and sweet as the voice of the cuckoo. The daughter of the Keeper
of the Key was seated by a window painting a little picture when she
heard the "How up!" of the shepherd's voice. "What beautiful calls!" she
exclaimed, and leaned out from the window. At the same moment the
shepherd boy looked up. He was bare-headed and wore his plaids. His head
was a shock of curly straw-coloured hair, his face eager, clear-cut, his
eyes golden-brown and bright as the eyes of a bird. He smiled and the
damsel smiled. "How up! how up! how up!" he sang out joyously to his
flock as he moved down to the fair. The damsel went back to her little
picture and sat there for some time staring at her palette and mixing
the wrong colours.
That evening the Keeper of the Key, as was his custom, escorted his
daughter on his arm, servants before and behind them, through the town
of the Seven Sisters, viewing such sights of the fair as were agreeable
and doing a little shopping. The people, seeing the great man coming,
made way for him on the paths, and bowed and smiled to him as he passed.
He walked with great dignity, and his daughter's beauty made the
bystanders say, "Happy will it be for the lucky man!" Among those they
encountered was the shepherd boy, and he gazed upon the damsel with
rapture in his young eyes. He followed them about the town at a
respectful distance, and back to their mansion. The shepherd boy did not
return to the hilly country called Sunnach that night, nor the next
night, nor for many a long day and night. He remained in the town of the
Seven Sisters, running on errants, driving carts, doing such odd jobs as
came his way, and all because he wanted to gaze upon the daughter of the
Keeper of the Key. In the evening he would go by the mansion singing
out, "How up! how up! how up!" as if he were driving flocks past. And in
the window he would see the wave of a white hand. He would go home,
then, to his little back room in the lodging-house, and there stay up
very late at night, writing, in the candle-light, verses to the damsel.
One Song of the Shepherd Boy to his Lady has survived:
_Farewell to the sweet reed I tuned on the hill,
My grief for the rough slopes of Sunnach so still,
The wind in the fir tree and bleat of the ewe
Are lost in the wild cry my heart makes for you.
The brown floors I danced on, the sheds where I lay,
Are gone from my mind like a wing in the bay:
Dear lady, I'd herd the wild swans in the skies
If they knew of lake water as blue as your eyes!_
Well, it was not very long, as you can imagine, until the Keeper of the
Key observed the shepherd boy loitering about the mansion. When he heard
him calling past the house to imaginary flocks a scowl came upon his
face. "Ah-ha!" he said, "another conspiracy! Last time it was a
hunchback tailor. This time they come from the country. They signal by
the cries of shepherds. Well, I shall do the driving for them!" There
and then he had the shepherd boy apprehended, bound, and put in a cell.
In due course he was accused and sentenced, like the famous goldsmiths,
to banishment from Eirinn. When the daughter of the Keeper heard what
had come to pass she was filled with grief. She appeared before her
father for the first time with tears in her eyes and woe in her face. He
was greatly moved, and seated the girl by his side. She knelt by his
knee and confessed to the whole affair with the shepherd boy. The Keeper
of the Key was a little relieved to learn that his suspicions of a fresh
conspiracy were unfounded, but filled with indignation that such a
person as a shepherd should not alone aspire to but win the heart of his
daughter. "What have we come to," he said, "when a wild thing from the
hills of Sunnach comes down and dares to lay his hand on the all but
perfect water nymphs on the golden knob of my door! Justice shall be
done. The order of banishment is set aside. Let this wild hare of the
hills, this mountain rover, be taken and seven times publicly dipped in
the well. I guarantee that will cool him! He shall then have until break
of day to clear out of my town. Let him away back to the swine on the
hills." The girl pleaded that the boy might be spared the frightful
indignity of a public dipping in the well of the Seven Sisters, but her
father was implacable. "Have I not spoken?" he said sternly, and the
damsel was led away by her governess in tears.
The people flocked to the well as they might to a Feis to see the
dipping of the shepherd boy. Cries of merriment arose among them when
the boy, bound in strips of hide, was lowered by the servants of the
Keeper of the Key into the mouth of the great well. It was a cold, dark,
creepy place down in the shaft of the well, the walls reeking, covered
with slimy green lichen, the waters roaring. The shepherd boy closed his
eyes and gave himself up for lost. But the Seven Sisters of the well
kept moving down as fast as the servants told out the rope, until at
last they could not lower him any farther. The servants danced the rope
up and down seven times, and the people screamed and clapped their
hands, crying out, "All those who write love verses come to a bad end!"
But the poet was never yet born who had not a friend greater than all
his enemies. At that moment the spirits of the Seven Sisters rose out of
the water and spoke to the shepherd boy.
"O shepherd boy," they said, "the Keeper of the Key is also our enemy.
We were created for something better than this narrow shaft. We cry out
in bitter pain the long hours of the night."
"Why do you cry out in bitter pain?" asked the shepherd boy.
"Because," said the spirits of the Seven Sisters, "we want to leap out
of this cold place to meet our lover, the moon. Every night he comes
calling to us and we dare not respond. We are locked away under the
heavy lid. We can never gather our full strength to burst our way to
liberty. We dream of the pleasant valley. We want to get out into it,
to make merry about the trees, to sport in the warm places, to lip the
edge of the green meadows, to water pleasant gardens. We want to see the
flowers, to flash in the sun, to dance under the spread of great
branches, to make snug, secret places for the pike and the otter, to
pile up the coloured pebbles, and hear the water-hen splashing in the
rushes. And above all, we want to meet our lover, the moon, to roll
about in his beams, to reach for his kiss in the harvest nights. O
shepherd boy, take us from our prison well!"
"O Seven Sisters," asked the shepherd boy, "how can I do this for you?"
"Secure the secret key," they said. "Open the lid while we are at our
full strength in the night."
"Alas," said the shepherd boy, "that I cannot do. The Keeper has made of
it a magic thing."
"We know his great secret," said the spirits of the Seven Sisters.
"Swear to set us free and we shall tell you the secret of the key."
"And what reward shall I have?" asked the shepherd boy.
"You shall have the hand of the daughter of the Keeper of the Key, the
Lady of your Songs," they said. "Take her back to the hills where you
were so happy. We shall spare you when we are abroad."
"Then," said the shepherd boy, "I swear to release you."
"The Keeper of the Key," said the spirits of the Seven Sisters, "has a
devil lurking behind the fine manners of his body. In secret he laughs
at the people. He has the blood of the five goldsmiths on his hands. It
was by his connivance the curragh sprang a leak, and that they were
drowned. They were true artists, of the spirit of the Gael. But they
alone knew his secret, and he made away with them before they could
speak. His great controversy on the water nymphs was like a spell cast
over the minds of the people to cover his crime."
"What a demon!" cried the shepherd boy.
"The key of the well," said the spirits of the Seven Sisters, "is
concealed in the great golden knob of the oaken door, and upon that has
concentrated the greatest public scrutiny which has ever beaten upon a
door-knob in the story of the whole world. Such has been the craft of
the Keeper of the Key! When he comes out in the morning and evening, and
while drawing the door after him, he puts a finger on the third toe of
the fourth water nymph. This he presses three times, quick as a
pulse-beat, and, lo, a hidden spring is released and shoots the key into
the loose sleeve of his coat. On returning he puts his hand on the
golden knob, presses the second toe of the third water nymph, and the
key slides back into its hidden cavity. This secret was alone known to
the goldsmiths. They went to the bottom of the sea with it. In this way
has the Keeper of the Key held his power and defied his enemies. When
the scholars were making epigrams and the bards warming into great
cadences on the art of the ankle of the water nymph, this Keeper of the
Key would retire to his watch-tower and roll about in secret merriment."
"What a fiend!" cried the shepherd boy.
"He had caused to be painted in his room a scroll surrounded by
illuminated keys and nymphs and tumbling cascades, and bearing the
words, 'Let us praise the art which conceals art; but let us love the
art which conceals power.'"
"What a monster!" cried the shepherd boy.
"In this way," said the spirits of the Seven Sisters, "has he lived. In
this way has he been able to keep us from our freedom, our lover. O
shepherd boy--"
Before another word could be spoken the shepherd boy was drawn up on the
rope. The water rose with him and lapped lightly over his person so that
he might seem as if he had been plunged deeply into the well.
When he was drawn up to the side or the well the shepherd boy lay on the
ground, his eyes closed, feigning great distress. The people again
clapped their hands, and some cried out, "Now little water rat, make us
a new verse!" But others murmured in pity, and an old peasant woman, in
a Breedeen cloak, hobbled to his side and smoothed back his locks. At
the touch of her soft hands the shepherd boy opened his eyes, and he saw
it was the daughter of the Keeper of the Key disguised. With the
connivance of her governess, she had escaped from the mansion as an old
peasant woman in a cloak. The shepherd boy secretly kissed her little
palms and whispered, "I must come to you at midnight. As you value your
life have the guards taken from the outer door, only for two minutes.
Make some pretext. I will give the shepherd's call and then you must
act. Do not fail me."
Before more could be said the servants roughly bundled the old peasant
woman aside, carried the shepherd boy to his lodgings, and there threw
him on his bed. "Remember," they said, "that you remain within the walls
of the town of the Seven Sisters after break of day at your peril."
At midnight the shepherd boy arose and approached the mansion of the
Keeper of the Key. He could see the two grim guards, one each side of
the oaken door. Standing some way off he gave the shepherd's call,
making his voice sound like the hoot of an owl. In a little time he saw
the guards move away from the door; they went to a side entrance in the
courtyard, and presently he could hear them laughing, as if some
entertainment was being provided for them; then measures were passed
through the iron bars of the gate to them, and these they raised to
their lips. At this the shepherd boy ran swiftly up the steps,
approached the door, and pressed three times, quick as a pulse-beat, the
third toe of the fourth water nymph, and immediately from a secret
cavity in the knob a curious little golden key was shot forth. This the
shepherd boy seized, flew down the steps, and scaled over the town wall.
He ran to the great well and stooped over the lid. He could hear the
Seven Sisters twisting and worming and striving beneath it, little cries
of pain breaking from them. Overhead the moon was shining down on the
well.
"O Seven Sisters," said the Shepherd boy, "I have come to give you to
your lover."
He could hear a great cry of joy down in the well. He put the key in the
lock, turned it, and immediately there was the gliding and slipping of
one steel bar after another into an oil bath. The great lid slowly
revolved, moving away from over the well. The Seven Sisters did the
rest. They sprang with a peal of the most delirious laughter--laughter
that was of the underground, the cavern, the deep secret places of the
earth, laughter of elfs and hidden rivers--to the light of the moon. The
shepherd boy could see seven distinct spiral issues of sparkling water
and they took the shape of nymphs, more exquisite than anything he had
ever seen even in his dreams. Something seemed to happen in the very
heavens above; the moon reached down from the sky, swiftly and tenderly,
and was so dazzling that the shepherd boy had to turn his face away. He
knew that in the blue spaces of the firmament overhead the moon was
embracing the Seven Sisters. Then he ran, ran like the wind, for already
the water was shrieking down the streets of the town. As he went he
could see lights begin to jump in dark windows and sleepy people in
their night attire coming to peer out into the strange radiance outside.
As he reached the drawbridge he saw that the men had already lowered it,
and there was a great rustling noise and squealing; and what he took to
be a drift of thick dust driven by the wind was gushing over it, making
from the town. A few more yards and he saw that it was not thick brown
dust, but great squads of rats flying the place. The trumpets were all
blowing loud blasts when he reached the mansion of the Keeper of the
Key, the guards with their spears pressing out under the arch of the
courtyard, and servants coming out the doors. The great oak door flew
open and he saw the Keeper of the Key, a candle in his quaking hand. A
great crying could now be heard coming up from the population of the
town. The water was bursting open the doors of the houses as if they
were cardboard.
"O Keeper of the Key," cried the shepherd boy, "the Seven Sisters are
abroad. I am obeying your command and returning to the swine on the
hills. The despised Sunnach will be in the dreams of many to-night!"
The candle fell from the hand of the Keeper of the Key, and he could be
seen in the moonlight groping for the door-knob, his hand on the figures
of the group of water nymphs. In a moment he gave a low moan and, his
head hanging over his breast, he staggered down the marble steps.
"Alas," cried the guards, "now is the great man broken!" He made for the
drawbridge crying out, "The lid, the lid. Slide it back over the well!"
The guards and servants pressed after him, but not one of them ever got
into the town again. Across the bridge was now pouring a wild rush of
human panic. Carriages, carts, cars, horsemen, mules, donkeys, were
flying from the Seven Sisters laden with men and women and whole
families. Crowds pressed forward on foot. Animals, dogs, cats, pigs,
sheep, cows, came pellmell with them. Drivers stood in their seats
flaying their horses as if driven by madness. The animals rolled their
eyes, snorted steam from their nostrils, strained forward with desperate
zeal. Once or twice the struggling mass jammed, and men fought each
other like beasts. The cries of people being trampled to death broke out
in harrowing protest. For a moment the shepherd boy saw the form of a
priest rise up, bearing aloft the stark outline of a cross, and then he
disappeared.
Over that night of terror was the unnatural brilliance of the swoollen
moon. All this the shepherd boy saw in a few eternal moments. Then he
cried out, "How up! how up! how up!" and immediately the damsel tripped
down the broad staircase of the mansion, dressed in white robes, her
hair loose about her shoulders. Never had she looked so frail and
beautiful, the lily of the valley! The shepherd boy told her what had
come to pass. She cried out for her father. "I am the daughter of the
Keeper of the Key," she said. "I shall stand by his side at the well in
this great hour."
"I am now the master of the town of the Seven Sisters," said the
shepherd boy. "I am the Keeper of the Key." And he held up the secret
key.
The damsel, seeing this, and catching sight of what was taking place at
the drawbridge, fell back in a swoon on the carpet of the hall. The
shepherd boy raised her in his arms and fled for the hills. Along the
road was the wild stampede of the people, all straining for the hills,
pouring in a mad rush from the valley and the town. Behind them were the
still madder, swifter, more terrible waters, coming in sudden thuds, in
furious drives, eddying and sculping and rearing in an orgy or
remorseless and heartrending destruction. Down before that roaring
avalanche went walls and trees and buildings. The shepherd boy saw men
give up the struggle for escape, cowering by the roadside, and women,
turning from the race to the hills, rushed back to meet the oncoming
waters with arms outspread and insanity in their wild eyes.
Not a human creature escaped that night of wroth except the shepherd boy
and the damsel he carried in his arms. Every time the waters reached his
heels they reared up like great white horses and fell back, thus sparing
him. Three times did he look back at happenings in the town of the Seven
Sisters. The first time he looked back the water was up to the last
windows of houses that were three storeys high. All the belongings of
the householders were floating about, and people were sinking through
the water, their lives going out as swiftly as twinkling bubbles. In an
attic window he saw a young girl loosen her hair, she was singing a
song, preparing to meet death as if she were making ready for a lover. A
man at the top of a ladder was gulping whiskey from a bottle, and when
the water sprang at his throat he went down with a mad defiant cry. A
child ran out an open window, golden locks dancing about its pretty
head, as if it were running into a garden. There was another little
bubble in the moonlight.... The second time the shepherd boy looked back
the swallows were flying from their nests under the eaves of the houses,
for the water was now lapping them. An old woman was hobbling across a
roof on crutches. Men were drawing their bodies out of the chimney-pots.
A raft on which the Keeper's guard had put out slowly, like a live thing
lazily yawning and turning over on its side, sent them all into the
common doom. A man with a bag of gold clutched in his hand, stood
dizzily on the high gable of a bank, then, with a scream, tottered and
fell.... The third time the shepherd boy looked back nothing was to be
seen above the face of the water except the pinnacle of the watch tower
of the mansion, and standing upon it was the Keeper of the Key, his arms
outspread, his face upturned to the moon, and the seven water nymphs
leaping about him in a silver dance.
After that the shepherd boy drew up on the hills with the damsel. He was
quite exhausted, and he noticed that the activity of the waters
gradually calmed down as daybreak approached, like things spent after a
night of wild passion. When at last the day quivered into life on the
eastern sky he called the damsel to his side, and standing there
together they looked out over the spread of water. The town of the
Seven Sisters was no more.
"Look," cried the shepherd boy, "at Loch Riabhach!" And drawing back he
cast out into the far water the secret key. There it still lies under a
rock, somewhere in the lake over which our boat is now drifting. And the
shepherd boy and the damsel there and then founded a new town beside the
lake, and all who are of the old families of Baile Loch Riabhach, like
myself, are their descendants. That, concluded Eamonn, is the story of
the Gray Lake.