The last time that the Fisher of Men was seen in Strath-Nair was not of
Alasdair Macleod but of the little child, Art Macarthur, him that was
born of the woman Mary Gilchrist, that had known the sorrow of women.
He was a little child, indeed, when, because of his loneliness and
having lost his way, he lay sobbing among the bracken by the stream-side
in the Shadowy Glen.
When he was a man, and had reached the gloaming of his years, he was
loved of men and women, for his songs are many and sweet, and his heart
was true, and he was a good man and had no evil against any one.
It is he who saw the Fisher of Men when he was but a little lad: and
some say that it was on the eve of the day that Alasdair Òg died, though
of this I know nothing. And what he saw, and what he heard, was a
moonbeam that fell into the dark sea of his mind, and sank therein, and
filled it with light for all the days of his life. A moonlit mind was
that of Art Macarthur: him that is known best as Ian Mòr, Ian Mòr of the
Hills, though why he took the name of Ian Cameron is known to none now
but one person, and that need not be for the telling here. He had music
always in his mind. I asked him once why he heard what so few heard, but
he smiled and said only: “When the heart is full of love, cool dews of
peace rise from it and fall upon the mind: and that is when the song of
Joy is heard.”
It must have been because of this shining of his soul that some who
loved him thought of him as one illumined. His mind was a shell that
held the haunting echo of the deep seas: and to know him was to catch a
breath of the infinite ocean of wonder and mystery and beauty of which
he was the quiet oracle. He has peace now, where he lies under the
heather upon a hillside far away: but the Fisher of Men will send him
hitherward again, to put a light upon the wave and a gleam upon the
brown earth.
I will tell this _sgeul_ as Ian Mòr that was the little child Art
Macarthur, told it to me.
Often and often it is to me all as a dream that comes unawares. Often
and often have I striven to see into the green glens of the mind whence
it comes, and whither, in a flash, in a rainbow gleam, it vanishes. When
I seek to draw close to it, to know whether it is a winged glory out of
the soul, or was indeed a thing that happened to me in my tender years,
lo—it is a dawn drowned in day, a star lost in the sun, the falling of
dew.
But I will not be forgetting: no, never: no, not till the silence of the
grass is over my eyes: I will not be forgetting that gloaming.
Bitter tears are those that children have. All that we say with vain
words is said by them in this welling spray of pain. I had the sorrow
that day. Strange hostilities lurked in the familiar bracken. The
soughing of the wind among the trees, the wash of the brown water by my
side, that had been companionable, were voices of awe. The quiet light
upon the grass flamed.
The fierce people that lurked in shadow had eyes for my helplessness.
When the dark came I thought I should be dead, devoured of I knew not
what wild creature. Would mother never come, never come with saving
arms, with eyes like soft candles of home?
Then my sobs grew still, for I heard a step. With dread upon me, poor
wee lad that I was, I looked to see who came out of the wilderness. It
was a man, tall and thin and worn, with long hair hanging adown his
face. Pale he was as a moonlit cot on the dark moor, and his voice was
low and sweet. When I saw his eyes I had no fear upon me at all. I saw
the mother-look in the grey shadow of them.
“And is that you, Art lennavan-mo?” he said, as he stooped and lifted
me.