Hebrides. The legend exists in Ireland, too; for Mr Yeats tells me that
last summer he met an old Connaught fisherman, who claimed to be of the
Sliochd-nan-Ron--an ancestry, indeed, indicated in the man’s name: Rooney.
As to my use of the forename ‘Gloom’ (in this story, in its sequel
“Green Branches,” and in “The Anointed Man”), I should explain that the
designation is, of course, not a real name. At the same time, I have
actual warrant for its use; for I knew a Uist man who, in the bitterness
of his sorrow, after his wife’s death in childbirth, named his son
_Mulad_ (_i.e._ the gloom of sorrow: grief).
THE DAN-NAN-RON
When Anne Gillespie, that was my friend in Eilanmore, left the island
after the death of her uncle, the old man Robert Achanna, it was to go
far west.
Among the men of the outer isles who for three summers past had been at
the fishing off Eilanmore, there was one named Mànus MacCodrum. He was
a fine lad to see, but though most of the fisher-folk of the Lewis and
North Uist are fair, either with reddish hair and grey eyes or blue-eyed
and yellow-haired, he was of a brown skin with dark hair and dusky brown
eyes. He was, however, as unlike to the dark Celts of Arran and the
Inner Hebrides as to the Northmen. He came of his people, sure enough.
All the MacCodrums of North Uist had been brown-skinned and brown-haired
and brown-eyed; and herein may have lain the reason why, in bygone days,
this small clan of Uist was known throughout the Western Isles as the
_Sliochd nan Ròn_, the offspring of the Seals.
Not so tall as most of the North Uist and Long Island men, Mànus
MacCodrum was of a fair height and supple and strong. No man was a better
fisherman than he, and he was well-liked of his fellows, for all the
morose gloom that was upon him at times. He had a voice as sweet as a
woman’s when he sang, and he sang often, and knew all the old runes of
the islands, from the Obb of Harris to the Head of Mingulay. Often, too,
he chanted the beautiful _orain spioradail_ of the Catholic priests and
Christian Brothers of South Uist and Barra, though where he lived in
North Uist he was the sole man who adhered to the ancient faith.
It may have been because Anne was a Catholic too, though, sure, the
Achannas were so also, notwithstanding that their forebears and kindred
in Galloway were Protestant (and this because of old Robert Achanna’s
love for his wife, who was of the old Faith, so it is said)--it may have
been for this reason, though I think her lover’s admiring eyes and soft
speech and sweet singing had more to do with it, that she pledged her
troth to Mànus. It was a south wind for him, as the saying is; for with
her rippling brown hair and soft grey eyes and cream-white skin, there
was no comelier lass in the Isles.
So when Achanna was laid to his long rest, and there was none left
upon Eilanmore save only his three youngest sons, Mànus MacCodrum
sailed north-eastward across the Minch to take home his bride. Of the
four eldest sons, Alison had left Eilanmore some months before his
father died, and sailed westward, though no one knew whither, or for
what end, or for how long, and no word had been brought from him, nor
was he ever seen again in the island, which had come to be called
Eilan-nan-Allmharachain, the Isle of the Strangers. Allan and William
had been drowned in a wild gale in the Minch; and Robert had died of
the white fever, that deadly wasting disease which is the scourge of
the Isles. Marcus was now “Eilanmore,” and lived there with Gloom
and Sheumais, all three unmarried, though it was rumoured among the
neighbouring islanders that each loved Marsail nic Ailpean,[1] in
Eilean-Rona of the Summer Isles, hard by the coast of Sutherland.
[1] Marsail nic Ailpean is the Gaelic of which an English
translation would be Marjory MacAlpine. _Nic_ is a contraction for
_nighean mhic_, “daughter of the line of.”
When Mànus asked Anne to go with him she agreed. The three brothers were
ill-pleased at this, for apart from their not wishing their cousin to go
so far away, they did not want to lose her, as she not only cooked for
them and did all that a woman does, including spinning and weaving, but
was most sweet and fair to see, and in the long winter nights sang by the
hour together, while Gloom played strange wild airs upon his _feadan_, a
kind of oaten-pipe or flute.
She loved him, I know; but there was this reason also for her going, that
she was afraid of Gloom. Often upon the moor or on the hill she turned
and hastened home, because she heard the lilt and fall of that _feadan_.
It was an eerie thing to her, to be going through the twilight when she
thought the three men were in the house smoking after their supper, and
suddenly to hear beyond and coming towards her the shrill song of that
oaten flute playing “The Dance of the Dead,” or “The Flow and Ebb,” or
“The Shadow-Reel.”
That, sometimes at least, he knew she was there was clear to her, because
as she stole rapidly through the tangled fern and gale she would hear a
mocking laugh follow her like a leaping thing.
Mànus was not there on the night when she told Marcus and his brothers
that she was going. He was in the haven on board the _Luath_, with his
two mates, he singing in the moonshine as all three sat mending their
fishing gear.
After the supper was done, the three brothers sat smoking and talking
over an offer that had been made about some Shetland sheep. For a
time Anne watched them in silence. They were not like brothers, she
thought. Marcus, tall, broad-shouldered, with yellow hair and strangely
dark blue-black eyes and black eyebrows; stern, with a weary look on
his sun-brown face. The light from the peats glinted upon the tawny
curve of thick hair that trailed from his upper lip, for he had the
_caisean-feusag_ of the Northmen. Gloom, slighter of build, dark of hue
and hair, but with hairless face; with thin, white, long-fingered hands,
that had ever a nervous motion as though they were tide-wrack. There
was always a frown on the centre of his forehead, even when he smiled
with his thin lips and dusky, unbetraying eyes. He looked what he was,
the brain of the Achannas. Not only did he have the English as though
native to that tongue, but could and did read strange unnecessary books.
Moreover, he was the only son of Robert Achanna to whom the old man had
imparted his store of learning; for Achanna had been a schoolmaster in
his youth in Galloway, and he had intended Gloom for the priesthood.
His voice, too, was low and clear, but cold as pale-green water running
under ice. As for Sheumais, he was more like Marcus than Gloom, though
not so fair. He had the same brown hair and shadowy hazel eyes, the
same pale and smooth face, with something of the same intent look which
characterised the long-time missing and probably dead eldest brother,
Alison. He, too, was tall and gaunt. On Sheumais’ face there was
that indescribable, as to some of course imperceptible, look which is
indicated by the phrase, “the dusk of the shadow,” though few there are
who know what they mean by that, or, knowing, are fain to say.
Suddenly, and without any word or reason for it, Gloom turned and spoke
to her.
“Well, Anne, and what is it?”
“I did not speak, Gloom.”
“True for you, _mo cailinn_. But it’s about to speak you were.”
“Well, and that is true. Marcus, and you Gloom, and you Sheumais, I have
that to tell which you will not be altogether glad for the hearing. ’Tis
about … about … me and … and Mànus.”
There was no reply at first. The three brothers sat looking at her, like
the kye at a stranger on the moorland. There was a deepening of the frown
on Gloom’s brow, but when Anne looked at him his eyes fell and dwelt in
the shadow at his feet. Then Marcus spoke in a low voice.
“Is it Mànus MacCodrum you will be meaning?”
“Ay, sure.”
Again, silence. Gloom did not lift his eyes, and Sheumais was now staring
at the peats. Marcus shifted uneasily.
“And what will Mànus MacCodrum be wanting?”
“Sure, Marcus, you know well what I mean. Why do you make this thing hard
for me? There is but one thing he would come here wanting; and he has
asked me if I will go with him, and I have said yes. And if you are not
willing that he come again with the minister, or that we go across to the
kirk in Berneray of Uist in the Sound of Harris, then I will not stay
under this roof another night, but will go away from Eilanmore at sunrise
in the _Luath_, that is now in the haven. And that is for the hearing and
knowing, Marcus and Gloom and Sheumais!”
Once more, silence followed her speaking. It was broken in a strange way.
Gloom slipped his _feadan_ into his hands, and so to his mouth. The clear
cold notes of the flute filled the flame-lit room. It was as though white
polar birds were drifting before the coming of snow.
The notes slid into a wild remote air: cold moonlight on the dark o’ the
sea, it was. It was the _Dàn-nan-Ròn_.
Anne flushed, trembled, and then abruptly rose. As she leaned on her
clenched right hand upon the table, the light of the peats showed that
her eyes were aflame.
“Why do you play _that_, Gloom Achanna?”
The man finished the bar, then blew into the oaten pipe, before, just
glancing at the girl, he replied:
“And what harm will there be in _that_, Anna-ban?”
“You know it is harm. That is the Dàn-nan-Ròn!”
“Ay; and what then, Anna-ban?”
“What then? Are you thinking I don’t know what you mean by playing the
Song of the Seal?”
With an abrupt gesture Gloom put the _feadan_ aside. As he did so, he
rose.
“See here, Anne,” he began roughly--when Marcus intervened.
“That will do just now, Gloom. Ann-à-ghraidh, do you mean that you are
going to do this thing?”
“Ay, sure.”
“Do you know why Gloom played the Dàn-nan-Ròn?”
“It was a cruel thing.”
“You know what is said in the isles about … about … this or that man,
who is under _gheasan_--who is spell-bound … and … and … about the seals
and …”
“Yes, Marcus, it is knowing it that I am: ‘_Tha iad a’ cantuinn gur h-e
daoine fo gheasan a th’ anns no roin._’”
“‘_They say that seals_,’” he repeated slowly; “‘_they say that seals are
men under magic spells._’ And have you ever pondered that thing, Anne, my
cousin?”
“I am knowing well what you mean.”
“Then you will know that the MacCodrums of North Uist are called the
Sliochd-nan-ròn?”
“I have heard.”
“And would you be for marrying a man that is of the race of the beasts,
and that himself knows what _geas_ means, and may any day go back to his
people?”
“Ah, now, Marcus, sure it is making a mock of me you are. Neither you
nor any here believes that foolish thing. How can a man born of a
woman be a seal, even though his _sinnsear_ were the offspring of the
sea-people,--which is not a saying I am believing either, though it may
be: and not that it matters much, whatever, about the far-back forebears.”
Marcus frowned darkly, and at first made no response. At last he
answered, speaking sullenly.
“You may be believing this or you may be believing that,
Anna-nic-Gilleasbuig, but two things are as well known as that the east
wind brings the blight and the west wind the rain. And one is this: that
long ago a Seal-man wedded a woman of North Uist, and that he or his son
was called Neil MacCodrum; and that the sea-fever of the seal was in the
blood of his line ever after. And this is the other: that twice within
the memory of living folk a MacCodrum has taken upon himself the form of
a seal, and has so met his death--once Neil MacCodrum of Ru’ Tormaid, and
once Anndra MacCodrum of Berneray in the Sound. There’s talk of others,
but these are known of us all. And you will not be forgetting now that
Neil-donn was the grandfather, and that Anndra was the brother of the
father of Mànus MacCodrum?”
“I am not caring what you say, Marcus: it is all foam of the sea.”
“There’s no foam without wind or tide, Anne. An’ it’s a dark tide that
will be bearing you away to Uist; and a black wind that will be blowing
far away behind the East, the wind that will be carrying his death-cry to
your ears.”
The girl shuddered. The brave spirit in her, however, did not quail.
“Well, so be it. To each his fate. But, seal or no seal, I am going to
wed Mànus MacCodrum, who is a man as good as any here, and a true man
at that, and the man I love, and that will be my man, God willing, the
praise be His!”
Again Gloom took up the _feadan_, and sent a few cold white notes
floating through the hot room, breaking suddenly into the wild fantastic
opening air of the Dàn-nan-Ròn.
With a low cry and passionate gesture Anne sprang forward, snatched the
oat-flute from his grasp, and would have thrown it in the fire. Marcus
held her in an iron grip, however.
“Don’t you be minding Gloom, Anne,” he said quietly, as he took the
_feadan_ from her hand, and handed it to his brother; “sure, he’s only
telling you in _his_ way what I am telling you in mine.”
She shook herself free, and moved to the other side of the table. On the
opposite wall hung the dirk which had belonged to old Achanna. This she
unfastened. Holding it in her right hand, she faced the three men.
“On the cross of the dirk I swear I will be the woman of Mànus MacCodrum.”
The brothers made no response. They looked at her fixedly.
“And by the cross of the dirk I swear that if any man come between me and
Mànus, this dirk will be for his remembering in a certain hour of the day
of the days.”
As she spoke, she looked meaningly at Gloom, whom she feared more than
Marcus or Sheumais.
“And by the cross of the dirk I swear that if evil come to Mànus, this
dirk will have another sheath, and that will be my milkless breast: and
by that token I now throw the old sheath in the fire.”
As she finished, she threw the sheath on to the burning peats.
Gloom quietly lifted it, brushed off the sparks of flame as though they
were dust, and put it in his pocket.
“And by the same token, Anne,” he said, “your oaths will come to nought.”
Rising, he made a sign to his brothers to follow. When they were outside
he told Sheumais to return, and to keep Anne within, by peace if
possible--by force if not. Briefly they discussed their plans, and then
separated. While Sheumais went back, Marcus and Gloom made their way to
the haven.
Their black figures were visible in the moonlight, but at first they were
not noticed by the men on board the _Luath_, for Mànus was singing.
When the isleman stopped abruptly, one of his companions asked him
jokingly if his song had brought a seal alongside, and bid him beware
lest it was a woman of the sea-people.
He gloomed morosely, but made no reply. When the others listened, they
heard the wild strain of the Dàn-nan-Ròn stealing through the moonshine.
Staring against the shore, they could discern the two brothers.
“What will be the meaning of that?” asked one of the men uneasily.
“When a man comes instead of a woman,” answered Mànus slowly, “the young
corbies are astir in the nest.”
So, it meant blood. Aulay MacNeill and Donull MacDonull put down their
gear, rose, and stood waiting for what Mànus would do.
“Ho, there!” he cried.
“Ho-ro!”
“What will you be wanting, Eilanmore?”
“We are wanting a word of you, Mànus MacCodrum. Will you come ashore?”
“If you want a word of me, you can come to me.”
“There is no boat here.”
“I’ll send the _bàta-beag_.”
When he had spoken, Mànus asked Donull, the younger of his mates, a lad
of seventeen, to row to the shore.
“And bring back no more than one man,” he added, “whether it be Eilanmore
himself or Gloom-mhic-Achanna.”
The rope of the small boat was unfastened, and Donull rowed it swiftly
through the moonshine. The passing of a cloud dusked the shore, but they
saw him throw a rope for the guiding of the boat alongside the ledge of
the landing-place; then the sudden darkening obscured the vision. Donull
must be talking, they thought; for two or three minutes elapsed without
sign: but at last the boat put off again, and with two figures only.
Doubtless the lad had had to argue against the coming of both Marcus and
Gloom.
This, in truth, was what Donull had done. But while he was speaking,
Marcus was staring fixedly beyond him.
“Who is it that is there?” he asked; “there, in the stern?”
“There is no one there.”
“I thought I saw the shadow of a man.”
“Then it was my shadow, Eilanmore.”
Achanna turned to his brother.
“I see a man’s death there in the boat.”
Gloom quailed for a moment, then laughed low.
“I see no death of a man sitting in the boat, Marcus; but if I did, I am
thinking it would dance to the air of the Dàn-nan-Ròn, which is more than
the wraith of you or me would do.”
“It is not a wraith I was seeing, but the death of a man.”
Gloom whispered, and his brother nodded sullenly. The next moment a
heavy muffler was round Donull’s mouth, and before he could resist, or
even guess what had happened, he was on his face on the shore, bound and
gagged. A minute later the oars were taken by Gloom, and the boat moved
swiftly out of the inner haven.
As it drew near through the gloom Mànus stared at it intently.
“That is not Donull that is rowing, Aulay!”
“No; it will be Gloom Achanna, I’m thinking.”
MacCodrum started. If so, that other figure at the stern was too big for
Donull. The cloud passed just as the boat came alongside. The rope was
made secure, and then Marcus and Gloom sprang on board.
“Where is Donull MacDonull?” demanded Mànus sharply.
Marcus made no reply, so Gloom answered for him.
“He has gone up to the house with a message to Anna-nic-Gilleasbuig.”
“And what will that message be?”
“That Mànus MacCodrum has sailed away from Eilanmore, and will not see
her again.”
MacCodrum laughed. It was a low, ugly laugh.
“Sure, Gloom Achanna, you should be taking that _feadan_ of yours
and playing the Codhail-nan-Pairtean, for I’m thinkin’ the crabs are
gathering about the rocks down below us, an’ laughing wi’ their claws.”
“Well, and that is a true thing,” Gloom replied, slowly and quietly.
“Yes, for sure I might, as you say, be playing the Meeting of the Crabs.
Perhaps,” he added, as by a sudden afterthought, “perhaps, though it is
a calm night, you will be hearing the _comh-thonn_. The ‘slapping of the
waves’ is a better thing to be hearing than the Meeting of the Crabs.”
“If I hear the _comh-thonn_, it is not in the way you will be meaning,
Gloom ’ic Achanna. ’Tis not the ‘up sail and goodbye’ they will be
saying, but ‘Home wi’ the Bride.’”
Here Marcus intervened.
“Let us be having no more words, Mànus MacCodrum. The girl Anne is not
for you. Gloom is to be her man. So get you hence. If you will be going
quiet, it is quiet we will be. If you have your feet on this thing, then
you will be having that too which I saw in the boat.”
“And what was it you saw in the boat, Achanna?”
“The death of a man.”
“So … And now” (this after a prolonged silence, wherein the four men
stood facing each other), “is it a blood-matter, if not of peace?”
“Ay. Go, if you are wise. If not, ’tis your own death you will be making.”
There was a flash as of summer lightning. A bluish flame seemed to leap
through the moonshine. Marcus reeled, with a gasping cry; then, leaning
back till his face blanched in the moonlight, his knees gave way. As he
fell, he turned half round. The long knife which Mànus had hurled at him
had not penetrated his breast more than two inches at most, but as he
fell on the deck it was driven into him up to the hilt.
In the blank silence that followed, the three men could hear a sound like
the ebb-tide in sea-weed. It was the gurgling of the bloody froth in the
lungs of the dead man.
The first to speak was his brother, and then only when thin
reddish-white foam-bubbles began to burst from the blue lips of Marcus.
“It is murder.”
He spoke low, but it was like the surf of breakers in the ears of those
who heard.
“You have said one part of a true word, Gloom Achanna. It is murder …
that you and he came here for.”
“The death of Marcus Achanna is on you, Mànus MacCodrum.”
“So be it, as between yourself and me, or between all of your blood and
me; though Aulay MacNeill as well as you can witness that, though in
self-defence I threw the knife at Achanna, it was his own doing that
drove it into him.”
“You can whisper that to the rope when it is round your neck.”
“And what will _you_ be doing now, Gloom-nic-Achanna?”
For the first time Gloom shifted uneasily. A swift glance revealed to him
the awkward fact that the boat trailed behind the _Luath_, so that he
could not leap into it; while if he turned to haul it close by the rope,
he was at the mercy of the two men.
“I will go in peace,” he said quietly.
“Ay,” was the answer, in an equally quiet tone: “in the white peace.”
Upon this menace of death the two men stood facing each other.
Achanna broke the silence at last.
“You’ll hear the Dàn-nan-Ròn the night before you die, Mànus MacCodrum:
and, lest you doubt it, you’ll hear it again in your death-hour.”
“_Ma tha sìn an Dàn_--if that be ordained.” Mànus spoke gravely. His very
quietude, however, boded ill. There was no hope of clemency. Gloom knew
that.
Suddenly he laughed scornfully. Then, pointing with his right hand as if
to someone behind his two adversaries, he cried out: “Put the death-hand
on them, Marcus! Give them the Grave!”
Both men sprang aside, the heart of each nigh upon bursting. The
death-touch of the newly slain is an awful thing to incur, for it means
that the wraith can transfer all its evil to the person touched.
The next moment there was a heavy splash. In a second Mànus realised that
it was no more than a ruse, and that Gloom had escaped. With feverish
haste he hauled in the small boat, leaped into it, and began at once to
row so as to intercept his enemy.
Achanna rose once, between him and the _Luath_. MacCodrum crossed the
oars in the thole-pins, and seized the boat-hook.
The swimmer kept straight for him. Suddenly he dived. In a flash, Mànus
realised that Gloom was going to rise under the boat, seize the keel, and
upset him, and thus probably be able to grip him from above. There was
time and no more to leap: and, indeed, scarce had he plunged into the sea
ere the boat swung right over, Achanna clambering over it the next moment.
At first Gloom could not see where his foe was. He crouched on the
upturned craft, and peered eagerly into the moonlit water. All at once a
black mass shot out of the shadow between him and the smack. This black
mass laughed: the same low, ugly laugh that had preceded the death of
Marcus.
He who was in turn the swimmer was now close. When a fathom away he
leaned back and began to tread water steadily. In his right hand he
grasped the boat-hook. The man in the boat knew that to stay where he was
meant certain death. He gathered himself together like a crouching cat.
Mànus kept treading the water slowly, but with the hook ready so that the
sharp iron spike at the end of it should transfix his foe if he came at
him with a leap. Now and again he laughed. Then in his low sweet voice,
but brokenly at times, between his deep breathings, he began to sing:
The tide was dark an’ heavy with the burden that it bore,
I heard it talkin’, whisperin’, upon the weedy shore:
Each wave that stirred the sea-weed was like a closing door,
’Tis closing doors they hear at last who hear no more, no more,
My Grief,
No more!
The tide was in the salt sea-weed, and like a knife it tore;
The wild sea-wind went moaning, sooing, moaning o’er and o’er;
The deep sea-heart was brooding deep upon its ancient lore,
I heard the sob, the sooing sob, the dying sob at its core,
My Grief,
Its core!
The white sea-waves were wan and grey, its ashy lips before,
The yeast within its ravening mouth was red with streaming gore--
O red sea-weed, O red sea-waves, O hollow baffled roar,
Since one thou hast, O dark, dim sea, why callest thou for more,
My Grief,
For more!
In the quiet moonlight the chant, with its long slow cadences, sung as
no other man in the Isles could sing it, sounded sweet and remote beyond
words to tell. The glittering shine was upon the water of the haven,
and moved in waving lines of fire along the stone ledges. Sometimes a
fish rose, and spilt a ripple of pale gold; or a sea-nettle swam to the
surface, and turned its blue or greenish globe of living jelly to the
moon dazzle.
The man in the water made a sudden stop in his treading, and listened
intently. Then once more the phosphorescent light gleamed about his
slow-moving shoulders. In a louder chanting voice came once again,
Each wave that stirs the sea-weed is like a closing door,
’Tis closing doors they hear at last who hear no more, no more,
My Grief,
No more!