In the year that followed the death of Manus MacCodrum, James Achanna
saw nothing of his brother Gloom. He might have thought himself
alone in the world, of all his people, but for a letter that came to
him out of the west. True, he had never accepted the common opinion
that his brothers had both been drowned on that night when Anne
Gillespie left Eilanmore with Manus.
In the first place, he had nothing of that inner conviction
concerning the fate of Gloom which he had concerning that of Marcus;
in the next, had he not heard the sound of the _feadan_, which no one
that he knew played except Gloom; and, for further token, was not the
tune that which he hated above all others--the "Dance of the
Dead"--for who but Gloom would be playing that, he hating it so, and
the hour being late, and no one else on Eilanmore? It was no sure
thing that the dead had not come back; but the more he thought of it
the more Achanna believed that his sixth brother was still alive. Of
this, however, he said nothing to any one.
It was as a man set free that, at last, after long waiting and
patient trouble with the disposal of all that was left of the Achanna
heritage, he left the island. It was a gray memory for him. The
bleak moorland of it, the blight that had lain so long and so often
upon the crops, the rains that had swept the isle for gray days and
gray weeks and gray months, the sobbing of the sea by day and its
dark moan by night, its dim relinquishing sigh in the calm of dreary
ebbs, its hollow, baffling roar when the storm-shadow swept up out of
the sea--one and all oppressed him, even in memory. He had never
loved the island, even when it lay green and fragrant in the green
and white seas under white and blue skies, fresh and sweet as an Eden
of the sea.
He had ever been lonely and weary, tired of the mysterious shadow
that lay upon his folk, caring little for any of his brothers except
the eldest--long since mysteriously gone out of the ken of man--and
almost hating Gloom, who had ever borne him a grudge because of his
beauty, and because of his likeness to and reverent heed for Alison.
Moreover, ever since he had come to love Katreen Macarthur, the
daughter of Donald Macarthur who lived in Sleat of Skye, he had been
eager to live near her; the more eager as he knew that Gloom loved
the girl also, and wished for success not only for his own sake, but
so as to put a slight upon his younger brother.
So, when at last he left the island, he sailed southward gladly. He
was leaving Eilanmore; he was bound to a new home in Skye, and
perhaps he was going to his long-delayed, long dreamed-of happiness.
True, Katreen was not pledged to him; he did not even know for sure
if she loved him. He thought, hoped, dreamed, almost believed that
she did; but then there was her cousin Ian, who had long wooed her,
and to whom old Donald Macarthur had given his blessing.
Nevertheless, his heart would have been lighter than it had been for
long, but for two things. First, there was the letter. Some weeks
earlier he had received it, not recognizing the writing, because of
the few letters he had ever seen, and, moreover, as it was in a
feigned hand. With difficulty he had deciphered the manuscript,
plain printed though it was. It ran thus:
"Well, Sheumais, my brother, it is wondering if I am dead, you will
be. Maybe ay, and maybe no. But I send you this writing to let you
see that I know all you do and think of. So you are going to leave
Eilanmore without an Achanna upon it? And you will be going to Sleat
in Skye? Well, let me be telling you this thing. _Do not go_. I
see blood there. And there is this, too: neither you nor any man
shall take Katreen away from me. _You_ know that; and Ian Macarthur
knows it; and Katreen knows it; and that holds whether I am alive or
dead. I say to you: do not go. It will be better for you, and for
all. Ian Macarthur is away in the north-sea with the whaler-captain
who came to us at Eilanmore, and will not be back for three months
yet. It will be better for him not to come back. But if he comes
back he will have to reckon with the man who says that Katreen
Macarthur is his. I would rather not have two men to speak to, and
one my brother. It does not matter to you where I am. I want no
money just now. But put aside my portion for me. Have it ready for
me against the day I call for it. I will not be patient that day; so
have it ready for me. In the place that I am I am content. You will
be saying: why is my brother away in a remote place (I will say this
to you: that it is not further north than St. Kilda nor further south
than the Mull of Cantyrel), and for what reason? That is between me
and silence. But perhaps you think of Anne sometimes. Do you know
that she lies under the green grass? And of Manus MacCodrum? They
say that he swam out into the sea and was drowned; and they whisper
of the seal-blood, though the minister is wrath with them for that.
He calls it a madness. Well, I was there at that madness, and I
played to it on my _feadan_. And now, Sheumais, can you be thinking
of what the tune was that I played?
"Your brother, who waits his own day,
"GLOOM.
"Do not be forgetting this thing: _I would rather not be playing the
'Damhsa-na-Mairbh.'_ It was an ill hour for Manus when he heard the
'Dan-nan-Ron'; it was the song of his soul, that; and yours is the
'Davsa-na-Mairv.'"
This letter was ever in his mind: this, and what happened in the
gloaming when he sailed away for Skye in the herring-smack of two men
who lived at Armadale in Sleat. For, as the boat moved slowly out of
the haven, one of the men asked him if he was sure that no one was
left upon the island; for he thought he had seen a figure on the
rocks, waving a black scarf. Achanna shook his head; but just then
his companion cried that at that moment he had seen the same thing.
So the smack was put about, and when she was moving slowly through
the haven again, Achanna sculled ashore in the little coggly punt.
In vain he searched here and there, calling loudly again and again.
Both men could hardly have been mistaken, he thought. If there were
no human creature on the island, and if their eyes had not played
them false, who could it be? The wraith of Marcus, mayhap; or might
it be the old man himself (his father), risen to bid farewell to his
youngest son, or to warn him?
It was no use to wait longer, so, looking often behind him, he made
his way to the boat again, and rowed slowly out toward the smack.
_Jerk--jerk--jerk_ across the water came, low but only too loud for
him, the opening motif of the "Damhsa-na-Mairbh." A horror came upon
him, and he drove the boat through the water so that the sea splashed
over the bows. When he came on deck he cried in a hoarse voice to
the man next him to put up the helm, and let the smack swing to the
wind.
"There is no one there, Callum Campbell," he whispered.
"And who is it that will be making that strange music?"
"What music?"
"Sure it has stopped now, but I heard it clear, and so did Anndra
MacEwan. It was like the sound of a reed pipe, and the tune was an
eery one at that."
"It was the Dance of the Dead."
"And who will be playing that?" asked the man, with fear in his eyes.
"No living man."
"No living man?"
"No. I'm thinking it will be one of my brothers who was drowned
here, and by the same token that it is Gloom, for he played upon the
_feadan_. But if not, then--then--"
The two men waited in breathless silence, each trembling with
superstitious fear; but at last the elder made a sign to Achanna to
finish.
"Then--it will be the Kelpie."
"Is there--is there one of the--cave-women here?"
"It is said; and you know of old that the Kelpie sings or plays a
strange tune to wile seamen to their death."
At that moment the fantastic, jerking music came loud and clear
across the bay. There was a horrible suggestion in it, as if dead
bodies were moving along the ground with long jerks, and crying and
laughing wild. It was enough; the men, Campbell and MacEwan, would
not now have waited longer if Achanna had offered them all he had in
the world. Nor were they, or he, out of their panic haste till the
smack stood well out at sea, and not a sound could be heard from
Eilanmore.
They stood watching, silent. Out of the dusky mass that lay in the
seaward way to the north came a red gleam. It was like an eye
staring after them with blood-red glances.
"What is that, Achanna?" asked one of the men at last.
"It looks as though a fire had been lighted in the house up in the
island. The door and the window must be open. The fire must be fed
with wood, for no peats would give that flame; and there were none
lighted when I left. To my knowing, there was no wood for burning
except the wood of the shelves and the bed."
"And who would be doing that?"
"I know of that no more than you do, Callum Campbell."
No more was said, and it was a relief to all when the last glimmer of
the light was absorbed in the darkness.
At the end of the voyage Campbell and MacEwan were well pleased to be
quit of their companion; not so much because he was moody and
distraught as because they feared that a spell was upon him--a fate
in the working of which they might become involved. It needed no vow
of the one to the other for them to come to the conclusion that they
would never land on Eilanmore, or, if need be, only in broad
daylight, and never alone.
The days went well for James Achanna, where he made his home at
Ranza-beag, on Ranza Water in the Sleat of Skye. The farm was small
but good, and he hoped that with help and care he would soon have the
place as good a farm as there was in all Skye.
Donald Macarthur did not let him see much of Katreen, but the old man
was no longer opposed to him. Sheumais must wait till Ian Macarthur
came back again, which might be any day now. For sure, James Achanna
of Ranza-beag was a very different person from the youngest of the
Achanna-folk, who held by on lonely Eilanmore; moreover, the old man
could not but think with pleasure that it would be well to see
Katreen able to walk over the whole land of Ranza, from the cairn at
the north of his own Ranza-Mòr to the burn at the south of
Ranza-beag, and know it for her own.
But Achanna was ready to wait. Even before he had the secret word of
Katreen he knew from her beautiful dark eyes that she loved him. As
the weeks went by they managed to meet often, and at last Katreen
told him that she loved him too, and would have none but him; but
that they must wait till Ian came back, because of the pledge given
to him by her father. They were days of joy for him. Through many a
hot noontide hour, through many a gloaming he went as one in a dream.
Whenever he saw a birch swaying in the wind, or a wave leaping upon
Loch Liath, that was near his home, or passed a bush covered with
wild roses, or saw the moonbeams lying white on the boles of the
pines, he thought of Katreen--his fawn for grace, and so lithe and
tall, with sunbrown face and wavy, dark mass of hair, and shadowy
eyes and rowan-red lips. It is said that there is a god clothed in
shadow who goes to and fro among the human kind, putting silence
between lovers with his waving hands, and breathing a chill out of
his cold breath, and leaving a gulf of deep water flowing between
them because of the passing of his feet. That shadow never came
their way. Their love grew as a flower fed by rains and warmed by
sunlight.
When midsummer came, and there was no sign of Ian Macarthur, it was
already too late. Katreen had been won.
During the summer months it was the custom for Katreen and two of the
farm-girls to go up Maol-Ranza, to reside at the shealing of
Cnoc-an-Fhraoch: and this because of the hill-pasture for the sheep.
Cnoc-an-Fhraoch is a round, boulder-studded hill covered with
heather, which has a precipitous corrie on each side, and in front
slopes down to Lochan Fraoch, a lochlet surrounded by dark woods.
Behind the hill, or great hillock rather, lay the shealing. At each
week-end Katreen went down to Ranza-Mòr, and on every Monday morning
at sunrise returned to her heather-girt eyry. It was on one of these
visits that she endured a cruel shock. Her father told her that she
must marry some one else than Sheumais Achanna. He had heard words
about him which made a union impossible, and indeed, he hoped that
the man would leave Ranza-beag. In the end he admitted that what he
had heard was to the effect that Achanna was under a doom of some
kind, that he was involved in a blood feud; and, moreover, that he
was fey. The old man would not be explicit as to the person from
whom his information came, but hinted that he was a stranger of rank,
probably a laird of the isles. Besides this, there was word of Ian
Macarthur. He was at Thurso, in the far north, and would be in Skye
before long, and he--her father--had written to him that he might wed
Katreen as soon as was practicable.
"Do you see that lintie yonder, father?" was her response to this.
"Ay, lass, and what about the birdeen?"
"Well, when she mates with a hawk, so will I be mating with Ian
Macarthur, but not till then."
With that she turned and left the house, and went back to
Cnoc-an-Fhraoch. On the way she met Achanna.
It was that night that for the first time he swam across Lochan
Fraoch to meet Katreen.
The quickest way to reach the shealing was to row across the lochlet,
and then ascend by a sheep-path that wound through the hazel copses
at the base of the hill. Fully half an hour was thus saved, because
of the steepness of the precipitous corries to right and left. A
boat was kept for this purpose, but it was fastened to a
shore-boulder by a padlocked iron chain, the key of which was kept by
Donald Macarthur. Latterly he had refused to let this key out of his
possession. For one thing, no doubt, he believed he could thus
restrain Achanna from visiting his daughter. The young man could not
approach the shealing from either side without being seen.
But that night, soon after the moon was whitening slow in the dark,
Katreen stole down to the hazel copse and awaited the coming of her
lover. The lochan was visible from almost any point on
Cnoc-an-Fhraoch, as well as from the south side. To cross it in a
boat unseen, if any watcher were near, would be impossible, nor could
even a swimmer hope to escape notice unless in the gloom of night or,
mayhap, in the dusk. When, however, she saw, half-way across the
water, a spray of green branches slowly moving athwart the surface,
she knew that Sheumais was keeping his tryst. If, perchance, any one
else saw, he or she would never guess that those derelict rowan
branches shrouded Sheumais Achanna.
It was not till the estray had drifted close to the ledge, where, hid
among the bracken and the hazel undergrowth, she awaited him, that
Katreen descried the face of her lover, as with one hand he parted
the green sprays, and stared longingly and lovingly at the figure he
could just discern in the dim, fragrant obscurity.
And as it was this night so was it many of the nights that followed.
Katreen spent the days as in a dream. Not even the news of her
cousin Ian's return disturbed her much.
One day the inevitable meeting came. She was at Ranza-Mòr, and when
a shadow came into the dairy where she was standing she looked up,
and saw Ian before her. She thought he appeared taller and stronger
than ever, though still not so tall as Sheumais, who would appear
slim beside the Herculean Skye man. But as she looked at his close
curling black hair and thick bull-neck and the sullen eyes in his
dark wind-red face, she wondered that she had ever tolerated him at
all.
He broke the ice at once.
"Tell me, Katreen, are you glad to see me back again?"
"I am glad that you are home once more safe and sound."
"And will you make it my home for me by coming to live with me, as
I've asked you again and again?"
"No: as I've told you again and again."
He gloomed at her angrily for a few moments before he resumed.
"I will be asking you this one thing, Katreen, daughter of my
father's brother: do you love that man Achanna who lives at
Ranza-beag?"
"You may ask the wind why it is from the east or the west, but it
won't tell you. You're not the wind's master."
"If you think I will let this man take you away from me, you are
thinking a foolish thing."
"And you saying a foolisher."
"Ay?"
"Ay, sure. What could you do, Ian Mhic Ian? At the worst, you could
do no more than kill James Achanna. What then? I too would die.
You can not separate us. I would not marry you, now, though you were
the last man in the world and I the last woman."
"You're a fool, Katreen Macarthur. Your father has promised you to
me, and I tell you this: if you love Achanna you'll save his life
only by letting him go away from here. I promise you he will not be
here long."
"Ay, you promise _me_; but you will not say that thing to James
Achanna's face. You are a coward."
With a muttered oath the man turned on his heel.
"Let him beware o' me, and you, too, Katreen-mo-nighean-donn. I
swear it by my mother's grave and by St. Martin's Cross that you will
be mine by hook or by crook."
The girl smiled scornfully. Slowly she lifted a milk-pail.
"It would be a pity to waste the good milk, Ian-gorach, but if you
don't go it is I that will be emptying the pail on you, and then you
will be as white without as your heart is within."
"So you call me witless, do you? _Ian-gorach_! Well, we shall be
seeing as to that. And as for the milk, there will be more than milk
spilt because of _you_, Katreen-donn."
From that day, though neither Sheumais nor Katreen knew of it, a
watch was set upon Achanna.
It could not be long before their secret was discovered, and it was
with a savage joy overmastering his sullen rage that Ian Macarthur
knew himself the discoverer, and conceived his double vengeance. He
dreamed, gloatingly, on both the black thoughts that roamed like
ravenous beasts through the solitudes of his heart. But he did not
dream that another man was filled with hate because of Katreen's
lover, another man who had sworn to make her his own, the man who,
disguised, was known in Armadale as Donald McLean, and in the north
isles would have been hailed as Gloom Achanna.
There had been steady rain for three days, with a cold, raw wind. On
the fourth the sun shone, and set in peace. An evening of quiet
beauty followed, warm, fragrant, dusky from the absence of moon or
star, though the thin veils of mist promised to disperse as the night
grew.
There were two men that eve in the undergrowth on the south side of
the lochlet. Sheumais had come earlier than his wont. Impatient for
the dusk, he could scarce await the waning of the afterglow; surely,
he thought, he might venture. Suddenly his ears caught the sound of
cautious footsteps. Could it be old Donald, perhaps with some
inkling of the way in which his daughter saw her lover in despite of
all; or, mayhap, might it be Ian Macarthur, tracking him as a hunter
stalking a stag by the water-pools? He crouched, and waited. In a
few minutes he saw Ian carefully picking his way. The man stooped as
he descried the green branches; smiled as, with a low rustling, he
raised them from the ground.
Meanwhile yet another man watched and waited, though on the further
side of the lochan, where the hazel copses were. Gloom Achanna half
hoped, half feared the approach of Katreen. It would be sweet to see
her again, sweet to slay her lover before her eyes, brother to him
though he was. But, there was the chance that she might descry him,
and, whether recognizingly or not, warn the swimmer.
So it was that he had come there before sundown, and now lay crouched
among the bracken underneath a projecting mossy ledge close upon the
water, where it could scarce be that she or any should see him.
As the gloaming deepened a great stillness reigned. There was no
breath of wind. A scarce audible sigh prevailed among the spires of
the heather. The churring of a night-jar throbbed through the
darkness. Somewhere a corncrake called its monotonous crek-craik;
the dull, harsh sound emphasizing the utter stillness. The pinging
of the gnats hovering over and among the sedges made an incessant
murmur through the warm, sultry air.
There was a splash once as of a fish. Then, silence. Then a lower
but more continuous splash, or rather wash of water. A slow susurrus
rustled through the dark.
Where he lay among the fern Gloom Achanna slowly raised his head,
stared through the shadows and listened intently. If Katreen were
waiting there she was not near.
Noiselessly he slid into the water. When he rose it was under a
clump of green branches. These he had cut and secured three hours
before. With his left hand he swam slowly, or kept his equipoise in
the water; with his right he guided the heavy rowan bough. In his
mouth were two objects, one long and thin and dark, the other with an
occasional glitter as of a dead fish.
His motion was scarcely perceptible. None the less he was near the
middle of the loch almost as soon as another clump of green branches.
Doubtless the swimmer beneath it was confident that he was now safe
from observation.
The two clumps of green branches drew nearer. The smaller seemed a
mere estray, a spray blown down by the recent gale. But all at once
the larger clump jerked awkwardly and stopped. Simultaneously a
strange, low strain of music came from the other.
The strain ceased. The two clumps of green branches remained
motionless. Slowly, at last, the larger moved forward. It was too
dark for the swimmer to see if any one lay hid behind the smaller.
When he reached it he thrust aside the leaves.
It was as though a great salmon leaped. There was a splash, and a
narrow, dark body shot through the gloom. At the end of it something
gleamed. Then suddenly there was a savage struggle. The inanimate
green branches tore this way and that, and surged and swirled.
Gasping cries came from the leaves. Again and again the gleaming
thing leaped. At the third leap an awful scream shrilled through the
silence. The echo of it wailed thrice, with horrible distinctness,
in the corrie beyond Cnoc-an-Fhraoch. Then, after a faint splashing,
there was silence once more. One clump of green branches drifted
slowly up the lochlet. The other moved steadily toward the place
whence, a brief while before, it had stirred.
Only one thing lived in the heart of Gloom Achanna--the joy of his
exultation. He had killed his brother Sheumais. He had always hated
him because of his beauty; of late he had hated him because he had
stood between him, Gloom, and Katreen Macarthur--because he had
become her lover. They were all dead now except himself, all the
Achannas. He was "Achanna." When the day came that he would go back
to Galloway, there would be a magpie on the first birk, and a
screaming jay on the first rowan, and a croaking raven on the first
fir; ay, he would be their suffering, though they knew nothing of him
meanwhile! He would be Achanna of Achanna again. Let those who
would stand in his way beware. As for Katreen: perhaps he would take
her there, perhaps not. He smiled.
These thoughts were the wandering fires in his brain while he slowly
swam shoreward under the floating green branches, and as he
disengaged himself from them and crawled upward through the bracken.
It was at this moment that a third man entered the water from the
further shore.
Prepared as he was to come suddenly upon Katreen, Gloom was startled
when, in a place of dense shadow, a hand touched his shoulder, and
her voice whispered:
"Sheumais, Sheumais!"
The next moment she was in his arms. He could feel her heart beating
against his side.
"What was it, Sheumais? What was that awful cry?" she whispered.
For answer he put his lips to hers, and kissed her again and again.
The girl drew back. Some vague instinct warned her.
"What is it, Sheumais? Why don't you speak?"
He drew her close again.
"Pulse of my heart, it is I who love you, I who love you best of all;
it is I, Gloom Achanna!"
With a cry she struck him full in the face. He staggered, and in
that moment she freed herself.
"You _coward_!"
"Katreen, I--"
"Come no nearer. If you do, it will be the death of you!"
"The death o' me! Ah, bonnie fool that you are, and is it you that
will be the death o' me?"
"Ay, Gloom Achanna, for I have but to scream and Sheumais will be
here, an' he would kill you like a dog if he knew you did me harm."
"Ah, but if there were no Sheumais, or any man to come between me an'
my will!"
"Then there would be a woman! Ay, if you overbore me I would
strangle you with my hair, or fix my teeth in your false throat!"
"I was not for knowing you were such a wild-cat; but I'll tame you
yet, my lass! Aha, wild-cat!" And as he spoke he laughed low.
"It is a true word, Gloom of the black heart. I am a wild-cat, and,
like a wild-cat, I am not to be seized by a fox; and that you will be
finding to your cost, by the holy St. Bridget! But now, off with
you, brother of my man!"
"Your man--ha! ha!"
"Why do you laugh?"
"Sure, I am laughing at a warm, white lass like yourself having a
dead man as your lover!"
"A--dead--man?"
No answer came. The girl shook with a new fear. Slowly she drew
closer, till her breath fell warm against the face of the other. He
spoke at last:
"Ay, a dead man."
"It is a lie."
"Where would you be that you were not hearing his good-by? I'm
thinking it was loud enough!"
"It is a lie--it is a lie!"
"No, it is no lie. Sheumais is cold enough now. He's low among the
weeds by now. Ay, by now: down there in the lochan."
"_What_--you, _you devil_! Is it for killing your own brother you
would be?"
"I killed no one. He died his own way. Maybe the cramp took him.
Maybe--maybe a kelpie gripped him. I watched. I saw him beneath the
green branches. He was dead before he died. I saw it in the white
face o' him. Then he sank. He's dead. Sheumais is dead. Look
here, girl, I've always loved you. I swore the oath upon you.
You're mine. Sure, you're mine now, Katreen! It is loving you I am!
It will be a south wind for you from this day, muirnean mochree! See
here, I'll show you how I--"
"Back--back--_murderer_!"
"Be stopping that foolishness now, Katreen Macarthur! By the Book, I
am tired of it. I am loving you, and it's having you for mine I am!
And if you won't come to me like the dove to its mate, I'll come to
you like the hawk to the dove!"
With a spring he was upon her. In vain she strove to beat him back.
His arms held her as a stoat grips a rabbit.
He pulled her head back, and kissed her throat till the strangulating
breath sobbed against his ear. With a last despairing effort she
screamed the name of the dead man: "_Sheumais! Sheumais!
Sheumais!_" The man who struggled with her laughed.
"Ay, call away! The herrin' will be coming through the bracken as
soon as Sheumais comes to your call! Ah, it is mine you are now,
Katreen! He's dead and cold--an' you'd best have a living man--an'--"
She fell back, her balance lost in the sudden releasing. What did it
mean? Gloom still stood there, but as one frozen. Through the
darkness she saw, at last, that a hand gripped his shoulder; behind
him a black mass vaguely obtruded.
For some moments there was absolute silence. Then a hoarse voice
came out of the dark:
"You will be knowing now who it is, Gloom Achanna!"
The voice was that of Sheumais, who lay dead in the lochan. The
murderer shook as in a palsy. With a great effort, slowly he turned
his head. He saw a white splatch, the face of the corpse; in this
white splatch flamed two burning eyes, the eyes of the soul of the
brother whom he had slain.
He reeled, staggered as a blind man, and, free now of that awful
clasp, swayed to and fro as one drunken.
Slowly Sheumais raised an arm and pointed downward through the wood
toward the lochan. Still pointing, he moved swiftly forward.
With a cry like a beast, Gloom Achanna swung to one side, stumbled,
rose, and leaped into the darkness.
For some minutes Sheumais and Katreen stood, silent, apart, listening
to the crashing sound of his flight--the race of the murderer against
the pursuing shadow of the Grave.