II

The protection of God and of Columba,

Encompass your going and coming;

And about you be the milkmaid of the smooth white palms,

Bridget of the clustering hair, golden brown,

And about you be the milkmaid of the smooth white palms,

Bridget of the clustering hair, golden brown!

Turning aside, the shepherd searched here and there among the boulders

and split rocks which everywhere obtruded from the sea of heather. For a

time his quest was unrewarded; but just as he was about to relinquish it

he gave an abrupt exclamation. He had seen the _Torranan_, that rare

plant, of which he had often heard, but had never found: and, for sure,

he would never have sought it there, for it was said to be a plant of

the sea's lip--that is to say, of the shore, within reach of the

tide-breath.

Muttering over and over, "_Buainams' thu thorranain!_"--Let me pluck

thee, Torranan,--he gained the precious bloom at last, and then, holding

it before him, half spoke, half chanted this ancient incantation, known

in the isles as the "Eolas an Torranain," a spell of good service to

keep the cows from the harm of the evil eye, and also to increase their

milk:

"_Buainams' thu thoranain

Le'd uile bheannachd's le'd uile bhuaidh--_"

Let me pluck thee, Torranan!

With all thy blessedness and all thy virtue.

The nine blessings came with the nine parts,

By the virtue of the Torranan.

The hand of St. Bride with me.

I am now to pluck thee.

Let me pluck thee, Torranan!

With thine increase as to sea and land;

With the flowing tide that shall know no ebbing

By the assistance of the chaste St. Bride,

The holy St. Columba directing me,

Gentle Oran protecting me,

And St. Michael, of high-crested steeds,

Imparting virtue to the matter the while,

Darling plant of all virtue,

I am now plucking thee!

All the time the old man had been carefully disengaging the cream-white,

dome-shaped flower, he had crooned over and over:

"_Lamh Bhride leam,

Tha mi 'nis ga'd bhuain!_"

The hand of St. Bride with me

I am now to pluck thee!

So, too, now--now that he had the Torranan safe at last, he kept

repeating:

"_'Cuir buaidh anns an ni,

Tha mo lus lurach a nis air a bhuain!_"

Darling plant of all virtue,

I am now plucking thee!

But the line that was on his lips for long that day--even after he had

given the flower to Mary Maclean, with assurance that it was gathered

during the lift of the tide, was _Ri lionadh gun tra'adh_--"With the

flowing tide that shall know no ebbing." Over and over he said this

below his breath. _Ri lionadh gun tra'adh_; strange words these: what

was the hidden thing in them? What was the _lionadh_, the flowing tide:

was it life or death?

But now the rare bloom was found: he was glad of that. He doffed his

weather-worn bonnet, and placed the flower in the hollow of it: then,

calling Ghaoth from the already scattered kye, he turned and made his

way back to the clachan.

When he entered Mrs. Maclean's cottage, where his breakfast of porridge

was ready, he made and received the usual salutation of blessing: and

then sat down in silence.

The room was full of sunlight--so full that Mrs. Maclean had hung a

screen of bracken from an iron hook, so that it shielded the peat-fire

and let the life of the flame burn unchecked.

He did not look at Alastair; and, indeed, all the morning-blitheness had

gone out of the eyes of the old man. Not that any there noticed his

taciturnity. Mrs. Maclean moved softly to and fro. Alastair sat

broodingly in the leathern chair before the fire: Lora on a stool at his

feet, with her right hand clasped in his left and her eyes fixed on his

face. On the table the porridge was untouched, the new bread uncut, the

warm milk grown tepid.

With a sigh, Alastair rose at last. Crossing the room, he went to the

east window and stared forth unseeingly, or, at any rate, without sign

of any kind. Then, restlessly, he began to pace to and fro. Repressing

her tears, Lora seated herself at the table and tried to eat, hopeful

that she might thus induce him to do likewise. Mrs. Maclean followed her

example, but ate in silence. She had almost ended, when Lora saw that

she had abruptly laid down her spoon and was looking intently at Ian.

The old man now followed every motion of the invalid with a look as of

one fascinated. When, suddenly, Alastair turned, went to the door and

crossed the threshold, Ian rose and followed.

A few seconds later he came back, his withered face almost as white as

his hair.

Mrs. Maclean met him ere he could speak.

"Not a word before _her_" she whispered.

"Meet me at the byre: I shall be there in a minute or two."

But just then Lora rose and went out.

"Ian Maclean, what is it?"

"Mary, my kinswoman, he is not alone."

"Not alone?"

"I have seen _the other_"

She knew now what he meant. He had seen the shadow-self, the phantasm of

the living that, ere death, is often seen alongside the one who shall

soon die. Mrs. Maclean knew well that this shadowy second-self simulated

the real self, and that even all the actions of the body were reproduced

with a grotesque verisimilitude. But she was also aware how, sometimes,

one may learn from the mien of the phantasm what is hidden in the aspect

of the doomed.

"Last night," Ian went on in a dull voice, "I had the sight again. I saw

the mist of death as high about him as when a man is sunken in a

peat-bog up to the eyes."

"Well? I know you have more to say."

"Ay."

"Speak, Ian!"

With a long, indrawn breath, the old man resumed in a slow, reluctant

voice.

"When I came in, a little ago, I saw the sorrow there was on every face.

My vision, too, came back upon me, and I had trouble. I meant to eat and

go out quickly. But when Mr. Alastair began to move about, I saw that he

was not alone. I knew _the other_ at once. There could be no mistake. In

dress, in height, in face, in movement, they were the same. But there

was a difference."

Mrs. Maclean shuddered slightly, and her lips opened as though she were

about to speak. With a gesture, however, she signed to Ian to continue.

"Ay, there was a difference. I hoped against my eyes; but when I

followed him yonder I saw what I saw, and what killed my hope."

"Speak, speak, Ian!"

"In all things, the same but one, and that was in the eyes, in the

expression. Those of Mr. Alastair were dull and lightless, and brooding

low; those of _the other_ were large and wild, and stared in terror and

amaze; and on the face of the thing the Fear lay, and moved, and was

alive."

"O Ian, Ian, what does it mean?"

"It means this, Mary, daughter of Donnacha, what, sure, you know well:

that not only is the shadow of death near this house, but that upon

Alastair Mac Diarmid is the mind-dark that lay upon his father and upon

his father's father."

"The curse of Michael be upon this evil, Ian!"

"Even so, _Mhoire nighean Donnacha_."

"His father was the third of his race in succession, who, soon or late,

fell under that shadow. And we all know, sure we all know, that after

the third generation the veil is withdrawn. This thing is an evil dream

of yours, Ian Maclean!"

"It is an evil doing of _some one_," muttered the old man, with sombre

eyes.

"Perhaps"--

But before Mrs. Maclean could say what was in her mind, Alastair and

Lora entered.

With downcast eyes Ian passed out, giving a furtive, terrified look

behind him ere he closed the door.

* * * * *

It was through the old islesman that the rumour of Alastair Macleod's

madness went abroad.

Long before the stormy afternoon which followed the beautiful youth of

that day, with its ominous morning-red in the north-east, had waned to

gloaming, there was not a soul on Innisròn who did not know of the

sorrow.

Yet no one came near out of a cruel sympathy: no one spoke heedless

words either of question or solace to Mrs. Maclean; for none could be

said to the two most concerned, neither Alastair nor Lora having been

seen throughout the day.

Nevertheless, a deep resentment prevailed against one person upon the

island. Not only had the spring gone ill with the fishing, but the nets

had been torn and trailed in a way that suggested something beyond the

blind malice of wind and wave and the currents of the deep sea and the

savage dog-fish. Several cows had ceased to give milk; hens had ceased

to lay; and Gregor McGregor's white mare had dropped a dead foal, the

first time such a thing had happened on the isle. And now that,

unforeseen and in the heyday of youth and health, the worst of all

troubles had come upon Alastair Macleod, many recalled how his father,

Macleod of Dunvrechan, who had died on Innisròn, had not only once

denounced old Ealasaid MacAodh as a woman of the evil eye, but had

cursed her ere he died, and attributed his misery to a blight of her

working.

As one spake to another, the same thought came into each mind: that the

old widow who lived at Craig-Ruaidh, at the head of the Glen of the Dark

Water, had put her malice upon Alastair Mac Diarmid.

Some one, in a group by the ferry, reminded her hearers that, by a

mischance, every one on the isle save Widow MacAodh had been invited to

the feast in the little mission-house, when "_Lora nighean maighstir

Tormaid_" was wedded; and how it was well known that old Ealasaid had

been full of anger and pain at the slight, and had since scarce spoken

with any one save Mrs. Maclean, with whom no bitterness was ever long to

endure.

"Ay, ay, it's her doing--it's her doing," was muttered all round; "she

has put the spell of the evil eye upon him--foreigner that she is."

Many years had gone by since Duncan bàn MacAodh, a Hebridean, who had

settled in Innisròn, brought thither a wife out of remote St. Kilda.

Long since he had gone to his rest, and lay among the few dead under the

great runic cross at the extreme of Ardfeulan, on the west of the isle;

yet he was still "the man from Uist," as his widow was still the

"outlander."

"Ian," said Pòl Macdonald, one of the oldest of the fishermen, "you too

are said to have _the thing_ in you, though you always look through

both eyes, and with good will to man and beast. Let you, and two others

of us, go to-night to Widow Ealasaid's, do upon her and find out if she

is accursed:...and then...and then...."

No one spoke, though a veiled consenting glance went between Macdonald

and Ian and a young islesman, Ronald Macrae, who lived over by

Ardfeulan.

It was not a subject to discuss further in that hour of uncertainty. One

or two members of the group had already edged away, when Kathia

Macdonald suddenly drew attention to the appearance of the first three

of the returning herring-boats, anxiously expected for over an hour

past.

The brown-sailed wherries came in under the lee of the isle in a smother

of foam. Already a snarling north-easter was racing over the sea, still

smelling of the ling and bracken it had flattened as it tore over the

summits of the mainland hills.

The water was of a shifting emerald near the haven; of a dark

bottle-green beyond; and, out in the open, black, fretted and torn with

staring white splashes and a myriad-leaping surge.

The race of the sea-horses had begun, and no one on Innisròn was at

ease till the last boat had come safely round from Ardgheal, the point

whence on the yestereve Lora had so eagerly watched for the coming of

her husband.

A fiery sunset disclosed the immense and swirling procession of clouds

high over the isle--cloud not only racing after cloud, but often leaping

one upon the other as flying sheep in panic. Toward the east, the

vapours were larger and darker: the cohorts more densely massed. Above

the mainland stretched one vast unbroken phalanx of purple-livid gloom,

out of the incessant and spasmodically convulsive travail in whose

depths swept monstrous cloudbirths.

As the night fell, there was audible beyond the hills the noise of a

baffled thunderstorm--a tempest which had been caught among the

mountains, and could no more lift itself over the summits than a

screaming and wrestling eagle could tear itself from a stag in whose

hide its talons had become irremovably gripped.

Above the peaks and along the flank of the mass of livid gloom, spears

of lightning were swung against the wind; and with splinter and flash,

there was a rain of whirled lances as against some unseen assault from

below.

The tumult soared, hurled downward, and fell upon Innisròn. The

isle-folk listened in the dark with awe. Roar and crash, and a

frightful, terrifying howling followed every blast, as of a volcano

belching forth avalanche after avalanche, and shaking to the valleys the

_débris_ of all the hills. Roar upon roar, crash upon crash, howl upon

howl: with the strident raucous scream of the wind, yelling a pæan of

triumph as it leaped before the javelins of the lightning and tore in

its ruinous might far out across the heaving, swaying, moaning sea.

It was a night for all who fare by or upon the deep waters to remember

with awe: for those whose lives, and kin, and gear had gone scatheless,

to recollect with thanksgiving: for those whose weal went with it, to

recall with bowed heads or wet eyes.

* * * * *

An hour or more after nightfall, three figures moved with the wind

across the isle: blurred shadows astir in the tempest-riven dark. Ronald

Macrae carried a lantern; but speedily laid it down by a cairn, for the

flame could not live.

He and Ian and Pòl were grimly silent, not only on the path through the

wind-swept heather, but when under shelter from a bight of hillside or

overhanging crag. The business that took them out in that tempest lay

heavy upon them.

If, out of her own mouth, or by sign or deed of her own, Ealasaid should

convict herself of the use of the evil eye, her doom would be fixed.

Even in the bitterness of superstition, however, the islesmen were not

bent upon the extreme penalty, the meed of those who deal in witchcraft.

The dwellers on Innisròn, as all who live among the outer isles in

general, are too near the loneliness of life and death to be wanton in

the taking away of that which is so great in the eyes of man and so

small in the eyes of God.

The worst they intended was to make Ealasaid bring her own doom upon

her: then, on the morrow, her sheiling would be burned to the ground and

the ashes scattered to the four quarters, while she herself would be

exiled from the island under ban of cross, mystic word, and the ancient

Celtic anathema.

So wild was the wind and dark the way, that a full hour passed before

they reached the Glen of the Dark Water, and heard the savage ramping

and charging of the endless squadrons of the waves against the

promontory of Ardfeulan.

As they drew near the little cottage, a lonely dwelling on the brae

which sloped to the glen, they saw that the occupant had not yet gone

to bed, for a red gleam of light stole comfortingly across the forlorn

dark.

With a significant touch on the shoulder of each of his companions, Ian

led them to within a yard or two of the window.

"Hush," he whispered, in a momentary lull; "make no noise as we look in.

She might hear, and blast us with her evil eye. Perhaps she is even now

talking with some warlock or fiend."

Trembling, the three men huddled under the wall. At last, slowly, and

with hearts wildly a-throb, they raised themselves and looked within.

The room was bare in its clean poverty. On the rickety wooden table was

a bowl with a little unfinished porridge in it. A yard away was an open

Gaelic Bible, with a pair of horn spectacles laid across the open page.

At a spinning stool between the table and the peat-fire was an old

woman, kneeling, with her hands clasped and her face upraised. On the

poor, tired, worn features was a look of pathetic yearning, straining

from a white and beautiful peace.

So rapt was she that she did not see a hand move the outer latch of the

window, or feel the sudden breath of the night-air.

Then those without, waiting to hearken to sorcery more appalling than

the savagery of the tempest, heard old Ealasaid repeat this prayer:

"_Tha 'n la nis air falbh ùainn,

Tha 'n oidhche 'tighinn orm dlùth;

'S ni mise luidhe gu dion

Fo dhubhar sgiath mo rùin.

O gach cunnart 's o gach bàs,

'S o gach nàmhaid th' aig Mac Dhe,

O nàdur dhaoine borba,

'S o choirbteachd mo nàduir fèin,

Gabhaidh mis' a nis armachd Dhe,

Gun bhi reubta no brisd',

'Sge b' oil leis an t' sàtan 's le phàirt

Bi'dh mis' air mo gheàrd a nis._"

The day is now gone;

Dark night gathers around,

And I will lay me safely down (to sleep)

Under the shadow of my Beloved One's wing.

Against all dangers, and death in every form,

Against each enemy of God's good Son,

Against the anger of the turbulent people,

And against the corruption of my own nature,

I will take unto me the armour of God--

That shall protect me from all assaults:

And in spite of Satan and all his following,

I shall be well and surely guarded.

When, after an interval of speechless prayer, the lonely old woman rose

painfully to her feet, she noticed the open window, and heard the sough

of the wind without.

With a tired sigh, she crossed the room to close the inside latch. But,

at the window, she stood irresolute, held by the noise of the sea

beating against the clamour of the wind. She stooped, and peered forth.

Not a thing was visible. Suddenly a broad wavering gleam of

sheet-lightning lit up the whole brae. Almost, she fancied, she could

have sworn she saw three human figures, with bowed heads, moving across

the brow of the slope.

She could not know that three men, stricken with shame and

remorse--remorse which would ere long bloom into the white flower of

repentance, to be worn lovingly by all on the isle--were stealing

homeward from a vain and wicked errand.

With a shudder, she crossed herself, fearing that the figures she had

imagined, or had really seen, were the three dreadful Accursed who drove

the spear into Christ's side and the nails into His hands and feet, and

with mocking offered Him the bitter sponge.

Slowly repeating:

"_O gach cunnart 's o gach bàs,

'S o gach nàmhaid th' aig Mac Dhe,_"

she quenched with charred peat the flame of her fire, and was soon in a

child-like rest "under the shadow of the wing of her Beloved One."

* * * * *

When midnight came upon the isle, the worst violence of the storm was

over. Nevertheless, upon the sea was the awfulness of desolation, the

rumour of a terrible wrath.

All slept at last: the innocent Ealasaid, the foolish seekers of evil,

the isle-folk one and all--except two.

Alastair and Lora lay in each others' arms as children terrified in the

dark.

That afternoon his madness had come upon him for a while; and he had

smiled grimly at he knew not what, and laughed while the tears streamed

from the eyes of Lora and Mary; and moaned betimes; and cried out

against the calling of the sea; and closed his ears against the

frightful wailing of a kelpie in the tarn beyond the byre; and, at the

last, shook as in an ague before the fire, fearful of some informulate

terror, but with such a crown of sorrow on his forehead that the two

women bowed their faces in their hands, speechless with grief: with such

a horror in his eyes that Ghaoth shrank from him with bristling fell and

upcurled, snarling lip.

But with the night came yet another merciful lifting of the veil.

While the storm raged at its worst, the three kneeled, and Mrs. Maclean

read from the beautiful Gaelic Scripture. Then, with all the tenderness

of her childless passion of maternity, she prayed for God's balm and

peace and the healing of His hand.

When, in time, she went to her own room, Alastair and Lora talked for

long in a low voice.

On the day he had first heard that the seed of life had taken root in

her womb, and knew that a child was to be born of their great love, he

had known a thrill of such rapture that he could scarce see Lora for the

blinding of the tears of joy.

Beautiful she was to all: to him, lovely and tender as twilight and dear

beyond words: but at that moment, when he learned from her own lips of

her only half explicable trouble, he knew he had passed into a Holy of

Holies of love and reverent passion such as he had but vaguely dreamed

of as possible.

But now, on this wild night of storm without and more awful dread

within, he recalled with horror what had been driven from his mind.

Bitter as was the doom he and Lora had to face, tenfold bitter was it

made by the thought that they were to bring into the world yet another

soul shrouded in the shadow of his own intolerable ill.

And so it was that, at the last, Alastair and Lora Macleod, knowing his

madness was at hand and could be cured of no man, and that their lives

were spilled out as lees from a cup, and that they were witlessly

dooming the unborn child to a heritage of grief, gave solemn troth to

each other that on the morrow they would go forth hand in hand, and,

together in death as in life, lay themselves beneath that ever-wandering

yet ever-returning wave which beats day and night, and week by week, and

year by year, and without end for ever, about the sea-gathered graveyard

on the remote west of Innisròn.

Then was a great peace theirs. For the last time they laid themselves

down on their bed: for the last time twined their arms around each

other, while on the same pillow their heads lay side by side, the hair

about his forehead wet with her falling tears: for the last time they

kept vigil through the terror of the dark--an awful terror now, with the

wrath of the sea without, with the shadow of Death within the room, with

the blackness of oblivion creeping, creeping from chamber to chamber in

the darkened house of a dulled, subsiding brain.

Ere dawn, Alastair slept. Lora lay awake, trembling, longing for the

day, yet praying God to withhold it; sick with baffled hope, with the

ache of weariness, with the sound of the moan and hollow boom of the

sea. More deep and terrible in her ears grew that midnight Voice,

reverberant in the room as in the whorl of a shell: a dreadful iterance

of menace, a dirge that confusedly she seemed to know well, a swelling

chant, a requiem.