THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS (continued 3)

It was Nial who broke the silence.

"What of Alan?"

"The curse is upon him too—to the Stones be it said!"

"He will be far up on the north side of Tornideon ... or with Sorcha on Iolair."

"The woman must have fled. Or ... ah, for sure, that thought was never coming to me. Nial, my man, you never thought o' that, did you? You never thought that perhaps there were two bodies down there in the pool! Ay, for sure, for sure: Màm-Gorm was not the man to die alone!"

"Perhaps ... Murdo, perhaps it was ... perhaps it was ... he who...."

The words failed. The gaunt shepherd looked down at the speaker, frowning darkly.

"May be, may be," he muttered at last. "If I thought that, I would be letting him lie in his own house. Nial, see that no word o' this gets upon your lips if you meet anyone. No one must think that. No one in the Strath must think an evil thing o' Màm-Gorm."

Once more Murdo left, and made a diligent search everywhere. When he came back, he was muttering constantly, with a wild look in his eyes.

"Did you hear that?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

"That? What? I heard nothing."

"Did ye not hear some one in the shadow ayont the byre crying, Cian! Cian! Cianalas! Dubhachas!"15

"No, no," murmured Nial, trembling; "I saw the shadow of a bird on the grassy place yonder, and a cry like the binn fheadag."

"Ay, the feadag, the feadag, but no flying bird, for 'twas a wraith playing the dark song of the dead on the shadowy feadag that no man has ever seen, though there be those who hear it ... God save us!"

Nial shuddered. It might be so, he thought. He believed he had seen a plover only, had heard no more than the wailing cry of a plover; but doubtless Murdo knew.

The shepherd stood staring at him gloomily. At last he spoke:

"This is a dark thing, Nial, my man. There is no light upon it to me whatever. But it will be looking to me as though I should go down to the Pool again, and be seeing if she is there too. And if not, then I must seek out Alan upon the hill. Do you think this thing too?"

Nial shook his head despondently; he could think neither one way nor another. Màm-Gorm lay there dead—white, stiff, staring up to the sun. He knew that.

"Ah, poor fool that you are," Murdo went on, pityingly, and as though talking to himself; "sure, I need not be asking you. How can a soulless thing o' the woods think? wi' a head like an addled egg, and a poor bit body withouten a spirit in it, as all decent folk have. Well, well, 'tis Himself has the good reason, praise be His! And now, Nial, I will be doing this thing. I told you the Book lay open on the table in there. Well, I will be for going by whatever the word is that is on my sight when I first look. If it tell me to go into Inverglas, and speak of this evil day, then it is going there I will be; if it tell me to go and seek in the Pool, well, I will be going there; and whatever I see, it will be the way for me. If I am to speak, it is speaking I will be; if I am to be silent, it is silent I will be."

And with that the shepherd turned, moved slowly away, and entered the cottage for the third time.

Where would he look? he wondered, when he stood by the table and stared down upon the open Gaelic Bible. Sure, he would accept the sign in the sentence across which Anabal's spectacles lay.

He stooped, and with pointing finger read slowly and with difficulty, word by word:

"Cuir, a Thighearna, faire air mo bheul; gléidh dorus mo bhilean!"

"Set, O Lord, a watch before my mouth; keep the door of my lips!"

"That will be enough," he muttered with bated breath, and went out. As he approached the horse, Nial saw that he had found the "wisdom." Vaguely he wondered if Murdo had noticed any "living words"—mysterious phrase that ever perplexed, and sometimes terrified him.

"Nial, I have found the word. It is not for me to go into the Strath with news of the dead. The Book said, "Keep a watch before the mouth, keep the door of the lips." You understand...? Ay, sure: poor, faithful creature that loved Màm-Gorm; ay, an' that Màm-Gorm, too, loved as much as Donn or Fior or any o' the dogs, wise beasties.... Well, I will be going now, down to the Pool: then, one way or the other, I will be looking for Alan Gilchrist. An' it is for you to wait here, Nial, lest he, or any other, come. We'll put the mare and ... and ... Màm-Gorm ... into the byre just now. And you wait, you will be minding!"

In silence Raoilt, with her rigid burden, was led into the hot gloom of the byre. Then the door was partially closed, for there was no fastening to it, and Murdo made ready to go.

"Leave me one o' the dogs," said Nial sullenly.

"And for why?"

"I will not be staying here alone, in this treeless, foreign place, Murdo MacMurdo: no, that I won't, unless you will be leaving me one of the dogs."

The shepherd grunted surlily, for the collies were his best friends, and good company. But if so to be, then so to be. He would take Braon and leave Luath. It was safer, at such a time, to be alone with a dog than a bitch; for bitches were known often to be in league with demons and evil spirits. As for Nial, not being human himself, there would be less risk. Now that he noticed it, there was a red glare in Luath's eyes, and the bitch moved about in a strange way. For sure he would take Braon.

The time went wearily for the watcher at Ardoch-beag. The sweltering heat made him long doubly for the green forest that was his home. He did not dare enter that lonely house. Who or what might be sitting there, or standing looking at him from the inner room? Neither could he venture into the byre, though, but for her awful burden, he would rather have the company of the mare Raoilt than of the bitch Luath.

For a long while he sat in the shadow of a dyke that was the south side of the winter sheepfold. But he grew more and more uneasy as time passed. What if Murdo did not come back till after nightfall?

He rose and stared about him. Where was Luath? He could not see the collie anywhere. He had noticed her trotting idly up the steep bend of the road beyond the cottage.

"Ah, there she is," he muttered, as he saw a shadow flit bluely across the blinding way. But what was the matter with the beast? She came along at a swift, slinking run, her tail skiffing the ground between her feet. As she passed, she gave him a furtive glance. The upper lip, taut, just showed a glimmer of white fangs.

"Luath! Luath! Luath!"

But the collie would pay no heed; or, rather, she paid this heed, that she broke into a race, and flew down the road to the Ford till she was no more than a black blur beyond a whirling eddy of dust.

This was the last straw. Nial gave one look more all around him. Then he listened at the byre, to hear if Raoilt were munching at her hay. What if Màm-Gorm should get tired of being dead, and should dismount, and, rigid and white, step out into the sunlight! The thought made him shiver, for all the blazing heat.

Silently as his shadow, he was out upon the road. Suddenly the whim took him to go the other way rather than by the path he and the others had come. Below Cnoc-Ruadh the road dipped for a bit; and there was a sheep-path from it that would lead him down to the ford of Ath-na-chaorach, whence he would soon be in Iolair forest again.

But no Ford of the Sheep did Nial see that day.

For after he had reached the summit of the road at that part, to the westward of Ardoch-beag, he saw a sight that brought the heart suffocatingly to his mouth. It was this, then, that had made Luath slink swiftly away, with curled lip and bristling fell?

There, as though carven in stone, sat the woman Anabal, rigid and motionless as the thing that was in the byre. She was on the extreme verge of Cnoc-Ruadh, where a double ledge runs out from the great boulder which overhangs the Strath, and whence for nigh upon a score of miles the eye can follow the course of Mairg Water.

At the far end a heat-haze obscured mountain-flank and bracken-slope, and birk-shaw—all save the extreme summits of the hills, purple-grey shadows against the gleaming sky. Nearer, in the north strath, the smoke of many cots, sheilings, and bothan rose in their perpendicular or spiral columns of pale blue mist.

From where Nial stood he could see her face. It was as wan and awful as that of the dead man in the byre, but he saw that the eyes lived. The woman sat dumb, blind, oblivious of the flaming heat, her gaze fixed, unwavering. Fire burned in them, a fire that would never be quenched till the day of the grave.

He could not tell whether she was alive or dead, whether a woman or a wraith. But he noted the long, tangled locks of hair which hung over her shoulder, brown hair streaked with grey, like the tress that the dead man still clutched in his right hand.

It was a thing to flee from. One desire only possessed him now, to reach the safe green quietudes of the pine-forest once more. There all was familiar; there he could evade man or wraith.

And so he, too, left that solitude where, once again, Torcall and Anabal were nigh one to another, and not knowing it.

How could he know—none but God knew—that in the woman's ears was the roar of the Linn forever? that the laughter of a kelpie wrought her ever to an excruciating terror? Dumb, motionless, staring unwaveringly: so was she at the flame-red setting, as she had been since the first blaze had lightened along the peaks of the east.

X

It was within an hour of nightfall when, from the verge of the forest below Màm-Gorm, Nial caught sight of the kye coming down from the hill-pastures. He could not see Sorcha, but he knew she must be there; probably with Alan, who for days past had been wont to depute his own shepherding on Tornideon to a herd-laddie who lived with an old drover just beyond the Pass of the Eagles.

Nial had already been up at the farm. Oona lay where he had left her, and was still in the same profound and, but for her low breathing, deathlike slumber. Thence he had wandered back to the forest, thinking that he would descend toward the Linn o' Mairg, and see if Murdo were still there in his quest for Anabal. He had scarce entered the pine-glades when, happening to glance backward, he saw the cows coming home.

Sure enough, in a few minutes Sorcha appeared: and, as he had surmised, Alan with her. They walked together, his arm about her waist, while slowly they followed the leisurely kye. As they came nearer, Nial heard Sorcha singing one of her many milking songs. Often he had heard her sing that which now came rippling down the heather, and he could have given her word for word for it.

Nial hesitated. He would have gone to her at once, but he did not wish to speak before Alan. Moreover, what was he to say to Angus Óg, as Anabal's son was called by the strath folk on account of his beauty and because he was a dreamer and a poet, though but a shepherd of the hills? How could he tell of Murdo's quest by the pool, and also of the spirit or wraith he had seen sitting on Cnoc-Ruadh that is beyond Ardoch-beag on Tornideon?

The flanks of the cows gleamed in the light as with filled udders they swung slowly homeward, their breaths showing in whorls of mist whenever they were in shadow, where the dews were already falling after the extreme of heat. Behind them, now on a sloping buttress of rock and heather, now on the smooth thymy hollows which lay like green pools among the purple ling, Alan and Sorcha moved, both bathed in the sunglow, his left hand clasping her right and swinging slow. Ah, fair to see, thought Nial: fair to see!

But, even while he pondered, he saw Alan take Sorcha in his arms, kiss her, and then, with lingering hand-clasp, turn to go up the mountain again, or, as might be, to cross to Tornideon. Not far did he go, though: for, as Nial watched, he saw Sorcha's lover lean against a great boulder, where he stood like a fair god, because of the sunflood falling upon him in gold waves out of the west. Beautiful the rolling of that sea of light across the sloping surface of the forest: with the yellow-shining billows flowing and rippling among the summits of the pines, and ever and again spilling into branchy crevices or dark green underglooms.

Doubtless Alan was waiting to see her reach Màm-Gorm, and perhaps for a signal thereafter: if so, thought Nial, he had best see Sorcha at once, though he knew not the way of the thing to be said, or if he could speak at all while Oona slept.

Slowly he moved toward her. She had descried him, for she did not follow the cows, but stood, waiting. The gloaming was already about her. She was like a spirit, he thought, with the windy hair about her face—for with the going of the sun a sudden eddy had arisen, and the air of its furtive, wavering pinions was upon Sorcha.

"Nial!" she cried blithely, when he was a brief way off, "is the peat-smoke a bird, that it has flown away from the house—for not a breath of smoke do I see? Is father in? and Oona? Have you seen her? I've called thrice, but St. Bridget herself wouldn't be having an answer from Oona if she's hiding somewhere. Oona! ... Oona! ... Oona!"

"Don't be calling upon the child, Sorcha. She is tired, and is sleeping."

"And father?"

Then in his heart of hearts Nial knew that he had not the courage to say what he had to say. Sure, too, there was something he did not understand. After all, the woman he had seen on Cnoc-Ruadh could be no other than Anabal Gilchrist. And if she could be drowned and yet come alive again, perhaps Torcall Cameron could—ay, was perhaps already up and, blind as he was, feeling blankly round the walls of the strange place he was in, to be out soon, and, later, in the dark, come striding into Màm-Gorm.

"And father, Nial, and father? Is he in, or is he out upon the hill, with the gloom upon him this night again?"

"It will be a strange thing that I am telling you, Sorcha-nighean-Thorcall, but one that will be glad and warm in your heart."

"Speak."

"There is ... there is peace now between Màm-Gorm and the woman Anabal, that is mother of Alan."

"Peace!—oh, Nial! To Himself the praise of it! Oh, glad I am at the good thing that you say! Sure, glad am I!"

"It is true. Ay, and he has gone over to Tornideon, and will sleep this night at Ardoch-beag."

Sorcha stared bewildered. Even her joy at the news, which meant so much for her and Alan, was forgotten in sheer amaze. Her father go to Tornideon! her father asleep at Ardoch-beag!

Words of his came to her remembrance: she, too, muttered, "My soul swims in mist."

"Nial, is this—a true thing?..."

"Ay."

"Is it—is it—a true thing that he is up at Ardoch-beag, and will sleep there ... and ... and ... is at peace?"

"Ay, sure, he is up at Ardoch-beag, and will sleep there, and sure, too, sure, he is at peace."

A wonderful light came into the girl's beautiful eyes. Her twilight beauty was now as a starry dusk.

"Nial," she whispered, "dear Nial, you and Murdo see to the milking of the kye for me this night ... do, dear good Nial, do! And you can ask Oona, too, to help you ... for ... for, Nial, all is well now ... and I can go to Alan ... oh, glad am I, and like as though a bird sang in my heart!"

And then, before he realised what he had brought upon himself, before he could say a word of yea or nay, Sorcha had turned, and with swift steps was hurrying through the gloaming to where Alan still stood on the hillside, watching and dreaming, dreaming and hoping.

Nial stood gazing after her. Strange, this mystery of beauty! All his trouble waned out of the glare of day into a cool twilight. The passing of her there on the hill was like music in his ears. Ah, to be Alan, to have so tall and strong a body, so fair a face, to have Sorcha's love, to have a soul! The fairer soul the fairer body—that seemed to him a truth; for what had he to go by but the three he knew best and loved best: Oona and Sorcha and Alan, the fairest man, the most beautiful woman, the loveliest child he had ever seen or dreamed of there in Strath Iolair, or during those mysterious wanderings of his when he was far from the mountain-land with the gipsy-people? No beauty like theirs, no others like them in any way; sure, it was because the souls of them were white, and all three kindred of the forgotten "people of the sun," whom Sorcha sometimes sang or spoke of as the Tuatha-de-Dánan, and Màm-Gorm had told him once were old, forgotten gods—fair, deathless folk!

In truth it was with joy that Sorcha hastened toward Alan. He saw the light in her eyes before she was near enough to speak. Often, beholding her, he was aware of something within him that was as a sun-dazzle to the eye that looks upon a shining sea or a cloudless noon. Sometimes his heart beat low, and an awe made a hushed, fragrant, green-gloom dusk in his brain; sometimes he grew faint, strangely wrought, as a worshipper when the spirit for a brief moment unveils its sanctuary and irradiates, transforms the whole trembling body, but most the face and the eyes of wonder. At other times all the poet in him arose. Then he laughed low with joy because of her beauty; and saw in her the loveliness of the mountain-land. Then it was that she was his "Dream," his "Twilight," his "Shining star," his "Soft breath of dusk." Dear she was to him as the fawn to the hind, sweet as the bell-heather to the wild bee, lovely and sweet and dear beyond all words to say, all thought to image. Then there were their blithe hours of youth—hours when he was Alan-aluinn and she Sorcha-maiseach; seasons of laughing happiness and light ripple of the waters of peace. Children of the sun they were in truth, in a deeper sense than they, as all the kindred of the Gael, were children of the mist.

But of late both—and he particularly—had been wrought more and more by the passion of love. Ever since the refusal of the minister at Inverglas to marry them, because of the feud between Torcall Cameron and Anabal Gilchrist, and of the ban laid by each against the offspring of the other, they had troubled themselves no more about what, after all, to them, in their remote life in these mountain solitudes, meant little. In the dewy, moth-haunted, fragrant nights of May, when it was never quite dark upon the hills, and even in the forest the pine-boles loomed shadowy, they had become dearer than ever to each other. Day by day thereafter their joy had grown, like a flower moving ever to the sun; and as it grew, the roots deepened, and the tendrils met and intertwined round the two hearts, till at last they were drawn together and became one, as two moving rays of light will converge into one beam, or the song of two singers blend and become as the song of one. As the weeks passed, the wonder of the dream became at times a brooding passion, at times almost an ecstasy. Ossian and the poets of old speak of a strange frenzy that came upon the brave; and, sure, there is a mircath16 in love now and again in the world, in the green, remote places at least. Aodh the islander, and Ian-bàn of the hills, and other dreamer-poets know of it—the mirdhei, the passion that is deeper than passion, the dream that is beyond the dreamer, the ecstasy that is the rapture of the soul, with the body nigh forgot.

This mirdhei was now more and more upon Alan; upon Sorcha, too, the dream-spell lay.

So it was in a glad silence that he watched her coming. For the moment she was not Sorcha, but a Bándia-nan-slèibhtean, a goddess of the hills, fair as the Banrigh-nan-Aillsean, the fairy queen. Often, singing or telling her some of the songs of Oisìn mhic Fhionn, he had called her his Darthula, after that fairest of women in the days of old, because she too had deep eyes of beauty and wonder. Therefore the word came out of his heart, like the single mating-note of a mavis, when, as she drew nigh to him and whispered low, "Alan! Alan!" he murmured only "Darthula ... Darthula-mochree!"

In a few words she told him the marvellous news: Torcall and Anabal at peace; her father now at Ardoch-beag!

At first he too could scarce believe it. Then, little by little, the smaller wonder waned, and the wonder of his love—the wonder of Sorcha grew.

Hand in hand they wandered slowly up the mountain as in a dream. A strange new joy had come to them. The world fell further away, far beneath them. Even the Strath became a shadowy place—a foreign strand where their voyaging boats need never coast.

When the moon rose, first through a tremulous flood of amber-yellow light, thence to emerge as a pale-gold flower, low in the Lios-nan-speur, the "garden of the starry heavens," the mountain lovers were already far up Ben Iolair, and nigh the great Sgòrr-Glan, the precipice that on the eastern flank falls sheer from the Druim-nan-Damh, the Ridge of the Stags, for close upon two thousand feet. Here in a sheltered place known as the Bad-a-sgailich ann choire-na-gaoithe, "the shading clump of trees in the windy corrie," was the sheiling of Murdo the shepherd, which for weeks past had been used by Alan rather than his own hill-sheiling high on Tornideon, where the east wind blew with a fierce breath, and the hill-slope was barren, and there was no Sorcha.

They could hear the wind among the heights, but the moon-wave was everywhere with quiet light, and there was peace.

For a while they stood at the door of the cot. The moonshine touched them with a beam of pale gold—a finger out of heaven. Silent and still it was: no sound but the furtive crying of the wind among the invisible corries and peaks, with a flute-like call among the serrated pinnacles of the Ridge of the Stags. At intervals, as a vagrant breath, came the sigh of the hill-torrents as they fell toward the Srùantsrhà, the wild stream that foams from the lochan of Mairg beyond the Pass of the Eagles, and surges hoarse and dark, even in the summer droughts, at the base of the great precipice of Sgòrr-Glan.

Hand in hand they stood, silence between them. Their eyes dreamed into the moonlit dusk. In the mind of Alan Sorcha moved as a vision; in the mind of Sorcha there were two shadowy figures of dream—Alan, and the child over whose faint breath of life in her womb her heart yearned as a brooding dove.

When Oona awoke she saw that it was dark. In the peat-glow she could descry the figure of Nial crouching in the shadow of the ingle, his gaze fixed upon her.

"What is it, Nial? what have you been doing?"

The dwarf saw that as yet she had not remembered. He feared for the child, though he knew not, what none knew, how the strange fatalism of the race was already strong within her, strong and compelling as hunger, thirst, or sleep.

"Oona, my fawn, you must have food. I am hungry too. You have not eaten since last night."

A startled look came into her eyes. He saw it, and hurriedly resumed:

"So, a little ago, I lit the peats, which had smouldered into ash; and now, bonnie wee doo, I will be making the porridge for you, and see ... the water is boiling that is in the kettle, and I'm thinking it is singing Oona, Oona, mochree, Oona, Oona, mochree, come and be having the food with poor Nial! And, Oona, look you, there is the warm milk, and the bread; for I milked the brown cow Aillsha-bàn, when Sorcha went up the hill with Alan. An' I couldn't be milking the white one, Gealcas, for she wouldn't give without Sorcha's singing, an' I could not be minding that song; no, not I; but I knew the song for Aillsha-bàn:

Poor Nial's singing was not restful, for his voice was at all times shrill and hoarse, and now it had an added quaver in it. But Oona listened, drowsily content.

She had remembered all. Yes: Sorcha was right that day when she said Death roamed through every hour, and that the moment before each new hour Death stood at the door and broke the link that held the going and the coming in one bond.

If her foster-father was dead, he was dead. The fact was absolute to her. Once she had seen a stag die. She had been up near the summit of Iolair, and was about to quench her thirst from a small black tarn, hid among the rocks, when she caught sight of a wounded deer. The hunter had maimed, not slain it: and though it had escaped, it was only to sink with weariness by the tarn, and lie there watching its blood trickle steadily into the crimsoned water, till there should be no more flow. As long as life remained in the stricken beast, Oona could not believe in the possibility of death. In its extremity it made no further effort when she drew close: only a gurgling sob showed its broken heart, and great tears fell from its violet eyes. Either instinct let the stag know that she would do it no harm, or it was too weak to resent a touch: but in the end the dying deer let Oona take its nozzle in her lap, while she smoothed the velvety skin and wiped away the blood and sweat. Even when, kissing it and calling it tender impossible names, she saw the veil come over the eyes, she could not admit that death could come then—there. But when there was not a quiver, and the rigid limbs were cold, her tears dried, and she looked at it meditatively. It was dead: what had she in common with it? A little ago, her heart throbbed with loving pity: now she glanced at the great beast curiously. Its strong odour was disagreeable: its bloodied mouth and breast disgusted her. There was no good in being sorry. It was dead.

In a different, but kindred way, her foster-father was the stricken deer. She had seen him almost to his death: she had seen the drowned body: almost she had died of her wild and passionate grief. Then she had slept through the noon-heats, and the afternoon, and the evening: and now she awoke to the no longer overwhelming but irrefutable fact, that her foster-father was dead.

She had meant well. Why did the woman Anabal not see to the blind man? But it did not matter. He was dead now: dead. God willed it so. It was to be. Not all the striving in the world could have prevented this. In wild winter nights, before the peats, she had heard Torcall himself chant the rune of Aodh the poet, with that haunting ending which Sorcha sang often to herself; that Alan had on his lips at times as always in his heart; and that even Murdo muttered when it was tempestuous weather, and Death was abroad, and the gloom of the rocks was heavy upon him. Ah, the words evaded her: but Nial would know, Nial who was the tuneless harp that caught all wandering strains, from sheiling-song to the way of the wind among leaves.

"Nial: what is the thing that Sorcha sings often ... and that ... that he sang sometimes, about the quiet at the end?"

Nial stared, puzzled for a moment: then he repeated in a low voice:

Over and over Oona murmured the words: "The end of all meeting, parting: the end of all striving, peace."

She was tired. She would think no more about her foster-father. He had seen God by now. He would know why she ran away from the Linn: and how the fear was upon her in the wood: and, afterward, how the sorrow of him pulled at her heart. And now....

How she wished Sorcha were home, to sing to her! Warm was the peat-glow, and she was tired. She closed her eyes again, murmuring drowsily the refrain of an old song.

Silence was in the dusky room again. Nial sat crouching by the fire: patient, as was his wont. There was not a sound within, save the low breathing of the child and the dull spurtle of the flame among the red fibres on the undersides of the peats. Outside there was a melancholy wail in the sough of the hill-wind.

The first hour of the dark passed. What was the night to bring forth? he wondered. Where was Murdo? what had he found?

Another hour passed. A weary sleep was on him. He dozed, woke, stared at the shadowy figure of Oona, dozed again. At last he too slumbered, the duain-samhach that is too calm for dreams, too deep for sorrow.

It was in the middle of the third hour that he stirred because of the howling of a dog.

Nial could do what was impossible even for Murdo the shepherd: he could tell in the dark, and by the sound only, which of the dogs barked. He knew now that the howling came neither from Donn nor Luath. It was not the coming of Murdo, then, for these were his two dogs, and that was not the howl of either. If they were near, their baying would be audible.

Yes, it was Fior. She must have left her pups, and be roaming round the sheiling. Why was she not in the barn? What had alarmed her?

If it were not because of Oona, he would go and quiet her. Tenderly he glanced toward the bed. He rose slowly, his heart beating.

In the flicker of the fire he saw the child sitting upright, her eyes wide open and staring fixedly.

She said no word. He feared to speak. Her unwavering gaze disconcerted him, though now he saw that it was not upon him. He would just whisper to her, he thought:

"Oona-mùirnean, Oona-uanachan, it is only Fior. She will be baying against the moon, because of the spell against her pups."

She paid no attention to him. He shivered as he saw that her eyes were now unnaturally bright: and that their gaze shifted, as though they followed one who moved about the room.

The child shivered, but seemed more in startled amaze than dread. There was more fear in Nial than with her, when he heard her speak.

"Why do you come here?"

Nial stared. There was no one visible.

"Is coma leam thu! I hate you, I hate you!" cried the child, with a passionate sob. "Go back to him! I left him with you! He is not here; he is dead ... he is dead ... he is dead!"

Trembling, the dwarf advanced a step or two.

"Oona! Oona! It is I, Nial! Speak to me!"

"Stand back, Nial: the woman Anabal, wife of Fergus, is speaking to me."

With a groan he staggered to one side. Was she here, then, and not still sitting on the great rock overlooking the Strath? Sure, then, a spirit must she be: and no wraith now, for his eyes were void of her.

But for all his dread, he must guard his lamb. If only he knew one of the spells in the Book, that he had placed at Oona's feet!

"And what will An—what will she be saying to you, my bird?"

"She says: 'Leanabh, dh' èirich dha; dh' èirich domh; eiridh dhuit!'"

Nial slowly repeated the words below his breath: "Child, it has happened to him; it has happened to me; it will happen to you." Oona must be ill, he thought; as Murdo was two winters ago, that time he came back from the Strath, on the last night of the year, lurching and swaying, and saying wild, meaningless things.

"And what else will she be saying to you, birdeen?"

"'Thig thu gu h'anamoch!'"

"'Thou shalt come later'; sure now, dear, there is no meaning in that! Oona, my bonnie, lie down; lie down, wee lassie, and sleep, and sleep!"

But even as he spoke, he saw a change in her face. It was like moonshine suddenly moving on dark water.

He caught fragmentary words ... suain ... sìth ... and then, with "sleep" and "peace" still on her lips, she lay back, smiling.

Slowly and soundlessly he approached the bed. In the intense stillness he heard his breath going like the slow, heavy beat of a heron's wing. Outside, the baying of the dog had suddenly ceased.

She was asleep, or nigh so. He stooped and kissed the yellow tangles that overspread the pillow.

Her lips moved.

What was the thing she whispered? He could not hear; ah, she was murmuring it again: "... anail ... breath of ... breath of a...."

"Hush-sh-sh, birdeen," he whispered low; then, seeing that her lips again muttered drowsily, he put his ear to them.

"And then ... she ... smiled ... and said: Do not ... fear! (a pause, a sigh) ... sacred is the ... breath ... the breath of ... a mother."

The child slept. He stole back to the ingle. There was peace now; even the wind, though it moaned and swelled more and more loudly, was as a soothing song.

And so the night passed; Nial sleeping fitfully, waking often, and ever when he woke pondering that last saying of the child, Is blàth anail na mathar.

XI

That night, any wayfarer going down Strath Iolair, between the Pass of the Eagles and Inverglas, must have been startled by a windy blaze of flame against the slope of Tornideon.

Since sundown the wind had increased in strength. The loud clarion-call could be heard unceasing on the hills. Through the Pass it came with long wail or dreary sough, then with a howl would swoop along Mairg Water, with a noise that washed away the roar of the Linn.

One man, at least, saw it. Under an arch of rock, in a space half filled with fragrant dry bracken, Murdo the shepherd watched.

Doggedness was at once Murdo's strength and weakness. He had been convinced that Anabal Gilchrist, guilty or innocent, had perished along with Torcall Cameron. He had come to the Linn, and till he found her he would wait. Moreover, had he not the word of the Scriptures for it, bidding him be silent? What need, then, for him to go about as an idle rumour? All would be known in time without his telling.

When at last the twilight came, he was still there. If he could not see the body of Anabal in Mairg Water—and he knew that, if there, it would soon or late be swirled out of the Linn or the Kelpie's Pool—he would wait till he saw her wraith.

There were many things—like certain stories told of the speed of great vessels at sea, and about what the electricity, out of which the lightning came, could be made to do—which he doubted, or at least discounted in the telling. But in the sure wisdom of his fathers he knew there was no rock of stumbling; therefore he was well aware that the wraith of the dead comes to and fro between its death-place and that darkness which is deeper than the mirk of the blackest night, on the night following its severance from the body. So, he would wait and see. If her wraith came from up the Strath or from down the hill, he would know that she had not died in the water. Wherever it came from, he would follow it.

He had seen too much, he muttered again and again to himself, with quaking heart: he had seen too much in hill-gloamings and drear mountain nights to have fear of the wraith of a poor widow-body, who lived no further away than over against Cnoc-Ruadh on Tornideon. The moaning and loud soughing of the wind tried him sore. But the night was cloudless, and the moon hung above Iolair, a beacon everywhere in the dark. Then, too, as the hours went, he grew warm and comfortable in his rocky lair; moreover, fresh text after text came into his mind. In multiplicity of these was safety; even were some of them no more than "And Chelub, the brother of Shunah, begat Mehir," or than that (to Murdo, blasphemously familiar) saying in Isaiah, "In that day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired"—though, sure, to his shepherd mind, there was comfortable word as of home, as well as sacred influence, in "And it shall come to pass in that day, that a man shall nourish a young cow, and two sheep."

He had been dozing when the first spurt of flame broke out upon Tornideon. A little later he roused with a start, and looked out upon the Pool. There was a gleam there, or somewhere; could it be the woman Anabal?

Then his gaze was drawn swift and steadfast, as iron to a magnet. He realised what and where the flames were. Ardoch-beag was on fire.

In a moment there flashed upon him the recollection of Màm-Gorm, on the white mare Raoilt, in the byre there.

With the thought came another, that he had been mad to believe Anabal was in the Pool at all. She must have discovered the body of Torcall, and set fire to the place—corpse, mare, and byre! There was not a moment to lose. Yet, perhaps it was Alan; well, even then, he muttered, he must go. But supposing ... but supposing ... that ... that Màm-Gorm himself....

Murdo did not know what to do. The dogs would help him, he thought. Crawling from his hiding-place, he whistled to Donn and Luath. Both collies had already crept from the fern, and were standing with stiffened tails and rigid bodies, intently watching the shooting, darting, leaping, ever-spreading flame on the hill opposite. Abruptly, Luath began to growl. Then Donn stole, whining, to the shepherd's feet.

"What ails the dogs?" he muttered, half angrily.

A few minutes later his keen eyes discerned the cause of their uneasiness. The full flood of the moonlight was upon the flank of Tornideon, and it was now possible to see along the whole path from Ardoch-beag to the Ford, "glan mar a ghrian," as he said to himself—clear as in the sunlight.

And this was the thing that Murdo the shepherd saw, to be with him to his death-day, and to be for ever in Strath Iolair a legend of terror.

Down the steep descent that began to fall away a few yards beyond Ardoch-beag, he saw a tall, gaunt woman, with rent garments and long, loosened hair fluttering in the wind, striding down the hillway, often with wild gestures. And before the woman trampled and snorted a horse, mad with the fear of the flame, and knowing, too, it may be, the awful burden of death it bore, now swung crosswise upon its back. As a mad horse will do, it pranced in a strange, stiff, fantastic way: wild to leap forward and race like the wind from what lay behind, from what jerked and jolted above; yet constrained as by another than human force.

Ever and again, in a momentary lull of the wind, Murdo could hear its shrill, appalling neighing. Once, too, he shrank, because of the screaming laughter of the woman.

Furlong by furlong he watched this ghastly march of the dead and dying. Were it not for the flames at Ardoch-beag, where both house and byre were now caught in a swirling blaze, he would have believed the other to be no more than a vision.

With difficulty he silenced the dogs. He would stay where he was now, and see what was going to be done that night: for it was clear that Anabal, seemingly mad, and having set fire to Ardoch-beag, was now driving Raoilt and its corpse-burthen either down to Mairg Water, or with intent to cross and go up the mountain of Màm-Gorm.

This last, indeed, was evidently her aim: for, when at last the Ford was reached, Murdo could see her striving to make the affrighted mare enter the shallows. Raoilt, however, would not budge. With forelegs planted firmly, with head thrown up, quivering flanks, and long tail slashing this way and that, the white mare showed some strange horror of the swift-running ford-water. Suddenly she swung round, and with a grotesque prancing moved along the north bank toward the Linn.

They were now close to him. Murdo could see the bloodshot, gleaming eyeballs of Raoilt: the white set face and staring eyes of Anabal. Either the roar of the whirlpool, or the sight of one of the collies slinking terrified through the fern, added a new terror to the mare. She swerved wildly. The burden she bore became still further unloosed. With scraping hoofs she pawed at a bank of heather, in a vain attempt to find solid footing. A plunge ... a fall backward ... a staggering recovery among the very rocks of the Linn ... and ... freedom at last!

But, for the second time since Murdo had last seen him in life, Torcall Cameron was hurled headlong into the Linn o' Mairg.

With a cry the shepherd sprang forward. Anabal heard, but did not see. All she knew was the roar of the linn, the wail of the kelpie, and that—that withering scream of the dead man.

For a moment she stood on the verge of the cataract. Her arms were upraised: her whole body moved with one unutterable supplication.

"Fergus! Fergus!"

The wild appeal rang through the night, above the turmoil of the falling water, the increasing moan and loud blasting vehemence of the wind.

Murdo did not see her leap or fall. His gaze had for a moment sought the mare, who, at that cry, had leaped as though stung by fire, and was careering at breakneck speed up the boulder-strewn bank by which she had come.

But when the shepherd looked again, Anabal Gilchrist was gone.

Throughout that night there was a wilder sound on the hillside than any wail of the wind. This was the screaming of the white horse, as, wrought now to a death-madness, it leaped waywardly through the dark, so passing from height to height upward along the whole mountainal flank of Iolair.

At dawn, in the sheiling high up on Druimnan-Damh, Sorcha awoke, trembling.

For a time she listened in awe to the majesty of the wind, a vast choric chant that filled the morning-twilight with an ocean of flowing sound. Then, again and again, she heard that strange, horrible scream.

Alan stirred. She whispered as she drew closer to him. He, too, listened. A great fear lay upon both. This screaming voice in the night was an omen of sorrow, of doom. Who could it be but the Bandruidh—that evil sorceress of the hills, dark daughter of the Haughty Father, who had already won the soul out of Nial?

Sleep was impossible. It was banished even from thought, when a wild neighing close to the walls of the cot made Sorcha cry out and cling to Alan as though death were already upon them.

They lay shuddering. Clearly this was one of the water-bulls or water-horses which roam the mountain-ways on nights of storm: dread demon-creatures, to see whom even is almost certain death.

"It will not be long till sunrise," Alan whispered; and by that Sorcha was comforted, for she knew that the ravening thing outside would have to haste back to loch or river or sea.

And by daybreak, in truth, the beast was already away. They heard the clamour of its hoofs against the granite stones and rock, as it sped upward still.

When, hand clasping hand, they ventured to go out, they could see no living thing, but an eagle soaring high above the extreme peak of Iolair: for the light of the new glorious day was in their eyes as they faced the Ridge of the Stags.

But suddenly Sorcha caught sight of something white leaping against the sunrise.

Alan's gaze followed her trembling arm and outstretched finger. He, too, saw, but unrecognisingly, a white horse, prancing and screaming along the verge of the granite precipice of Sgòrr-Glan.

The mad beast was now on the Sgòrr itself. Behind were deep corries and ravines: in front, nothing but the flaming disc of fire, nothing but that sheer blank wall of granite, straight from the brow of the Sgòrr to where the Srúantsrhà surged darkly its tortuous way, two thousand feet below.

A faint, impalpable mist was in the air. This, doubtless, it was that made the white horse loom larger and larger, till it stood out against the morning, vast as Liath-Macha, the untamable phantom steed, "grey to whiteness," that Cuculain the Hero rode triumphantly through the valley of the shadow of death.

Then it was as though it leaped against the sun itself.

XII

Week after week went by, changelessly fine, so that in the Strath men began to shake their heads ominously because of the long drought. In the memory of none had there been an autumn so lovely. For a brief spell, in mid August, coming indeed with the storm of wind which had helped the flames utterly to consume the few poor buildings of Anabal Gilchrist on Tornideon, great clouds had travelled inland from the Atlantic, and had burst floodingly upon hill and valley. But in less than a week the sky was clear again, and of a richer, deeper blue. The whole mountain-land was veiled in beauty.

The woods at the end of October were, other than the pine-forests, a blaze of glory. Few leaves had fallen, except from the limes and sycamores, and these sparsely only ... scarce enough to lay a pathway of flakes of yellow gold before the hinds and fawns that trooped through the sunlit glades. The innumerable rowan-trees wore fiery hues upon their feathery foliage: everywhere the scarlet berries suspended in blood-red clusters against the blue sky or the cool greenness.

The dream, the spell, was not only upon the beautiful green earth. It lay elsewhere than there, or in the deeps of heaven: elsewhere than on the quiet waters which slept against the shores beyond the mountains and slumbered immeasurably toward the ever-receding west, with a soft moaning only, wonderful and sweet to hear.

For it was upon the heart and in the brain of each of the mountaineers of Iolair: but most upon Sorcha and Alan.

For them the days had gone past, days of rapt happiness in that golden weather. Already the world had become to them no more than a dream. They went to and fro, hushed, upon the hills, each oblivious of all save the other, all save the ceaseless thrilling wonder of the pageant of the hours from dawn to moonset. That strange rapture which comes at times to isolated, visionary dreamers upon the hills, wrought a spell upon Alan. Scarce less was it upon Sorcha, and that less only, if at all, because of the second life that she sustained. The "mirdeeay" was a glamour in their eyes, in their mind, in their heart, from the hour of the waning star to the coming of night. Not all an evil thing is it to dream. The world well lost! Ah, shadowy-eyed dreamers that know the secret wisdom, it is well to dream!

None of the Strath-folk saw them now. The people murmured against them because of the tragic mystery of the deaths of Torcall Cameron and Anabal Gilchrist. Little had been learned from Murdo, and none now encountered Oona or Nial. But a dropped word, a reluctant admission, a careful evasion, from the shepherd, went far. Hints grew into a legend: soon a perverted yet not wholly misleading version of the facts became current.

On the same morning when, from the mountain-sheiling, they had seen the white mare, screaming in her madness, leap from the precipice of Sgòrr-Glan, as though full against the sun, Alan and Sorcha learned from Murdo what had happened. Below all the grief and horror of the double tragedy, there was one thing not to be gainsaid. The hand of God was here.

After their first passionate sorrow they whispered this thing the one to the other. It was ordained. God had wrought thus with the thread of all their lives. There was none to blame, neither Torcall, nor Anabal, nor the child Oona, unwitting instrument of the Divine will. Is duilich cuir an aghaidh dàn: Who can oppose Fate, who set himself against Destiny?

A strange thing, that had a terrifying significance for the Strath-dwellers, was this: never were the bodies of Torcall Cameron and Anabal Gilchrist found. The Linn was dragged, the Kelpie's Pool poled over and over, the lower reaches of Mairg Water were examined under every shelving bank, or wherever a sunken bole or submerged boulder might have caught the castaways. No trace was seen anywhere, then or later. Possibly it was true, what an old man of Inverglas averred, that there was a slope at the bottom of the Kelpie's Pool, which ran in beneath a shelving ledge, whence the water poured down a funnel-like passage into a cavern filled with stalactites, through the innumerable holes and crannies at the base of which the flow vanished even as it came.

He had this knowledge, he said, from his father before him, who in the great drought of the first year of the century had seen the Pool shrunken so that a man might stand in it and yet not be wet above the knees. "And the word of my father will not be for doubting," the old crofter added: "for he lived with God before him till he died, and now was with his own folk in Flaitheanas itself, praising Himself for evermore."

Thereafter, as was but natural, the home upon Tornideon being no more, Alan and Sorcha lived at Màm-Gorm. There was none to dispute their possession, for Torcall Cameron was without blood-kin, and all that was his was Sorcha's.

So week after week went by. Even in the Strath the people said: "It was willed." There was no man nor woman among them, even of those who were angry with Sorcha that she was not wedded before the minister—forgetful, always, that it was the minister who had refused to wed Alan and Sorcha, because of the feud between Torcall and Anabal (and, though none had inkling of it, because of the sin he knew of that lay between them, the sin that lived and moved and had its being in the person of the child Oona)—and still more who were angry with her because she came never among them, but was as one lost to the world, and she too with the second life in her, when she ought to be seeing and talking to older womenfolk—there was none among these who, in his or her heart of hearts, did not recognise that it is ever an idle thing for small wings to baffle against a great wind. It was to be: it would be. That was the unspoken refrain of all thoughts: the undertone of all comments.

The tragic end of Anabal Gilchrist, the doom that had fulfilled itself for Torcall Cameron: what was either but apiece with the passing of the ancient language, though none wished it to go; with the exile of the sons, though they would fain live and die where their fathers wooed their mothers; with the coming of strangers, and strange ways, and a new bewildering death-cold spirit, that had no respect for the green graves, and jeered at ancient things and the wisdom of old—strangers whom none had sought, none wished, and whose coming meant the going of even the few hillfolk who prospered in the màchar, the fertile meadows and pastures along the mountain bases? It was to be: it would be.

Among the old there was exceeding bitterness. An angry and a brooding pain frowned in many hearts. But, alas, what good to meet the inevitable with wailing? What had to be, surely would be. Old wifeless men, old childless women, took comfort in that bitter-sweet saying of the Psalmist: "is iad ìobairtean Dhé spiorad briste"—"the sacrifice of God is a broken spirit."

But, with the harvesting, the Strath-folk forgot for a while the very existence of the mountain-lovers.

Smitten with the strange rapt elation of their dream, Alan and Sorcha still went to and fro as though spellbound. Sometimes he herded the cows alone: as before, Sorcha milked the sweet-breath kine, singing low her songs of holy St. Bridget or old-world cadences rare and nigh-forgotten now as the Fonnsheen, the fairy melodies once wont to be heard on the hills and in remote places. But, though apart for a brief while, it was only to dream the more.

Yet, strange to say, Alan knew in his heart that this could not endure. It could not be for over long: God, soon or late, lays winter upon the heart, as well as upon the song of the bird, the bloom of the flower.

Nevertheless, he had no trouble because of this. There is, at times, in deep happiness, a gloom as of dark water filled with sunlight. While the glow is there, a living joy, the gloom is no more than the quiet sorrow of the world.

Often, of late, he had noticed upon the hillside, upon brier and bramble, fern-covert or dwarf-elder, that indescribable shadow of light, visible too at full noon in that golden weather as well as at the passing of the sun: that glow of omen, known of Celtic poets and seers in far-gone days. The first line of a fragmentary rune, come down from one of these singers, who walked nearer to nature than does any now among the sons of men, was upon his lips over and over, because of this thing:

Once only the gloom lay upon him, the gloom that is upon the mind as a dark cloud upon a field of grain. What if ill should have come to Sorcha?

He turned, and went swiftly home. The gloaming had fallen, and Sorcha was sitting before the flaming peats, with clasped hands and dreaming eyes. She was crooning, half breathing, half crooning, a song, low and sweet against his ear as the noise of a running brook heard in sleep as one fares by green pastures under a moon strange and new in a strange land. And the song was one he had not known, not since he was a child, and heard Morag, the wife of Kenneth, foster-brother of Fergus Gilchrist, sing it before, in a day of mourning, she brought forth her firstborn:

He had stood in the shadow, silent, listening with awe and a strange joy. His heart yearned to go to her, but he knew that a mother's first tears were in the dreaming eyes, and that it was not for him, nor any save God, to be seeing them.

So Alan turned, and went up through the dusk to the low green summit of Cnoc-na-shee, a brief way from the sheiling. And when he was there he looked and saw nothing in all the light-gloom sky but one star low in the south—Reul-na-dhuil, the star of hope. Peace was in his heart. He kneeled down and made a prayer for Sorcha, and the child she bore, and for him too. And when he rose, and went home, and looked back at green Cnoc-na-shee, he saw there for a moment a figure as of an angel, shining bright.

Night and day they were alone there. Murdo the shepherd was up at the high sheiling on Ben Iolair, and rarely came to Màm-Gorm save to help with the kye, or do what was needed about the steading. Oona, too, was seldom seen of them; and of late, even she had not always come at sunrise for the food Sorcha placed for her on the bench by the door each morning. As for Nial, he was for long seen of none, save Oona, and where and when that was no one knew.

As October waned, the day of the mountain lovers became more and more a life of joy. Hand in hand they would sit on the bench in the sun, happily content: or dream, hand clasping hand, before the glowing peats. It was in vain that Murdo, fearing "the quiet madness," reproached Alan, urging upon him that he should go down into Inverglas and see to the sale of the cattle and the sheep. The young man shook his head, smiled gently at the shepherd, and once at least murmured these ominous words: "There is a time for all things, and it is my time to be still. I have peace."

Sorcha, being heavy with child, could not now walk far, and indeed cared little to go beyond the door-bench, or, at farthest, to the green slope of the hillock of Cnoc-na-shee. Her beauty had not waned because of her trouble. Her eyes had grown more large and beautiful: wonderful stars of light to Alan always—stars that shone out of infinite depths, wherein his soul could sink till it reached that ninth wave of darkness which is the sea of light beating upon the coasts of heaven.

So, ever and again, glad with his joy and ungrievingly gloomed because of the shadow that day by day wove a closer veil about his spirit, he not grieving because not in himself knowing the mystery, he went out upon the hillside or into the forest. Often it was, then, that he heard the singing of Oona in the woods at sunrise and during the hot noons. Sometimes now, too, when late-wandering through the forest at gloaming, he saw afar off the still figure of Nial crouching by the tarn, or seated with bent head among the flags and rushes of the drought-dried pools. More than once, as he went home by the remoter glades, he heard the elf-man chanting wildly among the pines at night.

It was on one such evening that, returning with his mind strangely troubled because of the soulless man of the woods, and of his futile quest and the bitter wrong and pity of it, he was met by Murdo with startling news. Sorcha had had a vision; and, being wrought by it, had fallen into premature labour. But she was not alone. He, Murdo, had brought his foster-sister, Anna MacAnndra, back with him from the clachan by the Ford of the Sheep: for as he had gone down with some young ewes that noontide he had seen a look like death in Sorcha's face, so white and drawn was it with sudden pain. Anna, he added, was a leal friend and dear to Sorcha, so that all was well.

And that night, in truth, the child of their great love was born to them. A night it was of pain and joy, of agony and rapture. But when at last the long-waited dawn came—when, as the woman Anna said, there was no more need to fear, for the death-hour of woman in travail was well past—there was deep breathing of quiet happiness upon the sleeping mother, deep slumber of birth-weariness upon the child that lay against her breast, deep peace in the heart of Alan.

It was not till the eve of that day that Sorcha told him of her vision. She had been sitting in the sun upon Cnoc-na-shee, when she was amazed to see three people pass from the forest and make their way up the hill. Because of the noon-glare she could not discern who they were, though each seemed vaguely familiar. Dark in the glowing light, their figures were visible till they reached the ancient stones beside the cairn of Marsail. There she thought they passed into the long hollow beyond; but, when she looked again, she saw that they were now four in number, and that they were coming down the kye-path to Màm-Gorm. Her heart had begun to waver; but it was not till they were half-way down that she recognised the white faces of them: Torcall her father and Marsail her mother, Anabal and her man Fergus. All four walked in peace. And she heard a thin song in the air, that may have been from them or may have been behind her: a song that said, "Beannachd do t'anam is buaidh," "Blessing to thy soul, and victory," "Blessing, blessing to thy soul, and peace!" But still the spirit in her was strong, for why should she fear, dead, those whom she had loved, living?

But as they drew nearer she saw the woman Anabal waving her arms slowly as she advanced, even as the prophesying women of old did before the Lord; and, so waving, she chanted a rune. And the rune that she chanted was the Rune of the Passion of the Mother, that no man has ever heard since time was, and that has been in the ears of those women, only, who are to lose life in the giving of a life unto Life. So, hearing this rune, she fell sobbing, with the pains already upon her: and, but for the coming of Murdo with Anna, she would have borne her child on Cnoc-na-shee, the fairy hill—and who knows but its doom might have been that of Nial the soulless?

This vision, Sorcha added, she would not have told to any one had she felt the death-breath enter her as the child was delivered; but now that the boy was born, and was so fair and lusty, blue-eyed and golden-haired as his father had been before him when he too was a breast-babe, and, too, that all was well with her, she told it. Moreover, sure, no harm could come of a song of peace: and as for the Rune of the Passion of Mary, it was no more than an idle tale, that saying of Anna MacAnndra's and of other women, that whoso shall hear it shall surely die within the birth-month.

And because of her smiling lips and loving eyes, and of the fair, lusty child whose little hands wandered clingingly about the white breast of Sorcha, Alan believed that the ancient wisdom was an idle tale.

When the dark fell, and pinelogs were thrown upon the redhot peats, the two talked in low, hushed tones, with eyes that ever sought each other lovingly—dreamed and talked, whispered and dreamed, far into the night.

Then, with close-clasping arm holding her child to her bosom, as though in her exceeding weakness—a weakness nigh unto death, now that it seemed to float up to her from within, rather than descend upon her from above—she feared her white blossom of love might be taken from her, Sorcha sank suddenly into drowning sleep.

Sitting by the bedside, with his hand stroking or holding hers, Alan revolved other thoughts than those of love only.

Passing strange, passing strange, this mystery of motherhood over which he brooded obscurely. And, truly, who can know the long, bitter travail of the spirit, as well as the pangs of the body, which many women endure—except just such a woman, suffering in just that way? Can any man know? Hardly can it be so. For though a man can understand the agony of birthtide, and even the long ache and strain of the double life, can he comprehend the baffled sense of overmastering weakness, the vague informulate cry against all powers that be—Man, overlord of the womb: God, overlord of men. How many women have prayed not to Him, but to the one Pontiff before whom all thoughts bow down, worshipping in dread: to that shadowy Lord of the veiled face whom some call Death, that Woman of the compassionate eyes whom others call Oblivion, because of the poppied draught she gives the weary to drink, and the quiet glooms of rest that she holds in the hollow of her hand, and the hushed breath of her that is Forgetfulness.

Thoughts such as these, though in crude words and simple symbols, were in Alan's mind.

No, he knew: never again could he even listen to men jeering at birth. He, though he had come to her virginal-pure, yet feared Sorcha's eyes at times, because—though not knowing for what it was—of the deep-buried spiritual anathema which, in the gaze of the purest and noblest of women, affronts the chained brute that is in the man.

Ah, do men know, do men know—many a woman cries in her heart—do men know that a woman with child dies daily: that she wakes up to die, and that she lies down to die: and that even as hourly she dies, so hourly does the child inherit life? Do they know that her body is the temple of a new soul? What men are they, in any land, who profane the sacred altars? Death was of old the just penalty of those who defiled the holy place where godhood stood revealed in stone or wood or living Bread: shall they go free who defile the temple of the human soul?

"Sure, sure," Alan breathed rather than whispered, with some such thought as this in his mind, "sure I am the priest of God, and she there my temple ... and lo, my God!" ... and with that he leaned over and kissed the little rosy fingers, and the hot tears in his eyes fell upon Sorcha's breast, so that she stirred in her sleep and smiled, dreaming that a soft rain was falling upon her out of the Healing Fountain of Tears that is in the midmost Heaven.

It was at sunrise that the door opened and Oona entered. The child was wet with dew which glistered all over her as though she were a new-plucked flower.

"Ah, birdeen, it is you!" whispered Alan softly, lest the sleepers should wake. "See, I have been dreaming and sleeping all night before the peats."

Oona stared at the bed, where all she could see was Sorcha's pale face among its mass of dusky hair.

"Is it true, Alan? That ... over there ... is that true?"

"It is true, dear."

"Are you sure that a baby has come to Sorcha?"

"It is Himself that sent it."

"Alan, has it a soul?"

"A soul?... Yes, sure no evil eye is upon it, to the Stones be it said! But why do you ask that thing?"

The child sighed, but made no answer, her gaze wandering from Alan round the room, and then to where Sorcha lay.

"Why do you say that, Oona? It is not a safe thing to say: sure, it is not a good wishing. Who knows who may be hearing, though I wish evil to no one, banned or blest!"

"I see no one," Oona began calmly: "I see no one, and how can no one hear? But I will not be for saying an unlucky thing: sure, you know that, dear Alan. Happiness be in this house!... And, now, I will be going, Alan, for I...."

"Going? Hush-sh! wait, Oona, wait: sure, you will be wanting to see the little one?"

"I want to see Nial."

"Why?"

"He must not come ... just now."

"Why?"

"At dawn we went up to the top of the hillock, for the 'quiet people' are ever away by then, it is said. And we prayed. I prayed, and Nial said whatever I said. And then, at sunrise, we rose, and went three times round Cnoc-na-shee south-ways, and each time cried Djayseeul!"17

"And what was it you would be praying, Oona?"

"That no soul might be in the body of Sorcha's baby."

Alan stared at her, too amazed at first to be angry.

"What madness is this, lassie?"

"Sure it is no madness at all, at all, Alan! It is a good thought, and no madness.... For ... for why.... There is poor Nial; and when Murdo met him on the hillside last night, and told him about Sorcha, Nial found me out by calling through the woods like a cuckoo, and sure a good way too, for there are no cooaks now; and then he and I hoped the baby would have no soul ... and...."

"Hush-sh! Hush-sh! Enough! enough! bi sàvach! I am not being angered with you, because of the good thought that was in your heart. But say these things no more. Come; look at Sorcha and the child."

With a light, swift step Oona moved across the room. Silently she looked into Sorcha's face; silently she stood looking awhile at the child.

Alan had no word from her, to his sorrow. Steadfastly she stared; but breathed no whisper even. Then, with a faint sigh, she turned, moved like a ray of light across the room, and, before he knew what had happened, she was gone.

Bewildered at the child going thus quietly away, he went slowly to the door; but she had already vanished. So small a lass could soon be lost in that sunlit sea of green-gold bracken.

For some days thereafter he caught at times a faint echo of her singing in the woods. Once, in a gleaming silver-dusk, he saw the imprint of her small feet, darkly distinct in the wet dew, underneath the little window behind which Sorcha lay. But she did not come again.

It was on the eve of the morning that Oona came that Nial also, for the first and last time, beheld the little Ivor—so called after Ivor, the brother of Marsail that was Sorcha's mother, the noblest man Alan had ever known; "Ivor the good," as he was called by some, "Ivor the poet" by others.

Alan was out, talking to Anna MacAnndra, when Nial stole into the room. One hope was in his heart: that Sorcha slept.

With gleaming eyes, seeing that this was so, he drew near. The sight of the little white child, close lain against his mother's bosom, made a pain in his heart greater than ever the stillest moonlit night had done—a suffocating pain, that made him tremble.

He drew a long breath. He, too, he knew, had once been small, perhaps white and sweet, like that.

Was it possible that so small, so frail a thing could have a soul? Sure, it could not be. If not, should he not take it, and keep it by him in the forest, till the day when it could be mate to him, Nial the soulless? But if....

His hand touched the skin of the little rosy arm. The child opened its eyes of wonder full upon him.

They gazed unwaveringly, seeing nothing, it may be: if seeing, heeding not. Had it cried, even, or turned away its head; but, no, its blue, unfearing eyes were fixed upon this creature of another world.

It was enough. With a low, sobbing moan he turned and stole unseen from the room, and so out on the hillside, and past that praying-place of Cnoc-na-shee, where so vainly he and Oona had urged that which might not be; and so to the forest, that was the home of the wild fawns, and of the red fox, and of Nial.

None, save the child Oona, ever saw again the elf-man that was called Nial the Soulless: none, though Murdo the shepherd averred that, once, as he passed through the forest in the darkness of a black dawn, he heard a wailing cry come from a great hollow oak that grew solitary among the endless avenues of the pines.

It was far within that first month of motherhood, presaged by the secret rune heard of Sorcha, the Rune of the Passion of Mary, that only women dying of birth may hear: it was within this time that an unspeakable weakness came upon Sorcha.

Day by day she grew frail and more frail. Her eyes were pools for the coming shadows of death.

Strange had been their love: strange the coming of it: stranger still was their joy in the hour of death.

For this thing upbore her, that was to go, and him, that was to stay: Joy.

Not vainly had they lived in dream. Sweet now was the waning of the dream into long sleep. Sweet is sleep that will never stir to any waking: sweeter that sleep which is but a balm of rest.

For they knew this: that they would awake in the fulness of time.

When, for the first time, the doom-word passed her lips, Alan shuddered slightly, but he did not quail.

"I am dying, dear heart!"

"Sorcha, this thing has been near to us many days. It is not for long."

"And thou wilt look to thine own dark hour with joy?"

"Even so."

"And our legacy to this our child ... shall be ... shall be...."

"It shall be Joy. He shall be, among men, Ivor the Joy-bringer."

No more was said between them, then, nor later.

It was in the afternoon of the day following this that Sorcha died. She was fain to breathe her last breath on the mountain-side. Tenderly, to the green hillock by the homestead, Alan had carried her. Soft was the west wind upon her wandering hands; warm the golden light out of the shining palaces of cloud whence that wind came.

He was stooping, with his arm upholding her, and whispering low, when, suddenly, she lifted the little Ivor toward him. Quietly she lay back against the slope of the green grass. She was dead.

Alan quivered. All the tears of his life rose up in a flood, and drowned his heart. He could not see the child in his arms; but he did not sway nor fall. Sorcha strengthened him.

Then silently the wave of grief, of a grief that might not be spoken, ebbed. Out of the sea of bitterness his soul rose, a rock with the sun shining upon it.

Slowly he raised the child above his head, till the wind was all about it, and the flooding glory of light out of the west.

A look of serene peace came into his face: within him the breath of an immortal joy transcended the poor frailty of the stricken spirit.

When the words that were on his lips were uttered, they were proud and strong as the fires of the sun against the dawn:

"Behold, O God, this is Ivor, the son of Sorcha, that I boon unto Thee, to be, for all the days Thou shalt give him, Thy servant of Joy among men."

There was peace that night upon Iolair. But toward dawn—the morrow of that new, strange life wherein Alan and the child, with Oona mayhap, were to go forth toward those distant isles where, as Sorcha had seen in a vision, Ivor's ministry of joy was to be—a great wind arose.

The hills heard, and the moan of them went up before it. The mountains awoke, and were filled with a sound of rejoicing.

Through the darkness that lightened momently it came down the glens and the dim braes of bracken. Many waters felt the breath of it, and leaped.

The silences of the forest were as yet unbroken. Unbroken of the wind, at least: for, faint and far, there rose and fell a monotonous chanting, the chanting of a gaunt, dwarfed, misshapen figure that moved like a drifting shadow from pine-glade to pine-glade.

But as dawn broke wanly upon the tallest trees, the wings of the tempest struck one and all into a mighty roar, reverberatingly prolonged: a solemn, slow-sounding anthem, full of the awe of the Night, and of the majesty of the Day, hymning mysteries older than the first dawn, deeper than the deepest dark.

And after the passing of that great wind the forest was still. Only a whisper as of the sea breathed through its illimitable green wave.