The Works of Fiona Macleod Part 25

That third one, is he a Spirit, alone, uncompanioned? I think sometimes that these three are one, and that Silence is his inward voice and the Wind the sound of his unwearying feet. Does he not come in wind, whether his footfall be on the wild rose, or on the bitter wave, or in the tempest shaken with noises and rains that are cries and tears, sighs and prayers and tears?

He has many ways, many hopes, many faces. He bends above those who meet in twilight, above the cradle, above dwellers by the hearth, above the sorrowful, above the joyous children of the sun, above the grave. Must he not be divine, who is worshipped of all men? Does not the wild-dove take the rainbow upon its breast because of him, and the salmon leave the sea for inland pools, and the creeping thing become winged and radiant?

The Wind, Silence, and Love: if one cannot learn of these, is there any comradeship that can tell us more, that can more comfort us, that can so inhabit with living light what is waste and barren?

And, in the hidden hour, one will stoop, and kiss us on the brow, when our sudden stillness will, for others, already be memory. And another will be as an open road, with morning breaking. And the third will meet us, with a light of joy in his eyes; but we shall not see him at first because of the sunblaze, or hear his words because in that summer air the birds will be mult.i.tude.

Meanwhile they are near and intimate. Their life uplifts us. We cannot forget wholly, nor cease to dream, nor be left unhoping, nor be without rest, nor go darkly without torches and songs, if these accompany us; or we them, for they go one way.

BARABAL

A MEMORY

I have spoken in "Iona" and elsewhere of the old Highland woman who was my nurse. She was not really old, but to me seemed so, and I have always so thought of her. She was one of the most beautiful and benignant natures I have known.

I owe her a great debt. In a moment, now, I can see her again, with her pale face and great dark eyes, stooping over my bed, singing "Wae's me for Prince Charlie," or an old Gaelic Lament, or that sad, forgotten, beautiful and mournful air that was played at Fotheringay when the Queen of Scots was done to death, "lest her cries should be heard." Or, later, I can hear her telling me old tales before the fire; or, later still, before the glowing peats in her little island-cottage, speaking of men and women, and strange legends, and stranger dreams and visions. To her, and to an old islander, Seumas Macleod, of whom I have elsewhere spoken in this volume, I owe more than to any other influences in my childhood.

Perhaps it is from her that in part I have my great dislike of towns.

There is no smoke in the lark's house, to use one of her frequent sayings--one common throughout the west.

I never knew any one whose speech, whose thought, was so coloured with the old wisdom and old sayings and old poetry of her race. To me she stands for the Gaelic woman, strong, steadfast, true to "her own," her people, her clan, her love, herself. "When you come to love," she said to me once, "keep always to the one you love a mouth of silk and a heart of hemp."

Her mind was a storehouse of proverbial lore. Had I been older and wiser, I might have learned less fugitively. I cannot attempt to reach adequately even the most characteristic of these proverbial sayings; it would take overlong. Most of them, of course, would be familiar to our proverb-loving people. But, among others of which I have kept note, I have not anywhere seen the following in print. "You could always tell where his thoughts would be ... pointing one way like the hounds of Finn" (_i.e._ the two stars of the north, the Pointers); "It's a comfort to know there's nothing missing, as the wren said when she counted the stars"; "The dog's howl is the stag's laugh"; and again, "I would rather cry with the plover than laugh with the dog" (both meaning that the imprisoned comfort of the towns is not to be compared with the life of the hills, for all its wildness); "True love is like a mountain-tarn; it may not be deep, but that's deep enough that can hold the sun, moon, and stars"; "It isn't silence where the lark's song ceases"; "St. Bride's Flower, St. Bride's Bird, and St. Bride's Gift make a fine spring and a good year." (_Am Bearnan Bhrigde, 'us Gille-Bhrigde, 'us Lunn-Bata Bhrigde, etc.--the dandelion, the oyster-catcher, and the cradle_[9]--because the dandelion comes with the first south winds and in a sunny spring is seen everywhere, and because in a fine season the oyster-catcher's early breeding-note fortells prosperity with the nets, and because a birth in spring is good luck for child and mother.) "It's easier for most folk to say _Lus Bealtainn_ than _La' Bealtainn_": i.e. people can see the small things that concern themselves better than the great things that concern the world; literally, "It's easier to say marigold than may-day"--in Gaelic, a close play upon words; "_Cuir do lamh leinn_," "Lend us a hand," as the fox in the ditch said to the duckling on the roadside; "_Gu'm a slan gu'n till thu_," "May you return in health," as the young man said when his conscience left him; "It's only a hand's-turn from _eunadair_ to _eunadan_" (from the bird-snarer to the cage); "Saying _eud_ is next door to saying _eudail_," as the girl laughed back to her sweetheart (_eud_ is jealousy and _eudail_ my Treasure); "The lark doesn't need _broggan_ (shoes) to climb the stairs of the sky."

Among those which will not be new to some readers, I have note of a rhyme about the stars of the four seasons, and a saying about the three kinds of love, and the four stars of destiny. Wind comes from the spring star, runs the first; heat from the summer star, water from the autumn star, and frost from the winter star. Barabal's variant was "wind (air) from the spring star in the east; fire (heat) from the summer star in the south; water from the autumn star in the west; wisdom, silence and death from the star in the north." Both this season-rhyme and that of the three kinds of love are well known. The latter runs:--

_Gaol nam fear-dolain, mar shruth-lonaidh na mara; Gaol nam fear-fuadain, mar ghaoith tuath 'thig o'n charraig; Gaol nam fear-posda, mar luing a' seladh gu cala._

_Lawless love is as the wild tides of the sea; And the roamer's love cruel as the north wind blowing from barren rocks; But wedded love is like the ship coming safe home to haven._

I have found these two and many others of Barabal's sayings and rhymes, except those I have first given, in collections of proverbs and folklore, but do not remember having noted another, though doubtless "The Four Stars of Destiny (or Fate)" will be recalled by some. It ran somewhat as follows:--

_Reul Near_ (Star of the East), Give us kindly birth; _Reul Deas_ (Star of the South), Give us great love; _Reul Niar_ (Star of the West), Give us quiet age; _Reul Tuath_ (Star of the North), Give us Death.

It was from her I first heard of the familiar legend of the waiting of Fionn and the Feinn (popularly now Fingal and the Fingalians), "fo-gheasaibh," spellbound, till the day of their return to the living world. In effect the several legends are the same. That which Barabal told was as an isleswoman would more naturally tell it. A man so pure that he could give a woman love and yet let angels fan the flame in his heart, and so innocent that his thoughts were white as a child's thoughts, and so brave that none could withstand him, climbed once to the highest mountain in the Isles, where there is a great cave that no one has ever entered. A huge white hound slept at the entrance to the cave. He stepped over it, and it did not wake. He entered, and pa.s.sed four tall demons, with bowed heads and folded arms, one with great wings of red, another with wings of white, another with wings of green, and another with wings of black. They did not uplift their dreadful eyes.

Then he saw Fionn and the Feinn sitting in a circle.

Their long hair trailed on the ground; their eyebrows fell to their beards; their beards lay upon their feet, so that nothing of their bodies was seen but hands like scarped rocks that clasped gigantic swords. Behind them hung an elk-horn with a mouth of gold. He blew this horn, but nothing happened, except that the huge white hound came in, and went to the hollow place round which the Feinn sat, and in silence ate greedily of treasures of precious stones. He blew the horn again, and Fionn and all the Feinn opened their great, cold, grey, lifeless eyes, and stared upon him; and for him it was as though he stood at a grave and the dead man in the grave put up strong hands and held his feet, and as though his soul saw Fear.

But with a mighty effort he blew the horn a third time. The Feinn leaned on their elbows, and Fionn said, "Is the end come?" But the man could wait no more, and turned and fled, leaving that ancient mighty company leaning upon its elbow, spellbound thus, waiting for the end. So they shall be found. The four demons fled into the air, and tumultuous winds swung him from that place. He heard the baying of the white hound, and the mountain vanished. He was found lying dead in a pasture in the little island that was his home. I recall this here because the legend was plainly in Barabal's mind when her last ill came upon her. In her delirium she cried suddenly, "The Feinn! The Feinn! they are coming down the hill!"

"I hear the bells of the ewes," she said abruptly, just before the end: so by that we knew she was already upon far pastures, and heard the Shepherd calling upon the sheep to come into the fold.

FOOTNOTE:

[9] It is probably in the isles only that the pretty word _Lunn-Bata_ is used for _cr[=a]-all (creathall)_, a cradle. It might best be rendered as boat-on-a-billow, _lunn_ being a heaving billow.

THE WHITE HERON

It was in summer, when there is no night among these Northern Isles. The slow, hot days waned through a long after-glow of rose and violet; and when the stars came, it was only to reveal purple depths within depths.

Mary Macleod walked, barefoot, through the dewy gra.s.s, on the long western slope of Innisrn, looking idly at the phantom flake of the moon as it hung like a blown moth above the rose-flush of the West. Below it, beyond her, the ocean. It was pale, opalescent; here shimmering with the hues of the moonbow; here dusked with violet shadow, but, for the most part, pale, opalescent. No wind moved, but a breath arose from the momentary lips of the sea. The cool sigh floated inland, and made a continual faint tremor amid the salt gra.s.ses. The skuas and guillemots stirred, and at long intervals screamed.

The girl stopped, staring seaward. The illimitable, pale, unlifted wave; the hinted dusk of the quiet underwaters; the unfathomable violet gulfs overhead;--these silent comrades were not alien to her. Their kin, she was but a moving shadow on an isle; to her, they were the veils of wonder beyond which the soul knows no death, but looks upon the face of Beauty, and upon the eyes of Love, and upon the heart of Peace.

Amid these silent s.p.a.ces two dark objects caught the girl's gaze. Flying eastward, a solander trailed a dusky wing across the sky. So high its flight that the first glance saw it as though motionless; yet, even while Mary looked, the skyfarer waned suddenly, and that which had been was not. The other object had wings too, but was not a bird. A fishing-smack lay idly becalmed, her red-brown sail now a patch of warm dusk. Mary knew what boat it was--the _Nighean Donn_, out of Fionnaphort in Ithona, the westernmost of the Iarraidh Isles.

There was no one visible on board the _Nighean Donn_, but a boy's voice sang a monotonous Gaelic cadence, indescribably sweet as it came, remote and wild as an air out of a dim forgotten world, across the still waters. Mary Macleod knew the song, a strange _iorram_ or boat-song made by Pl the Freckled, and by him given to his friend Angus Macleod of Ithona. She muttered the words over and over, as the lilt of the boyish voice rose and fell--

It is not only when the sea is dark and chill and desolate I hear the singing of the queen who lives beneath the ocean: Oft have I heard her chanting voice when moon o'erfloods his golden gate, Or when the moonshine fills the wave with snow-white mazy motion.

And some day will it hap to me, when the black waves are leaping, Or when within the breathless green I see her sh.e.l.l-strewn door, That singing voice will lure me where my sea-drown'd love lies sleeping Beneath the slow white hands of her who rules the sunken sh.o.r.e.

For in my heart I hear the bells that ring their fatal beauty.

The wild, remote, uncertain bells that chant their lonely sorrow: The lonely bells of sorrow, the bells of fatal beauty, Oft in my heart I hear the bells, who soon shall know no morrow.

The slow splashing of oars in the great hollow cavern underneath her feet sent a flush to her face. She knew who was there--that it was the little boat of the _Nighean Donn_, and that Angus Macleod was in it.

She stood among the seeding gra.s.ses, intent. The cl.u.s.ter of white moon-daisies that reached to her knees was not more pale than her white face; for a white silence was upon Mary Macleod in her dreaming girlhood, as in her later years.

She shivered once as she listened to Angus's echoing song, while he secured his boat, and began to climb from ledge to ledge. He too had heard the lad Uille Ban singing as he lay upon a coil of rope, while the smack lay idly on the unmoving waters; and hearing, had himself taken up the song--

_For in my heart I hear the bells that ring their fatal beauty, The wild, remote, uncertain bells that chant their lonely sorrow: The lonely bells of sorrow, the bells of fatal beauty, Oft in my heart I hear the bells, who soon shall know no morrow._

Mary shivered with the vague fear that had come upon her. Had she not dreamed, in the bygone night, that she heard some one in the sea singing that very song--some one with slow, white hands which waved idly above a dead man? A moment ago she had listened to the same song sung by the lad Uille Ban; and now, for the third time, she heard Angus idly chanting it as he rose invisibly from ledge to ledge of the great cavern below.

Three idle songs yet she remembered that death was but the broken refrain of an idle song.

When Angus leaped onto the slope and came towards her, she felt her pulse quicken. Tall and fair, he looked fairer and taller than she had ever seen him. The light that was still in the west lingered in his hair, which, yellow as it was, now glistened as with the sheen of bronze. He had left his cap in the boat; and as he crossed swiftly towards her, she realized anew that he deserved the Gaelic name given him by Pl the poet--Angus the yellow-haired son of Youth. They had never spoken of their love, and now both realized in a flash that no words were needed. At midsummer noon no one says the sun shines.

Angus came forward with outreaching hands. "Dear, dear love!" he whispered. "Mhairi mo run, muirnean, mochree!"

She put her hands in his; she put her lips to his; she put her head to his breast, and listened, all her life throbbing in response to the leaping pulse of the heart that loved her.

"Dear, dear love!" he whispered again.

"Angus!" she murmured.

They said no more, but moved slowly onward, hand in hand.

The night had their secret. For sure, it was in the low sighing of the deep when the tide put its whispering lips against the sleeping sea; it was in the spellbound silences of the isle; it was in the phantasmal light of the stars--the stars of dream, in a sky of dream, in a world of dream. When, an hour--or was it an eternity, or a minute?--later, they turned, she to her home near the clachan of Innisrn, he to his boat, a light air had come up on the forehead of the tide. The sail of the _Nighean Donn_ flapped, a dusky wing in the darkness. The penetrating smell of sea-mist was in the air.

Mary had only one regret as she turned her face inland, when once the invisibly gathering mist hid from her even the blurred semblance of the smack--that she had not asked Angus to sing no more that song of Pl the Freckled, which vaguely she feared, and even hated. She had stood listening to the splashing of the oars, and, later, to the voices of Angus and Uille Ban; and now, coming faintly and to her weirdly through the gloom, she heard her lover's voice chanting the words again. What made him sing that song, in that hour, on this day of all days?