Chapter IV: The Smoothing of the Hand

Glad am I that wherever and whenever I listen intently I can hear the looms of Nature weaving Beauty and Music. But some of the most beautiful things are learned otherwise--by hazard, in the Way of Pain, or at the Gate of Sorrow.

I learned two things on the day when I saw Sheumas McIan dead upon the heather. He of whom I speak was the son of Ian McIan Alltnalee, but was known throughout the home straths and the countries beyond as Sheumas Dhu, Black James, or, to render the subtler meaning implied in this instance, James the Dark One. I had wondered occasionally at the designation, because Sheumas, if not exactly fair, was not dark. But the name was given to him, as I learned later, because, as commonly rumoured, he knew that which he should not have known.

I had been spending some weeks with Alasdair McIan and his wife Silis (who was my foster-sister), at their farm of Ardoch, high in a remote hill country. One night we were sitting before the peats, listening to the wind crying amid the corries, though, ominously as it seemed to us, there was not a breath in the rowan-tree that grew in the sun's-way by the house. Silis had been singing, but silence had come upon us. In the warm glow from the fire we saw each others' faces. There the silence lay, strangely still and beautiful, as snow in moonlight. Silis's song was one of the _Dana Spioradail_, known in Gaelic as the Hymn of the Looms. I cannot recall it, nor have I ever heard or in any way encountered it again.

It had a lovely refrain, I know not whether its own or added by Silis. I have heard her chant it to other runes and songs. Now, when too late, my regret is deep that I did not take from her lips more of those sorrowful strange songs or chants, with their ancient Celtic melodies, so full of haunting sweet melancholy, which she loved so well. It was with this refrain that, after a long stillness, she startled us that October night. I remember the sudden light in the eyes of Alasdair McIan, and the beat at my heart, when, like rain in a wood, her voice fell unawares upon us out of the silence:

_Oh! oh! ohrone, arone! Oh! Oh! mo ghraidh, mo chridhe!
Oh! oh! mo ghraidh, mo chridhe!_[13]

[13] Pronounce mogh-rāy, mogh-rēe (my heart's delight--_lit._,
my dear one, my heart).

The wail, and the sudden break in the second line, had always upon me an effect of inexpressible pathos. Often that sad wind-song has been in my ears, when I have been thinking of many things that are passed and are passing.

I know not what made Silis so abruptly begin to sing, and with that wailing couplet only, or why she lapsed at once into silence again. Indeed, my remembrance of the incident at all is due to the circumstance that shortly after Silis had turned her face to the peats again, a knock came to the door, and then Sheumas Dhu entered.

"Why do you sing that lament, Silis, sister of my father?" he asked, after he had seated himself beside me, and spread his thin hands against the peat glow, so that the flame seemed to enter within the flesh.

Silis turned to her nephew, and looked at him, as I thought, questioningly. But she did not speak. He, too, said nothing more, either forgetful of his question, or content with what he had learned or failed to learn through her silence.

The wind had come down from the corries before Sheumas rose to go. He said he was not returning to Alltnalee, but was going upon the hill, for a big herd of deer had come over the ridge of Mel-Mòr. Sheumas, though skilled in all hill and forest craft, was not a sure shot, as was his kinsman and my host, Alasdair McIan.

"You will need help," I remember Alasdair Ardoch saying, mockingly, adding, "_Co dhiubh is fhearr let mise thoir sealladh na fàileadh dhiubh?_"--that is to say, Whether would you rather me to deprive them of sight or smell?

This is a familiar saying among the old sportsmen in my country, where it is believed that a few favoured individuals have the power to deprive deer of either sight or smell, as the occasion suggests.

"_Dhuit ciàr nan carn!_--The gloom of the rocks be upon you!" replied Sheumas, sullenly; "mayhap the hour is come when the red stag will sniff at my nostrils."

With that dark saying he went. None of us saw him again alive.

Was it a forewarning? I have often wondered. Or had he sight of the shadow?

It was three days after this, and shortly after sunrise, that, on crossing the south slope of Mel Mòr with Alasdair Ardoch, we came suddenly upon the body of Sheumas, half submerged in a purple billow of heather. It did not, at the moment, occur to me that he was dead. I had not known that his prolonged absence had been noted, or that he had been searched for. As a matter of fact, he must have died immediately before our approach, for his limbs were still loose, and he lay as a sleeper lies.

Alasdair kneeled and raised his kinsman's head. When it lay upon the purple tussock, the warmth and glow from the sunlit ling gave a fugitive deceptive light to the pale face. I know not whether the sun can have any chemic action upon the dead. But it seemed to me that a dream rose to the face of Sheumas, like one of those submarine flowers that are said to rise at times and be visible for a moment in the hollow of a wave. The dream, the light, waned; and there was a great stillness and white peace where the trouble had been. "It is the Smoothing of the Hand," said Alasdair McIan, in a hushed voice.

Often I had heard this lovely phrase in the Western Isles, but always as applied to sleep. When a fretful child suddenly falls into quietude and deep slumber, an isles-woman will say that it is because of the Smoothing of the Hand. It is always a profound sleep, and there are some who hold it almost as a sacred thing, and never to be disturbed.

So, thinking only of this, I whispered to my friend to come away; that Sheumas was dead weary with hunting upon the hills; that he would awake in due time.

McIan looked at me, hesitated, and said nothing. I saw him glance around. A few yards away, beside a great boulder in the heather, a small rowan stood, flickering its featherlike shadows across the white wool of a ewe resting underneath. He moved thitherward slowly, plucked a branch heavy with scarlet berries, and then, having returned, laid it across the breast of his kinsman.

I knew now what was that passing of the trouble in the face of Sheumas Dhu, what that sudden light was, that calming of the sea, that ineffable quietude. It was the Smoothing of the Hand.

SEANACHAS[14]

_THE SONG OF THE SWORD._

_THE FLIGHT OF THE CULDEES._

_MIRCATH._

_THE LAUGHTER OF SCATHACH THE QUEEN._

[14] The word "Seanachas" means either traditionary lore, or
"telling of tales of the olden time"--and it is in this sense that
it is used here.

THE SONG OF THE SWORD

These are of the Seanachas told me by Ian Cameron ("Ian Mòr"), before the flaming peats, at a hill-shealing, in a season when the premature snows found the bracken still golden and the ptarmigan with their autumn browns no more than flecked and mottled with gray.

He has himself now a quieter sleep than the sound of that falling snow, and it is three years since his face became as white and as cold.

He had pleasure in telling _sgeul_ after _sgeul_ of the ancient days. Far more readily at all times would he repeat stories of this dim past he loved so well than the more intimate tales which had his own pulse beating in them, as "The Daughter of the Sun" and others that I have given elsewhere. Often he would look up from where he held his face in his hands as he brooded into the dull steadfast flame that consumed the core of the peats; and without preamble, and with words in no apparent way linked to those last spoken, would narrate some brief episode, and always as one who had witnessed the event. Sometimes, indeed, these brief tales were like waves: one saw them rise, congregate, and expand in a dark billow--and the next moment there was a vanishing puff of spray and the billow had lapsed.

I cannot recall many of these fugitive tales--seanachas, as he spoke of them collectively, for each _sgeul_ was of the past, and had its roots in legendary lore--but of those that remained with me, here are four. All came upon me as birds flying in the dark: I knew not whence they came or upon what wind they had steered their mysterious course. They were there, that was all. Ancient things come again in Ian's brain: or recovered out of the dim days, and seen anew through the wonder-lens of his imagination.

* * * * *

It was in a white June, as they call it, in the third year after the pirates of Lochlin had fed the corbies of the Hebrid Isles, that the summer-sailors once more came down the Minch of Skye.

An east wind blew fresh from the mountains, though between dawn and sunrise it veered till it chilled itself upon the granite peaks of the Cuchullins, and then leaped north-westward with the white foam of its feet caught from behind by the sun-glint.

The vikings on board the _Svart-Alf_ laughed at that. The spray flew from the curved black prow of the great galley, and the wake danced in the dazzle--the sea-cream that they loved to see.

Tall men they were, and comely. Their locks of yellow or golden or ruddy hair, sometimes braided, sometimes all acurl like a chestnut-tree bud-breaking in April, sometimes tangled like sea-wrack caught in a whirl of wind and tide, streamed upon their shoulders. In their blue eyes was a shining as though there were torches of white flame behind them: and that shining was mild or fierce as home or blood filled their brain.

The _Svart-Alf_ was the storm-bird of a fleet of thirty galleys which had set forth from Lochlin under the raven-banner of Olaus the White. The vikings had joyed in a good faring. Singing south winds had blown them to the Faroe Isles, where from Magnus Cleft-Hand they had good cheer, and the hire of three men who knew the Western Isles and had been with the sea-kings who had harried them here and there again and again.

From Magnus-stead they went forth swelled with mead and ale and cow-beef: and they laughed because of what they would give in payment on their way back with golden torques and bracelets and other treasure, young slaves, women dark and fair, and the jewel-hilted weapons of the island-lords.

Cold black winds out of the north-east drove them straight upon the Ord of Sutherland. They sang with joy the noon when they rounded Cape Wrath and came under the shadow of the hills. The dawn that followed was red not only in the sky but on the sheen of the sword-blades. It was the Song of the Sword that day, and there is no song like that for the flaming of the blood. The dark men of Torridon were caught unawares. For seven days thereafter the corbies and ravens glutted themselves drinking at red pools beside the stripped bodies which lay stark and stiff upon the heather. The firing of a score of homesteads smouldered till the rains came, a day and two nights after the old women who had been driven to the moors stole back wailing. The maids and wives were carried off in the galleys: and for nine days, at a haven in the lone coast opposite the Summer Isles, their tears, their laughter, their sullen anger, their wild gaiety, their passionate despair gave joy to the yellow-haired men. On the ninth day they were carried southward on the summer-sailing. At a place called Craig-Feeach, Raven's Crag, in the north of Skye, where a Norse Erl had a great Dûn that he had taken from the son of a king from Eirèann whose sea-nest it had been, Olaus the White rested awhile. The women were left there as a free spoil: save three who were so fair that Olaus kept one, and Haco and Sweno his chief captains took the others.

Then, on an evening when the wind was from the north, Olaus and ten galleys went down the sound. Sweno the Hammerer was to strike across the west for the great island that is called Lewis: Haco the Laugher was to steer for the island that is called Harris: and Olaus himself was to reach the haven called Ljotr-wick in the Isle of the Thousand Waters that is Benbecula.

On the eve of the day following that sailing a wild wind sprang up, blowing straight against the north. All of the south-faring galleys save one made for haven, though it was a savage coast which lay along the south of Skye. In the darkness of the storm Olaus thought that the other nine wave-steeds were following him, and he drove before the gale, with his men crouching under the lee of the bulwarks, and with Finnleikr the Harper singing a wild song of sea-foam and flowing blood and the whirling of swords.

The gale was nigh spent three hours after dawn: but the green seas were like snow-crowned hillocks that roll in earth-drunkenness when the flames surge from blazing mountains. Olaus knew that no boat could live in that sea, except it went before the wind. So, though not a galley was in sight, he fared steadily westward.

By sundown the wind had swung out of the south into the east: and by midnight the stars were shining clear. In the blue-dark could be seen the white wings of the fulmars, seaward-drifting once again from the rocks whither they had fled.

Then came the dawn when the sun-rain streamed gladly, and a fresh east wind blew across the Minch, and the _Svart-Alf_, that had been driven far northward, came leaping south-westwardly, with laughter and fierce shining of sky-blue eyes, where the vikings toiled at the oars, or burnished their brine-stained swords and javelins.

All day they fared joyously thus. Behind them they could see the blue line of the mainland and the dark-blue mountain-crests of Skye: southward was a long green film, where Coll caught the waves ere they drove upon Tiree; south-eastward, the gray-blue peaks of Halival and Haskival rose out of the Isle of Terror, as Rùm was then called. Before them, as far as they could see to north or south, the purple-gray lines that rose out of the west were the contours of the Hebrides.

"Dost thou see yonder blue splatch, Morna?" cried Olaus the White to the woman who lay indolently by his side, and watched the sun-gold redden the mass of ruddy hair which she had sprayed upon the boards, a net wherein to mesh the eyes of the vikings, "do you see that blue splatch? I know what it is. It is the headland that Olaf the Furious called Skipness. Behind it is a long fjord in two forks. At the end of the south fork is a place of the white-robes whom the islanders call Culdees. Midway on the eastern bend of the north fork is a town of a hundred families. Over both rules Maoliosa, a warrior-priest, and under him, at the town, is a graybeard called Rumun mac Coag. All this I have learned from Anlaf the Swarthy, who came with us out of Faroe."

Morna glanced at him under her drooped eyelids. Sure, he was fair to see, for all that his long hair was white. White it had gone with the terror of a night on an ice-floe, whereon a man who hated the young erl had set him adrift with seven wolves. He had slain three, and drowned three, and one had leaped into the sea: and then he had lain on the ice, with snow for a pillow, and in the dawn his hair was the same as the snow. This was but ten years ago, when he was a youth.

She looked at him, and when she spoke it was in the slow lazy speech that in his ears was drowsy-sweet as the hum of the hives in the steading where his home was.

"It will be a red sleep the men of that town will be having soon, I am thinking, Olaus. And the women will not be carding wool when the moon rises to-morrow night. And ..."

The fair woman stopped suddenly. Olaus saw her eyes darken.

"Olaus!"

"I listen."

"If there is a woman there that you desire more than me I will give her a gift."

Olaus laughed.

"Keep your knife in your girdle Morna. Who knows but you may need it soon to save yourself from a Culdee!"

"Bah. These white-robed men-women have nought to do with us. I fear no man, Olaus: but I have a blade for the woman who will dazzle your eyes."

"Have no fear, white wolf. The sea-wolf knows his mate when he has found her!"

An hour after sun-setting a mist came up. The wind freshened. Olaus made silence throughout the war-galley. The vikings had muffled their oars, for the noise of the waves on the shore could now be heard. Hour after hour went by. When, at last, the moonlight tore a rift in the häar, and suddenly the vapour was licked up by a wind moving out of the north, they saw that they were close upon the land, and right eastward of the headland of Skipness.

Anlaf the Swarthy went to the prow. Blackly he loomed in the moonlight as he stood there, poising his long spear, and sounding the depths while the vessel slowly forged shoreward. By the time a haven was found, and the vikings stood silent upon the rocks, the night was yellow with moonshine, and the brown earth overlaid with a soft white sheen wherein the long shadows lay palely blue.

There was deep peace in the island-town. The kye were in the sea-pastures near, and even the dogs slept. There had been no ill for long, and Rumun mac Coag was an old man, and dreamed overmuch about his soul. This was because of the teaching of the Culdees. Before he had known he had a soul he was a man, and would not have been taken unawares--and he over-lord of a sea-town like Bail'-tiorail.

Olaus the White made a wide circuit with his men. Then, slowly, the circle narrowed.

A bull lowed, where it stood among the sea-grass, stamping uneasily, and ever and again sniffing the air. Suddenly one heifer, then another, then all the kye, began a strange lowing. The dogs rose, with bristling felts, and crawled sidelong, snarling, with red eyes gleaming savagely.

Bethoc, the young third wife of Rumun, was awake, dreaming of a man out of Eirèann who had that day given her a strange pleasure with his harp and his dusky eyes. She knew that lowing. It was the _langanaich an aghaidh am allamharach_, the continued lowing against the stranger. She rose lightly, and unfastened the leather flap, and looked down from the grianan where she was. A man stood there in the shadow. She thought it was the harper. With a low sigh she leaned downward to kiss him, and to whisper a word in his ear.

Her long hair fell over her eyes and face and blinded her. She felt it grasped, and put out her hand. It was seized, and before she knew what was come upon her she was dragged prone upon the man.

Then, in a flash, she saw he had yellow hair, and was clad as a Norseman. She gasped. If the sea-rovers were come, it was death for all there. The man whispered something in a tongue that was strange to her. She understood better when he put his arm about her, and placed a hand upon her mouth.

Bethoc stood silent. Why did no one hear that lowing of the kine, that snarling of the dogs which had now grown into a loud continuous baying? The man by her side thought she was cowed, or had accepted the change of fate. He left her, and put his foot in a cleft. Then, sword under his chin, he began to climb stealthily.

He had thrown his spear upon the ground. Soundlessly Bethoc stepped forward, lifted it, and moved forward like a shadow.

A wild cry rang through the night. There was a gurgling and spurting sound as of dammed water adrip. Rumun sprang from his couch, and stared out of the aperture. Beneath he saw a man, speared through the back, and pinned to the soft wood. His hands claspt the frayed deer-skins, and his head lay upon his shoulder. He was laughing horribly. A bubbling of foam frothed continuously out of his mouth.

The next moment Rumun saw Bethoc. He had not time to call to her before a man slipped out of the shadow, and plunged a sword through her till the point dripped red drops upon the grass beyond where she stood. She gave no cry, but fell as a gannet falls. A black shadow darted across the gloom. A crash, a scream, and Rumun sank inert, with an arrow fixed midway in his head through the brows.

Then there was a fierce tumult everywhere. From the pastures the kye ran lowing and bellowing, in a wild stampede. The neighing of horses broke into screams. Here and there red flames burst forth, and leapt from hut to hut. Soon the whole rath was aflame. Round the dûn of Rumun a wall of swords flashed.

All had taken refuge in the dûn, all who had escaped the first slaying. If any leaped forth, it was upon a viking spear, or if the face of any was seen it was the targe for a swift-sure arrow.

A long penetrating wail went up. The Culdees, on the further loch, heard it, and ran from their cells. The loud laughter of the sea-rovers was more dreadful to them than the whirling flames and the wild screaming lament of the dying and the doomed.

None came forth alive out of that dûn, save three men, and seven women that were young. Two of the men were made to tell all that Olaus the White wanted to know. Then they were blinded, and put in a boat, and set in the tide-eddy that would take them to where the Culdees were. And, for the Culdees, they had a message from Olaus.

Of the seven women none was so fair that Morna had any heed. But seven men had them as spoil. Their wild keening had died away into a silence of blank despair long before the dawn. When the light came, they were huddled in a white group near the ashes of their homes. Everywhere the dead sprawled.

At sunrise the vikings held an ale-feast. When Olaus the White had drunken and eaten, he left his men and went down to the shore to look upon the fortified place where Maoliosa the Culdee and his white-robes lived. As he fared thither through what had been Bail'-tiorail there was not a male left alive save the one prisoner who had been kept, Aongas the Bow-maker as he was called: none save Aongas, and a strayed child among the salt grasses near the shore, a little boy, naked and with blue eyes and laughing sunny smile.

THE FLIGHT OF THE CULDEES

On the wane of noon, on the day following the ruin of Bail'-tiorail, sails were descried far east of Skipness.

Olaus called his men together. The boats coming before the wind were doubtless his own galleys which he had lost sight of when the south-gale had blown them against Skye: but no man can know when and how the gods may smile grimly, and let the swords that whirl be broken or the spears that are flat become a hedge of death.

An hour later, a startled word went from viking to viking. The galleys in the offing were the fleet of Sweno the Hammerer. Why had he come so far southward, and why were oars so swift and with the stained sails distended before the wind?

They were soon to know.

Sweno himself was the first to land. A man he was, broad and burly, with a sword-slash across his face that brought his brows together in a frown which made a perpetual dusk above his savage blood-shot eyes.

In a few words he told how he had met a galley, with only half its crew, and of these many who were wounded. It was the last of the fleet of Haco the Laugher. A fleet of fifteen war-birlinns had set out from the Long Island, and had given battle. Haco had gone into the strife laughing loud as was his wont, and he and all his men had the berserk rage, and fought with joy and foam at the mouth. Never had the Sword sang a sweeter song.

"Well," said Olaus the White, grimly, "well: how did the Raven fly?"

"When Haco laughed for the last time, with waving sword out of the death wherein he sank, there was only one galley left. Of all that company of vikings there were no more than nine to tell the tale. These nine we took out of their boat, which was below waves soon. Haco and his men are all fighting the sea-shadows by now."

A loud snarling went from man to man. This became a wild cry of rage. Then savage shouts filled the air. Swords were lifted up against the sky, and the fierce glitter of the blue eyes and the bristling of the tawny beards were fair to see, thought the captive women, though their hearts beat against their ribs like eaglets against the bars of a cage.

Sweno the Hammerer frowned a deep frown when he heard that Olaus was there with only the _Svart-Alf_ out of the galleys which had gone the southward way.

"If the islanders come upon us now with their birlinns we shall have to make a running fight," he said.

Olaus laughed.

"Aye, but the running shall be after the birlinns, Sweno."

"I hear that there are fifty and nine men, of these Culdees yonder, under the sword-priest Maoliosa?"

"It is a true word. But to-night, after the moon is up, there shall be none."

At that, all who heard laughed, and were less heavy in their hearts because of the slaying and drowning of Haco the Laugher and all his crew.

"Where is the woman Brenda that you took?" Olaus asked, as he stared at Sweno's boat and saw no woman there.

"She is in the sea."

Olaus the White looked. It was his eyes that asked.

"I flung her into the sea because she laughed when she heard of how the birlinns that were under Somhairle the Renegade drave in upon our ships and how Haco laughed no more, and the sea was red with Lochlin blood."

"She was a woman, Sweno--and none more fair in the isles, after Morna that is mine."

"Woman or no woman I flung her into the sea. The Gael call us _Gall_: then I will let no Gael laugh at the Gall. It is enough. She is drowned. There are always women: one here, one there--it is but a wave blown this way or that."

At this moment a viking came running across the ruined town with tidings. Maoliosa and his Culdees were crowding into a great birlinn. Perhaps they were coming to give battle: mayhap they were for sailing away from that place.

Olaus and Sweno stared across the fjord. At first they knew not what to think. If Maoliosa thought of battle he would scarce choose that hour and place. Or was it that he knew the Gael were coming in force, and that the vikings were caught in a trap?

At last it was clear. Sweno gave a great laugh.

"By the blood of Odin," he cried, "they come to sue for peace!"

Slowly across the loch the birlinn, filled with white-robed Culdees, drew near. At the prow stood a tall old man, with streaming hair and beard, white as sea-foam. In his right hand he grasped a great Cross, whereon was Christ crucified.

The vikings drew close one to the other.

"Hail them in their own tongue, Sweno," said Olaus.

The Hammerer moved to the water-edge, as the birlinn stopped, a short arrow-flight away.

"Ho, there, priests of the Christ-faith!"

"What would you, viking?" It was Maoliosa himself that spoke.

"Why do you come here among us, you that are Maoliosa?"

"To win you and yours to God, pagan."

"Is it madness that is upon you, old man? We have swords and spears here, if we lack hymns and prayers."

All this time Olaus kept a wary watch inland and seaward, for he feared that Maoliosa came because of an ambush.

Truly the old monk was mad. He had told his Culdees that God would prevail, and that the pagans would melt away before the Cross.

The ebb-tide was running swift. Even while Sweno spoke, the birlinn touched a low sea-hidden ledge of rock.

A cry of consternation went up from the white-robes. Loud laughter came from the vikings.

"Arrows!" cried Olaus.

With that three score men took their bows. There was a hail of death-shafts. Many fell into the water, but some were in the brains and hearts of the Culdees.

Maoliosa himself stood in death, transfixed to the mast.

With a wild cry the monks swept their oars backward. Then they leaped to their feet and changed their place, and rowed for life or death.

The summer-sailors sprang into their galley. Sweno the Hammerer was at the bow. The foam curled and hissed.

The birlinn grided upon the opposite shore at the selfsame moment when Sweno brought down his battle-axe upon the monk who steered. The man was cleft to the shoulder. Sweno swayed with the blow, stumbled, and fell headlong into the sea. A Culdee thrust at him with an oar, and pinned him among the sea-tangle. Thus died Sweno the Hammerer.

Then all the white-robes leaped upon the shore. Yet Olaus was quicker than they. With a score of vikings he raced to the Church of the Cells, and gained the sanctuary. The monks uttered a cry of despair, and, turning, fled across the moor. Olaus counted them. There were now forty in all.

"Let forty men follow," he cried.

Like white birds, the monks fled this way and that. Olaus and those who watched laughed at them as they stumbled because of their robes. One by one fell, sword-cleft or spear-thrust. The moorland was red.

At the last there were less than a score--twelve only--ten!

"Bring them back!" Olaus shouted.

When the ten fugitives were captured and brought back, Olaus took the crucifix that Maoliosa had raised, and held it before each in turn. "Smite," he said to the first monk. But the man would not. "Smite!" he said to the second: but he would not. And so it was to the tenth.

"Good," said Olaus the White: "they shall witness to their god." With that he bade his vikings break up the birlinn, and drive the planks into the ground, and shore them up with logs.

When this was done he crucified each Culdee. With nails and with ropes he did unto each what their god had suffered. Then all were left there, by the water-side.

That night, when Olaus the White and the laughing Morna left the great bonfire where the vikings sang and drank horn after horn of strong ale, they stood and looked across the loch. In the moonlight, upon the dim verge of the further shore, they could discern ten crosses. On each was a motionless white splatch.

MIRCATH

The _Mire Chath_ was the name given to the war-frenzy that often preceded and accompanied battle.

When Haco the Laugher saw the islanders coming out of the west in their birlinns, he called to his vikings: "Now of a truth we shall hear the Song of the Sword!"

The ten galleys of the Summer-Sailors spread out into two lines of five boats, each boat an arrow-flight from those on either side.

The birlinns came on against the noon. In the sun-dazzle they loomed black as a shoal of pollack. There were fifteen in all, and from the largest, midway among them, flew a banner. On this banner was a disc of gold.

"It is the Banner of the Sunbeam," shouted Olaf the Red, who with Torquil the One-Armed was hero-man to Haco. "I know it well. The Gael who fight under that are warriors indeed."

"Is there a saga-man here?" cried Haco. At that a great shout went up from the vikings: "Harald the Smith!"

A man rose among the bow-men in Olaf's boat. It was Harald. He took a small square harp, and he struck the strings. This was the song he sang:

Let loose the hounds of war,
The whirling swords!
Send them leaping afar,
Red in their thirst for war;
Odin laughs in his car
At the screaming of the swords!

Far let the white-ones fly,
The whirling swords!
Afar off the ravens spy
Death-shadows cloud the sky.
Let the wolves of the Gael die
'Neath the screaming swords!

The Shining Ones yonder
High in Valhalla
Shout now, with thunder.
_Drive the Gaels under,
Cleave them asunder--
Swords of Valhalla!_

A shiver passed over every viking. Strong men shook as a child when lightning plays. Then the trembling passed. The mircath, the war-frenzy, came on them. Loud laughter, went from boat to boat. Many tossed the great oars, and swung them down upon the sea, splashing the sun-dazzle into a yeast of foam. Others sprang up and whirled their javelins on high, catching them with bloody mouths: others made sword-play, and stammered thick words through a surf of froth upon their lips. Olaf the Red towered high on the steering-plank of the _Calling Raven_, swirling round and round a mighty battle-axe: on the _Sea-Wolf_, Torquil One-Arm shaded his eyes, and screamed hoarsely wild words that no one knew the meaning of. Only Haco was still for a time. Then he, too, knew the mircath: and he stood up in the _Red-Dragon_ and laughed loud and long. And when Haco the Laugher laughed, there was ever blood and to spare.

The birlinns of the islanders drave on apace. They swayed out into a curve, a black crescent there in the gold-sprent blue meads of the sea. From the great birlinn that carried the Sunbeam came a chanting voice:

O 'tis a good song the sea makes when blood is on the wave,
And a good song the wave makes when its crest o' foam is red!
For the rovers out of Lochlin the sea is a good grave,
And the bards will sing to-night to the sea-moan of the dead!
Yo-ho-a-h'eily-a-yo, eily, ayah, a yo!
Sword and Spear and Battle-axe sing the Song of Woe.
Ayah, eily, a yo!
Eily, ayah, a yo!

Then there was a swirling and dashing of foam. Clouds of spray filled the air from the thresh of the oars.

No man knew aught of the last moments ere the birlinns bore down upon the viking-galleys. Crash and roar and scream: and a wild surging: the slashing of swords, the whistle of arrows, the fierce hiss of whirled spears, the rending crash of battle-axe and splintering of the javelins, wild cries, oaths, screams, shouts of victors and yells of the dying, shrill taunts from the spillers of life and savage choking cries from those drowning in the bloody yeast, that bubbled and foamed in the maelstrom where the war-boats swung and reeled this way and that--and over all the loud death-music of Haco the Laugher.

Olaf the Red went into the sea, red indeed, for the blood streamed from head and shoulders and fell about him as a scarlet robe. Torquil One-Arm fought, blind and arrow-sprent, till a spear went through his neck, and he sank among the dead. Louder and louder grew the fierce shouts of the Gael: fewer the savage screaming cries of the vikings. Thus it was till two galleys only held living men. The _Calling Raven_ turned and fled, with the nine men who were not wounded to the death. But on the _Red Dragon_ Haco the Laugher still laughed. Seven men were about him. These fought in silence.

Then Toscar mac Aonghas that was leader of the Gael took his bow. None was arrow-better than Toscar of the Nine Battles. He laid down his sword and took his bow, and an arrow went through the right eye of Haco the Laugher. He laughed no more. The seven died in silence. Swaran Swift-foot was the last. When he fell he wiped away the blood that streamed over his face.

"_Skoal!_" he cried to the hero of the Gael, and with that he whirled his battle-axe at Toscar mac Aonghas: and the soul of Toscar met his, in the dark mist, and upon the ears of both fell at one and the same time the glad laughter of the gods in Valhalla.

THE LAUGHTER OF SCATHACH THE QUEEN

_Scathach (pronounced Scá-ya or Ský-ya) was an Amazonian queen of the Isle of Skye, and is supposed to have given her name to that island._

In the year when Cuchullin left the Isle of Skye, where Scathach the warrior-Queen ruled with the shadow of death in the palm of her sword-hand, there was sorrow because of his beauty. He had fared back to Eiré, at the summons of Concobar mac Nessa, Ard-Righ of Ulster. For the Clan of the Red Branch was wading in blood, and there were seers who beheld that bitter tide rising and spreading.

Cuchullin was only a youth in years: but he had come to Skye a boy, and he had left it a man. None fairer had ever been seen of Scathach or of any woman. He was tall and lithe as a young pine: his skin was as white as a woman's breast: his eyes were of a fierce bright blue, with a white light in them as of the sun. When bent, and with arrow half-way drawn, he stood on the heather, listening against the belling of the deer; or when he leaned against a tree, dreaming not of eagle-chase or wolf-hunt, but of the woman whom he had never met; or when, by the dûn, he played at sword-whirl or spear-thrust, or raced the war-chariot across the machar--then, and ever, there were eyes upon his beauty and there were some who held him to be Angus Ogue himself. For there was a light about him, such as the hills have in the sun-glow an hour before set. His hair was the hair of Angus and of the fair gods: earth-brown shot with gold next his head, ruddy as flame midway, and, where it sprayed into a golden mist of fire, yellow as windy sunshine.

But Cuchullin loved no woman upon Skye, and none dared openly to love Cuchullin, for Scathach's heart yearned for him, and to cross the Queen was to put the shroud upon oneself. Scathach kept an open face for the son of Lerg. There was no dark frown above the storm in her eyes when she looked at his sunbright face. Gladly she slew a woman because Cuchullin had lightly reproved the maid for some idle thing: and once, when the youth had looked in grave silence at three viking-captives whom she had spared because of their comely manhood, she put her sword through the heart of each, and sent him the blade, dripping red, as the flower of love.

But Cuchullin was a dreamer, and he loved what he dreamed of, and that woman was not Scathach, nor any of her warrior-women who made the Isle of Mist a place of terror for those cast upon the wild shores, or stranded there in the ebb of inglorious battle.

Scathach brooded deep upon her vain desire. Once, in a windless shadowy gloaming, she asked him if he loved any woman.

"Yes," he said, "Etáin."

Her breath came quick and hard. It was for pleasure to her then to think of Cuchullin lying white at her feet, with the red blood spilling from the whiteness of his breast. But she bit her underlip, and said quietly:

"Who is Etáin?"

"She is the wife of Mídir."

And with that the youth turned and moved haughtily away. She did not know that the Etáin of whom Cuchullin dreamed was no woman that he had seen in Eiré, but the wife of Mídir the King of Faerie, who was so passing fair that Mac Greine, the beautiful god, had made for her a grianan all of shining glass, where still she lives in a dream, and in that sun-bower still is fed at dawn upon the bloom of flowers and at dusk upon their fragrance. _O ogham mhic Gréine, tha e boidheach_,[15] she sighs for ever in her sleep: and that sigh is in all sighs of love for ever and ever.

[15] "O beauty of my love the Sun-lord" (_lit._ "O Youth, son of
the Sun, how fair he is!")

Scathach watched him till he was lost behind the flare of the camp-fires of the rath. For long she stood there, brooding deep; till the sickle of the new moon, which had been like a blown feather over the sun as it sank, stood out in silvershine against the blue-black sky, now like a wake in the sea because of the star-dazzle that was there. And what the queen brooded upon was this: whether to send emissaries to Eirèann, under bond to seek in that land till they found Mídir and Etáin, and to slay Mídir and bring to her the corpse, for a gift from her to lay before Cuchullin: or to bring Etáin to Skye, where the Queen might see her lose her beauty and wane into death. Neither way might win the heart of Cuchullin. The dark tarn of the woman's mind grew blacker with the shadow of that thought.

Slowly she moved dûn-ward through the night. "As the moon sometimes is seen rising out of the east," she muttered, "and sometimes, as now, is first seen in the west, so is the heart of love. And if I go west, lo the moon may rise along the sunway: and if I go east, lo the moon may be a white light over the setting sun. And who that knoweth the heart of man or woman can tell when the moon of love is to appear full-orbed in the east or sickle-wise in the west?"

It was on the day following that tidings came out of Eirèann. An Ultonian brought a sword to Cuchullin from Concobar the Ard-righ.

"The sword has ill upon it, and will die, unless you save it, Cuculain son of Lerg," said the man.

"And what is that ill, Ultonian?" asked the youth.

"It is thirst."

Then Cuchullin understood.

On the night of his going none looked at Scathach. She had a flame in her eyes.

At moonrise, she came back into the rath. No one, meeting her, looked in her face. Death lay there, like the levin behind a cloud. But Maev her chief captain sought her, for she had glad news.

"I would slay you for that glad news, Maev," said the Dark Queen to the warrior-woman, "for there is no glad news unless it be that Cuchullin is come again: only, I spare, for you saved my life that day the summer-sailors burned my rath in the south."

Nevertheless, Scathach had gladness because of the tidings. Three viking-galleys had been driven into Loch Scavaig, and been dashed to death there by the whirling wind and the narrow furious seas. Of the ninety men who had sailed in them, only a score had reached the rocks: and these were now lying bound at the dûn, awaiting death.

"Call out my warriors," said Scathach, "and bid all meet at the oak near the Ancient Stones. And bring thither the twenty men that lie bound in the dûn."

There was a scattering of fire and a clashing of swords and spears, when the word went from Maev. Soon all were at the Stones beneath the great oak.

"Cut the bonds from the feet of the sea-rovers, and let them stand." Thus commanded the Queen.

The tall fair men out of Lochlin stood, with their hands bound behind them. In their eyes burned wrath and shame, because that they were the sport of women. A bitter death theirs, with no sword-song for music. "Take each by his long yellow hair," said Scathach, "and tie the hair of each to a down-caught bough of the oak."

In silence this thing was done. A shadow was in the paleness of each viking-face.

"Let the boughs go," said Scathach.

The five score warrior-women who held the great boughs downward, sprang back. Up swept the branches, and from each swung a living man, swaying in the wind by his long yellow hair.

Great men they were, strong warriors: but stronger was the yellow hair of each, and stronger than the hair the bough wherefrom each swung and stronger than the boughs the wind that swayed them idly like drooping fruit, with the stars silvering their hair and the torch-flares reddening the white soles of their dancing feet.

Then Scathach the Queen laughed loud and long. There was no other sound at all there, for none ever uttered sound when Scathach laughed that laugh, for then her madness was upon her.

But at the last Maev strode forward, and struck a small clarsach that she carried, and to the wild notes of it sang the death-song of the vikings.

O arone a-ree, eily arone, arone!
'Tis a good thing to be sailing across the sea!
How the women smile and the children are laughing glad
When the galleys go out into the blue sea--arone!
O eily arone, arone!

But the children may laugh less when the wolves come,
And the women may smile less in the winter--cold--
For the Summer-sailors will not come again, arone!
O arone a-ree, eily arone, arone!

I am thinking they will not sail back again, O no!
The yellow-haired men that came sailing across the sea:
For 'tis wild apples they would be, and swing on green branches,
And sway in the wind for the corbies to preen their eyne,
O eily arone, eily a-ree!

And it is pleasure for Scathach the Queen to see this:
To see the good fruit that grows upon the Tree of the Stones.
Long, speckled fruit it is, wind-swayed by its yellow roots,
And like men they are with their feet dancing in the void air!
O, O, arone, a-ree, eily arone!

When she ceased, all there swung swords and spears, and flung flaring torches into the night, and cried out:

_O, arone a-ree, eily arone, arone,
O, O, arone, a-ree, eily arone!_

Scathach laughed no more. She was weary now. Of what avail any joy of death against the pain she had in her heart, the pain that was called Cuchullin?

Soon all was dark in the rath. Flame after flame died out. Then there was but one red glare in the night, the watch-fire by the dûn. Deep peace was upon all. Not a heifer lowed, not a dog bayed against the moon. The wind fell into a breath, scarce enough to lift the fragrance from flower to flower. Upon the branches of a great oak swung motionless a strange fruit, limp and gray as the hemlock that hangs from ancient pines.

ULA AND URLA[16]

"Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled
Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring
The bell that calls us on: the sweet far thing.
Beauty grown sad with its eternity
Made you of us, and of the dim gray sea."

[16] The first part of the story of Ula and Urla, as Isla and
Eilidh, is told in "Silk o' the Kine," at the end of _The
Sin-Eater_. [The name, Eilidh, is pronounced Eily (_liq._) or
Isle-ih.]

Ula and Urla were under vow to meet by the Stone of Sorrow. But Ula, dying first, stumbled blindfold when he passed the Shadowy Gate: and, till Urla's hour was upon her, she remembered not.

* * * * *

These were the names that had been given to them in the north isles, when the birlinn that ran down the war-galley of the vikings brought them before the Maormor.

No word had they spoken that day, and no name. They were of the Gael, though Ula's hair was yellow and though his eyes were blue as the heart of a wave. They would ask nothing, for both were in love with death. The Maormor of Siol Tormaid looked at Urla, and his desire gnawed at his heart. But he knew what was in her mind, because he saw into it through her eyes, and he feared the sudden slaying in the dark.

Nevertheless he brooded night and day upon her beauty. Her skin was more white than the foam of the moon: her eyes were as a starlit dewy dusk. When she moved, he saw her like a doe in the fern: when she stooped, it was as the fall of wind-swayed water. In his eyes there was a shimmer as of the sunflood in a calm sea. In that dazzle he was led astray.

"Go," he said to Ula, on a day of the days. "Go: the men of Siol Torquil will take you to the South Isles, and so you can hale to your own place, be it Eirèann or Manannan, or wherever the south wind puts its hand upon your home."

It was on that day Ula spoke for the first time.

"I will go, Coll mac Torcall: but I go not alone. Urla that I love goes whither I go."

"She is my spoil. But, man out of Eirèann--for so I know you to be, because of the manner of your speech--tell me this: of what clan and what place are you, and whence is Urla come: and by what shore was it that the men of Lochlin whom we slew took you and her out of the sea, as you swam against the sun, with waving swords upon the strand when the viking-boat carried you away?"

"How know you these things?" asked Ula, that had been Isla, son of the king of Islay.

"One of the sea-rovers spake before he died."

"Then let the viking speak again. I have nought to say."

With that the Maormor frowned, but said no more. That eve Ula was seized, as he walked in the dusk by the sea, singing low to himself an ancient song.

"Is it death?" he said, remembering another day when he and Eilidh, that they called Urla, had the same asking upon their lips.

"It is death."

Ula frowned, but spake no word for a time. Then he spake.

"Let me say one word with Urla."

"No word canst thou have. She too must die."

Ula laughed low at that.

"I am ready," he said. And they slew him with a spear.

When they told Urla she rose from the deer-skins and went down to the shore. She said no word, then. But she stooped, and she put her lips upon his cold lips: and she whispered in his unhearing ear.

That night Coll mac Torcall went secretly to where Urla was. When he entered, a groan came to his lips, and there was froth there: and that was because the spear that had slain Ula was thrust betwixt his shoulders by one who stood in the shadow. He lay there till the dawn. When they found Coll the Maormor he was like a seal speared upon a rock, for he had his hands out, and his head was between them, and his face was downward.

"Eat dust, slain wolf," was all that Eilidh whom they called Urla said ere she moved away from that place in the darkness of the night.

When the sun rose, Urla was in a glen among the hills. A man who shepherded there took her to his mate. They gave her milk, and because of her beauty, and the frozen silence of her eyes, bade her stay with them, and be at peace.

They knew, in time, that she wished death. But, first, there was the birthing of the child.

"It was Isla's will," she said to the woman. Ula was but the shadow of a bird's wing: an idle name. And she, too, was Eilidh once more. "It was death he gave you when he gave you the child," said the woman once.

"It was life," answered Eilidh, with her eyes filled with the shadow of dream. And yet another day the woman said to her that it would be well to bear the child and let it die: for beauty was like sunlight on a day of clouds, and if she were to go forth young and alone and so wondrous fair, she would have love, and love is best.

"Truly, love is best," Eilidh answered. "And because Isla loved me, I would that another Isla came into the world, and sang his songs--the songs that were so sweet, and the songs that he never sang, because I gave him death when I gave him life. But now he shall live again--and he and I shall be in one body, in him that I carry now."

At that the woman understood, and said no more. And so the days grew out of the nights, and the dust of the feet of one month was in the eyes of that which followed after: and this until Eilidh's time was come.

* * * * *

Dusk after dusk, Ula that was Isla the Singer, waited by the Stone of Sorrow. Then a great weariness came upon him. He made a song there, where he lay in the narrow place: the last song that he made, for after that he heard no trampling of the hours.

The swift years slip and slide adown the steep;
The slow years pass; neither will come again.
Yon huddled years have weary eyes that weep,
These laugh, these moan, these silent frown, these plain,
These have their lips acurl with proud disdain.

O years with tears, and tears through weary years,
How weary I who in your arms have lain:
Now, I am tired: the sound of slipping spears
Moves soft, and tears fall in a bloody rain,
And the chill footless years go over me who am slain.

I hear, as in a wood, dim with old light, the rain,
Slow falling; old, old, weary, human tears:
And in the deepening dark my comfort is my Pain,
Sole comfort left of all my hopes and fears,
Pain that alone survives, gaunt hound of the shadowy years.

But, at the last, after many days, he stirred. There was a song in his ears.

He listened. It was like soft rain in a wood in June. It was like the wind laughing among the leaves.

Then his heart leapt. Sure, it was the voice of Eilidh!

"_Eilidh! Eilidh! Eilidh!_" he cried. But a great weariness came upon him again. He fell asleep, knowing not the little hand that was in his and the small flower-sweet body that was warm against his side.

Then the child that was his looked into the singer's heart, and saw there a mist of rainbows, and midway in that mist was the face of Eilidh his mother.

Thereafter the little one looked into his brain that was so still, and he saw the music that was there: and it was the voice of Eilidh his mother.

And, again, the birdeen, that had the blue of Isla's eyes and the dream of Eilidh's, looked into Ula's sleeping soul: and he saw that it was not Isla nor yet Eilidh, but that it was like unto himself, who was made of Eilidh and Isla.

For a long time the child dreamed. Then he put his ear to Isla's brow, and listened. Ah, the sweet songs that he heard. Ah, bitter-sweet moonseed of song! Into his life they passed, echo after echo, strain after strain, wild air after wild sweet air.

"Isla shall never die," whispered the child, "for Eilidh loved him. And I am Isla and Eilidh."

Then the little one put his hands above Isla's heart. There was a flame there, that the Grave quenched not.

"O flame of love!" sighed the child, and he clasped it to his breast: and it was a moonshine glory about the two hearts that he had, the heart of Isla and the heart of Eilidh, that were thenceforth one.

At dawn he was no longer there. Already the sunrise was warm upon him where he lay, newborn, upon the breast of Eilidh.

"It is the end," murmured Isla when he waked. "She has never come. For sure now, the darkness and the silence."

Then he remembered the words of Maol the Druid, he that was a seer and had told him of Orchil, the dim goddess who is under the brown earth, in a vast cavern, where she weaves at two looms. With one hand she weaves life upward through the grass: with the other she weaves death downward through the mould: and the sound of the weaving is Eternity, and the name of it in the green world is Time. And, through all, Orchil weaves the weft of Eternal Beauty, that passeth not, though its soul is Change.

And these were the words of Orchil, on the lips of Maol the Druid, that was old, and knew the mystery of the Grave:

_When thou journeyest towards the Shadowy Gate take neither
Fear with thee nor Hope, for both are abashed hounds of
silence in that place: but take only the purple nightshade
for sleep, and a vial of tears and wine, tears that shall be
known unto thee and old wine of love. So shalt thou have thy
silent festival, ere the end._

So therewith Isla, having in his weariness the nightshade of sleep, and in his mind the slow dripping rain of familiar tears, and deep in his heart the old wine of love, bowed his head.

It was well to have lived, since life was Eilidh. It was well to cease to live, since Eilidh came no more.

Then suddenly he raised his head. There was music in the green world above. A sun-ray opened the earth about him: staring upward he beheld Angus Ogue.

"Ah, fair face of the god of youth," he sighed. Then he saw the white birds that fly about the head of Angus Ogue, and he heard the music that his breath made upon the harp of the wind.

"Arise," said Angus; and, when he smiled, the white birds flashed their wings and made a mist of rainbows.

"Arise," said Angus Ogue again; and, when he spoke, the spires of the grass quivered to a wild sweet haunting air.

So Isla arose, and the sun shone upon him, and his shadow passed into the earth. Orchil wove it into her web of death.

"Why dost thou wait here by the Stone of Sorrow, Isla that was called Ula at the end?"

"I wait for Eilidh, who cometh not."

At that the wind-listening god stooped and laid his head upon the grass.

"I hear the coming of a woman's feet," he said, and he rose.

"Eilidh! Eilidh!" cried Isla, and the sorrow of his cry was a moan in the web of Orchil.

Angus Ogue took a branch, and put the cool greenness against his cheek.

"I hear the beating of a heart," he said.

"Eilidh! Eilidh! Eilidh!" Isla cried, and the tears that were in his voice were turned by Angus into dim dews of remembrance in the babe-brain that was the brain of Isla and Eilidh.

"I hear a word," said Angus Ogue, "and that word is a flame of joy."

Isla listened. He heard a singing of birds. Then, suddenly, a glory came into the shine of the sun.

"_I have come, Isla my king!_"

It was the voice of Eilidh. He bowed his head, and swayed; for it was his own life that came to him.

"_Eilidh!_" he whispered.

And so, at the last, Isla came into his kingdom.

* * * * *

But are they gone, these twain, who loved with deathless love? Or is this a dream that I have dreamed?

Afar in an island-sanctuary that I shall not see again, where the wind chants the blind oblivious rune of Time, I have heard the grasses whisper: _Time never was, Time is not._

PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON AT
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS IN CAMBRIDGE
DURING JUNE M DCCC XCVI. FOR
STONE AND KIMBALL
NEW YORK
[Decoration]

Transcriber's Note

Some stories are divided into roman numbered sections. In some cases, the first section had no number. This is preserved as printed.

Minor punctuation errors have been repaired.

Hyphenation and accent usage have been made consistent where there was a clear prevalence of one form over another.

The footnote on page 321 had no corresponding marker in the text. The transcriber has guessed the most likely position of the marker.

Variations in spelling are preserved as printed, for example, Annir-Coille and Annir-Choille; Cailliach and Cailleach; Halival and Haleval; Haskeval and Haskival. However, the following appeared to be printer errors, and have been amended as follows:

Page 50--Brighde-nam-Bratj amended to Brighde-nam-Brat--...
is "Brighde-nam-Brat," that is, ...

Page 54--Loc amended to Loch--... that was then called Loch
Feobal.

Page 135--Padruice amended to Padruic--... I sailed with
Padruic Macrae and Ivor McLean, ...

Page 254--Bad-a-sgailch amended to Bad-a-sgailich--_Baille 'n
Bad-a-sgailich_: the Farm of the Shadowy Clump of Trees.

Page 329--thae amended to that--... that passeth not, though
its soul is Change.

Repeated titles have been deleted.