Pharais; and, The Mountain Lovers

His sobs ceased. Only his breath came quick and hard. His whole body panted, quivered still.

"Forgive me, Nial! dear, good Nial! I did not mean to hurt you so. I was angry because of your words. But I – I – didn't really mean that that was your soul. Nial, Nial, I didn't see your soul at all!"

Slowly he lifted his wet inflamed face: his eyes agleam through the tangled locks that fell over his brows.

"Have you ever seen it, Oona?"

He could just hear the whispered No. A deep sigh passed her ears, and she pressed closer to his sorrow.

"Oona, my fawn, do you think you'll ever see it? Do you think I'll find it some day?"

"Oh, yes, Nial! Yes – yes – yes!"

"And you will help your poor ugly Nial to – to – find it?"

"Sure, it is helping you I will be, with all my heart, Nial-a-ghràidh."

He stooped his head over hers, lightly shoved her back, and kissed her sunshine-hair. She raised an arm and pulled his face to hers, and kissed him gently.

A faint smile, a glimmer of sunlight on a wet, dishevelled road, came over his face.

Oona sat back, relieved, but with questioning eyes.

"Are you sure you have no soul, Nial? Not even a small dark one that will grow some day, and be beautiful, just as you will, when – when – you die?"

"I am sure, birdeen. Ask Màm-Gorm, ask Sorcha, or Alan, or Murdo, or any of the people down yonder. They know. And I know, when I look in the tarn, or in the pool below the Linn o' Mairg, or in smooth water anywhere: ay, and when the deer come to me, or the sheep do not stir out of my way, or the kye come close and breathe on me kindly. No bee will sting me, and the dragonflies, that even you can't catch, rest sometimes, as the moths do, on my head or arm."

Oona kneeled, and bade the dwarf do likewise. Then she told him that his evil might be because of a rosad upon him, the spell of the Cailliach: and that she knew a sian might ease him. With closed eyes and clasped hands she repeated slowly:

"An ainm an Athar, a Mhic,'S an Spioraid Naoimh!Paidir a h'aon,Paidir a dha,Paidir a tri,Paidir a ceithir,Paidir a coig,Paidir a sea,Paidir a seachd;'S neart nan seachd padirean a' sgaoileadh doGholair air na clachan glas ud thall!""In the name of the Father,The Son,And the Holy Ghost:By one prayer,By two prayers,By three prayers,By four prayers,By five prayers,By six prayers,By seven prayers;And may the strength of the seven prayersCast out the ill that is in youUpon the grey stones over there!"8

Long and earnestly she watched to see if the incantation would effect the miracle. Nial trembled, with downcast eyes.

"Perhaps there is no evil in you, Nial," she whispered; "so now I will pray to Himself for you, and you repeat what I say, and shut your eyes and clasp your hands just as I do."

The soulless man and the child knelt side by side among the fern. The light lay all about them as a benediction. The rising wind, with a wet sough in it, came along the pines like an intoning anthem. Around them the bee hummed unwitting; in a tree beyond them a cushat crooned and crooned.

Oona's voice came low and sweet as the hidden dove's:

"O Father,That is the Father of the father of Sorcha and me,I pray that you will give Nial a soul."

Silence. Then a hoarse, sobbing voice:

"I pray that you will give Nial a soul!"

Then Oona again: and, again, Nial:

"I pray that Nial may find his soul soon!""I pray that Nial may find his soul soon!""I pray that it will be a good soul!""I pray that it will be a good soul!""I pray that it may have yellow hair and blue eyes!""I pray that it may have yellow hair and blue eyes!""I pray that father and Sorcha and Alan and Murdo,And that Donn and Fionn, the collies, and the kye,And the sheep, and – and – everything —Will love Nial!""That everything will love Nial!""And that Nial will go to Heaven too!""And that Nial will go to Heaven too!""And this is the prayer of Oona,The daughter of Torcall CameronWho lives at Màm-Gorm on Iolair,An ainm an Athar, a Mhic, 's an Spioraid Naoimh!""An ainm an Athar, a Mhic, 's an Spioraid Naoimh!"

Oona opened her eyes, looked earnestly at Nial, leant forward and kissed him.

"Now, Nial, rise, and turn sunways, and cry Deasìul."

The dwarf did as she bade; then, with a happy laugh, she slipped her hand in his.

"Let us go back now. The rain is coming."

And so, as the glooms of storm came rapidly over the mountain, the two moved, silent and happy, through the sighing glades of the forest.

Lowering skies, with the floating odour of coming rain, already dulled the hill-land. A raven, flying athwart Iolair, looked larger than its wont. Its occasional croak fell heavily as though from ledge to ledge of weighty air. The wood-doves which flew back toward the forest winged their way at a lower level than usual, the clamour of their pinions beating the atmosphere as with oars: on the moorland the lapwings rose and fell incessantly with wailing cries. The scattered kye lowed uneasily, or stood below solitary rowans or wild-guins, easing their fly-tormented flanks with their swishing tails. On the farther slopes, the querulous lambs bleated: everywhere the incessant calling of the ewes made a mournful rumour. The wind moved with a heavy lift, here rising, here falling, anon whirling upon itself, so that all the fern and undergrowth in the corries bent one way, or, for a league, the spires of the heather whitened.

High and low, the innumerous hum of insects vibrated on the air. Thus may the hum of the wheeling world be heard of Keithoir, who dreams in the hollow of a green hill unknown of man: or of the ancient goddess Orchil, who, blind and dumb, works in silence at the heart of Earth at her loom Change, with the thridding shuttles Life and Death: or of Manannan, who sleeps under the green wave, hearing only the sigh of the past, the moan of the passing, the rune of what is to come.

Before Oona and Nial drew close to the hill farm, a shrill sustained cry, not unlike that of the bird called the oyster catcher, came along the slopes. Oona knew at once it was Sorcha's summons for her to help with the cows. With a whispered word to her comrade she sped away by a sheep-path that wound over against Maol-Gorm. Nial slowly advanced to the green hillock of Cnoc-na-shee. He had just flung himself wearily on the grassy slope, when he saw Torcall Cameron stoop and issue from his low doorway.

Màm-Gorm faced the way of the wind, sniffed the air with sensitive nostrils, and let his blind eyes feel the balm of the damp. Then he turned, and returned to his seat by the fire. Nial watched for an hour. The wind had a steady sough in it, and the clouds were lower, darker, more voluminously vast and swift when Cameron came forth again.

It was this time that he had his staff in his hand, though no cap covered his tangled iron-grey hair.

Nial hoped he was right in believing that Màm-Gorm had come out merely to breathe the caller air: for the dwarf feared the reproach of Sorcha if he let the blind man wander along the perilous moorland, with wind and rain moving like ravenous hounds adown the heights.

When, however, he realised that Torcall Cameron was bent upon making his way to some distant spot, he had not the courage to check him, or even to make known his presence. There was a thundercloud on the man's face, one that to Nial was far more sombre and terrifying than any overhead. When, with slow, hesitating steps, the blind man passed close to Cnoc-na-shee, he stopped for a few moments. Doubtless he was listening to the wind going through the pines, with a noise as of the flowing tide against shingly beaches: or, perhaps, to the scattered lowing and bleating of his sheep and cows. But Nial feared that, in some strange way, he had perceived him. He trembled, for he knew that "the father" was in one of his dark moods. Deep down in his heart he dreaded the gaze of those sightless eyes more than anything else in the world: in his heart of hearts he was convinced that they saw, more awfully and searchingly because through a veil.

In his anxiety not to betray his presence, he ground his foot firmer into a heathy hollow, for he had slightly slipped when Cameron stopped. A pebble was dislodged, and made a slight noise.

The blind man lifted his head, startled.

"Is any one there?"

No answer. The wind sighed along the grass.

"Oona, are you there? Nial, is that you?"

Silence, but for a faint wind-rustle in the bracken.

"Sst! Down, Luath, Fior!"

But no collie barked or whined in response.

"Well, peace to your soul, and go hence."

But at last Torcall was convinced he was alone, for he heard the note of a yellow-hammer, as it fed its mate, close by. With a sigh he moved on. As he passed within a few yards of Nial, the dwarf heard him muttering disconnected phrases: "Ochan-achone, tha m' anam brùite am chom!" … "ma tha sin an dàn!" … "ma shìneas Dia mo làithean!"9

He waited till Cameron was some way ahead. Then with light step, stealthy movement, and furtive sidelong glances, he followed.

The first thin rain slanted along the wind. The blind man paid no heed. Indeed, he now walked swiftly and firmly along a sheep-path, as though he were familiar with the way, or had altogether forgotten his infirmity.

Out upon a bleak stretch of moor on one of the higher slopes of Maol-Donn stood a cairn. It was here, so rumour went, though none knew for sure, that Torcall's wife, Marsail, lay buried. It was known that she had perished in a snowstorm, and that he had insisted on her burial where she was found: but when the minister and the people came for her body they were told that she was already in the mools, and that even now the stones of her cairn were upon her.

Beside it was a tall flat slab of rock. It may have been part of a Pictish or Druidic temple, or its resemblance to a sacred stone may have been accidental. It stood erect, one-third imbedded in the hillside.

To these Torcall Cameron now made his way. At the cairn he did not stop, neither did he drop a stone or even a pebble upon it. When he reached the great rock, he leaned against it, and with folded arms stared sightlessly across the strath to Tornideon, whose vast bulk rose sombre in the deepening gloom.

The wail of the wind momently increased. The rocks sweated, even where there was no rain falling.

Suddenly, over the high crest to the west, the Druim-nan-Damh or Ridge of the Stags, there came a heavy rolling sound as though a mass of boulders had fallen down the far side of Iolair.

This first muttering of the thunder aroused the dreamer. He started, checked some exclamation, and then, having stooped and groped till he found what he wanted, threw a small stone on Marsail's cairn.

Nial drew closer. A flash of lightning had frightened him. Thunder and lightning were to him as direct agents of a vengeful and irate Power as they were to the priests and prophets of old.

The first loud crash filled the air. Then ensued a splitting and rending as of a granite mountain, from whose depths vomited a prolonged howling and roaring as of monstrous beasts. The outcast crawled alongside the tall slab against which the man leaned, and gripped a corner with his hand.

When, his white face glimmering in the mirk, he looked up at Màm-Gorm, he shivered with a new dread.

The blind man stood erect, with arms upraised and hands outspread. His face was lit as though a fire burned in his brain. Nial imagined that the dead eyes gleamed, as he had seen toadstools gleam in a dark cave: a dull phosphorescent light, horrible to look upon.

Again a wuthering roar, followed by a scythelike whirlwind, with the sound of rain-torrents flooding the high corries and washing the windward precipices of Ben Iolair. Nial was about to speak, when he crouched back at the volley of words shouted savagely over his head:

"Oh, my Lord God, strike! Oh, let Death be upon me! Sorrow Thou hast given me, and I have not rebelled: grief Thou hast made my daily portion, and I have not rebuked Thee: but now that Thou hast made my day into a charnel-house and my bed into a grave, now that Thou hast brought before my blind eyes what no eyes may see and live, now that Thou hast set the Dead as a watch upon the living – I cry to Thee, Enough!"

Nial shivered with awe and terror. He saw that a frenzy was upon the man whom he both loved and feared.

There was silence for many seconds. A greenish streak of flame shot across the mountain, intolerably vivid. A sound as of mirthless laughter was drowned in an avalanche-roar overhead. Out of the tumult, later, came wild fragments of human shouting:

"Let there be a duel between us then … ay, Marsail, you may weep; ay, Fergus, you may leap out of your shroud to be soul to soul with me … what do I care for the hounds of the night?.. Call off thy hounds, O Hunter!.. Be the day between us, and the night, O God; and the two noons, and the darkness of the coming and the darkness of the going; and the blood of the living, and the corruption of the dead; and the earth and the sea; and the stars beneath the world, and the stars above the world; and the friend of man that is Time, and Thy friend that is Eternity … for I will not, I will not, I will not … no, though I perish for ever and for ever" … (and at last, with a scream) … "Go Thy ways, O God… Leave me, if Thou wilt not slay! … I will not! I will not! I will not!"

When the next flash and thunderblast had hurtled and gone, Nial thought that Death had indeed come. Then he heard a low whisper:

"What is it that I hear? Do the dead stir? Marsail … Marsail … or … or … is it you, Fergus, son of Fergus, son of Ian?"

Sick with fear, Nial sprang to his feet, seized one of the fallen hands in his own, and tried to lead Màm-Gorm away.

The blind man shook as a tuft of canna in a wind-eddy; white, too, as the canna, was his face.

His lips moved convulsively. At last, hoarse, choking, sobbing sounds came forth, and from these grew three or four words:

"Is – it —you, Marsail?"

Nial shrank appalled, but could not withdraw his hands.

"Is – it —you, Fergus Gilchrist?"

Struggling to escape, he merely added to the paralysing awe which held his captor.

"Who are you – what are you? Are you the thing of the grave, the black guide I have heard of?"

With a sudden jerk the dwarf freed himself. The next moment he bounded aside, then, without a glance behind him, fled.

Cameron sprang forward, but when he found that he had missed his grip he drew up again, and stood listening intently. If it was a spirit, it made a noise of running like a human: if it was a creature of the grave, it hurried back to no hollow near by: if it was Black Donald himself, Sir Diabhol had fled, affrighted!

Ah, the Cailliach! He had not thought of her! It might well be that the demon-woman had tried to snare him. If so, what, who, had saved him?

Dazed and sick he stood for a moment, because of a crash of a thunderbolt against a near height. The granite splintered like glass. In his mouth his palate shrank: his nerves strained, quivering.

Who, what, hurled that thunderbolt? Was it God? Was He answering his wild prayer?

If it were of God, why had it not stricken him? Hark! A scream far off! Had the leaping Cailliach been slain by the lightning, as a flying man by the spear of his pursuer? Had God given him these things as signs? These voices, that awful touch as of human hands?

He bowed his head. Tears scalded the burning lids of his blind eyes. Suddenly he sank to his knees, and with outstretched arms repeated an ancient rune of his fathers, the Cry to Age, the Rann-an-h' Aoise:

O thou that on the hills and wastes of Night art Shepherd,Whose folds are flameless moons and icy planets,Whose darkling way is gloomed with ancient sorrows:Whose breath lies white as snow upon the olden,Whose sigh it is that furrows breasts grown milkless,Whose weariness is in the loins of manAnd is the barren stillness of the woman:O thou whom all would 'scape and all must meet,Thou that the Shadow art of Youth-Eternal,The gloom that is the hush'd air of the Grave,The sigh that is between last parted love,The light for aye withdrawing from weary eyes,The tide from stricken hearts for ever ebbing!O thou, the Elder Brother whom none loveth,Whom all men hail with reverence or mocking,Who broodeth on the peaks of herbless summits,Yet dreamest in the eyes of babes and children:Thou, Shadow of the Heart, the Brain, the Life,Who art that dusk What is that is already Has been,To thee this rune of the-fathers-to-the-sons,And of the sons to the sons, and mothers to new mothers —To thee who art Aois,To thee who art Age!Breathe thy frosty breath upon my hair, for I am weary;Lay thy frozen hand upon my bones that they support not,Put thy chill upon the blood that it sustain not,Place the crown of thy fulfilling on my forehead,Throw the silence of thy spirit on my spirit,Lay the balm and benediction of thy mercyOn the brain-throb and the heart-pulse and the life-spring —For thy child that bows his head is weary,For thy child that bows his head is weary.I the shadow am that seeks the Darkness.Age, that hath the face of Night unstarr'd and moonless,Age that doth extinguish star and planet,Moon and sun and all the fiery worlds,Give me now thy darkness and thy silence!

It was there, lying with his face in the wet heather, that Sorcha found her father. She had seen Nial flying as for his life, and, from behind the boulder where she was sheltering a lamb, had sprung forward to stop him. But all the elf-man saw was a woman's figure – perhaps the Cailliach who had already stolen his soul and now wanted his body in this night of storm! With a scream he turned aside and dashed onward in his wild, ungainly flight.

Sorcha's great eyes filled with amazement, then with dread. What did it mean? Her bosom heaved, the swell of the sudden tide at her heart. More beautiful than any Fairy-Woman that ever herded the deer or sang a fatal song, she stood with one hand at her breast, the colour ebbing from her face, her slim firm body poised as an intent stag.

Slowly her gaze travelled back the way Nial had come. In the gloom of storm she could descry nothing, no one. If the Cailliach were there, she was now invisible.

Again an almost intolerably vivid flash of blue-green light, out of a dazzling flame that seemed to burst from the hills. The hollow roar and crash that followed dazed her, but in that moment's illumination she had seen the cairn and the stannin' stane, and, beside them, the figure of her father, apparently stricken and fallen prone.

Without a thought of fear, either of the storm or the evil spirit that might be roaming the hillside, she half ran, half clambered upward till she came upon her father lying low. In a moment she was by his side, and had lifted his head, drying his face with her dress, and kissing him, with a crooning as of a mother over her child.

He was not dead. For that she was thankful. She could feel the throb of his heart, and in his throat there was a sound as of sobbing breath.

"Father, father," she cried; then, whispering in his ear, "Father of me, father of me, oh, dear to my heart, all is well! I am Sorcha! There is no evil thing here. Come home! Come home!"

She felt the shiver that went over him. Then he sought with his hand, and clasped that which went to meet it.

"What is it, Sorcha? Where am I?"

"Ah, father, dear father, you are well now: arise: I will lead you home!"

"Home?"

"Yes; do you not hear the wind and the rain? Ah – h – !"

Again a bursting roar overhead, and the whole of Iolair a beacon of flame whereon every boulder and crag stood out clear as in brilliant moonlight.

"I remember! I remember!" Cameron cried, as he staggered to his feet. "Was it you, Sorcha, who took my hands a little ago, when – when – I was speaking to – to – Marsail?.."

The girl recoiled in horror. Marsail … her long-dead mother!

"What is this thing that you say, O Torcall MacDiarmid?" she whispered, awestruck.

"It is nothing. I was dreaming. Sorcha, I came here dreaming of past days. Your mother lies below the cairn there. I was talking to her to ease my pain. I thought she might hear. And while I spoke, I felt hands clasp mine, and try to pull me down – below the cairn, it may be! And then I fell into a horror, and the darkness came over my mind. And, suddenly, I knew that God spared me, though I had cursed Him, and I fell on my knees and cried the rune of Age, that is a rune of old, forgotten among our people, and therewith I was heard, and my strength knew the Breath, and I fell as you found me."

"But, father, father, you are not in the dark way – you are not old, for all the grey of your hair – you are not going to die, and leave your Sorcha and Oona?"

"Would you have me live, nic-chridhe?"

Seldom did he speak to her thus, though often he called Oona his heart's dearie and other loving names. The tears came to her eyes.

"Yes, yes, father! I would have you live. I love you."

"My age is come upon me. I am weary."

"Not yet: not yet!"

"Do you not know the wisdom of old —s'mairg a dh'iarradh an aoise, Woe to him that desireth extreme old age!"

"Come with me, dear! Come! The rain is leaping at us. Come! You are cold and wet and shivering!"

And so, at last, silent and weary, Torcall Cameron toiled back against the tempest, and neither he nor Sorcha saw, as they passed the byre, a squat, misshapen figure crouching beside Odhar, the calving cow.

It was a night for the peat-glow. Outside, the darkness was intense. The thunderstorm had rolled heavily away, though the far hills still held an echo. But a great wind had arisen, and blew across the heights with a sound like the trumpets of a mighty host. From the forest came a vast tumultuous sigh, as of the moaning sea.

In the low room, where there was no light save that of the peat-fire, upon which flamed some dry pine-logs, Torcall Cameron sat brooding in the ingle. Opposite to him was Sorcha on a milking-stool, now stirring the porridge in the pot at one side of the fire, now with clasped hands staring into the flames, dreaming of Alan, or of what she had that gloaming heard from her father and from Nial.

At dark she had gone to the byre, and, having found the dwarf, had soothed and entreated him, so that his dark mood passed, and he followed her, in furtive silence, into the room, where, unknowing of his advent, Màm-Gorm sat.

Only once had the blind man spoken since he had seated himself once again before the peats. It was to ask Sorcha if she thought that the person who took his hands by the cairn could have been Nial. An imploring glance from the outcast made her refrain from betrayal of his presence: of which she was glad when, having replied that she was certain it was he, for she had seen him running down the hillside as though terrified by the lightning, her father broke into a muttered savage curse.

At last Màm-Gorm slept. The fireglow calmed the wrought face. The tangled iron-grey hair fell over his forehead. He looked strangely old; could it be, thought Sorcha, that his prayer had been heard, and that already the Shepherd had found this weary sheep? And yet, so strong was he, so tall and strong; strong as an aged pine on a headland! Surely his ill was of the stricken heart only?

When his breathing came soft and even, she rose, lightly kissed his grey hair, with a tear for the pity of the old that is in the loving heart of the young, and then went out to the byre to see if Odhar was warm, and under no spell nor evil, though her calf was not yet due.

As she went out Oona slipped in. She was dry and flushed, for at the coming of the storm she had crept into the hayloft, and had there been lulled to sleep by the rush of the rain and the endless rising and falling sough of the wind. Nial made a sign of silence, so she came forward soundlessly. For a time she stared intently at the sleeper, then, seeing that Nial, who had crawled to her side, would not look at her but sat blinking at the flame, she began to croon a song.