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Page 109


  With a loud clear voice he took the sins.

  "Thoir dhomh do ciontachd, O Adam mhic Anndra mhic Adam Mòr! Give me thy sins to take away from thee! Lo, now, as I stand here, I break this bread that has lain on thee in corpse, and I am eating it, I am, and in that eating I take upon me the sins of thee, O man that was alive and is now white with the stillness!"

  Thereupon Neil Ross broke the bread and ate of it, and took upon himself the sins of Adam Blair that was dead. It was a bitter swallowing, that. The remainder of the bread he crumbled in his hand, and threw it on the ground, and trod upon it. Andrew Blair gave a sigh of relief. His cold eyes lightened with malice.

  "Be off with you, now, Macallum. We are wanting no tramps at the farm here, and perhaps you had better not be trying to get work this side Iona; for it is known as the Sin-Eater you will be, and that won't be for the helping, I am thinking! There—there are the two half-crowns for you ... and may they bring you no harm, you that are Scapegoat now!"

  The Sin-Eater turned at that, and stared like a hill-bull. Scapegoat! Ay, that's what he was. Sin-Eater, Scapegoat! Was he not, too, another Judas, to have sold for silver that which was not for the selling? No, no, for sure Maisie Macdonald could tell him the rune that would serve for the easing of this burden. He would soon be quit of it.

  Slowly he took the money, turned it over, and put it in his pocket.

  "I am going, Andrew Blair," he said quietly, "I am going now. I will not say to him that is there in the silence, A chuid do Pharas da!—nor will I say to you, Gu'n gleidheadh Dia thu,—nor will I say to this dwelling that is the home of thee and thine, Gu'n beannaic-headh Dia an tigh!"3

  Here there was a pause. All listened. Andrew Blair shifted uneasily, the furtive eyes of him going this way and that, like a ferret in the grass.

  "But, Andrew Blair, I will say this: when you fare abroad, Droch caoidh ort! and when you go upon the water, Gaoth gun direadh ort! Ay, ay, Anndra-mhic-Adam, Dia ad aghaidh 's ad aodann ... agus bas dunach ort! Dhonas 's dholas ort, agus leat-sa!"4

  The bitterness of these words was like snow in June upon all there. They stood amazed. None spoke. No one moved.

  Neil Ross turned upon his heel, and, with a bright light in his eyes, walked away from the dead and the living. He went by the byres, whence he had come. Andrew Blair remained where he was, now glooming at the corpse, now biting his nails and staring at the damp sods at his feet.

  When Neil reached the end of the milk-shed he saw Maisie Macdonald there, waiting.

  "These were ill sayings of yours, Neil Ross," she said in a low voice, so that she might not be overheard from the house.

  "So, it is knowing me you are."

  "Sheen Macarthur told me."

  "I have good cause."

  "That is a true word. I know it."

  "Tell me this thing. What is the rune that is said for the throwing into the sea of the sins of the dead? See here, Maisie Macdonald. There is no money of that man that I would carry a mile with me. Here it is. It is yours, if you will tell me that rune."

  Maisie took the money hesitatingly. Then, stooping, she said slowly the few lines of the old, old rune.

  "Will you be remembering that?"

  "It is not forgetting it I will be, Maisie."

  "Wait a moment. There is some warm milk here."

  With that she went, and then, from within, beckoned to him to enter.

  "There is no one here, Neil Ross. Drink the milk."

  He drank; and while he did so she drew a leather pouch from some hidden place in her dress.

  "And now I have this to give you."

  She counted out ten pennies and two farthings.

  "It is all the coppers I have. You are welcome to them. Take them, friend of my friend. They will give you the food you need, and the ferry across the Sound."

  "I will do that, Maisie Macdonald, and thanks to you. It is not forgetting it I will be, nor you, good woman. And now, tell me, is it safe that I am? He called me a 'scapegoat', he, Andrew Blair! Can evil touch me between this and the sea?"

  "You must go to the place where the evil was done to you and yours—and that, I know, is on the west side of Iona. Go, and God preserve you. But here, too, is a sian that will be for the safety."

  Thereupon, with swift mutterings she said this charm: an old, familiar Sian against Sudden Harm:

  "Sian a chuir Moire air Mac ort,

  Sian ro' marbhadh, sian ro' lot ort,

  Sian eadar a' chlioch 's a' ghlun,

  Sian nan Tri ann an aon ort,

  O mhullach do chinn gu bonn do chois ort:

  Sian seachd eadar a h-aon ort,

  Sian seachd eadar a dha ort,

  Sian seachd eadar a tri ort,

  Sian seachd eadar a ceithir ort,

  Sian seachd eadar a coig ort,

  Sian seachd eadar a sia ort,

  Sian seachd paidir nan seach paidir dol deiseil ri diugh narach ort,

  ga do ghleidheadh bho bheud 's bho mhi-thapadh!"

  Scarcely had she finished before she heard heavy steps approaching.

  "Away with you," she whispered, repeating in a loud, angry tone, "Away with you! Seachad! Seachad!"

  And with that Neil Ross slipped from the milk-shed and crossed the yard, and was behind the byres before Andrew Blair, with sullen mien and swift, wild eyes, strode from the house.

  It was with a grim smile on his face that Neil tramped down the wet heather till he reached the high road, and fared thence as through a marsh because of the rains there had been.

  For the first mile he thought of the angry mind of the dead man, bitter at paying of the silver. For the second mile he thought of the evil that had been wrought for him and his. For the third mile he pondered over all that he had heard and done and taken upon him that day.

  Then he sat down upon a broken granite heap by the way, and brooded deep till one hour went, and then another, and the third was upon him.

  A man driving two calves came towards him out of the west. He did not hear or see. The man stopped; spoke again. Neil gave no answer. The drover shrugged his shoulders, hesitated, and walked slowly on, often looking back.

  An hour later a shepherd came by the way he himself had tramped. He was a tall, gaunt man with a squint. The small, pale-blue eyes glittered out of a mass of red hair that almost covered his face. He stood still, opposite Neil, and leaned on his cromak.

  "Latha math leat," he said at last; "I wish you good day."

  Neil glanced at him, but did not speak.

  "What is your name, for I seem to know you?"

  But Neil had already forgotten him. The shepherd took out his snuff-mull, helped himself, and handed the mull to the lonely wayfarer. Neil mechanically helped himself.

  "Am bheil thu 'dol do Fhionphort?" tried the shepherd again: "Are you going to Fionnaphort?"

  "Tha mise 'dol a dh' I-challum-chille," Neil answered, in a low, weary voice, and as a man adream: "I am on my way to Iona."

  "I am thinking I know now who you are. You are the man Macallum."

  Neil looked, but did not speak. His eyes dreamed against what the other could not see or know. The shepherd called angrily to his dogs to keep the sheep from straying; then, with a resentful air, turned to his victim.

  "You are a silent man for sure, you are. I'm hoping it is not the curse upon you already."

  "What curse?"

  "Ah, that has brought the wind against the mist! I was thinking so!"

  "What curse?"

  "You are the man that was the Sin-Eater over there?"

  "Ay."

  "The man Macallum?"

  "Ay."

  "Strange it is, but three days ago I saw you in Tobermory, and heard you give your name as Neil Ross to an Iona man that was there."

  "Well?"

  "Oh, sure, it is nothing to me. But they say the Sin-Eater should not be a man with a hidden lump in his pack."5

  "Why?"

  "For the dead know, and are content. There is no shaking off
any sins, then—for that man."

  "It is a lie."

  "Maybe ay and maybe no."

  "Well, have you more to be saying to me? I am obliged to you for your company, but it is not needing it I am, though no offense."

  "Och, man, there's no offense between you and me. Sure, there's Iona in me, too; for the father of my father married a woman that was the granddaughter of Tomais Macdonald, who was a fisherman there. No, no; it is rather warning you I would be."

  "And for what?"

  "Well, well, just because of that laugh I heard about."

  "What laugh?"

  "The laugh of Adam Blair that is dead."

  Neil Ross stared, his eyes large and wild. He leaned a little forward. No word came from him. The look that was on his face was the question.

  "Yes, it was this way. Sure, the telling of it is just as I heard it. After you ate the sins of Adam Blair, the people there brought out the coffin. When they were putting him into it, he was as stiff as a sheep dead in the snow—and just like that, too, with his eyes wide open. Well, someone saw you trampling the heather down the slope that is in front of the house, and said, 'It is the Sin-Eater!' With that, Andrew Blair sneered, and said—'Ay, 'tis the scapegoat he is!' Then, after a while, he went on, 'The Sin-Eater they call him; ay, just so; and a bitter good bargain it is, too, if all's true that's thought true!' And with that he laughed, and then his wife that was behind him laughed, and then...."

  "Well, what then?"

  "Well, 'tis Himself that hears and knows if it is true! But this is the thing I was told: After that laughing there was a stillness and a dread. For all there saw that the corpse had turned its head and was looking after you as you went down the heather. Then, Neil Ross, if that be your true name, Adam Blair that was dead put up his white face against the sky, and laughed."

  At this, Ross sprang to his feet with a gasping sob.

  "It is a lie, that thing!" he cried, shaking his fist at the shepherd. "It is a lie."

  "It is no lie. And by the same token, Andrew Blair shrank back white and shaking, and his woman had the swoon upon her, and who knows but the corpse might have come to life again had it not been for Maisie Macdonald, the deid-watcher, who clapped a handful of salt on his eyes, and tilted the coffin so that the bottom of it slid forward, and so let the whole fall flat on the ground, with Adam Blair in it sideways, and as likely as not cursing and groaning, as his wont was, for the hurt both to his old bones and his old ancient dignity."

  Ross glared at the man as though the madness was upon him. Fear and horror and fierce rage swung him now this way and now that.

  "What will the name of you be, shepherd?" he stuttered huskily.

  "It is Eachainn Gilleasbuig I am to ourselves; and the English of that for those who have no Gaelic is Hector Gillespie; and I am Eachainn mac Ian mac Alasdair of Strathsheean that is where Sutherland lies against Ross."

  "Then take this thing—and that is, the curse of the Sin-Eater! And a bitter bad thing may it be upon you and yours."

  And with that Neil the Sin-Eater flung his hand up into the air, and then leaped past the shepherd, and a minute later was running through the frightened sheep, with his head low, and a white foam on his lips, and his eyes red with blood as a seal's that has the death-wound on it.

  On the third day of the seventh month from that day, Aulay Macneill, coming into Balliemore of Iona from the west side of the island, said to old Ronald MacCormick, that was the father of his wife, that he had seen Neil Ross again, and that he was "absent"—for though he had spoken to him, Neil would not answer, but only gloomed at him from the wet weedy rock where he sat.

  The going back of the man had loosed every tongue that was in Iona. When, too, it was known that he was wrought in some terrible way, if not actually mad, the islanders whispered that it was because of the sins of Adam Blair. Seldom or never now did they speak of him by his name, but simply as "The Sin-Eater." The thing was not so rare as to cause this strangeness, nor did many (and perhaps none did) think that the sins of the dead ever might or could abide with the living who had merely done a good Christian charitable thing. But there was a reason.

  Not long after Neil Ross had come again to Iona, and had settled down in the ruined roofless house on the croft of Ballyrona, just like a fox or a wild-cat, as the saying was, he was given fishing-work to do by Aulay Macneill, who lived at Ard-an-teine, at the rocky north end of the machar or plain that is on the west Atlantic coast of the island.

  One moonlit night, either the seventh or the ninth after the earthing of Adam Blair at his own place in the Ross, Aulay Macneill saw Neil Ross steal out of the shadow of Ballyrona and make for the sea. Macneill was there by the rocks, mending a lobster-creel. He had gone there because of the sadness. Well, when he saw the Sin-Eater, he watched.

  Neil crept from rock to rock till he reached the last fang that churns the sea into yeast when the tide sucks the land just opposite.

  Then he called out something that Aulay Macneill could not catch. With that he springs up, and throws his arms above him.

  "Then," says Aulay when he tells the tale, "it was like a ghost he was. The moonshine was on his face like the curl o' a wave. White! there is no whiteness like that of the human face. It was whiter than the foam about the skerry it was; whiter than the moon shining; whiter than ... well, as white as the painted letters on the black boards of the fishing-cobles. There he stood, for all that the sea was about him, the slip-slop waves leapin' wild, and the tide making, too, at that. He was shaking like a sail two points off the wind. It was then that, all of a sudden, he called in a womany, screamin' voice—

  "'I am throwing the sins of Adam Blair into the midst of ye, white dogs o' the sea! Drown them, tear them, drag them away out into the black deeps! Ay, ay, ay, ye dancin' wild waves, this is the third time I am doing it, and now there is none left; no, not a sin, not a sin!

  "'O-hi O-ri, dark tide o' the sea,

  I am giving the sins of a dead man to thee!

  By the Stones, by the Wind, by the Fire, by the Tree,

  From the dead man's sins set me free, set me free!

  Adam mhic Anndra mhic Adam and me,

  Set us free! Set us free!'

  "Ay, sure, the Sin-Eater sang that over and over; and after the third singing he swung his arms and screamed:

  "'And listen to me, black waters an' running tide,

  That rune is the good rune told me by Maisie the wise,

  And I am Neil the son of Silis Macallum

  By the black-hearted evil man Murtagh Ross,

  That was the friend of Adam mac Anndra, God against him!'

  "And with that he scrambled and fell into the sea. But, as I am Aulay mac Luais and no other, he was up in a moment, an' swimmin' like a seal, and then over the rocks again, an' away back to that lonely roofless place once more, laughing wild at times, an' muttering an' whispering."

  It was this tale of Aulay Macneill's that stood between Neil Ross and the isle-folk. There was something behind all that, they whispered one to another.

  So it was always the Sin-Eater he was called at last. None sought him. The few children who came upon him now and again fled at his approach, or at the very sight of him. Only Aulay Macneill saw him at times, and had word of him.

  After a month had gone by, all knew that the Sin-Eater was wrought to madness because of this awful thing: the burden of Adam Blair's sins would not go from him! Night and day he could hear them laughing low, it was said.

  But it was the quiet madness. He went to and fro like a shadow in the grass, and almost as soundless as that, and as voiceless. More and more the name of him grew as a terror. There were few folk on that wild west coast of Iona, and these few avoided him when the word ran that he had knowledge of strange things, and converse, too, with the secrets of the sea.

  One day Aulay Macneill, in his boat, but dumb with amaze and terror for him, saw him at high tide swimming on a long rolling wave right into the hollow of the Spouting C
ave. In the memory of man, no one had done this and escaped one of three things: a snatching away into oblivion, a strangled death, or madness. The islanders know that there swims into the cave, at full tide, a Mar-Tarbh, a dreadful creature of the sea that some call a kelpie; only it is not a kelpie, which is like a woman, but rather is a sea-bull, offspring of the cattle that are never seen. Ill indeed for any sheep or goat, ay, or even dog or child, if any happens to be leaning over the edge of the Spouting Cave when the Mar-tarv roars; for, of a surety, it will fall in and straightway be devoured.

  With awe and trembling Aulay listened for the screaming of the doomed man. It was full tide, and the sea-beast would be there.

  The minutes passed, and no sign. Only the hollow booming of the sea, as it moved like a baffled blind giant round the cavern-bases; only the rush and spray of the water flung up the narrow shaft high into the windy air above the cliff it penetrates.

  At last he saw what looked like a mass of seaweed swirled out on the surge. It was the Sin-Eater. With a leap, Aulay was at his oars. The boat swung through the sea. Just before Neil Ross was about to sink for the second time, he caught him and dragged him into the boat.

  But then, as ever after, nothing was to be got out of the Sin-Eater save a single saying: Tha e lamhan fuar! Tha e lamhan fuar!—"It has a cold, cold hand!"

  The telling of this and other tales left none free upon the island to look upon the "scapegoat" save as one accursed.

  It was in the third month that a new phase of his madness came upon Neil Ross.

  The horror of the sea and the passion for the sea came over him at the same happening. Oftentimes he would race along the shore, screaming wild names to it, now hot with hate and loathing, now as the pleading of a man with the woman of his love. And strange chants to it, too, were upon his lips. Old, old lines of forgotten runes were overheard by Aulay Macneill, and not Aulay only; lines wherein the ancient sea-name of the island, Ioua, that was given to it long before it was called Iona, or any other of the nine names that are said to belong to it, occurred again and again.

  The flowing tide it was that wrought him thus. At the ebb he would wander across the weedy slabs or among the rocks, silent, and more like a lost duinshee than a man.

 

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