Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 7, 1899

THE CELTIC MONTHLY.
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of us who would be glad enough at the last to
lay down our toiling, and return to our nurse's
arms when the night falls, and the sound of
voices comes to us out of the darkness from a far
off shore of dreams.
It is of the sea that I am wishful to tell you
now. For in the Isle of Ridges we are lapped
about for ever with a moaning and a sighing
and a whispering of waves.
The sunlight was lying hot on the moors
above Loch Scresort one Sabbath day. The air
was as still as still could be. There was nothing
heard but the soft calling of sea birds, like the
sound of music in a sleep-world far away. Out
across the waters to the north the Coolins lay on
the horizon like big floating clouds, and straight
away to the east from Kinloch to the point of
Sleat stretched ten miles of shimmering sea,
quivering in the sunlight like a flashing mirror.
It was a sea of glass mingled with fire, such as
the Holy Seer speaks of in the Book.
While I was lying on the warm rocks near the
jetty, Euari of the Dogs came along the shore
with a pair of great oars over his shoulder. He
was big and strong and silent, and a man
namely at the cainanarhd and the cahar — but
this day he had a look of dool on his face.
"What ails ye, Ruari, that on the day of
peace you should be meddling with the boats
at all?"
"Oh, it's yourself is if i I was not seeing you.
I am for Armadale in the big boat, with Padraig
Cam and Donald and Hamish. It is the doctor
we are after."
"Who is ill, Ruari?"
"Big John's wife."
"And what ails Big John's wife?"
Ruari was silent for a moment, and then he
answered slowly, as he walked away, without
looking at me —
"Big John's wife will be worse before she is
better."
"Aye, is it so?"
We understood one another in a twinkling —
for it is a ]ihrase with us.
"Then I will be going with you, Ruari," and
we went down the jetty together, both of us
hoping that it might not be too late when the
doctor came. There was no more talk between
us as we set about overhauling the tackle, and
getting the four great oars out. We were both
thinking about Big John's wife, for she was the
gentlest woman in Kinloch.
Then Padraig Cam and Donald and Hamish
came down the jetty and stepped into the " Star
of Evening" -for that was the name of Ruari's
boat —and soon we were in the middle of the
loch, with the four great sweeps breaking the
surface of the calm sea. It was twenty miles or
thereabouts to Armadale, and before we reached
Kinloch again the new day would be breaking.
And even then, who can ever tell when a boat
will return to the harbour?
But a woman's life and a bairn's hung on the
balance, so the rowers bent their backs with a
will, and a man's heart was beating behind
every stroke. We were all single men — unless
Padraig Cam, who had married Aileen the Fair,
and maybe that was the reason why Padraig
Cam took the stroke oar and made the ume.
All through the long summer afternoon we
rowed over the sea of glass. Around us lay the
fairest scene on earth — at least, to every isles-
man's eye. Canna, Skye, and far ofT Uist to
the west; and on our starboard the long rugged
coast of the mainland about Arisaig, Morar and
Moidart — steeped in the peacefulne.ss of heaven,
and shining through a veil of summer haze.
There was no variation at all in the sounds that
come to us out of this dream-world of beauty.
The dull thud-tliud of the oars in the thole pins,
the measured splash of the blades in the sea, the
constant sweesh-h-h of the water at the bow,
with the broken conversation of the men now
and again, while far up in the deep blue of the
sky overhead the white birds went circling and
crying, and diving and swooping, with a cease-
less motion that was free and light and full of
strength.
"Ruari," said Padraig, with a look away into
the west, "did you bring the oilskins with you?"
"Aye, Padraig, and I'm thinking that before
long we will need them."
"Aye, aye," answered all the men.
But to a landsman such a thought would have
been out of place on such an evening as this.
We were creeping up the coast of Sleat, and
the air was as still as the grave, and the heat was
oppressive, and the sea was like a burnished
mirror, and everywhere a kind of red mist was
rising that gave the ajipearance to land and sea
as if the sunset had thrown a red dust across
the hot, airless world.
"It is a red evening," said Padraig, "and I
will know always what that means. But we will
get the doctor aboard, and be on our way back
before it comes."
In another hour we were in at the green-
shored bay of Armadale, waiting for the doctor
to come down from his cottage. At last he
appeared, and over his arm he carried a water-
proof, and in his other hand a small black bag.
It took us two hours to get to the point
again, and in the dusk we made out another
boat being rowed quickly towards us.
"That is Big John's boat," said I.
The men stopped rowing and looked round.
"It is Big John himself!" cried Ruari, and
in a short time we were within hail.
Then followed a flow of the good Gaelic,