Blair Collection > Celtic monthly > Volume 5, 1897

■2-2i
THE CELTIC MONTHLY.
Coll and Rum, and the wild Coolins of Skye —
Ian knew them all, but he was seeing none of
them now. What did it matter to him that the
white birds were screaming in the sunset light
when we sailed up Dunvegan Loch ! He would
hear the calling of the pyots no more.
But when the night fell on the boat as she
turned to cross the Minch, a great moaning of
wind came out of the gurly sky : the clouds
came up in banks from the .sea : and the waters
everywhere began to hiss in the darkness with
the gathering squall. Thud, thud, thud, went
the steamer as she rose and fell on the ridges
of the racing .seas, and even in the shelter of the
funnel, where Duncan Grant and I were stand-
ing, the spindrift would drench us again and
again. A strange moaning began to sound
through the ship, and even the roar of the wind
and the waves could not drown it : higher and
higher it rose, like the cry of a soul in the last
grip of the Black Spirit : and always we could
see from where we stood the white light moving
slowly back and forwards above the black
tarpaulin.
" Coll, what sound is that I am hearing now t"
asked Duncan, with the terror in his face.
For away forward the cry had risen higher
and higher above the noise of the sea and the
whistle of the wind, until it burst into a piercing
sliriek that made the heart beat faster in the
breast of both of us.
" It is the pipes, Duncan ' "
And sure enough the wild notes of a lament
began to rise above the storm. Someone was
playing in the forecastle. And when Duncan
heard the music and recognised the air, he
looked at the light that was moving back and
forwards on the deck, and shivered.
" No more, no more, no more returning,
In peace or in war is he returning.
Till dawns the great day of woe and burning,
MacCrimmon is home no more returning."
The next evening when the light was fading,
we were gliding past Maoldoanich into tiie Bay
of the Caisteal. The bleak hills of Barra rose
in a wilderness of rocks round the melancholy
shores. Standing on the quay was an old man
with a crooked back and silvery hair, lie was
leaning heavily upon a stick of thorn, and
scanning eagerly the folks on board the steamer.
Behind him a rough pony was yoked to a cart
that was full of the sweet-smelling hay. Ruari
and Alastair and Ewen were all there. There
was no word between us at all, but only the
grip of the hand. And when we had lifted Ian
into the cart, Ruari led the pony away up the
road to the left, and the five of us followed
behind. We passed the chapel on the hill, and
came to the low turf huts at the bend of the
road, where the evening airs were full of the
smell of the peat reek that was rising blue and
clear from the thatch roofs. Then up and up,
through the bit of bleak moorland, where the
hills sweep away on either side, we followed the
cart.
When we had reached the top of the hill, the
old man stopped and cried :
" MaUachd ! Yonder she is ! May the gloom
of the rocks be upon her ! "
And when Duncan and I looked up, there
was a woman standing at the side of a rock,
watching the cart. She had jet-black hair, and
small black beady eyes deep set in her face, and
she had a look like the look of the sea shark when
he rises to seize the little fish that is playing on
the surface of the water.
"It is the woman!" vdiispered Duncan Grant
to me. And when she heard the old man's
curse, she turned and ran screaming; up the
mountain side, and hid among the stones. The
gloom of the rocks had fallen upon her.
And now we could see the Caisteal of St.
Clair away among the shadows of the loch to the
left : the white sands were lying gleaming in
the evening light, and the great rollers were
booming along the lonely shore : far out above
the Atlantic, the sun was gathering himself
together into a red ball to go down, down, down,
into the cold grey sea. The cart stopped at the
door of a low turf hut, from which came a
bitter cry of grief. It was the only welcome
lan's mother had for her youngest boy. He had
takea his last journey home, and the white
sands, for which he cried with his last breath,
were lying around him in the fading light.
Then the siin went down into the Atlantic,
and the darkness fell. And the only sound
that broke the heavy silence that lay among the
hills was the long sad moan of the waves upon
the shore.
TORQUIL MaCLEOD.
The Clan Maclean — Colonel Sir Fitzroy D.
Maclean, Bart., C.B., chief of the clan, has received
the following letter from the Secretary for Scot-
land : —
ScoTTLSH Offices, Whitehall, S.W.,
27th July, 1897.
Sir, — I have had the honour to lay before the
Queen the loyal and dutiful Address by the Chief,
Chieftains, and members of all the branches ot the
Clan Maclean on the otcasion of the completion of
the Sixtieth Year of Her Majesty's Reign.
Her Majesty was pleased to receive the same
in the most gracious manner, and I have to acquaint
you that the evidence received from all parts of
Scotland of the attachment of Her Scottish subjects
to Her Throne and Person artords Her Majesty
great satisfaction."