Pharais; and, The Mountain Lovers

But as they drew nearer she saw the woman Anabal waving her arms slowly as she advanced, even as the prophesying women of old did before the Lord; and, so waving, she chanted a rune. And the rune that she chanted was the Rune of the Passion of the Mother, that no man has ever heard since time was, and that has been in the ears of those women, only, who are to lose life in the giving of a life unto Life. So, hearing this rune, she fell sobbing, with the pains already upon her: and, but for the coming of Murdo with Anna, she would have borne her child on Cnoc-na-shee, the fairy hill – and who knows but its doom might have been that of Nial the soulless?

This vision, Sorcha added, she would not have told to any one had she felt the death-breath enter her as the child was delivered; but now that the boy was born, and was so fair and lusty, blue-eyed and golden-haired as his father had been before him when he too was a breast-babe, and, too, that all was well with her, she told it. Moreover, sure, no harm could come of a song of peace: and as for the Rune of the Passion of Mary, it was no more than an idle tale, that saying of Anna MacAnndra's and of other women, that whoso shall hear it shall surely die within the birth-month.

And because of her smiling lips and loving eyes, and of the fair, lusty child whose little hands wandered clingingly about the white breast of Sorcha, Alan believed that the ancient wisdom was an idle tale.

When the dark fell, and pinelogs were thrown upon the redhot peats, the two talked in low, hushed tones, with eyes that ever sought each other lovingly – dreamed and talked, whispered and dreamed, far into the night.

Then, with close-clasping arm holding her child to her bosom, as though in her exceeding weakness – a weakness nigh unto death, now that it seemed to float up to her from within, rather than descend upon her from above – she feared her white blossom of love might be taken from her, Sorcha sank suddenly into drowning sleep.

Sitting by the bedside, with his hand stroking or holding hers, Alan revolved other thoughts than those of love only.

Passing strange, passing strange, this mystery of motherhood over which he brooded obscurely. And, truly, who can know the long, bitter travail of the spirit, as well as the pangs of the body, which many women endure – except just such a woman, suffering in just that way? Can any man know? Hardly can it be so. For though a man can understand the agony of birthtide, and even the long ache and strain of the double life, can he comprehend the baffled sense of overmastering weakness, the vague informulate cry against all powers that be – Man, overlord of the womb: God, overlord of men. How many women have prayed not to Him, but to the one Pontiff before whom all thoughts bow down, worshipping in dread: to that shadowy Lord of the veiled face whom some call Death, that Woman of the compassionate eyes whom others call Oblivion, because of the poppied draught she gives the weary to drink, and the quiet glooms of rest that she holds in the hollow of her hand, and the hushed breath of her that is Forgetfulness.

Thoughts such as these, though in crude words and simple symbols, were in Alan's mind.

No, he knew: never again could he even listen to men jeering at birth. He, though he had come to her virginal-pure, yet feared Sorcha's eyes at times, because – though not knowing for what it was – of the deep-buried spiritual anathema which, in the gaze of the purest and noblest of women, affronts the chained brute that is in the man.

Ah, do men know, do men know – many a woman cries in her heart – do men know that a woman with child dies daily: that she wakes up to die, and that she lies down to die: and that even as hourly she dies, so hourly does the child inherit life? Do they know that her body is the temple of a new soul? What men are they, in any land, who profane the sacred altars? Death was of old the just penalty of those who defiled the holy place where godhood stood revealed in stone or wood or living Bread: shall they go free who defile the temple of the human soul?

"Sure, sure," Alan breathed rather than whispered, with some such thought as this in his mind, "sure I am the priest of God, and she there my temple … and lo, my God!" … and with that he leaned over and kissed the little rosy fingers, and the hot tears in his eyes fell upon Sorcha's breast, so that she stirred in her sleep and smiled, dreaming that a soft rain was falling upon her out of the Healing Fountain of Tears that is in the midmost Heaven.

It was at sunrise that the door opened and Oona entered. The child was wet with dew which glistered all over her as though she were a new-plucked flower.

"Ah, birdeen, it is you!" whispered Alan softly, lest the sleepers should wake. "See, I have been dreaming and sleeping all night before the peats."

Oona stared at the bed, where all she could see was Sorcha's pale face among its mass of dusky hair.

"Is it true, Alan? That … over there … is that true?"

"It is true, dear."

"Are you sure that a baby has come to Sorcha?"

"It is Himself that sent it."

"Alan, has it a soul?"

"A soul?.. Yes, sure no evil eye is upon it, to the Stones be it said! But why do you ask that thing?"

The child sighed, but made no answer, her gaze wandering from Alan round the room, and then to where Sorcha lay.

"Why do you say that, Oona? It is not a safe thing to say: sure, it is not a good wishing. Who knows who may be hearing, though I wish evil to no one, banned or blest!"

"I see no one," Oona began calmly: "I see no one, and how can no one hear? But I will not be for saying an unlucky thing: sure, you know that, dear Alan. Happiness be in this house!.. And, now, I will be going, Alan, for I…"

"Going? Hush-sh! wait, Oona, wait: sure, you will be wanting to see the little one?"

"I want to see Nial."

"Why?"

"He must not come … just now."

"Why?"

"At dawn we went up to the top of the hillock, for the 'quiet people' are ever away by then, it is said. And we prayed. I prayed, and Nial said whatever I said. And then, at sunrise, we rose, and went three times round Cnoc-na-shee south-ways, and each time cried Djayseeul!"17

"And what was it you would be praying, Oona?"

"That no soul might be in the body of Sorcha's baby."

Alan stared at her, too amazed at first to be angry.

"What madness is this, lassie?"

"Sure it is no madness at all, at all, Alan! It is a good thought, and no madness… For … for why… There is poor Nial; and when Murdo met him on the hillside last night, and told him about Sorcha, Nial found me out by calling through the woods like a cuckoo, and sure a good way too, for there are no cooaks now; and then he and I hoped the baby would have no soul … and…"

"Hush-sh! Hush-sh! Enough! enough! bi sàvach! I am not being angered with you, because of the good thought that was in your heart. But say these things no more. Come; look at Sorcha and the child."

With a light, swift step Oona moved across the room. Silently she looked into Sorcha's face; silently she stood looking awhile at the child.

Alan had no word from her, to his sorrow. Steadfastly she stared; but breathed no whisper even. Then, with a faint sigh, she turned, moved like a ray of light across the room, and, before he knew what had happened, she was gone.

Bewildered at the child going thus quietly away, he went slowly to the door; but she had already vanished. So small a lass could soon be lost in that sunlit sea of green-gold bracken.

For some days thereafter he caught at times a faint echo of her singing in the woods. Once, in a gleaming silver-dusk, he saw the imprint of her small feet, darkly distinct in the wet dew, underneath the little window behind which Sorcha lay. But she did not come again.

It was on the eve of the morning that Oona came that Nial also, for the first and last time, beheld the little Ivor – so called after Ivor, the brother of Marsail that was Sorcha's mother, the noblest man Alan had ever known; "Ivor the good," as he was called by some, "Ivor the poet" by others.

Alan was out, talking to Anna MacAnndra, when Nial stole into the room. One hope was in his heart: that Sorcha slept.

With gleaming eyes, seeing that this was so, he drew near. The sight of the little white child, close lain against his mother's bosom, made a pain in his heart greater than ever the stillest moonlit night had done – a suffocating pain, that made him tremble.

He drew a long breath. He, too, he knew, had once been small, perhaps white and sweet, like that.

Was it possible that so small, so frail a thing could have a soul? Sure, it could not be. If not, should he not take it, and keep it by him in the forest, till the day when it could be mate to him, Nial the soulless? But if…

His hand touched the skin of the little rosy arm. The child opened its eyes of wonder full upon him.

They gazed unwaveringly, seeing nothing, it may be: if seeing, heeding not. Had it cried, even, or turned away its head; but, no, its blue, unfearing eyes were fixed upon this creature of another world.

It was enough. With a low, sobbing moan he turned and stole unseen from the room, and so out on the hillside, and past that praying-place of Cnoc-na-shee, where so vainly he and Oona had urged that which might not be; and so to the forest, that was the home of the wild fawns, and of the red fox, and of Nial.

None, save the child Oona, ever saw again the elf-man that was called Nial the Soulless: none, though Murdo the shepherd averred that, once, as he passed through the forest in the darkness of a black dawn, he heard a wailing cry come from a great hollow oak that grew solitary among the endless avenues of the pines.

It was far within that first month of motherhood, presaged by the secret rune heard of Sorcha, the Rune of the Passion of Mary, that only women dying of birth may hear: it was within this time that an unspeakable weakness came upon Sorcha.

Day by day she grew frail and more frail. Her eyes were pools for the coming shadows of death.

Strange had been their love: strange the coming of it: stranger still was their joy in the hour of death.

For this thing upbore her, that was to go, and him, that was to stay: Joy.

Not vainly had they lived in dream. Sweet now was the waning of the dream into long sleep. Sweet is sleep that will never stir to any waking: sweeter that sleep which is but a balm of rest.

For they knew this: that they would awake in the fulness of time.

When, for the first time, the doom-word passed her lips, Alan shuddered slightly, but he did not quail.

"I am dying, dear heart!"

"Sorcha, this thing has been near to us many days. It is not for long."

"And thou wilt look to thine own dark hour with joy?"

"Even so."

"And our legacy to this our child … shall be … shall be…"

"It shall be Joy. He shall be, among men, Ivor the Joy-bringer."

No more was said between them, then, nor later.

It was in the afternoon of the day following this that Sorcha died. She was fain to breathe her last breath on the mountain-side. Tenderly, to the green hillock by the homestead, Alan had carried her. Soft was the west wind upon her wandering hands; warm the golden light out of the shining palaces of cloud whence that wind came.

He was stooping, with his arm upholding her, and whispering low, when, suddenly, she lifted the little Ivor toward him. Quietly she lay back against the slope of the green grass. She was dead.

Alan quivered. All the tears of his life rose up in a flood, and drowned his heart. He could not see the child in his arms; but he did not sway nor fall. Sorcha strengthened him.

Then silently the wave of grief, of a grief that might not be spoken, ebbed. Out of the sea of bitterness his soul rose, a rock with the sun shining upon it.

Slowly he raised the child above his head, till the wind was all about it, and the flooding glory of light out of the west.

A look of serene peace came into his face: within him the breath of an immortal joy transcended the poor frailty of the stricken spirit.

When the words that were on his lips were uttered, they were proud and strong as the fires of the sun against the dawn:

"Behold, O God, this is Ivor, the son of Sorcha, that I boon unto Thee, to be, for all the days Thou shalt give him, Thy servant of Joy among men."

There was peace that night upon Iolair. But toward dawn – the morrow of that new, strange life wherein Alan and the child, with Oona mayhap, were to go forth toward those distant isles where, as Sorcha had seen in a vision, Ivor's ministry of joy was to be – a great wind arose.

The hills heard, and the moan of them went up before it. The mountains awoke, and were filled with a sound of rejoicing.

Through the darkness that lightened momently it came down the glens and the dim braes of bracken. Many waters felt the breath of it, and leaped.

The silences of the forest were as yet unbroken. Unbroken of the wind, at least: for, faint and far, there rose and fell a monotonous chanting, the chanting of a gaunt, dwarfed, misshapen figure that moved like a drifting shadow from pine-glade to pine-glade.

But as dawn broke wanly upon the tallest trees, the wings of the tempest struck one and all into a mighty roar, reverberatingly prolonged: a solemn, slow-sounding anthem, full of the awe of the Night, and of the majesty of the Day, hymning mysteries older than the first dawn, deeper than the deepest dark.

And after the passing of that great wind the forest was still. Only a whisper as of the sea breathed through its illimitable green wave.