Kitabı oku: «The Washer of the Ford: Legendary moralities and barbaric tales», sayfa 4

IV

No sooner had Mary spoken than Bride fell into a deep sleep. So profound was this slumber that when Dùghall Donn came to see to the wayfarers, and to tell them that the milk and the porridge were ready for the breaking of their fast, he could get no word of her at all. She lay in the clean, yellow straw beneath the manger, where Mary had laid the Child. Dùghall stared in amaze. There was no sign of the mother, nor of the Babe that was the Prince of Peace, nor of the douce, quiet man that was Joseph the carpenter. As for Bride, she not only slept so sound that no word of his fell against her ears, but she gave him awe. For as he looked at her he saw that she was surrounded by a glowing light. Something in his heart shaped itself into a prayer, and he knelt beside her, sobbing low. When he rose, it was in peace. Mayhap an angel had comforted his soul in its dark shadowy haunt of his body.

It was late when Bride awoke, though she did not open her eyes, but lay dreaming. For long she thought she was in Tir-Tairngire, the Land of Promise, or wandering on the honey-sweet plain of Magh-Mell; for the wind of dreamland brought exquisite odours to her, and in her ears was a most marvellous sweet singing.

All round her there was a music of rejoicing. Voices, lovelier than any she had ever heard, resounded; glad voices full of praise and joy. There was a pleasant tumult of harps and trumpets, and as from across blue hills and over calm water came the sound of the bagpipes. She listened with tears. Loud and glad were the pipes, at times full of triumph, as when the heroes of old marched with Cuculain or went down to battle with Fionn: again, they were low and sweet, like humming of bees when the heather is heavy with the honey-ooze. The songs and wild music of the angels lulled her into peace: for a time no thought of the woman Mary came to her, nor of the Child that was her foster-child.

Suddenly it was in her mind as though the pipes played the chant that is called the “Aoibhneas a Shlighe,” “the joy of his way,” a march played before a bridegroom going to his bride. Out of this glad music came a solitary voice, like a child singing on the hillside.

“The way of wonder shall be thine, O Brighid-Naomha!”

This was what the child-voice sang. Then it was as though all the harpers of the west were playing “air clàrsach”: and the song of a multitude of voices was this:

“Blessed art thou, O Brighid, who nursed the King of the Elements in thy bosom: blessed thou, the Virgin Sister of the Virgin Mother, for unto all time thou shalt be called Muime Chriosd, the Foster-Mother of Jesus that is the Christ.”

With that, Bride remembered all, and opened her eyes. Naught strange was there to see, save that she lay in the stable. Then as she noted that the gloaming had come, she wondered at the soft light that prevailed in the shed, though no lamp or candle burned there. In her ears, too, still lingered a wild and beautiful music.

It was strange. Was it all a dream, she pondered. But even as she thought thus, she saw half of her mantle lying upon the straw in the manger. Much she marvelled at this, but when she took the garment in her hand she wondered more. For though it was no more than a half of the poor mantle wherewith she had wrapped the Babe, it was all wrought with mystic gold lines and with precious stones more glorious than ever Arch-Druid or Island Prince had seen. The marvel gave her awe at last, when, as she placed the garment upon her shoulder, it covered her completely.

She knew now that she had not dreamed, and that a miracle was done. So with gladness she went out of the stable, and into the inn. Dùghall Donn was amazed when he saw her, and then rejoiced exceedingly.

“Why are you so merry, my father?” she asked.

“Sure it is glad that I am. For now the folk will be laughing the wrong way. This very morning I was so pleased with the pleasure, that while the pot was boiling on the peats I went out and told every one I met that the Prince of Peace was come, and had just been born in the stable behind the ‘Rest and Be Thankful.’ Well, that saying was just like a weasel among the rabbits, only it was an old toothless weasel: for all Bethlehem mocked me, some with jeers, some with hard words, and some with threats. Sure, I cursed them right and left. No, not for all my cursing – and by the blood of my fathers, I spared no man among them, wishing them sword and fire, the black plague and the gray death – would they believe. So back it was that I came, and going through the inn I am come to the stable. ‘Sorrow is on me like a gray mist,’ said Oisìn, mourning for Oscur, and sure it was a gray mist that was on me when not a sign of man, woman, or child was to be seen, and you so sound asleep that a March gale in the Moyle wouldn’t have roused you. Well, I went back and told this thing, and all the people in Bethlehem mocked at me. And the Elders of the People came at last, and put a fine upon me: and condemned me to pay three barrels of good ale, and a sack of meal, and three thin chains of gold, each three yards long: and this for causing a false rumour, and still more for making a laughing-stock of the good folk of Bethlehem. There was a man called Murdoch-Dhu, who is the chief smith in Nazareth, and it’s him I’m thinking will have laughed the Elders into doing this hard thing.”

It was then that Bride was aware of a marvel upon her, for she blew an incantation off the palm of her hand, and by that frith she knew where the dues were to be found.

“By what I see in the air that is blown off the palm of my hand, father, I bid you go into the cellar of the inn. There you will find three barrels full of good ale, and beside them a sack of meal, and the sack is tied with three chains of gold, each three yards long.”

But while Dùghall Donn went away rejoicing, and found that which Bride had foretold, she passed out into the street. None saw her in the gloaming, or as she went towards the Gate of the East. When she passed by the Lazar-house she took her mantle off her back and laid it in the place of offerings. All the jewels and fine gold passed into invisible birds with healing wings: and these birds flew about the heads of the sick all night, so that at dawn every one arose, with no ill upon him, and went on his way rejoicing. As each went out of Bethlehem that morning of the mornings he found a clean white robe and new sandals at the first mile; and, at the second, food and cool water; and, at the third, a gold piece and a staff.

The guard that was at the Eastern Gate did not hail Bride. All the gaze of him was upon a company of strange men, shepherd-kings, who said they had come out of the East led by a star. They carried rare gifts with them when they first came to Bethlehem: but no man knew whence they came, what they wanted, or whither they went.

For a time Bride walked along the road that leads to Nazareth. There was fear in her gentle heart when she heard the howling of hyenas down in the dark hollows, and she was glad when the moon came out and shone quietly upon her.

In the moonlight she saw that there were steps in the dew before her. She could see the black print of feet in the silver sheen on the wet grass, for it was on a grassy hill that she now walked, though a day ago every leaf and sheath there had lain brown and withered. The footprints she followed were those of a woman and of a child.

All night through she tracked those wandering feet in the dew. They were always fresh before her, and led her away from the villages, and also where no wild beasts prowled through the gloom. There was no weariness upon her, though often she wondered when she should see the fair wondrous face she sought. Behind her also were footsteps in the dew, though she knew nothing of them. They were those of the Following Love. And this was the Lorgadh-Brighde of which men speak to this day: the Quest of the holy St. Bride.

All night she walked; now upon the high slopes of a hill. Never once did she have a glimpse of any figure in the moonlight, though the steps in the dew before her were newly made, and none lay in the glisten a short way ahead.

Suddenly she stopped. There were no more footprints. Eagerly she looked before her. On a hill beyond the valley beneath her she saw the gleaming of yellow stars. These were the lights of a city. “Behold, it is Jerusalem,” she murmured, awe-struck, for she had never seen the great town.

Sweet was the breath of the wind that stirred among the olives on the mount where she stood. It had the smell of heather, and she could hear the rustle of it among the bracken on a hill close by.

“Truly, this must be the Mount of Olives,” she whispered. “The Mount of which I have heard my father speak, and that must be the hill called Calvary.”

But even as she gazed marvelling, she sighed with new wonder; for now she saw that the yellow stars were as the twinkling of the fires of the sun along the crest of a hill that is set in the east. There was a living joy in the dawntide. In her ears was a sweet sound of the bleating of ewes and lambs. From the hollows in the shadows came the swift singing rush of the flowing tide. Faint cries of the herring gulls filled the air; from the weedy boulders by the sea the skuas called wailingly.

Bewildered, she stood intent. If only she could see the footprints again, she thought. Whither should she turn, whither go? At her feet was a yellow flower. She stooped and plucked it.

“Tell me, O little sun-flower, which way shall I be going?” and as she spoke a small golden bee flew up from the heart of it, and up the hill to the left of her. So it is that from that day the dandelion is called am-Bèarnàn-Bhrighde.

Still she hesitated. Then a sea-bird flew by her with a loud whistling cry.

“Tell me, O eisireùn,” she called, “which way shall I be going?”

And at this the eisireùn swerved in its flight, and followed the golden bee, crying, “This way, O Bride, Bride, Bride, Bride, Bri-i-i-ide!”

So it is that from that day the oyster-catcher has been called the Gille-Brighde, the Servant of St. Bridget.

Then it was that Bride said this sian:

 
Dia romham;
Moire am dheaghuidh;
’S am Mac a thug Righ nan Dul!
Mis’ air do shlios, a Dhia,
Is Dia ma’m luirg.
Mac’ ’oire, a’s Righ nan Dul,
A shoillseachadh gach ni dheth so,
Le a ghras, mu’m choinneamh.
 
 
God before me;
The Virgin Mary after me;
And the Son sent by the King of the Elements.
I am to windward of thee, O God!
And God on my footsteps.
May the Son of Mary, King of the Elements,
Reveal the meaning of each of these things
Before me, through His grace.
 

And as she ended she saw before her two quicken-trees, of which the boughs were interwrought so that they made an arch. Deep in the green foliage was a white merle that sang a wondrous sweet song. Above it the small branches were twisted into the shape of a wreath or crown, lovely with the sunlit rowan-clusters, from whose scarlet berries red drops as of blood fell.

Before her flew a white dove, all aglow as with golden light.

She followed, and passed beneath the quicken arch.

Sweet was the song of the merle, that was then no more; sweet the green shadow of the rowans, that now grew straight as young pines. Sweet the far song in the sky, where the white dove flew against the sun.

Bride looked, and her eyes were glad. Bonnie the blooming of the heather on the slopes of Dun-I. Iona lay green and gold, isled in her blue waters. From the sheiling of Dùvach, her father, rose a thin column of pale blue smoke. The collies, seeing her, barked loudly with welcoming joy.

The bleating of the sheep, the lowing of the kye, the breath of the salt wind from the open sea beyond, the song of the flowing tide in the Sound beneath: dear the homing.

With a strange light in her eyes she moved down through the heather and among the green bracken: white, wonderful, fair to see.

THE FISHER OF MEN

 
“But now I have grown nothing, being all,
And the whole world weighs down upon my heart.”
 

Fergus and the Druid.

WHEN old Sine nic Leòid came back to the croft, after she had been to the burn at the edge of the green airidh, where she had washed the claar that was for the potatoes at the peeling, she sat down before the peats.

She was white with years. The mountain wind was chill, too, for all that the sun had shone throughout the midsummer day. It was well to sit before the peat-fire.

The croft was on the slope of a mountain, and had the south upon it. North, south, east, and west, other great slopes reached upward, like hollow green waves frozen into silence by the very wind that curved them so, and freaked their crests into peaks and jagged pinnacles. Stillness was in that place for ever and ever. What though the Gorromalt Water foamed down Ben Nair, where the croft was, and made a hoarse voice for aye surrendering sound to silence? What though at times the stones fell from the ridges of Ben Chaisteal and Maolmòr, and clattered down the barren declivities till they were slung in the tangled meshes of whin and juniper? What though on stormy dawns the eagle screamed as he fought against the wind that graved a thin line upon the aged front of Ben Mulad, where his eyrie was: or that the kestrel cried above the rabbit-burrows in the strath: or that the hill-fox barked, or that the curlew wailed, or that the scattered sheep made an endless mournful crying? What were these but the ministers of silence?

There was no blue smoke in the strath except from the one turf cot. In the hidden valley beyond Ben Nair there was a hamlet, and nigh upon three-score folk lived there: but that was over three miles away. Sine Macleod was alone in that solitary place, save for her son Alasdair Mòr Òg. “Young Alasdair” he was still, though the gray feet of fifty years had marked his hair. Alasdair Òg he was while Alasdair Ruadh mac Chalum mhic Leòid, that was his father, lived. But when Alasdair Ruadh changed, and Sine was left a mourning woman, he that was their son was Alasdair Òg still.

She had sore weariness that day. For all that, it was not the weight of the burden that made her go in out of the afternoon sun, and sit by the red glow of the peats, brooding deep.

When, nigh upon an hour later, Alasdair came up the slope and led the kye to the byre, she did not hear him: nor had she sight of him, when his shadow flickered in before him and lay along the floor.

“Poor old woman,” he said to himself, bending his head because of the big height that was his, and he there so heavy and strong, and tender, too, for all the tangled black beard and the wild hill-eyes that looked out under bristling gray-black eyebrows.

“Poor old woman, and she with the tired heart that she has. Ay, ay, for sure the weeks lap up her shadow, as the sayin’ is. She will be thinking of him that is gone. Ay, or maybe the old thoughts of her are goin’ back on their own steps, down this glen an’ over that hill an’ away beyont that strath, an’ this corrie an’ that moor. Well, well, it is a good love, that of the mother. Sure a bitter pain it will be to me when there’s no old gray hair there to stroke. It’s quiet here, terrible quiet, God knows, to Himself be the blessin’ for this an’ for that: but when she has the white sleep at last, then it’ll be a sore day for me, an’ one that I will not be able to bear to hear the sheep callin’, callin’, callin’ through the rain on the hills here, and Gorromalt Water an’ no other voice to be with me on that day of the days.”

She heard a faint sigh, and stirred a moment, but did not look round.

“Muim’-à-ghraidh, is it tired you are, an’ this so fine a time, too?”

With a quick gesture, the old woman glanced at him.

“Ah, child, is that you indeed? Well, I am glad of that, for I have the trouble again.”

“What trouble, Muim’-ghaolaiche?”

But the old woman did not answer. Wearily she turned her face to the peat-glow again.

Alasdair seated himself on the big wooden chair to her right. For a time he stayed silent thus, staring into the red heart of the peats. What was the gloom upon the old heart that he loved? What trouble was it?

At last he rose and put meal and water into the iron pot, and stirred the porridge while it seethed and sputtered. Then he poured boiling water upon the tea in the brown jenny, and put the new bread and the sweet-milk scones on the rude deal board that was the table.

“Come, dear tired old heart,” he said, “and let us give thanks to the Being.”

“Blessings and thanks,” she said, and turned round.

Alasdair poured out the porridge, and watched the steam rise. Then he sat down, with a knife in one hand and the brown-white loaf in the other.

“O God,” he said, in the low voice he had in the kirk when the bread and wine were given – “O God, be giving us now thy blessing, and have the thanks. And give us peace.”

Peace there was in the sorrowful old eyes of the mother. The two ate in silence. The big clock that was by the bed tick-tacked, tick-tacked. A faint sputtering came out of a peat that had bog-gas in it. Shadows moved in the silence, and met and whispered and moved into deep, warm darkness. There was peace.

There was still a red flush above the hills in the west when the mother and son sat in the ingle again.

“What is it, mother-my-heart?” Alasdair asked at last, putting his great red hand upon the woman’s knee.

She looked at him for a moment. When she spoke she turned away her gaze again.

“Foxes have holes, and the fowls of the air have their places of rest, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.”

“And what then, dear? Sure, it is the deep meaning you have in that gray old head that I’m loving so.”

“Ay, lennav-aghray, there is meaning to my words. It is old I am, and the hour of my hours is near. I heard a voice outside the window last night. It is a voice I will not be hearing, no, not for seventy years. It was cradle-sweet, it was.”

She paused, and there was silence for a time.

“Well, dear,” she began again, wearily, and in a low, weak voice, “it is more tired and more tired I am every day now this last month. Two Sabbaths ago I woke, and there were bells in the air: and you are for knowing well, Alasdair, that no kirk-bells ever rang in Strath Nair. At edge o’ dark on Friday, and by the same token the thirteenth day it was, I fell asleep, and dreamed the mools were on my breast, and that the roots of the white daisies were in the hollows where the eyes were that loved you, Alasdair, my son.”

The man looked at her with troubled gaze. No words would come. Of what avail to speak when there is nothing to be said? God sends the gloom upon the cloud, and there is rain: God sends the gloom upon the hill, and there is mist: God sends the gloom upon the sun, and there is winter. It is God, too, sends the gloom upon the soul, and there is change. The swallow knows when to lift up her wing over against the shadow that creeps out of the north: the wild swan knows when the smell of snow is behind the sun: the salmon, lone in the brown pool among the hills, hears the deep sea, and his tongue pants for salt, and his fins quiver, and he knows that his time is come, and that the sea calls. The doe knows when the fawn hath not yet quaked in her belly: is not the violet more deep in the shadowy dewy eyes? The woman knows when the babe hath not yet stirred a little hand: is not the wild-rose on her cheek more often seen, and are not the shy tears moist on quiet hands in the dusk? How, then, shall the soul not know when the change is nigh at last? Is it a less thing than a reed, which sees the yellow birch-gold adrift on the lake, and the gown of the heather grow russet when the purple has passed into the sky, and the white bog-down wave gray and tattered where the loneroid grows dark and pungent – which sees, and knows that the breath of the Death-Weaver at the Pole is fast faring along the frozen norland peaks? It is more than a reed, it is more than a wild doe on the hills, it is more than a swallow lifting her wing against the coming of the shadow, it is more than a swan drunken with the savour of the blue wine of the waves when the green Arctic lawns are white and still. It is more than these, which has the Son of God for brother, and is clothed with light. God doth not extinguish at the dark tomb what he hath litten in the dark womb.

Who shall say that the soul knows not when the bird is aweary of the nest, and the nest is aweary of the wind? Who shall say that all portents are vain imaginings? A whirling straw upon the road is but a whirling straw; yet the wind is upon the cheek almost ere it is gone.

It was not for Alasdair Òg, then, to put a word upon the saying of the woman that was his mother, and was age-white, and could see with the seeing of old wise eyes.

So all that was upon his lips was a sigh, and the poor prayer that is only a breath out of the heart.

“You will be telling me, gray sweetheart,” he said lovingly, at last – “you will be telling me what was behind the word that you said: that about the foxes that have holes for the hiding, poor beasts, and the birdeens wi’ their nests, though the Son o’ Man hath not where to lay his head?”

“Ay, Alasdair, my son that I bore long syne an’ that I’m leaving soon, I will be for telling you that thing, an’ now too, for I am knowing what is in the dark this night o’ the nights.”

Old Sine put her head back wearily on the chair, and let her hands lie, long and white, palm-downward upon her knees. The peat-glow warmed the dull gray that lurked under her closed eyes and about her mouth, and in the furrowed cheeks. Alasdair moved nearer, and took her right hand in his, where it lay like a tired sheep between two scarped rocks. Gently he smoothed her hand, and wondered why so frail and slight a creature as this small old wizened woman could have mothered a great swarthy man like himself – he a man, now, with his two score and ten years, and yet but a boy there at the dear side of her.

“It was this way, Alasdair-mochree,” she went on in her low thin voice, – like a wind-worn leaf, the man that was her son thought. “It was this way. I went down to the burn to wash the claar, and when I was there I saw a wounded fawn in the bracken. The big sad eyes of it were like those of Maisie, poor lass, when she had the birthing that was her going-call. I went through the bracken, and down by the Gorromalt, and into the Shadowy Glen.

“And when I was there, and standing by the running water, I saw a man by the stream-side. He was tall, but spare and weary: and the clothes upon him were poor and worn. He had sorrow. When he lifted his head at me, I saw the tears. Dark, wonderful, sweet eyes they were. His face was pale. It was not the face of a man of the hills. There was no red in it, and the eyes looked in upon themselves. He was a fair man, with the white hands that a woman has, a woman like the Bantighearna of Glenchaisteal over yonder. His voice, too, was a voice like that: in the softness, and the sweet, quiet sorrow, I am meaning.

“The word that I gave him was in the English: for I thought he was like a man out of Sasunn, or of the southlands somewhere. But he answered me in the Gaelic: sweet, good Gaelic like that of the Bioball over there, to Himself be the praise.

“‘And is it the way down the Strath you are seeking?’ I asked: ‘and will you not be coming up to the house yonder, poor cot though it is, and have a sup of milk, and a rest if it’s weary you are?’

“‘You are having my thanks for that,’ he said, ‘and it is as though I had both the good rest and the cool sweet drink. But I am following the flowing water here.’

“‘Is it for the fishing?’ I asked.

“‘I am a Fisher,’ he said, and the voice of him was low and sad. He had no hat on his head, and the light that streamed through a rowan-tree was in his long hair. He had the pity of the poor in his sorrowful gray eyes.

“‘And will you not sleep with us?’ I asked again: ‘that is, if you have no place to go to, and are a stranger in this country, as I am thinking you are; for I have never had sight of you in the home-straths before.’

“‘I am a stranger,’ he said, ‘and I have no home, and my father’s house is a great way off.’

“‘Do not tell me, poor man,’ I said gently, for fear of the pain, ‘do not tell me if you would fain not; but it is glad I will be if you will give me the name you have.’

“‘My name is Mac-an-t’-Saoir,’ he answered with the quiet deep gaze that was his. And with that he bowed his head, and went on his way, brooding deep.

“Well, it was with a heavy heart I turned, and went back through the bracken. A heavy heart, for sure, and yet, oh peace too, cool dews of peace. And the fawn was there: healed, Alasdair, healed, and whinny-bleating for its doe, that stood on a rock wi’ lifted hoof an’ stared down the glen to where the Fisher was.

“When I was at the burnside, a woman came down the brae. She was fair to see, but the tears were upon her.

“‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘have you seen a man going this way?’

“‘Ay, for sure,’ I answered, ‘but what man would he be?’

“‘He is called Mac-an-t’-Saoir.’

“‘Well, there are many men that are called Son of the Carpenter. What will his own name be?’

“‘Iosa,’ she said.

“And when I looked at her, she was weaving the wavy branches of a thorn near by, and sobbing low, and it was like a wreath or crown that she made.

“‘And who will you be, poor woman?’ I asked.

“‘O my Son, my Son,’ she said, and put her apron over her head and went down into the Shadowy Glen, she weeping sore, too, at that, poor woman.

“So now, Alasdair, my son, tell me what thought you have about this thing that I have told you. For I know well whom I met on the brae there, and who the Fisher was. And when I was at the peats here once more I sat down, and my mind sank into myself. And it is knowing the knowledge I am.”

“Well, well, dear, it is sore tired you are. Have rest now. But sure there are many men called Macintyre.”

“Ay, and what Gael that you know will be for giving you his surname like that?”

Alasdair had no word for that. He rose to put some more peats on the fire. When he had done this, he gave a cry.

The whiteness that was on the mother’s hair was now in the face. There was no blood there, or in the drawn lips. The light in the old, dim eyes was like water after frost.

He took her hand in his. Clay-cold it was. He let it go, and it fell straight by the chair, stiff as the cromak he carried when he was with the sheep.

“O my God and my God,” he whispered, white with the awe, and the bitter cruel pain.

Then it was that he heard a knocking at the door.

“Who is there?” he cried hoarsely.

“Open, and let me in.” It was a low, sweet voice; but was that gray hour the time for a welcome?

“Go, but go in peace, whoever you are. There is death here.”

“Open, and let me in.”

At that, Alasdair, shaking like a reed in the wind, unclasped the latch. A tall, fair man, ill-clad and weary, pale, too, and with dreaming eyes, came in.

“Beannachd Dhe an Tigh,” he said; “God’s blessing on this house, and on all here.”

“The same upon yourself,” Alasdair said, with a weary pain in his voice. “And who will you be? and forgive the asking.”

“I am called Mac-an-t’-Saoir, and Iosa is the name I bear – Jesus, the Son of the Carpenter.”

“It is a good name. And is it good you are seeking this night?”

“I am a Fisher.”

“Well, that’s here an’ that’s there. But will you go to the Strath over the hill, and tell the good man that is there, the minister, Lachlan MacLachlan, that old Sine nic Leòid, wife of Alasdair Ruadh, is dead.”

“I know that, Alasdair Òg.”

“And how will you be knowing that, and my name, too, you that are called Macintyre?”

“I met the white soul of Sine as it went down by the Shadowy Glen a brief while ago. She was singing a glad song, she was. She had green youth in her eyes. And a man was holding her by the hand. It was Alasdair Ruadh.”

At that Alasdair fell on his knees. When he looked up, there was no one there. Through the darkness outside the door, he saw a star shining white, and leaping like a pulse.

It was three days after that day of shadow that Sine Macleod was put under the green turf.

On each night, Alasdair Òg walked in the Shadowy Glen, and there he saw a man fishing, though ever afar off. Stooping he was, always, and like a shadow at times. But he was the man that was called Iosa Mac-an-t’-Saoir – Jesus, the Son of the Carpenter.

And on the night of the earthing he saw the Fisher close by.

“Lord God,” he said, with the hush on his voice, and deep awe in his wondering eyes: “Lord God!”

And the Man looked at him.

“Night and day, Alasdair MacAlasdair,” he said, “night and day I fish in the waters of the world. And these waters are the waters of grief, and the waters of sorrow, and the waters of despair. And it is the souls of the living I fish for. And lo, I say this thing unto you, for you shall not see me again: Go in peace. Go in peace, good soul of a poor man, for thou hast seen the Fisher of Men.”