Part 6

When, an hour after sunrise, Sheen Macarthur reached her bothy, she found Neil Ross, heavy with slumber, upon her bed. The fire was not out, though no flame or spark was visible; but she stooped and blew at the heart of the peats till the redness came, and once it came it grew. Having done this, she kneeled and said a rune of the morning, and after that a prayer, and then a prayer for the poor man Neil. She could pray no more because of the tears. She rose and put the meal and water into the pot for the porridge to be ready against his awaking. One of the hens that was there came and pecked at her ragged skirt. “Poor beastie,” she said. “Sure, that will just be the way I am pulling at the white robe of the Mother o’ God. ’Tis a bit meal for you, cluckie, and for me a healing hand upon my tears. O, och, ochone, the tears, the tears!”

It was not till the third hour after sunrise of that bleak day in that winter of the winters, that Neil Ross stirred and arose. He ate in silence. Once he said that he smelt the snow coming out of the north. Sheen said no word at all.

After the porridge, he took his pipe, but there was no tobacco. All that Sheen had was the pipeful she kept against the gloom of the Sabbath. It was her one solace in the long weary week. She gave him this, and held a burning peat to his mouth, and hungered over the thin, rank smoke that curled upward.

It was within half-an-hour of noon that, after an absence, she returned.

“Not between you and me, Neil Ross,” she began abruptly, “but just for the asking, and what is beyond. Is it any money you are having upon you?”

“No.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Then how will you be getting across to Iona? It is seven long miles to Fionnaphort, and bitter cold at that, and you will be needing food, and then the ferry, the ferry across the Sound, you know.”

“Ay, I know.”

“What would you do for a silver piece, Neil, my man?”

“You have none to give me, Sheen Macarthur; and, if you had, it would not be taking it I would.”

“Would you kiss a dead man for a crown-piece--a crown-piece of five good shillings?”

Neil Ross stared. Then he sprang to his feet.

“It is Adam Blair you are meaning, woman! God curse him in death now that he is no longer in life!”

Then, shaking and trembling, he sat down again, and brooded against the dull red glow of the peats.

But, when he rose, in the last quarter before noon, his face was white.

“The dead are dead, Sheen Macarthur. They can know or do nothing. I will do it. It is willed. Yes, I am going up to the house there. And now I am going from here. God Himself has my thanks to you, and my blessing too. They will come back to you. It is not forgetting you I will be. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Neil, son of the woman that was my friend. A south wind to you! Go up by the farm. In the front of the house you will see what you will be seeing. Maisie Macdonald will be there. She will tell you what’s for the telling. There is no harm in it, sure: sure, the dead are dead. It is praying for you I will be, Neil Ross. Peace to you!”

“And to you, Sheen.”

And with that the man went.

* * * * *

When Neil Ross reached the byres of the farm in the wide hollow, he saw two figures standing as though awaiting him, but separate, and unseen of the other. In front of the house was a man he knew to be Andrew Blair; behind the milk-shed was a woman he guessed to be Maisie Macdonald.

It was the woman he came upon first.

“Are you the friend of Sheen Macarthur?” she asked in a whisper, as she beckoned him to the doorway.

“I am.”

“I am knowing no names or anything. And no one here will know you, I am thinking. So do the thing and begone.”

“There is no harm to it?”

“None.”

“It will be a thing often done, is it not?”

“Ay, sure.”

“And the evil does not abide?”

“No. The … the … person … the person takes them away, and …”

“_Them?_”

“For sure, man! Them … the sins of the corpse. He takes them away; and are you for thinking God would let the innocent suffer for the guilty? No … the person … the Sin-Eater, you know … takes them away on himself, and one by one the air of heaven washes them away till he, the Sin-Eater, is clean and whole as before.”

“But if it is a man you hate … if it is a corpse that is the corpse of one who has been a curse and a foe … if …”

“_Sst!_ Be still now with your foolishness. It is only an idle saying, I am thinking. Do it, and take the money and go. It will be hell enough for Adam Blair, miser as he was, if he is for knowing that five good shillings of his money are to go to a passing tramp because of an old, ancient silly tale.”

Neil Ross laughed low at that. It was for pleasure to him.

“Hush wi’ ye! Andrew Blair is waiting round there. Say that I have sent you round, as I have neither bite nor bit to give.”

Turning on his heel, Neil walked slowly round to the front of the house. A tall man was there, gaunt and brown, with hairless face and lank brown hair, but with eyes cold and grey as the sea.

“Good day to you, an’ good faring. Will you be passing this way to anywhere?”

“Health to you. I am a stranger here. It is on my way to Iona I am. But I have the hunger upon me. There is not a brown bit in my pocket. I asked at the door there, near the byres. The woman told me she could give me nothing--not a penny even, worse luck,--nor, for that, a drink of warm milk. ’Tis a sore land this.”

“You have the Gaelic of the Isles. Is it from Iona you are?”

“It is from the Isles of the West I come.”

“From Tiree? … from Coll?”

“No.”

“From the Long Island … or from Uist … or maybe from Benbecula?”

“No.”

“Oh well, sure it is no matter to me. But may I be asking your name?”

“Macallum.”

“Do you know there is a death here, Macallum?”

“If I didn’t, I would know it now, because of what lies yonder.”

Mechanically Andrew Blair looked round. As he knew, a rough bier was there, that was made of a dead-board laid upon three milking-stools. Beside it was a _claar_, a small tub to hold potatoes. On the bier was a corpse, covered with a canvas sheeting that looked like a sail.

“He was a worthy man, my father,” began the son of the dead man, slowly; “but he had his faults, like all of us. I might even be saying that he had his sins, to the Stones be it said. You will be knowing, Macallum, what is thought among the folk … that a stranger, passing by, may take away the sins of the dead, and that, too, without any hurt whatever … any hurt whatever.”

“Ay, sure.”

“And you will be knowing what is done?”

“Ay.”

“With the bread … and the water…?”

“Ay.”

“It is a small thing to do. It is a Christian thing. I would be doing it myself, and that gladly, but the … the … passer-by who …”

“It is talking of the Sin-Eater you are?”

“Yes, yes, for sure. The Sin-Eater as he is called--and a good Christian act it is, for all that the ministers and the priests make a frowning at it--the Sin-Eater must be a stranger. He must be a stranger, and should know nothing of the dead man--above all, bear him no grudge.”

At that Neil Ross’s eyes lightened for a moment.

“And why that?”

“Who knows? I have heard this, and I have heard that. If the Sin-Eater was hating the dead man he could take the sins and fling them into the sea, and they would be changed into demons of the air that would harry the flying soul till Judgment-Day.”

“And how would that thing be done?”

The man spoke with flashing eyes and parted lips, the breath coming swift. Andrew Blair looked at him suspiciously; and hesitated, before, in a cold voice, he spoke again.

“That is all folly, I am thinking, Macallum. Maybe it is all folly, the whole of it. But, see here, I have no time to be talking with you. If you will take the bread and the water you shall have a good meal if you want it, and … and … yes, look you, my man, I will be giving you a shilling too, for luck.”

“I will have no meal in this house, Anndra-mhic-Adam; nor will I do this thing unless you will be giving me two silver half-crowns. That is the sum I must have, or no other.”

“Two half-crowns! Why, man, for one half-crown …”

“Then be eating the sins o’ your father yourself, Andrew Blair! It is going I am.”

“Stop, man! Stop, Macallum. See here: I will be giving you what you ask.”

“So be it. Is the … Are you ready?”

“Ay, come this way.”

With that the two men turned and moved slowly towards the bier.

In the doorway of the house stood a man and two women; farther in, a woman; and at the window to the left, the serving-wench, Jessie McFall, and two men of the farm. Of those in the doorway, the man was Peter, the half-witted youngest brother of Andrew Blair; the taller and older woman was Catreen, the widow of Adam, the second brother; and the thin, slight woman, with staring eyes and drooping mouth, was Muireall, the wife of Andrew. The old woman behind these was Maisie Macdonald.

Andrew Blair stooped and took a saucer out of the _claar_. This he put upon the covered breast of the corpse. He stooped again, and brought forth a thick square piece of new-made bread. That also he placed upon the breast of the corpse. Then he stooped again, and with that he emptied a spoonful of salt alongside the bread.

“I must see the corpse,” said Neil Ross simply.

“It is not needful, Macallum.”

“I must be seeing the corpse, I tell you--and for that, too, the bread and the water should be on the naked breast.”

“No, no, man; it …”

But here a voice, that of Maisie the wise woman, came upon them, saying that the man was right, and that the eating of the sins should be done in that way and no other.

With an ill grace the son of the dead man drew back the sheeting. Beneath it, the corpse was in a clean white shirt, a death-gown long ago prepared, that covered him from his neck to his feet, and left only the dusky yellowish face exposed.

While Andrew Blair unfastened the shirt and placed the saucer and the bread and the salt on the breast, the man beside him stood staring fixedly on the frozen features of the corpse. The new laird had to speak to him twice before he heard.

“I am ready. And you, now? What is it you are muttering over against the lips of the dead?”

“It is giving him a message I am. There is no harm in that, sure?”

“Keep to your own folk, Macallum. You are from the West you say, and we are from the North. There can be no messages between you and a Blair of Strathmore, no messages for _you_ to be giving.”

“He that lies here knows well the man to whom I am sending a message”--and at this response Andrew Blair scowled darkly. He would fain have sent the man about his business, but he feared he might get no other.

“It is thinking I am that you are not a Macallum at all. I know all of that name in Mull, Iona, Skye, and the near isles. What will the name of your naming be, and of your father, and of his place?”

Whether he really wanted an answer, or whether he sought only to divert the man from his procrastination, his question had a satisfactory result.

“Well, now, it’s ready I am, Anndra-mhic-Adam.”

With that, Andrew Blair stooped once more and from the _claar_ brought a small jug of water. From this he filled the saucer.

“You know what to say and what to do, Macallum.”

There was not one there who did not have a shortened breath because of the mystery that was now before them, and the fearfulness of it. Neil Ross drew himself up, erect, stiff, with white, drawn face. All who waited, save Andrew Blair, thought that the moving of his lips was because of the prayer that was slipping upon them, like the last lapsing of the ebb-tide. But Blair was watching him closely, and knew that it was no prayer which stole out against the blank air that was around the dead.

Slowly Neil Ross extended his right arm. He took a pinch of the salt and put it in the saucer, then took another pinch and sprinkled it upon the bread. His hand shook for a moment as he touched the saucer. But there was no shaking as he raised it towards his lips, or when he held it before him when he spoke.

“With this water that has salt in it, and has lain on thy corpse, O Adam mhic Anndra mhic Adam Mòr, I drink away all the evil that is upon thee …”

There was throbbing silence while he paused.

“… And may it be upon me and not upon thee, if with this water it cannot flow away.”

Thereupon, he raised the saucer and passed it thrice round the head of the corpse sun-ways; and, having done this, lifted it to his lips and drank as much as his mouth would hold. Thereafter he poured the remnant over his left hand, and let it trickle to the ground. Then he took the piece of bread. Thrice, too, he passed it round the head of the corpse sun-ways.

He turned and looked at the man by his side, then at the others, who watched him with beating hearts.

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 beannaicheadh Dia an tigh!_”[7]

[7] (1) _A chuid do Pharas da!_ “His share of heaven be his.” (2) _Gu’n gleidheadh Dia thu_, “May God preserve you.” (3) _Gu’n beannaicheadh Dia an tigh!_ “God’s blessing on this house.”

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!_”[8]

[8] (1) _Droch caoidh ort!_ “May a fatal accident happen to you” (_lit._ “bad moan on you”). (2) _Gaoth gun direadh ort!_ “May you drift to your drowning” (_lit._ “wind without direction on you”). (3) _Dia ad aghaidh_, etc., “God against thee and in thy face … and may a death of woe be yours … Evil and sorrow to thee and thine!”

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.”[9]

[9] _i.e._ With a criminal secret, or an undiscovered crime.

“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 offence.”

“Och, man, there’s no offence 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.