"To win the Mystery o' the Sea, "An' learn the secrets that there be, "Gather in one these weirds three:
"A gowden moon on a flowin' tide, "And Lammas floods for the spell to bide; "And a gowden mon wi' death for his bride."
There was a long pause of silence between us, and I felt very strangely.The sea before me took odd, indefinite shape. It seemed as though it wasof crystal clearness, and that from where I gazed I could see all itsmysteries. That is, I could see so as to know there were mysteries,though what they were individually I could not even dream. The past andthe present and the future seemed to be mingled in one wild, chaotic,whirling dream, from the mass of which thoughts and ideas seemed now andagain to fly out unexpectedly on all sides as do sparks from hot ironunder the hammer. Within my heart grew vague indefinite yearnings,aspirations, possibilities. There came a sense of power so paramountthat instinctively I drew myself up to my full height and becameconscious of the physical vigour within me. As I did so I looked aroundand seemed to wake from a dream.
Naught around me but the drifting clouds, the silent darkening land andthe brooding sea. Gormala was nowhere to be seen.
CHAPTER IV
LAMMAS FLOODS
When I got to Cruden it was quite dark. I had lingered by the waythinking of Gormala MacNiel and all the queer kind of mystery in whichshe seemed to be enmeshing me. The more I thought, the more I waspuzzled; for the strangest thing of all to me was that I understoodpart of what seemed to be a mystery. For instance I was but imperfectlyacquainted with the Seer-woman's view of what was to be the result ofher watching of Lauchlane Macleod. I knew of course from her words atour first conversation that in him she recognised a man doomed to neardeath according to the manifestation of her own power of Second Sight;but I knew what she did not seem to, that this was indeed a goldenman. From the momentary glimpse which I had had in that queer spell oftrance, or whatever it was which had come to me on the pier head, I hadseemed to _know_ him as a man of gold, sterling throughout. It was notmerely that his hair was red gold and that his eyes might fairly becalled golden, but his whole being could only be expressed in that way;so that when Gormala spoke, the old rhyme seemed at once a prime factorin the group of three powers which had to be united before the fathomingof the Mystery of the Sea. I accordingly made up my mind to speak withthe Seer-woman and to ask her to explain. My own intellectual attitudeto the matter interested me. I was not sceptical, I did not believe;but I think my mind hung in poise. Certainly my sympathies tendedtowards the mysterious side, backed up by some kind of understanding ofthe inner nature of things which was emotional or unintentional ratherthan fixed.
All that night I seemed to dream, my mind working eternally round thedata of the day; hundreds of different relationships between Gormala,Lauchlane Macleod, Lammas-tide, the moon and the secrets of the searevolved before me. It was grey morning before I fell asleep to theoccasional chirping of the earliest birds.
As sometimes happens after a night of uneasy dreaming of some disturbingtopic, the reaction of the morning carried oblivion with it. It was wellinto the afternoon when all at once I remembered the existence of thewitch-woman--for as such I was beginning to think of Gormala. Thethought came accompanied by a sense of oppression which was not of fear,but which was certainly of uneasiness. Was it possible that the womanhad in some way, or to some degree, hypnotised me. I remembered with aslightly nervous feeling how the evening before I had stopped on theroadway obedient to her will, and how I had lost the identity of mysurroundings in her presence. A sudden idea struck me; I went to thewindow and looked out. For an instant my heart seemed to be still.
Just opposite the house stood Gormala, motionless. I went out at onceand joined her, and instinctively we turned our steps toward thesand-hills. As we walked along I said to her:
"Where did you disappear to last night?"
"About that which is to be done!" Her lips and her face were set; Iknew it was no use following up that branch of the subject, so I askedagain:
"What did you mean by those verses which you told me?" Her answer wasgiven in a solemn tone:
"Them that made them alone can tell; until the time shall come!"
"Who made them?"
"Nane can now tell. They are as aud as the rocky foundations o' theisles themselves."
"Then how did you come to know them?" There was a distinct note of pridein her answer. Such a note as might be expected from a prince speakingof his ancestry:
"They hae come doon to me through centuries. Frae mither to dochter, andfrom mither to dochter again, wi' never a break in the lang line o' thetellin'. Know ye, young master, that I am o' a race o' Seers. I takemy name from that Gormala o' Uist who through long years foresaw thepassing o' mony a one. That Gormala who throughout the islands of thewest was known and feared o' all men; that Gormala whose mither'smither, and mither's mither again, away back into the darkness o' timewhen coracles crept towards the sunset ower the sea and returned not,held the fates o' men and women in their han's and ruled the Mysterieso' the Sea." As it was evident that Gormala must have in her own mindsome kind of meaning of the prophecy, or spell, or whatever it was, Iasked her again:
"But you must understand something of the meaning, or you would notattach so much importance to it?"
"I ken naught but what is seen to ma een, and to that inner e'e whichtelleth tae the soul that which it seeth!"
"Then why did you warn me that Lammas-tide was near at hand?" The grimwoman actually smiled as she replied:
"Did ye no hearken to the words spoken of the Lammas floods, which be ofthe Powers that rule the Spell?"
"Well, the fact is that I don't know anything of 'Lammas-tide!' We donot keep it in the Church of England," I added as an afterthought,explanatory of my ignorance. Gormala was clever enough to take advantageof having caught me in a weak place; so she took advantage of it to turnthe conversation into the way she wished herself:
"What saw ye, when Lauchlane Macleod grew sma' in yer een, and girtagain?"
"Simply, that he seemed to be all at once a tiny image of himself, seenagainst a waste of ripe corn." Then it struck me that I had not as yettold her or any one else of what I had seen. How then did she know it? Iwas annoyed and asked her. She answered scornfully:
"How kent I it, an' me a Seer o' a race o' Seers! Are ma wakin' een thenso dim or so sma' that I canna read the thochts o' men in the glances o'their een. Did I no see yer een look near an' far as quick as thocht?But what saw ye after, when ye looked rapt and yer een peered side toside, as though at one lyin' prone?" I was more annoyed than ever andanswered her in a sort of stupor:
"I saw him lying dead on a rock, with a swift tide running by; and overthe waters the broken track of a golden moon." She made a sound whichwas almost a cry, and which recalled me to myself as I looked at her.She was ablaze. She towered to her full height with an imperious,exultant mien; the light in her eyes was more than human as she said:
"Dead, as I masel' saw him an' 'mid the foam o' the tide race! An' gowd,always gowd ahint him in the een of this greater Seer. Gowden corn, andgowden moon, and gowden sea! Aye! an' I see it now, backie-bird that Ihae been; the gowden mon indeed, wi' his gowden een an' his gowden hairand all the truth o' his gowden life!" Then turning to me she saidfiercely:
"Why did I warn ye that Lammas-tide was near? Go ask those that valuethe months and days thereof, when be Lammas and what it means to themthat hae faith. See what they are; learn o' the comin' o' the moon ando' the flowin' o' the tides that follow!"
Without another word she turned and left me.