IV
Molios, the saint of Christ, that lived in the sea-cave of the Isle of the Peak, so that even in his own day it was called the Holy Isle, endured to a great age.
Some say of him that before his hair was bleached white as the bog-cotton, he was slain by the heathen Picts, or by the fierce summer-sailors out of Lochlin. But that is an idle tale. His end was not thus. A Culdee, who had the soul of a bat, feared the truth, though that gave glory to God, and wrote both in ogham and lambskin the truthless tale that Molios went forth with the cross and was slain in a north isle.
On a day of the days every year, Molios fared to the Hollow Oak that was in the hill-forest beyond the rath of Ecta mac Ecta. There he spake long upon the youth that had been his friend, and upon how the Evil One had prevailed with Cathal, and how the islander had been done to death there in the oak. Then he and all his company sang the hymns of peace, and great joy there was over the doom of Cathal the monk, and many would have cleft the great tree or burned it, so that the dust of the sinner might be scattered to the four winds: only this was banned by Molios.
It was well for Cathal, who slept there through the hours of light! Deep slumber was his, for never once did he hear the noontide voices, nor ever in his ears was the long rise and fall of the holy hymns.
But when, in the twentieth year after Cathal had been thrust into the hollow oak, Molios came at sundown, being weary with the heat, the saint heard a low, faint laughter issuing from the tree, like fragrance from a flower.
None other heard it. He saw that with gladness. Quietly he went with the islanders.
When the moon was over the pines, and all in the rath slept, Molios arose and went silently back into the forest.
When he came to the Doom-Tree he listened long, with his ear against the bark. There was no sound.
His voice was old and quavering, but fresh and young in the courts of heaven, when it reached there like a fluttering bird tired from long flight. He sang a holy hymn.
He listened. There was no laughter. He was glad at that. All had been a dream, for sure.
Then it was that he heard once again the low, mocking laughter. He started back, trembling.
“Cathal!” he cried, with his voice like a wuthering wind.
“I am here, O Molios,” said a voice behind him.
The old Culdee turned, as though arrow-nipped. Before him, white in the moonshine, stood a man, naked.
At first Molios knew him not. He was so tall and strong, so fair and wonderful. Long locks of ruddy hair hung upon his white shoulders: his eyes were lustrous, and had the lovely, soft light of the deer. When he moved, it was swiftly and silently. No stag upon the hills was more fair to see.
Then, slowly, Cathal the monk swam into Cathal of the Woods. Molios saw him whom he knew of old, as a blue flame is visible within the flame of yellow.
Strange was the voice: faint and far the tone of it: yet it was that of a living man.
“Is it a spirit you are, Cathal?”
“I am no spirit. I am Cathal the monk that was, Cathal the man now.”
“How came you out of hell, you that are dead, and the dust of whose crumbling bones is in the hollow of this oak?”
“There is no hell, Culdee.”
“No hell!” Molios the Saint stared at the wood-man in blank amaze.
“No hell!” he said again; “and is there no heaven?”
“A hell there is, and a heaven there is: but not what Colum taught, and you taught.”
“Doth Christ live?”
“I know not.”
“And Mary?”
“I know not.”
“And God the Father?”
“I know not.”
“It is a lie that you have upon your lips. Sure, Cathal, you shall be dead indeed soon, to the glory of God. For I shall have thy dust scattered to the four winds, and thy bones consumed in flame, and a stake be driven through the place where thou wast.”
Once more Cathal laughed.
“Go back to the sea-cave, Molios. Thou hast much to learn. Brood there upon the ways of thy God before thou judgest if He knoweth no more than thou dost. And see, I will show you a wonder. Only, first, tell me this one thing. What of Ardanna whom I loved?”
“She was accursed. She would not believe. When Ecta took the child from her, that was born in sin, to have the water put upon it with the sign of the Cross, she went north beyond the Hill of the Pinnacles. There she saw the young king of the Picts of Argyll, and he loved her, and she went to his dûn. He took her to his rath in the north, and she was his queen. He, and she, and the two sons she bore to him are all under the hill-moss now: and their souls are in hell.”
Cathal laughed, low and mocking.
“It is a good hell that, I am thinking, Molios. But come ... I will show you a wonder.”
With that he stooped, and took the moonshine dew out of a white flower, and put it upon the eyes of the old man.
Then Molios saw.
And what he saw was a strangeness and a terror to him. For everywhere were green lives, fair and comely, gentle-eyed, lovely, of a soft shining. From tree to tree they flitted, or passed to and fro from the tree-boles, as wild bees from their hives.
Beside Cathal stood a woman. Beautiful she was, with eyes like stars in the gloaming. All of green flame she seemed, though the old monk saw her breast rise and fall, and the light lift of her earth-brown hair by a wind-breath eddying there, and the hand of her clasped in that of Cathal. Beyond her were fair and beautiful beings, lovely shapes like unto men and women, but soulless, though loving life and hating death, which, of a truth, is all that the vain human clan does.
“Who is this woman, Cathal?” asked the saint, trembling.
“It is Deòin, whom I love, and who has given me life.”
“And these ... that are neither green phantoms out of trees, nor yet men as we are?”
“These are the offspring of our love.”
Molios drew back in horror.
But Cathal threw up his arms, and with glad eyes cried:
“O green flame of life, pulse of the world.
O Love! O Youth! O Dream of Dreams.”
“O bitter grief,” Molios cried, “O bitter grief, that I did not slay thee utterly on that day of the days! Flame to thy flesh, and a stake through thy belly—that is the doom thou shouldst have had! My ban upon thee, Cathal, that was a monk, and now art a wild man of the woods: upon thee, and thy Annir-Coille, and all thy brood, I put the ban of fear and dread and sorrow, a curse by day and a curse by night!”
But with that a great dizziness swam into the brain of the saint, and he fell forward, and lay his length upon the moss, and there was no sight to his eyes, or hearing to his ears, or knowledge upon him at all until the rising of the sun.
When the yellow light was upon his face he rose. There was no face to see anywhere. Looking in the dew for the myriad feet that had been there, he saw none.
The old man knelt and prayed.
At the first praying God filled his heart with peace. At the second praying God filled his heart with wonder. At the third praying God whispered mysteriously, and he knew. Humble in his new knowledge, he rose. The tears were in his old eyes. He went up to the Hollow Oak, and blessed it, and the wild man that slept within it, and the Annir-Coille that Cathal loved, and the offspring of their love. He took the curse away, and he blessed all that God had made.
All the long weary way to the shore he went as one in a dream. Wonder and mystery were in his eyes.
At the shore he entered the little coracle that brought him daily from the Holy Isle, a triple arrow-flight seaward.
A child sat in it, playing with pebbles. It was Ardan, the son of Ardanna.
“Ardan mac Cathal,” began the saint, weary now, but glad with a strange new gladness.
“Who is Cathal?” said the boy.
“He that was thy father. Tell me, Ardan, hast thou ever seen aught moving in the woods—green lives out of the trees?”
“I have seen a green shine come out of the trees.”
Molios bowed his head.
“Thou shalt be as my son, Ardan; and when thou art a man thou shalt choose thy own way, and let no man hinder thee.”
That night Molios could not sleep. Hearing the loud wash of the sea, he went to the mouth of the cave. For a long while he watched the seals splashing in the silver radiance of the moonshine. Then he called them.
“O seals of the sea, come hither!”
At that all the furred swimmers drew near.
“Is it for the curse you give us every year of the years, O holy Molios?” moaned a great black seal.
“O Ròn dubh, it is no curse I have for thee or thine, but a blessing, and peace. I have learned a wonder of God, because of an Annir-Coille in the forest that is upon the hill. But now I will be telling you the white story of Christ.”
So there, in the moonshine, with the flowing tide stealing from his feet to his knees, the old saint preached the gospel of love. The seals crouched upon the rocks, with their great brown eyes filled with glad tears.
When Molios ceased, each slipped again into the shadowy sea. All that night, while he brooded upon the mystery of Cathal and the Annir-Coille, with deep knowledge of hidden things, and a heart filled with the wonder and mystery of the world, he heard them splashing to and fro in the moon-dazzle, and calling, one to the other, “We, too, are the sons of God.”
At dawn a shadow came into the cave. A white frost grew upon the face of Molios. Still was he, and cold, when Ardan, the child, awoke. Only the white lips moved. A ray of the sun slanted across the sea, from the great disc of whirling golden flame new risen. It fell softly upon the moving lips. They were still then, and Ardan kissed them because of the smile that was there.