‘The old man, sir, was minded to stay, but the young lads laughed, and said they did not care for all the ravens between the Point of Uishinish and the Coolin Hills, so they set off. But the wise man stood looking after them with a sad face, and then the raven flew past again; and when Fearchair heard the croak of the bird, he clasped his hands, and looking up he cried out, “Lost! lost! lost!”’
‘And what became of the men?’ inquired Gillespie, interested, in spite of his unbelief.
‘I’ll shust tell you, sir. About the middle of the day there was a thick fog, which covered the sea and the land, and when the night came on there was a dreadful storm, so that no boat could live. The people will be blaming old Meg Mackintosh, the witch of Glen Dubh, for it, for she met the men that very morning, shust after they’ll be finding a dead door-mouse, and that is shust always a sign of death. Well, when the night was come, the house of John Mac John Mac Kenneth was all cheerless and dark, for they that went out in the morning never come back; and the poor wife sat all her lone, on a three-legged stool, by the side of the fire, crying bitterly for her man and her sons, whose three stools stood empty opposite her on the other side. Her dog lied at her feet, and the poor brute kept licking her hand, for he knew she was in trouble; and when her sobs became more convulsively audible, he would raise a low whine in sympathy. Well, sir, it’ll shust be about the middle of the night, when in a distracted state the woman exclaimed, “Oh, this fearful suspense! it is worse than the worst reality. Would to heaven I were certain whether they are dead or alive.” She had scarcely left off speaking, when she’ll hear a queer-like sound, and the dog she’ll hear it too, for she’ll growl and go close to the wife’s side, and then she’ll see three shivering figures sitting before her on the stools that were empty before, all wet, pale, and with the death-look on them. You may be sure she was awful frightened. She daren’t speak; but she shust held out her arms to embrace them, but she could not lay hold of them, for with a soundless tread they glided away and vanished, while she heard pronounced these words, “Cha till, cha till, cha till sinn tuille” (We return, return, return no more). Then she gave a great skirl and fell down, and she was found in the morning shust quite senseless, with the poor beastie of a dog watching her.’
‘That is certainly a very strange story, Eachainn.’
‘Yes, sir; and there’s plenty more I could be telling, if you like. Once the laird was taken ill all of a sudden with a bad pain in his chest, when he was walking near some rocks where the fairies lived. Some say he was struck by an elf-bolt, as one was picked up near the spot the next day. So he sent to Fearchair Lighiche to come to heal him. It was a long way to go, and when Fearchair and the man that was fetching him got to about five miles from the laird’s house a gobhar-athair flew over them, and when Fearchair heard the cry of the bird he stopped, and told the man it was no use to go any further, for his master was dead, and so he turned back. When the man got home, he found that his master had died just at the very time they heard the gobhar-athair. Sometimes he would fall into a trance, when he would be seeing most beautiful things. One day he was travelling with his nephew and his foster-brother, who always carried his herb-box and his Hebrew Bible, and they came to a place where a great battle was fought long ago. And there’s a big cairn there over the bones of the men who were killed, and people will be seeing the spirits of them if they go that way at night. Fearchair said to his nephew that he was going to lie down and sleep, and that they were to be sure not to wake him, nor even touch him. Well, sir, he went to sleep, and at first he was breathing very hard, and his face was full of trouble, but after a little he did not breathe at all, and his face got as white as snow, and he looked shust as if he was dead. His nephew got so frightened when he saw him, that he jumped up to wake him, but the other held him back and whispered, “For your life, move not, speak not, touch not;” and they then saw coming out of the mouth of the sleeping man a tiny, tiny, wee thing like a beautiful butterfly. When the nephew saw it, he made as if he would catch it, but the other man called out, “For any sake, don’t touch it, for there’s something awful in it,” so they looked and saw it go into the cairn. The night had well nigh fallen before they saw the beautiful wee creature coming out of the cairn and going back into the mouth of Fearchair. Then he woke up and sneezed three times, and said, “’Tis well; let’s on, let’s on.” He didn’t speak again for a long time, but once they heard him say, like to himself, in Gaelic, “Eternal! eternal! eternal!”’
‘And what did the people think of all this?’ asked Gillespie.
‘Oh, sir, they say that when he’ll be in a trance his spirit would come from his body, and go to the spiritual worlds, or anywhere he liked. There was only three men on earth to whom he told what it was that he’ll be seeing at such times, and they dared only each tell it to one another, their nearest relatives when they arrived at the age of twenty-nine.’
When Eachainn had finished the last story, he left Gillespie to himself, who was now fast recovering under the kind treatment of Somhairle Dubh and his excellent wife. The host was in the gauger’s room as often as he could, relating such stories as he knew; and thus enabled the patient to pass away the time more agreeably. I heard several of them, but the one about the
EACH UISG, OR WATER HORSE,
is the only one I can at present remember. Somhairle Dubh related it thus:—