“Do you know why Gloom played the ‘Dàn-nan-Ròn’?”
“It was a cruel thing.”
“You know what is said in the isles about—about—this or that man, who is under gheasan, who is spell-bound and—and—about the seals—”
“Yes, Marcus, it is knowing it that I am: ‘Tha iad a’ cantuinn gur h-e daoine fo gheasan a th’ anns no roin.’”
“‘They say that seals,’” he repeated slowly. “‘They say that seals are men under magic spells.’ And have you ever pondered that thing, Anne, my cousin?”
“I am knowing well what you mean.”
“Then you will know that the MacCodrums of North Uist are called the Sliochd-nan-Ròn?”
“I have heard.”
“And would you be for marrying a man that is of the race of the beasts, and himself knowing what that geas means, and who may any day go back to his people?”
“Ah, now, Marcus, sure it is making a mock of me you are. Neither you nor any here believe that foolish thing. How can a man born of a woman be a seal, even though his sinnsear were the offspring of the sea-people, which is not a saying I am believing either, though it may be; and not that it matters much, whatever, about the far-back forebears.”