"What is it, Tormaid-a-ghaolach?" I asked, with the sob that was in my throat.
"Thraisg mo chridhe," he muttered (My heart is parched). Then, feeling the asking in my eyes, he said, "I have seen her."
I knew he meant Giorsal. My heart sank. But I wore my nails into the palms of my hands. Then I said this thing, that is an old saying in the isles: "Those who are in the quiet havens hear neither the wind nor the sea." He was so weak he could not lie down in the bed. He was in the big chair before the peats, with his feet on a claar.
When the wind was still I read him the Word. A little warm milk was all he would take. I could hear the blood in his lungs sobbing like the ebb-tide in the sea-weed. This was the thing that he said to me:
"She came to me, like a grey mist, beyond the dyke of the green place, near the road. The face of her was grey as a grey dawn, but the voice was hers, though I heard it under a wave, so dull and far was it. And these are her words to me, and mine to her—and the first speaking was mine, for the silence wore me:
Am bheil thu' falbh,
O mo ghraidh?
B'idh mi falbh,
Mùirnean!
C'uin a thilleas tu,
O mo ghraidh?
Cha till mi an rathad so;
Tha an't ait e cumhann—
O Mùirnean, Mùirnean!
B'idh mi falbh an drùgh
Am tigh Pharais,
Mùirnean!
Sèol dhomh an rathad,
Mo ghraidh!
Thig an so, Mùirnean-mo,
Thig an so!
Are you going,
My dear one?
Yea, now I am going,
Dearest.