Page 101. The allusion is to the story or sketch called "The Book of the Opal" in The Dominion of Dreams: a sketch true in essentials, but having at its close an arbitrary interpolation of external symbolism which I now regret as superfluous. I have since realised that the only living and convincing symbol is that which is conceived of the spirit and not imagined by the mind. My friend's life, and end, were strange enough—and significant enough—without the effort to bring home to other minds by an arbitrary formula what should have been implicit.
Page 102. I have again and again, directly or indirectly, since my first book Pharais to the repeated record in this book, alluded to Seumas Macleod; and as I have shown in "Barabal," here, and in the dedication to this book, it is to the old islander and to my Hebridean nurse, Barabal, that I owe more than to any other early influences. For those who do not understand the character of the Island-Gael, or do not realise that all Scotland is not Presbyterian, it may be as well to add that many of the islesmen are of the Catholic faith (broadly, the Southern Hebrides are wholly Catholic), and that therefore the brooding imagination of an old islander—who spoke Gaelic only, and had never visited the mainland—might the more readily dwell upon Mary the Mother: Mary of the Lamb, Mary the Shepherdess, as she is lovingly called. I do not, for private reasons, name the island where he lived: but I have written of him, or of what he said, nothing but what was so, or was thus said. He had suffered much, and was lonely: but was, I think, the happiest, and, I am sure, the wisest human being I have known. What I cannot now recall is whether his belief in Mary's Advent was based on an old prophecy, or upon a faith of his own dreams and visions, coloured by the visions and dreams of a like mind and longing: perhaps, and likeliest, upon both. I was not more than seven years old when that happened of which I have written on p. [102], and so recall with surety only that which I saw and heard.
I am glad to know that another is hardly less indebted to old Seumas Macleod. I am not permitted to mention his name, but a friend and kinsman allows me to tell this: that when he was about sixteen he was on the remote island where Seumas lived, and on the morrow of his visit came at sunrise upon the old man, standing looking seaward with his bonnet removed from his long white locks; and upon his speaking to Seumas (when he saw he was not "at his prayers") was answered, in Gaelic of course, "Every morning like this I take off my hat to the beauty of the world."
The untaught islander who could say this had learned an ancient wisdom, of more account than wise books, than many philosophies.
Let me tell one other story of him, which I have meant often to tell, but have as often forgotten. He had gone once to the Long Island, with three fishermen, in their herring-coble. The fish had been sold, and the boat had sailed southward to a Lews haven where Seumas had a relative. The younger men had "hanselled" their good bargain overwell, and were laughing and talking freely, as they walked up the white road from the haven. Something was said that displeased Seumas greatly, and he might have spoken swiftly in reproof; but just then a little naked child ran laughing from a cottage, chased by his smiling mother. Seumas caught up the child, who was but an infant, and set him in their midst, and then kneeled and said the few words of a Hebridean hymn beginning:—
"Even as a little child
Most holy, pure...."
No more was said, but the young men understood; and he who long afterward told me of this episode added that though he had often since acted weakly and spoken foolishly, he had never, since that day, uttered foul words. Another like characteristic anecdote of Seumas (as the skipper who made his men cease mocking a "fool") I have told in the tale called "The Amadan" in the The Dominion of Dreams.
I could write much of this revered friend—so shrewd and genial and worldly-wise, for all his lonely life; so blithe in spirit and swiftly humorous; himself a poet, and remembering countless songs and tales of old; strong and daring, on occasion; good with the pipes, as with the nets; seldom angered, but then with a fierce anger, barbaric in its vehemence; a loyal clansman; in all things, good and not so good, a Gael of the Isles.
But since I have not done so, not gathered into one place, I add this note.
Page 113. The kingdom of the Suderöer (i.e. Southern Isles) was the Norse name for the realm of the Hebrides and Inner Hebrides when the Isles were under Scandinavian dominion.