For days thereafter Alan haunted that rocky, cavernous wilderness where he had seen the Herdsman.
It was in vain he had everywhere sought to find word of this mysterious dweller in those upland solitudes. At times he believed that there was indeed some one upon the island of whom, for inexplicable reasons, none there would speak; but at last he came to the conviction that what he had seen was an apparition, projected by the fantasy of overwrought nerves. Even from the woman, Morag MacNeill, to whom he had gone with a frank appeal that won its way to her heart, he learned no more than that an old legend, of which she did not care to speak, was in some way associated with his own coming to Rona.
Ynys, too, never once alluded to the mysterious incident of the green arcades which had so deeply impressed them both; never, that is, after the ensuing day which followed, when, simply and spontaneously, she told Alan that she believed that she had seen a vision. When he reminded her that she had been convinced of its reality, Ynys answered that for days past she had been dreaming a strange dream, and that doubtless this had possessed her so that her nerves played her false, in that remote and shadowy place. What this dream was she would not confide, nor did he press her.
But as the days went by and as no word came to either of any unknown person who was on the island, and as Alan, for all his patient wandering and furtive quest, both among the upland caves and in the green arcades, found absolutely no traces of him whom he sought, the belief that he had been duped by his imagination deepened almost to conviction.
As for Ynys, day after day, soft veils of dream obscured the bare realities of life. But she, unlike Alan, became more and more convinced that what she had seen was indeed no apparition. Whatever lingering doubt she had was dissipated on the eve of the night when old Marsail Macrae died. It was dusk when word came to Caisteal-Rhona that Marsail felt the cold wind on the soles of her feet. Ynys went to her at once, and it was in the dark hour which followed that she heard once more and more fully the strange story which, like a poisonous weed, had taken root in the minds of the islanders. Already from Marsail she had heard of the Prophet, though, strangely enough, she had never breathed word of this to Alan, not even when, after the startling episode of the apparition in the Teampull-Mhara, she had, as she believed, seen the Prophet himself. But there in the darkness of the low, turfed cottage, with no light in the room save the dull red gloom from the heart of the smoored peats, Marsail, in the attenuated, remote voice of those who have already entered into the vale of the shadow, told her this thing.
"Yes, Ynys, wife of Alan MacAlasdair, I will be telling you this thing before I change. You are for knowing, sure, that long ago Uilleam, brother of him who was father to your man, had a son? Yes, you know that, you say, and also that he was called Donnacha Bàn? No, mo-run-geal, that is not a true thing that you have heard, that Donnacha Bàn went under the wave years ago. He was the seventh son, and was born under the full moon; 'tis Himself will be knowing whether that was for or against him. Of these seven none lived beyond childhood except the two youngest, Kenneth and Donnacha. Kenneth was always frail as a February flower, but he lived to be a man. He and his brother never spoke, for a feud was between them, not only because that each was unlike the other and that the younger hated the older because thus he was the penniless one—but most because both loved the same woman. I will not be telling you the whole story now, for the breath in my body will soon blow out in the draught that is coming upon me; but this I will say to you: darker and darker grew the gloom between these brothers. When Kirsteen Macdonald gave her love to Kenneth, Donnacha disappeared for a time. Then, one day, he came back to Borosay, and smiled quietly with his cold eyes when they wondered at his coming again. Now, too, it was noticed that he no longer had an ill-will upon his brother, but spoke smoothly with him and loved to be in his company. But, to this day, no one knows for sure what happened. For there was a gloaming when Donnacha Bàn came back alone, in his sailing boat. He and Kenneth had sailed forth, he said, to shoot seals in the sea arcades to the west of Rona; but in these dark and lonely passages, they had missed each other. At last he had heard Kenneth's voice calling for help, but when he had got to the place, it was too late, for his brother had been seized with the cramps, and had sunk deep into the fathomless water. There is no getting a body again that sinks in these sea galleries. The crabs know that.
"Well, this and much more was what Donnacha Bàn told to his people. None believed him; but what could any do? There was no proof; none had ever seen them enter the sea caves together. Not that Donnacha Bàn sought in any way to keep back those who would fain know more. Not so; he strove to help to find the body. Nevertheless, none believed; and Kirsteen nic Dugall Mòr least of all. The blight of that sorrow went to her heart. She had death soon, poor thing! but before the cold grayness was upon her, she told her father, and the minister that was there, that she knew Donnacha Bàn had murdered his brother. One might be saying these were the wild words of a woman; but, for sure, no one said that thing upon Borosay or Rona, or any of these isles. When all was done, the minister told what he knew, and what he thought, to the Lord of the South Isles, and asked what was to be put upon Donnacha Bàn. 'Exile forever,' said the Chief, 'or if he stays here, the doom of silence. Let no man or woman speak to him or give him food or drink; or give him shelter, or let his shadow cross his or hers.'
"When this thing was told to Donnacha Bàn Carmichael, he laughed at first; but as day slid over the rocks where all days fall, he laughed no more. Soon he saw that the Chief's word was no empty word; and yet he would not go away from his own place. He could not stay upon Borosay, for his father cursed him; and no man can stay upon the island where a father's curse moves this way and that, forever seeking him. Then, some say a madness came upon him, and others that he took wildness to be his way, and others that God put upon him the shadow of loneliness, so that he might meet sorrow there and repent. Howsoever that may be, Donnacha Bàn came to Rona, and, by the same token, it was the year of the great blight, when the potatoes and the corn came to naught, and when the fish in the sea swam away from the isles. In the autumn of that year there was not a soul left on Rona except Kirsten Macdonald and the old man Ian, her father, who had guard of Caisteal-Rhona for him who was absent. When, once more, smoke rose from the crofts, the rumor spread that Donnacha Bàn, the murderer, had made his home among the caves of the upper part of the isle. None knew how this rumor rose, for he was seen of none. The last man who saw him—and that was a year later—was old Padruic McVurich, the shepherd. Padruic said that, as he was driving his ewes across the north slope of Ben Einaval in the gloaming, he came upon a silent figure seated upon a rock, with his chin in his hands, and his elbows on his knees—with the great, sad eyes of him staring at the moon that was lifting itself out of the sea. Padruic did not know who the man was. The shepherd had few wits, poor man! and he had known, or remembered, little about the story of Donnacha Bàn Carmichael, so, when he spoke to the man, it was as to a stranger. The man looked at him and said:
"'You are Padruic McVurich, the shepherd.'