[III]
THE MOON-CHILD
A year and a day before God bade Colum arise to the Feast of Eternity, Pòl the Freckled, the youngest of the brethren, came to him, on a night of the nights.
“The moon is among the stars, O Colum. By his own will, and yours, old Murtagh that is this day with God, is to be laid in the deep dry sand at the east end of the isle.”
So the holy Saint rose from his bed of weariness, and went and blessed the place that Murtagh lay in, and bade neither the creeping worm nor any other creature to touch the sacred dead. “Let God only,” he said, “let God alone strip that which he made to grow.”
But on his way back sleep passed from him. The sweet salt smell of the sea was in his nostrils: he heard the running of a wave in all his blood.
At the cells he turned, and bade the brethren go in. “Peace be with you,” he sighed wearily.
Then he moved downwards towards the sea.
A great tenderness of late was upon Colum the Bishop. Ever since he had blessed the fishes and the flies, the least of the children of God, his soul had glowed in a whiter flame. There were deep seas of compassion in his grey-blue eyes. One night he had waked, because God was there.
“O Christ,” he cried, bowing low his old grey head. “Sure, ah sure, the gladness and the joy, because of the hour of the hours.”
But God said: “Not so, Colum, who keepest me upon the Cross. It is Murtagh, Murtagh the Druid that was, whose soul I am taking to the glory.”