“I will tell you what my father told me, and what, if you like, you may hear again from the sister of my father, who is the wife of Ian Finlay, who has the farm on the north side of Dûn-I.
“You will have heard of old James Achanna of Eilanmore, off the Ord o’ Sutherland? To be sure, for have you not stayed there. Well, I need not tell you how he came there out of the south, but it will be news to you to learn that my elder brother Murdoch was had by him as a shepherd, and to help on the farm. And the way of that thing was this. Murdoch had gone to the fishing north of Skye, with Angus and William Macdonald, and in the great gale that broke up their boat, among so many others, he found himself stranded on Eilanmore. Achanna told him that, as he was ruined, and so far from home, he would give him employment; and though Murdoch had never thought to serve under a Galloway man, he agreed.
“For a year he worked on the upper farm, Ardoch-beag as it was called. There the gloom came upon him. Turn which way he would, the beauty that is in the day was no more. In vain, when he came out into the air in the morning did he cry Deasiul! and keep by the sun-way. At night he heard the sea calling in his sleep. So, when the lambing was over, he told Achanna that he must go, for he hungered for the sea. True, the wave ran all around Eilanmore, but the farm was between bare hills and among high moors, and the house was in a hollow place. But it was needful for him to go. Even then, though he did not know it, the madness of the sea was upon him.
“But the Galloway man did not wish to lose my brother, who was a quiet man, and worked for a small wage. Murdoch was a silent lad, but he had often the light in his eyes, and none knew of what he was thinking: maybe it was of a lass, or a friend, or of the ingle-neuk where his old mother sang o’ nights, or of the sight and sound of Iona that was his own land; but I’m considerin’ it was the sea he was dreamin’ of, how the waves ran laughin’ an’ dancin’ against the tide, like lambkins comin’ to meet the shepherd, or how the big green billows went sweepin’ white an’ ghostly through the moonless nights.
“So the troth that was come to between them was this: that Murdoch should abide for a year longer, that is till Lammastide; then that he should no longer live at Ardoch-beag, but, instead, should go and keep the sheep on Bac-Mòr.”
“On Bac-Mòr, Phadric,” I interrupted, “for sure, you do not mean our Bac-Mòr?”
“For sure, I mean no other: Bac-Mòr, of the Treshnish Isles, that is eleven miles north of Iona, and a long four north-west of Staffa: an’ just Bac-Mòr, an’ no other.”
“Murdoch would be near home, there.”