“I am knowing it. The curse of God on him!”
“’Tis not the first, nor the last, though the grass is on his head three years agone now.”
“You that know who I am will be knowing that I have no kith or kin now on Iona?”
“Ay; they are all under grey stone or running wave. Donald your brother, and Murtagh your next brother, and little Silis, and your mother Silis herself, and your two brothers of your father, Angus and Ian Macallum, and your father Murtagh Ross, and his lawful childless wife, Dionaid, and his sister Anna—one and all, they lie beneath the green wave or in the brown mould. It is said there is a curse upon all who live at Ballyrona. The owl builds now in the rafters, and it is the big sea-rat that runs across the fireless hearth.”
“It is there I am going.”
“The foolishness is on you, Neil Ross.”
“Now it is that I am knowing who you are. It is old Sheen Macarthur I am speaking to.”
“Tha mise … it is I.”
“And you will be alone now, too, I am thinking, Sheen?”
“I am alone. God took my three boys at the one fishing ten years ago; and before there was moonrise in the blackness of my heart my man went. It was after the drowning of Anndra that my croft was taken from me. Then I crossed the Sound, and shared with my widow sister Elsie McVurie: till she went: and then the two cows had to go: and I had no rent: and was old.”