all that night i thought of the dead child and of the peculiar vision which had come to me. sleeping or waking it was all the same; my mind could not leave the parents in procession as seen in imagination, or their distracted mien in reality. mingled with them was the great-eyed, aquiline-featured, gaunt old woman who had taken such an interest in the affair, and in my part of it. i asked the landlord if he knew her, since, from his position as postmaster he knew almost everyone for miles around. he told me that she was a stranger to the place. then he added:

“i can’t imagine what brings her here. she has come over from peterhead two or three times lately; but she doesn’t seem to have anything at all to do. she has nothing to sell and she buys nothing. she’s not a tripper, and she’s not a beggar, and she’s not a thief, and she’s not a worker of any sort. she’s a queer-looking lot anyhow. i fancy from her speech that she’s from the west; probably from some of the far-out islands. i can tell that she has the gaelic from the way she speaks.”

later on in the day, when i was walking on the shore near the hawklaw, she came up to speak to me. the shore was quite lonely, for in those days it was rare to see anyone on the beach except when the salmon fishers drew their nets at the ebbing tide. i was walking towards whinnyfold when she came upon me silently[10] from behind. she must have been hidden among the bent-grass of the sandhills for had she been anywhere in view i must have seen her on that desolate shore. she was evidently a most imperious person; she at once addressed me in a tone and manner which made me feel as though i were in some way an inferior, and in somehow to blame:

“what for did ye no tell me what ye saw yesterday?” instinctively i answered:

“i don’t know why. perhaps because it seemed so ridiculous.” her stern features hardened into scorn as she replied:

“are death and the doom then so redeekulous that they pleasure ye intil silence?” i somehow felt that this was a little too much and was about to make a sharp answer, when suddenly it struck me as a remarkable thing that she knew already. filled with surprise i straightway asked her:

“why, how on earth do you know? i told no one.” i stopped for i felt all at sea; there was some mystery here which i could not fathom. she seemed to read my mind like an open book, for she went on looking at me as she spoke, searchingly and with an odd smile.

“eh! laddie, do ye no ken that ye hae een that can see? do ye no understand that ye hae een that can speak? is it that one with the gift o’ second sight has no an understandin’ o’ it. why, yer face when ye saw the mark o’ the doom, was like a printed book to een like mine.”

“do you mean to tell me” i asked “that you could tell what i saw, simply by looking at my face?”

“na! na! laddie. not all that, though a seer am i; but i knew that you had seen the doom! it’s no that varied that there need be any mistake. after all death[11] is only one, in whatever way we may speak!” after a pause of thought i asked her:

“if you have the power of second sight why did you not see the vision, or whatever it was, yourself?”

“eh! laddie” she answered, shaking her head “’tis little ye ken o’ the wark o’ the fates! learn ye then that the voice speaks only as it listeth into chosen ears, and the vision comes only to chosen een. none can will to hear or to see, to pleasure themselves.”

“then” i said, and i felt that there was a measure of triumph in my tone “if to none but the chosen is given to know, how comes it that you, who seem not to have been chosen on this occasion at all events, know all the same?” she answered with a touch of impatience:

“do ye ken, young sir, that even mortal een have power to see much, if there be behind them the thocht, an’ the knowledge and the experience to guide them aright. how, think ye, is it that some can see much, and learn much as they gang; while others go blind as the mowdiwart, at the end o’ the journey as before it?”

“then perhaps you will tell me how much you saw, and how you saw it?”

“ah! to them that have seen the doom there needs but sma’ guidance to their thochts. too lang, an’ too often hae i mysen seen the death-sark an’ the watch-candle an’ the dead-hole, not to know when they are seen tae ither een. na, na! laddie, what i kent o’ yer seein’ was no by the gift but only by the use o’ my proper een. i kent not the muckle o’ what ye saw. not whether it was ane or ither o’ the garnishins o’ the dead; but weel i kent that it was o’ death.”

“then,” i said interrogatively “second sight is altogether a matter of chance?”

“chance! chance!” she repeated with scorn. “na![12] young sir; when the voice has spoken there is no more chance than that the nicht will follow the day.”

“you mistake me,” i said, feeling somewhat superior now that i had caught her in an error, “i did not for a moment mean that the doom—whatever it is—is not a true forerunner. what i meant was that it seems to be a matter of chance in whose ear the voice—whatever it is—speaks; when once it has been ordained that it is to sound in the ear of some one.” again she answered with scorn:

“na, na! there is no chance o’ ocht aboot the doom. them that send forth the voice and the seein’ know well to whom it is sent and why. can ye no comprehend that it is for no bairn-play that such goes forth. when the voice speaks, it is mainly followed by tears an’ woe an’ lamentation! nae! nor is it only one bit manifestation that stands by its lanes, remote and isolate from all ither. truly ’tis but a pairt o’ the great scheme o’ things; an’ be sure that whoso is chosen to see or to hear is chosen weel, an’ must hae their pairt in what is to be, on to the verra end.”

“am i to take it” i asked, “that second sight is but a little bit of some great purpose which has to be wrought out by means of many kinds; and that whoso sees the vision or hears the voice is but the blind unconscious instrument of fate?”

“aye! laddie. weel eneuch the fates know their wishes an’ their wark, no to need the help or the thocht of any human—blind or seein’, sane or silly, conscious or unconscious.”

all through her speaking i had been struck by the old woman’s use of the word ‘fate,’ and more especially when she used it in the plural. it was evident that, christian though she might be—and in the west they are generally devout observants of the duties of their[13] creed—her belief in this respect came from some of the old pagan mythologies. i should have liked to question her on this point; but i feared to shut her lips against me. instead i asked her:

“tell me, will you, if you don’t mind, of some case you have known yourself of second sight?”

“’tis no for them to brag or boast to whom has been given to see the wark o’ the hand o’ fate. but sine ye are yerself a seer an’ would learn, then i may speak. i hae seen the sea ruffle wi’oot cause in the verra spot where later a boat was to gang doon, i hae heard on a lone moor the hammerin’ o’ the coffin-wright when one passed me who was soon to dee. i hae seen the death-sark fold round the speerit o’ a drowned one, in baith ma sleepin’ an’ ma wakin’ dreams. i hae heard the settin’ doom o’ the spaiks, an’ i hae seen the weepers on a’ the crood that walked. aye, an’ in mony anither way hae i seen an’ heard the coming o’ the doom.”

“but did all the seeings and hearings come true?” i asked. “did it ever happen that you heard queer sounds or saw strange sights and that yet nothing came of them? i gather that you do not always know to whom something is going to happen; but only that death is coming to some one!” she was not displeased at my questioning but replied at once:

“na doot! but there are times when what is seen or heard has no manifest following. but think ye, young sir, how mony a corp, still waited for, lies in the depths o’ the sea; how mony lie oot on the hillsides, or are fallen in deep places where their bones whiten unkent. nay! more, to how many has death come in a way that men think the wark o’ nature when his hastening has come frae the hand of man, untold.” this was a difficult matter to answer so i changed or rather varied the subject.

[14]

“how long must elapse before the warning comes true?”

“ye know yersel’, for but yestreen ye hae seen, how the death can follow hard upon the doom; but there be times, nay mostly are they so, when days or weeks pass away ere the doom is fulfilled.”

“is this so?” i asked “when you know the person regarding whom the doom is spoken.” she answered with an air of certainty which somehow carried conviction, secretly, with it.

“even so! i know one who walks the airth now in all the pride o’ his strength. but the doom has been spoken of him. i saw him with these verra een lie prone on rocks, wi’ the water rinnin’ down from his hair. an’ again i heard the minute bells as he went by me on a road where is no bell for a score o’ miles. aye, an’ yet again i saw him in the kirk itsel’ wi’ corbies flyin’ round him, an’ mair gatherin’ from afar!”

here was indeed a case where second sight might be tested; so i asked her at once, though to do so i had to overcome a strange sort of repugnance:

“could this be proved? would it not be a splendid case to make known; so that if the death happened it would prove beyond all doubt the existence of such a thing as second sight.” my suggestion was not well received. she answered with slow scorn:

“beyon’ all doot! doot! wha is there that doots the bein’ o’ the doom? learn ye too, young sir, that the doom an’ all thereby is no for traffickin’ wi’ them that only cares for curiosity and publeecity. the voice and the vision o’ the seer is no for fine madams and idle gentles to while away their time in play-toy make-believe!” i climbed down at once.

“pardon me!” i said “i spoke without thinking. i should not have said so—to you at any rate.” she accepted[15] my apology with a sort of regal inclination; but the moment after she showed by her words she was after all but a woman!

“i will tell ye; that so in the full time ye may hae no doot yersel’. for ye are a seer and as them that has the power hae gien ye the gift it is no for the like o’ me to cumber the road o’ their doin’. know ye then, and remember weel, how it was told ye by gormala macniel that lauchlane macleod o’ the outer isles hae been called; tho’ as yet the voice has no sounded in his ears but only in mine. but ye will see the time——”

she stopped suddenly as though some thought had struck her, and then went on impressively:

“when i saw him lie prone on the rocks there was ane that bent ower him that i kent not in the nicht wha it was, though the licht o’ the moon was around him. we shall see! we shall see!”

without a word more she turned and left me. she would not listen to my calling after her; but with long strides passed up the beach and was lost among the sandhills.