He started when he saw us, and looked at us as if it was the first time that he had met us; and we were about to pa.s.s him quickly, with a little due reverence. But he spoke, and we stopped.

"I remember," he said. "You are the Lochlannoch who were cast ash.o.r.e. Is all well with you?"

"In every way, father," I answered in the Gaelic.

He looked hard at me for a moment, and his face flushed slowly. It had been white before with the whiteness that comes of a dark cell and long biding within it. Only the warm sun had taken him out today, for Phelim said that he was close on ninety years of age.

Then he set forth his hand to me, and laid it on my arm.

"Tell me who you are," he said.

"We are Norse folk, cast ash.o.r.e here by mischance in the gale."

"Norse?" he said. "Yet you speak the tongue of my childhood--the kindly Gaelic of the islands which is not that altogether of the Erse of today. It is full sixty years since I heard it."

"My mother was a Scottish lady," I answered. "My own name is Malcolm."

"Tell me more," he said eagerly. "Let me hear the old tongue again before I die."

Now, it is in no wise easy to be told to talk without a hint in the way of question on which to begin, and I hesitated. Gerda asked me softly what was amiss, and I told her in a few words. The old hermit looked kindly at her, but did not speak.

"Tell him of your home," she said. "Tell him without saying aught of the end of it."

I did so, slowly at first, for the words would not come, and then better as I went on. The old man listened, and the tears came into his eyes.

"Ah, the old days," he said, when I stopped. "Your voice is a voice from the days that are gone, and the old tongue comes back to me, with the sound of the piper on the hill and the harper in the hall, with the sough of the summer wind in the fir trees, and the lash of the waves on the rocks. Oh, my son, my son, I would that you had never come here to make me mind the things that are dead."

Now he was trembling, and I took his white hand and set it on my arm to steady him. His hand felt the cold touch of the great gold bracelet Gerda would have me wear, and he looked at it, and turned it in his fingers.

"Jarl, and son of a jarl," he whispered. "War and flame, and the cry of the victors! Oh, my son, you mind me of bitter things."

"I and mine have never hurt Christian folk, father," I said, knowing what he meant.

The sword and fire had fallen heavily on the Scottish islands when the Norseman first came thither. But surely he could not mind that.

Thereafter Phelim told me that he thought the old man spoke of the burning of some monastery on the mainland of Scotland, whence he had fled, with those of his brethren who escaped, to Ireland, coming hither at last to end his days in peace. But I heard no more from himself now. What I had just spoken turned his thoughts afresh, and I was glad.

"Then you are a heathen; and this lady also?"

"We are Odin's folk," I answered. "I suppose that is what you mean, father."

"Yet I think now that I saw you once in the chapel."

"You may do so again, father, if it is permitted by you. I have heard naught but good words there."

His eyes brightened, and he smiled at me.

"You know nothing of the faith then?" he asked.

I shook my head. I had heard never a word of it until I met my friends.

"We will teach you," he said eagerly. "Sit here, my children, in this warm place, and let me tell you somewhat thereof. It may be the last time I may teach the heathen. Aye, I have done it in days long ago."

I spoke to Gerda then, telling her what the old father wished, and she smiled at the thought.

"We have naught to do," she said, "and if it will give him pleasure we may as well bide here."

So we sat down on the bank in the sun amid the quiet of the woodland, and listened. The wood flowers carpeted the ground, and Gerda plucked those that were in reach and played with them while the father began his words. Presently he saw that Gerda was paying no heed, and he bade me translate, hearing that she did not understand. And by that time he spoke the old tongue of his youth, and the Erse way of speaking was forgotten.

Then he told us things which every Christian child knows; but which were new and wonderful and very good to hear, to us two. Soon Gerda had forgotten the flowers, and was listening, and presently asking questions as might a child who hears the sweetest tale ever told.

So still we were, and so soft the voice of the old man, that the birds the hermits were wont to feed came close to us, and a robin perched on the shoulder of the father, and he smiled at it.

"See," he said, "the breast of the little bird is red because it had compa.s.sion on its Maker as He suffered, and would pluck the cruel thorns away."

And so with all homely words and simple he taught us, and we were fain to listen. Odin and the Asir seemed far off at that time and in that place, and I half blamed myself for harkening.

"What of our Asir?" I said at last.

"Heroes of the old days," he said. "Heroes whom their sons have worshipped; because a man must needs worship the greatest whom he knows."

"And what has become of them?"

He shook his head. "They are in the hands of the true Allfather,"

he answered. "I cannot tell more than that. It is enough."

"I have heard it said," I went on, for here was somewhat which troubled me, "that you Christians hold that we worship fiends--that the Asir are such."

"That were to wrong the heroes of the past, my son," he answered.

"It is meant that you know not what you worship under those honoured names. There are those among you who know that the Asir were your forefathers. Did you ever hear that Alfred, the wise and most Christian king of England, was ashamed of that ancestry of his?"

"I myself cannot be ashamed thereof. I am from the line of Odin," I said. "If you speak truth, father, one count against Christians has pa.s.sed, from my mind at least."

But now Gerda spoke timidly, for she too had her question at this time.

"What of women, father? Is there a place for them in the heaven of which you speak? Was it won for us?"

"Most truly, my daughter. It is for the woman as for the man. There is no difference."

I saw her face light up with a new wonder and joy, which told me that here was no idle listener. And so the old teacher went on in all kindly wisdom, never hurting us in aught he said of the old G.o.ds, but leading us to see the deeper things which our forebears had forgotten. I listened, and thought it all good; but betimes Gerda wept quietly, and would fain hear more and more. The little bell on the chapel rang for the vespers or ever we ended that long talk, and the old man must go. I raised him up, for he was very feeble, and again the touch of the gold put a word into his mind.

"Jarl, and son of Odin," he said, smiling, "no need for you to wait that dim Ragnarok fight of yours for warfare against evil. That fight has begun, and in it you may take your part now, that you may share in the victory hereafter."

Then I said, for I minded how useless to me seemed this life here:

"What part have you therein, father--you and the brethren?"

"We pray for those who have forgotten to do so for themselves," he answered. "And we are of those whose sorest fight has been against evil within."

So we went into the chapel for the vespers with him, and the day was done. But in the morning there hung on the black cross on the green gra.s.s a wreath of white flowers which no brother had set there.