CHAPTER IV
LAMMAS FLOODS
When I got to Cruden it was quite dark. I had lingered by the waythinking of Gormala MacNiel and all the queer kind of mystery in whichshe seemed to be enmeshing me. The more I thought, the more I waspuzzled; for the strangest thing of all to me was that I understoodpart of what seemed to be a mystery. For instance I was but imperfectlyacquainted with the Seer-woman's view of what was to be the result ofher watching of Lauchlane Macleod. I knew of course from her words atour first conversation that in him she recognised a man doomed to neardeath according to the manifestation of her own power of Second Sight;but I knew what she did not seem to, that this was indeed a goldenman. From the momentary glimpse which I had had in that queer spell oftrance, or whatever it was which had come to me on the pier head, I hadseemed to _know_ him as a man of gold, sterling throughout. It was notmerely that his hair was red gold and that his eyes might fairly becalled golden, but his whole being could only be expressed in that way;so that when Gormala spoke, the old rhyme seemed at once a prime factorin the group of three powers which had to be united before the fathomingof the Mystery of the Sea. I accordingly made up my mind to speak withthe Seer-woman and to ask her to explain. My own intellectual attitudeto the matter interested me. I was not sceptical, I did not believe;but I think my mind hung in poise. Certainly my sympathies tendedtowards the mysterious side, backed up by some kind of understanding ofthe inner nature of things which was emotional or unintentional ratherthan fixed.
All that night I seemed to dream, my mind working eternally round thedata of the day; hundreds of different relationships between Gormala,Lauchlane Macleod, Lammas-tide, the moon and the secrets of the searevolved before me. It was grey morning before I fell asleep to theoccasional chirping of the earliest birds.
As sometimes happens after a night of uneasy dreaming of some disturbingtopic, the reaction of the morning carried oblivion with it. It was wellinto the afternoon when all at once I remembered the existence of thewitch-woman--for as such I was beginning to think of Gormala. Thethought came accompanied by a sense of oppression which was not of fear,but which was certainly of uneasiness. Was it possible that the womanhad in some way, or to some degree, hypnotised me. I remembered with aslightly nervous feeling how the evening before I had stopped on theroadway obedient to her will, and how I had lost the identity of mysurroundings in her presence. A sudden idea struck me; I went to thewindow and looked out. For an instant my heart seemed to be still.
Just opposite the house stood Gormala, motionless. I went out at onceand joined her, and instinctively we turned our steps toward thesand-hills. As we walked along I said to her:
"Where did you disappear to last night?"
"About that which is to be done!" Her lips and her face were set; Iknew it was no use following up that branch of the subject, so I askedagain:
"What did you mean by those verses which you told me?" Her answer wasgiven in a solemn tone:
"Them that made them alone can tell; until the time shall come!"
"Who made them?"
"Nane can now tell. They are as aud as the rocky foundations o' theisles themselves."
"Then how did you come to know them?" There was a distinct note of pridein her answer. Such a note as might be expected from a prince speakingof his ancestry:
"They hae come doon to me through centuries. Frae mither to dochter, andfrom mither to dochter again, wi' never a break in the lang line o' thetellin'. Know ye, young master, that I am o' a race o' Seers. I takemy name from that Gormala o' Uist who through long years foresaw thepassing o' mony a one. That Gormala who throughout the islands of thewest was known and feared o' all men; that Gormala whose mither'smither, and mither's mither again, away back into the darkness o' timewhen coracles crept towards the sunset ower the sea and returned not,held the fates o' men and women in their han's and ruled the Mysterieso' the Sea." As it was evident that Gormala must have in her own mindsome kind of meaning of the prophecy, or spell, or whatever it was, Iasked her again:
"But you must understand something of the meaning, or you would notattach so much importance to it?"
"I ken naught but what is seen to ma een, and to that inner e'e whichtelleth tae the soul that which it seeth!"
"Then why did you warn me that Lammas-tide was near at hand?" The grimwoman actually smiled as she replied:
"Did ye no hearken to the words spoken of the Lammas floods, which be ofthe Powers that rule the Spell?"
"Well, the fact is that I don't know anything of 'Lammas-tide!' We donot keep it in the Church of England," I added as an afterthought,explanatory of my ignorance. Gormala was clever enough to take advantageof having caught me in a weak place; so she took advantage of it to turnthe conversation into the way she wished herself:
"What saw ye, when Lauchlane Macleod grew sma' in yer een, and girtagain?"
"Simply, that he seemed to be all at once a tiny image of himself, seenagainst a waste of ripe corn." Then it struck me that I had not as yettold her or any one else of what I had seen. How then did she know it? Iwas annoyed and asked her. She answered scornfully:
"How kent I it, an' me a Seer o' a race o' Seers! Are ma wakin' een thenso dim or so sma' that I canna read the thochts o' men in the glances o'their een. Did I no see yer een look near an' far as quick as thocht?But what saw ye after, when ye looked rapt and yer een peered side toside, as though at one lyin' prone?" I was more annoyed than ever andanswered her in a sort of stupor:
"I saw him lying dead on a rock, with a swift tide running by; and overthe waters the broken track of a golden moon." She made a sound whichwas almost a cry, and which recalled me to myself as I looked at her.She was ablaze. She towered to her full height with an imperious,exultant mien; the light in her eyes was more than human as she said:
"Dead, as I masel' saw him an' 'mid the foam o' the tide race! An' gowd,always gowd ahint him in the een of this greater Seer. Gowden corn, andgowden moon, and gowden sea! Aye! an' I see it now, backie-bird that Ihae been; the gowden mon indeed, wi' his gowden een an' his gowden hairand all the truth o' his gowden life!" Then turning to me she saidfiercely:
"Why did I warn ye that Lammas-tide was near? Go ask those that valuethe months and days thereof, when be Lammas and what it means to themthat hae faith. See what they are; learn o' the comin' o' the moon ando' the flowin' o' the tides that follow!"
Without another word she turned and left me.
I went back to the hotel at once, determined to post myself as toLammas-tide; its facts and constitutions, and the beliefs and traditionsthat hung around it. Also to learn the hours of the tides, and the ageof the moon about the time of Lammas-tide. Doubtless I could have foundout all I wanted from some of the ministers of the various houses ofreligion which hold in Cruden; but I was not wishful to make public,even so far, the mystery which was closing around me. My feeling waspartly a saving sense of humour, or the fear of ridicule, and partly agenuine repugnance to enter upon the subject with any one who might nottake it as seriously as I could wish. From which latter I gather thatthe whole affair was becoming woven into the structure of my life.
Possibly it was, that some trait, or tendency, or power which wasindividual to me was beginning to manifest itself and to find its meansof expression. In my secret heart I not only believed but knew that someinstinct within me was guiding my thoughts in some strange way. Thesense of occult power which is so vital a part of divination was growingwithin me and asserting its masterdom, and with it came an equallyforceful desire of secrecy. The Seer in me, latent so long, was becomingconscious of his strength, and jealous of it.
At this time, as the feeling of strength and consciousness grew, itseemed to lose something of its power from this very cause. Gradually itwas forced upon me that for the full manifestation of such faculty asI might possess, some kind of abstraction or surrender of self wasnecessary. Even a few hours of experience had taught me much; for nowthat my mind was bent on the phenomena of Second Sight the whole livingand m
oving world around me became a veritable diorama of possibilities.Within two days from the episode at the Pier head I had had behind me alarger experience of effort of occult force than generally comes to aman in a lifetime. When I look back, it seems to me that all the forcesof life and nature became exposed to my view. A thousand things whichhitherto I had accepted in simple faith as facts, were pregnant withnew meanings. I began to understand that the whole earth and sea,and air--all that of which human beings generally ordinarily takecognisance, is but a film or crust which hides the deeper moving powersor forces. With this insight I began to understand the grand guesses ofthe Pantheists, pagan and christian alike, who out of their spiritualand nervous and intellectual sensitiveness began to realise that therewas somewhere a purposeful cause of universal action. An action which inits special or concrete working appeared like the sentience of nature ingeneral, and of the myriad items of its cosmogony.
I soon learned that Lammas day is the first of August and is so oftenaccompanied by heavy weather that Lammas floods are almost annuallyrecurrent. The eve of the day is more or less connected with varioussuperstitions.
This made me more eager for further information, and by the aid of achance friend, I unearthed at Aberdeen a learned professor who gave meoffhand all the information which I desired. In fact he was so full ofastronomical learning that I had to stop him now and again in order toelucidate some point easily explainable to those who understood histerminology, but which wrapped my swaddling knowledge in a mystery allits own. I have a sneaking friendliness even now for anyone to whom theword 'syzygy' carries no special meaning.
I got at the bases of facts, however, and understood that on the nightof July 31, which was the eve of Lammas-tide, the moon would be full atmidnight. I learned also that from certain astronomical reasons the tidewhich would ostensibly begin its flow a little after midnight would inreality commence just on the stroke. As these were the points whichconcerned me I came away with a new feeling of awe upon me. It seemedas though the heavens as well as the earth were bending towards therealisation or fulfillment of the old prophecy. At this time my ownconnection with the mystery, or how it might affect me personally, didnot even enter my head. I was content to be an obedient item in thegeneral scheme of things.
It was now the 28th July so, if it were to take place at the Lammas-tideof the current year, we should know soon the full measure of thedenouement. There was but one thing wanting to complete the conditionsof the prophecy. The weather had been abnormally dry, and there mightafter all be no Lammas floods. To-day, however, the sky had been heavilyovercast. Great black clouds which seemed to roll along tumbling overand over, as the sail of a foundered boat does in a current, loomed upfrom the west. The air grew closer, and to breathe was an effort. A sortof shiver came over the wide stretch of open country. Darker and darkergrew the sky, till it seemed so like night that the birds in the fewlow-lying coppices and the scanty hedgerows ceased to sing. The bleat ofsheep and the low of cattle seemed to boom through the still air with ahollow sound, as if coming from a distance. The intolerable stillnesswhich precedes the storm became so oppressive that I, who am abnormallysusceptible to the moods of nature, could almost have screamed out.
Then all at once the storm broke. There was a flash of lightning sovivid that it lit up the whole country away to the mountains whichencircle Braemar. The fierce crash and wide roll of the thunder followedwith incredible quickness. And then the hot, heavy-dropped summer rainfell in torrents.
All that afternoon the rain fell, with only a few brief intervals ofglowing sunshine. All night, too, it seemed to fall without ceasing,for whenever I woke--which I did frequently with a sense over me ofsomething impending--I could hear the quick, heavy patter on the roof,and the rush and gurgle of the overcharged gutters.
The next day was one of unmitigated gloom. The rain poured downceaselessly. There was little wind, just sufficient to rollnorth-eastwards the great masses of rain-laden clouds piled up by theGulf Stream against the rugged mountains of the western coast and itsrocky islands. Two whole days there were of such rain, and then therewas no doubt as to the strength of the Lammas floods this year. All thewide uplands of Buchan were glistening with runnels of water wheneverthe occasional glimpses of sunshine struck them. Both the Water ofCruden and the Back Burn were running bank high. On all sides it wasreported that the Lammas floods were the greatest that had been known inmemory.
All this time my own spiritual and intellectual uneasiness wasperpetually growing. The data for the working of the prophecy were allfixed with remarkable exactness. In theatrical parlance 'the stage wasset' and all ready for the action which was to come. As the hours woreon, my uneasiness changed somewhat and apprehension became merged in acurious mixture of superstition and exaltation. I was growing eager tothe coming time.
The afternoon of July 31 was fine. The sun shone brightly; the air wasdry and, for the time of year, cool. It seemed as though the spell ofwet weather was over and that fiery August was coming to its own again.The effects of the rainstorm were, however, manifest. Not only was everyrill and stream and river in the North in spate but the bogs of themountains were so saturated with wet that many days must elapse beforethey could cease to send their quota to swell the streams. The mountainvalleys were generally lakes in miniature. As one went through thecountry the murmur or rush of falling water was forever in the ears. Isuppose it was in my own case partly because I was concerned in the mereexistence of Lammas floods that the whole of nature seemed so insistenton the subject. The sound of moving water in its myriad gamut was soperpetually in my ears that I could never get my mind away from it. Ihad a long walk that afternoon through roads still too wet and heavy forbicycling. I came back to dinner thoroughly tired out, and went to bedearly.