English literature -- Scottish authors; Scottish literature
There was no sound in the little bay. Beyond, a fathom of
phosphorescence showed that mackerel were playing in the moonshine. Near
the trap-ledges, which ran into deep water sheer from the goat-pastures,
were many luminous moving phantoms: the medusæ, green, purple, pale
blue, wandering shapes filled with ghostly fire.
We stood a while in silence, then one of us spoke:
"Shall we put aside, for a brief while, this close fellowship of ours;
and, since we cannot journey apart, go together to find if there be any
light upon those matters which trouble us, and perhaps discern things
better separately than when trying, as we ever vainly do, to see the
same thing with the same eyes?"
The others agreed. "It may be I shall know," said one? "It may be I
shall remember," said the other.
"Then let us go back into the house and rest to-night, and to-morrow,
after we have slept and eaten well, we can set out with a light heart."
The others did not answer, for though to one food meant nothing, and to
the other sleep was both a remembering and a forgetting, each
unwittingly felt the keen needs of him whom they despised overmuch, and
feared somewhat, and yet loved greatly.
II
Thus it was that on a midsummer morning we set out alone and afoot, not
bent for any one place, though we said we would go towards the dim blue
hills in the west, the Hills of Dream, as we called them; but, rather,
idly troubled by the very uncertainties which beset our going. We began
that long stepping westward as pilgrims of old who had the Holy City for
their goal, but knew that midway were perilous lands.
We were three, as I have said: the Body, the Will, and the Soul. It was
strange for us to be walking there side by side, each familiar with and
yet so ignorant of the other. We had so much in common, and yet were so
incommunicably alien to one another. I think that occurred to each of
us, as, with brave steps but sidelong eyes, we passed the fuchsia
bushes, where the wild bees hummed, and round by the sea pastures, where
white goats nibbled among the yellow flags, and shaggy kine with their
wild hill-eyes browsed the thyme-sweet salted grass. A fisherman met us.
It was old Ian Macrae, whom I had known for many years. Somehow, till
then, the thought had not come to me that it might seem unusual to those
who knew my solitary ways, that I should be going to and fro with
strangers. Then, again for the first time, it flashed across me that
they were so like me--or save in the eyes I could myself discern no
difference--the likeness would be as startling as it would be
unaccountable.
I stood for a moment, uncertain. "Of course," I muttered below my
breath, "of course, the others are invisible; I had not thought of
that." I watched them slowly advance, for they had not halted when I
did. I saw them incline the head with a grave smile as they passed Ian.
The old man had taken off his bonnet to them, and had stood aside.
Strangely disquieted, I moved towards Macrae.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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