One moonlit night, either the seventh or the ninth after the earthing of Adam Blair at his own place in the Ross, Aulay Macneill saw Neil Ross steal out of the shadow of Ballyrona and make for the sea. Macneill was there by the rocks, mending a lobster-creel. He had gone there because of the sadness. Well, when he saw the Sin-Eater, he watched. Neil crept from rock to rock till he reached the last fang that churns the sea into yeast when the tide sucks the land just opposite. Then he called out something that Aulay Macneill could not catch. With that he springs up, and throws his arms above him. “Then,” says Aulay when he tells the tale, “it was like a ghost he was. The moonshine was on his face like the curl o’ a wave. White! there is no whiteness like that of the human face. It was whiter than the foam about the skerry it was; whiter than the moon shining; whiter than … well, as white as the painted letters on the black boards of the fishing-cobles. There he stood, for all that the sea was about him, the slip-slop waves leapin’ wild, and the tide making, too, at that. He was shaking like a sail two points off the wind. It was then that, all of a sudden, he called in a womany, screamin’ voice-- “‘I am throwing the sins of Adam Blair into the midst of ye, white dogs o’ the sea! Drown them, tear them, drag them away out into the black deeps! Ay, ay, ay, ye dancin’ wild waves, this is the third time I am doing it, and now there is none left; no, not a sin, not a sin! “‘O-hi, O-ri, dark tide o’ the sea, I am giving the sins of a dead man to thee! By the Stones, by the Wind, by the Fire, by the Tree, From the dead man’s sins set me free, set me free! Adam mhic Anndra mhic Adam and me, Set us free! Set us free!’ “Ay, sure, the Sin-Eater sang that over and over; and after the third singing he swung his arms and screamed-- “‘And listen to me, black waters an’ running tide, That rune is the good rune told me by Maisie the wise, And I am Neil the son of Silis Macallum By the black-hearted evil man Murtagh Ross, That was the friend of Adam mac Anndra, God against him!’ “And with that he scrambled and fell into the sea. But, as I am Aulay mac Luais and no other, he was up in a moment, an’ swimmin’ like a seal, and then over the rocks again, an’ away back to that lonely roofless place once more, laughing wild at times, an’ muttering an’ whispering.” It was this tale of Aulay Macneill’s that stood between Neil Ross and the isle-folk. There was something behind all that, they whispered one to another. So it was always the Sin-Eater he was called at last. None sought him. The few children who came upon him now and again fled at his approach, or at the very sight of him. Only Aulay Macneill saw him at times, and had word of him.