“And at midnight my father heard the voice of his eldest son at the door; but he would not let him in. And in the morning he found his boat broken and shred in splinters, and his one net all torn. An’ that day was the Sabbath; so, being a holy day, he took the Scripture with him, an’ he and Neil Morrison the minister, having had the Bread an’ Wine, went along the Sound in a boat, following a shadow in the water, till they came to Soa. An’ there Neil Morrison read the Word o’ God to the seals that lay baskin’ in the sun; and one, a female, snarled and showed her fangs; and another, a black one, lifted its head and made a noise that was not like the barking of any seal, but was as the laughter of Murdoch when he swung the dead body of Deirg. “And that is all that is to be said. And silence is best now between you and any other. And no man knows the judgments o’ God. “And that is all.” _GREEN BRANCHES_ _NOTE_ This story is one of the Achanna series, of which “The Anointed Man” is in _Spiritual Tales_, and “The Dàn-nan-Ròn” is in the present volume--to which, indeed, “Green Branches” is properly a sequel. (See the note to “The Dàn-nan-Ròn” about the name ‘Gloom.’ I may add here that the surname Achanna is that familiar in the South as Hannay.) GREEN BRANCHES In the year that followed the death of Mànus MacCodrum, James Achanna saw nothing of his brother Gloom. He might have thought himself alone in the world, of all his people, but for a letter that came to him out of the west. True, he had never accepted the common opinion that his brothers had both been drowned on that night when Anne Gillespie left Eilanmore with Mànus. In the first place, he had nothing of that inner conviction concerning the fate of Gloom which he had concerning that of Marcus; in the next, had he not heard the sound of the _feadan_, which no one that he knew played, except Gloom; and, for further token, was not the tune that which he hated above all others--the Dance of the Dead--for who but Gloom would be playing that, he hating it so, and the hour being late, and no one else on Eilanmore? It was no sure thing that the dead had not come back; but the more he thought of it the more Achanna believed that his sixth brother was still alive. Of this, however, he said nothing to anyone.