The Wind Bloweth | Page 9

suggestion.
"Queer things happened in the auld days."
"If there were queerer things nor you in the auld days," Alan laughed,
"it must have been like a circus."
But mightn't they both be right? wee Shane thought, and he trudging up
the mountain-side. His Uncle Alan knew an awful lot. There was none
could coax a trout from a glass-clear pool with a dry fly like Alan
Campbell. He knew the weather, when it would storm and when it
would clear, and from what point the wind would blow to-morrow. He
could nurse along the difficult flax and knew the lair of the otter and
had a great eye for hunting fox and a better eye for a horse than a Gipsy.
Might there not be things in nature, as he said, that none knew of? And

mightn't there be explanations for them, as Uncle Robin, who had read
every book, claimed there were? Mightn't they both be right, who
thought each other wrong, and they arguing by the red fire, fighting and
snarling like dogs and loving each other with the strange soft love of
lovers when the trees are a-rustle and the moon high?
§ 6
He had thought to come up to the top of the mountain where the cairn
was, and the dark and deepest lake, and to sit down in the heather and
wait half an hour maybe while the curlew called, and then have
Dancing Town take form and color before his eyes, hold it until every
detail was visible, and then fade gently out as twilight fades into night.
He had thought to be prepared and receptive.
But suddenly it was upon him, in the air, over the waters of Moyle....
A sweep of fear ran over him, and he grew cold, so strange it was, so
against nature. Clear and high, as in some old print, and white and
green, the town and shore came to him. The May afternoon was in it,
hot and golden, but the town itself was in morning sunlight. A clutter of
great houses and little houses, all white, a great church, and a squat dun
fort, and about it and in it were green spaces and palm-trees that
swayed to a ghostly breeze. And the green ran down to a white beach,
and on the beach foamy waves curled like a man's beard. And in the air
the town quivered and danced, as imaged trees seem to dance on
running water....
On one side was Ireland, and on one side was Scotland, and high in the
air between them was Dancing Town....
No one was in the streets that wee Shane could see, and yet the town
was lifeful, some tropical city where the green jalousies were closed in
the heat of the midday sun, and where no one was on the streets,
barring some unseen old beggar or peddling woman drowsing in the
shade. The town was sleeping not with the sleep of Scotland, that is the
sleep of dead majestic, melancholy kings, nor with the sleep of Ireland,
that is tired and harassed and old. It was not as lonely as sleeping lakes

are where the bittern booms like a drum.... It slept as a child sleeps, lips
apart and chubby fingers uncurled, and happy.... And all the time it
quivered in the clear air....
In the morning, wee Shane thought, it woke to bright happiness, the
green parrakeets chattered, the monkeys whistled, the lizards basked in
the sun. And the generation of the town came out and gossiped and
worked merrily, until the heat of the sun began to strike with the
strokes of a mallet, and then they went into the cool, dark houses and
slept as children sleep. And then came blue twilight, and lamps were lit
in the green spaces, and into the odorous night would come the golden
rounded women with smiles like honey, and the graceful feline men....
A woman's laughter, a man's song.... And the moon rising on tropic
seas, while a guitar hummed with a deep vibrant note.... And the
perfume of strange tropic trees....
But meantime the town danced in the clear air.... And--
"It's gone!" said wee Shane.
One moment it was there, and the next there were only Ireland and
Scotland and the waters of Moyle, and a ship going drowsily for the
Clyde.
And for a long time he waited, thinking Dancing Town might come
again. But it did not come. The schooner off the Mull lay over, and the
Moyle awoke. A breeze rambled up the mountain, and the heather
tinkled its strange dry tinkle. And afar off a curlew called, and a grouse
crowed in defiance.
The moment of magic was by, and wee Shane went down the
mountain.
§ 7
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