Whats Mines Mine, vol 2 | Page 8

the tales that suggested the name his clanspeople gave him--wonderful tales of the high mountain-nights, the actors in them for the most part angels. Whether Rob believed he had intercourse with such beings, heard them speak, and saw them, do the things he reported, I cannot tell: it may be that, like any other poet of good things, he but saw and believed the things his tales meant, the things with which he represented the angels as dealing, and concerning which he told their sayings. To the eyes of those who knew him, Rob seemed just the sort of person with whom the angels might be well pleased to hold converse: was he not simplicity itself, truth, generosity, helpfulness? Did he not, when a child, all but lose his life in the rescue of an idiot from the swollen burn? Did he not, when a boy, fight a great golden eagle on its nest, thinking to deliver the lamb it had carried away? Knowing his father in want of a new bonnet, did not Rob with his bare hands seize an otter at the mouth of its hole, and carry it home, laughing merrily over the wounds it had given him?
His voice had in it a strangely peculiar tone, making it seem not of this world. Especially after he had been talking for some time, it would appear to come from far away, not from the lips of the man looking you in the face.
It was wonderful with what solemnity of speech, and purity of form he would tell his tales. So much in solitude with his dumb father, his speech might well be unlike the speech of other men; but whence the impression of cultivation it produced?
When the Christmas party broke up, most of the guests took the road toward the village, the chief and his brother accompanying them part of the way. Of these were Rob and his father, walking hand in hand, Hector looking straight before him, Rob gazing up into the heavens, as if holding counsel with the stars.
"Are you seeing any angels, Rob?" asked a gentle girl of ten.
"Well, and I'm not sure," answered Rob of the Angels.
"Sure you can tell whether you see anything!"
"Oh, yes, I see! but it is not easy to tell what will be an angel and what will not. There's so much all blue up there, it might be full of angels and none of us see one of them!"
"Do tell us what you see, Rob, dear Rob," said the girl.
"Well, and I will tell you. I think I see many heads close together, talking."
"And can you hear what they will be saying?"
"Some of it."
"Tell me, do tell me-some-just a little."
"Well then, they are saying, one to the other--not very plain, but I can hear--they are saying, 'I wonder when people will be good! It would be so easy, if only they would mean it, and begin when they are little!' That's what they are saying as they look down on us walking along."
"That will be good advice, Rob!" said one of the women.
"And," he resumed, "they are saying now--at least that is what it sounds to me--'I wish women were as good as they were when they were little girls!'"
"Now I know they are not saying that!" remarked the woman. "How should the angels trouble themselves about us! Rob, dear, confess you are making it up, because the child would be asking you."
Rob made no answer, but some saw him smile a curious smile. Rob would never defend anything he had said, or dispute anything another said. After a moment or two, he spoke again.
"Shall I be telling you what I heard them saying to each other this last night of all?" he asked.
"Yes, do, do!"
"It was upon Dorrachbeg; and there were two of them. They were sitting together in the moon--in the correi on the side of the hill over the village. I was lying in a bush near them, for I could not sleep, and came out, and the night was not cold. Now I would never be so bad-mannered as to listen where persons did not want me to hear."
"What were they like, Rob, dear?" interrupted the girl.
"That does not matter much," answered Rob; "but they were white, and their eyes not so white, but brighter; for so many sad things go in at their eyes when they come down to the earth, that it makes them dark."
"How could they be brighter and darker both at once?" asked the girl, very pertinently.
"I will tell you," answered Rob. "The dark things that go in at their eyes, they have to burn them in the fire of faith; and it is the fire of that burning that makes their eyes bright; it is the fire of their faith