Elizabeth Sharp - The Works of Fiona Macleod, Volume IV

"We were three: the Body, the Will, and the Soul… The Will, the Soul, which for the first time had gone along outside of our common home, had to take upon themselves bodily presences likewise." — The Divine Adventure.

I remember that it was on St. John's Eve we said we would go away together for a time, but each independently, as three good friends. We had never been at one, though we had shared the same home, and had enjoyed so much in common; but to each, at the same time, had come the great desire of truth, than which there is none greater save that of beauty.

We had long been somewhat weary. No burden of years, no serious ills, no grief grown old in its own shadow, distressed us. We were young. But we had known the two great ends of life – to love and to suffer. In deep love there is always an inmost dark flame, as in the flame lit by a taper: I think it is the obscure suffering upon which the Dancer lives. The Dancer! – Love, who is Joy, is a leaping flame: he it is who is the son of that fabled planet, the Dancing Star.

On that St. John's Eve we had talked with friends on the old mysteries of this day of pagan festival. At last we withdrew, not tired or in disagreement, but because the hidden things of the spirit are the only realities, and it seemed to us a little idle and foolish to discuss in the legend that which was not fortuitous or imaginary, since what then held up white hands in the moonlight, even now, in the moonlight of the dreaming mind, beckons to the Divine Forges.

We left the low-roofed cottage room, where, though the window was open, two candles burned with steadfast flame. The night was listeningly still. Beyond the fuchsia bushes a sighing rose, where a continuous foamless wave felt the silences of the shore. The moonpath, far out upon the bronze sea, was like a shadowless white road. In the dusk of the haven glimmered two or three red and green lights, where the fishing-cobles trailed motionless at anchor. Inland were shadowy hills. One of the St. John's Eve fires burned on the nearest of these, its cone blotting out a thousand eastern stars. The flame rose and sank as though it were a pulse: perhaps at that great height the sea-wind or a mountain air played upon it. Out of a vast darkness in the south swung blacker abysses, where thunders breathed with a prolonged and terrible sighing; upon their flanks sheet-lightnings roamed.

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.

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.

"Ian," I whispered rather than spoke.

"Ay," he answered simply, looking at me with his grave, far-seeing eyes.

"Ian, have you seen my friends before?"

"No, I have never seen them before."

"They have been here for – for – many days."

"I have not seen them."

"Tell me; do you recognise them?"

"I have not seen them before."

"I mean, do you – do you see any likeness in them to any you know?"

"No, I see no likeness."

"You are sure, Ian?"

"Ay, for sure. And why not?" The old fisherman looked at me with questioning eyes.

"Tell me, Ian, do you see any difference in me?"

"No, for sure, no."

Bewildered, I pondered this new mystery. Were we really three personalities, without as well as within?

At that moment the Will turned. I heard his voice fall clearly along the heather-fragrant air-ledges.

"We, too, are bewildered by this mystery," he said.

So he knew my thought. It was our thought. Yes, for now the Soul turned also; and I heard his sunwarm breath come across the honeysuckles by the roadside.

"I, too, am bewildered by this mystery," he said.

"Ian," I exclaimed to the old man, who stared wonderingly at us; "Ian tell me this: what like are my companions; how do they seem to you?"

The old man glanced at me, startled, then rubbed his eyes as though he were half-awakened from a dream.

"Why are you asking that thing?"

"Because, Ian, you do not see any likeness in them to myself. I had thought – I had thought they were so like."

Macrae put his wavering, wrinkled hand to his withered mouth. He gave a chuckling laugh.

"Ah, I understand now. It is a joke you are playing on old Ian."

"Maybe ay, and maybe no, Ian; but I do want to know how they seem to you, those two yonder."

"Well, well, now, for sure, that friend of yours there, that spoke first, he is just a weary, tired old man, like I am myself, and so like me, now that I look at him, that he might be my wraith. And the other, he is a fine lad, a fisher-lad for sure, though I fear God's gripped his heart, for I see the old ancient sorrow in his eyes."