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ONE day, Friend of my
heart, you will look again upon the islands. Not today or tomorrow,
perhaps not even this year or next year -- but one day, when you least
expect it, you will be suddenly set free again, to wander where you will.
And where will you go but to the islands? Oh, feet that hasten to tread
the heather, and eyes that ache to see the blue plume of peat-smoke rising
over the distant hills! The map, the train, the smell and bustle of great
stations; and you, bending your unaccustomed shoulders under the weight of
a pack and wriggling your toes in boots that have suddenly grown too
small. Northward, then, with the summer birds, your heart racing always
ahead of the rattling wheels. Hasty, half-spilled cups of coffee, and
cigarettes that fall to grey ashes in your fingers because you are too
excited to smoke. A restless night in a gently-swaying compartment; and,
with the dawn, the clumsy gathering together of scattered belongings and
the mad tumble into the little branch train that will bear you away to the
west coast.
How often do you dream of it in your exile, and picture yourself stepping
out at last into the pure mountain air, numbed and weary and dirty from
travelling, but conscious of nothing save that you have arrived, and the
boat is waiting to take you out into the path of the setting sun.
With what joy will you toss your rucksack aboard! With what eagerness will
you gaze out across the grey mirror of the sea, repeating aloud the
beloved names which still hold all of magic you ever knew. Skye and the
Cuillin -- Eigg and Rhum -- Fingal and Ossian, whose heroic shades yet
haunt the caves and corries of the blest.
And when the day has at last gone to rest, and the slow shadows of night
spread across the water, you will go to sleep with the crying of sea-birds
in your ears, happy and at peace. Because you have come, as you promised,
to the islands. Because you have come home.
"The Atlantic Sea," off Uig, West Lewis |
