Along either lane you may
arrive at peace, which is the monopoly neither of the Eastern nor of the
Western Celt, but it is a peace never free from a great wistfulness.
"How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face."
That there is much paganism in all this must be obvious to any one who
has given any attention to the subject. The tale of _The Annir-Choille_
confesses it frankly enough, where the young Christian prince is brought
back by the forest maiden from his new faith to the ancient pagan world.
Old gods are strewn everywhere upon the waysides down which Fiona leads
us, and there are many times when we cannot disentangle the spiritual
from the material, nor indeed the good from the evil influences. Dr.
John Brown used to tell the story of a shepherd boy near Biggar, who one
day was caught out on the hill in a thunder-storm. The boy could not
remember whether thunder-storms were sent by God or Satan, and so to be
quite safe, he kept alternately repeating the ejaculations, "Eh, guid
God," and "Eh, bonny deil.
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