The Christ-child's
Lullaby

There was once a shiftless laddie in one of the Isles of the Hebrides who had lost his mother, and that is always a sad tale, but he had got a stepmother in her place, and that is sometimes a sadder tale still. He was not like other children at anyrate, but wise where they were foolish and foolish where they were wise; and he could never do or say anything but what put anger on his stepmother. There was no life for him in the house, and if out he should go, as out he would, that was a fault too. His neighbours said that he was growing into the grave. His stepmother said that he was growing up to the gallows. And he thought himself (but his thoughts were young and foolish) that he was growing towards something that fate was keeping for him. On an evening that was, he brought home, as usual, the cattle for the milking, and if they gave little milk that time, and likely it was little they gave, who was to blame for it but the poor orphan! 'Son of another,' said his stepmother in the heat of anger, 'There will be no luck on this house till you leave; but whoever heard of a luckless chick leaving of its own will?' But leave the shiftless laddie did, and that of his own will, and ere the full moon rose at night, he was on the other side of the ben. That night the stepmother could get neither sleep nor ease; There was something ringing in her ear, and something else stinging in her heart, until at last her bed was like a cairn of stones in a forest of reptiles. 'I will rise' she said, 'and see if the night outside is better than than the night inside.' She rose and went out with her feet towards the ben; nor did she ever stop until she saw and heard something that made her stop. What was this but a Woman, with the very heart-love of heaven in her face, sitting on a grassy knoll and song-lulling a baby son with the sweetest music ever heard under moon or sun; and at her feet was the shiftless laddie, his face like the dream of the Lord's night. 'God of the Graces!' said the stepmother, it is Bride herself, and she doing what I should be doing- song-lulling the orphan.' And she fell on her knees and began to weep the warm soft tears of a mother; and when, after a little while, she looked up, there was nobody there but herself and the shiftless laddie side by side. And that is how the Christ-child's lullaby was first heard in the Isles. Mo ghaol, mo ghradh, is m'eudail thu M'iunntas ur is m'eibhneas thu Mo mhacan alainn ceutach thu Cha'n fhiu mi fhein bhi'd dhail. My love, my dear, my darling thou My treasure new, my gladness thou My comely beauteous babe-son thou Unworthy I to tend to thee.