I MEET JOCK McGILP AND HIS MATE McNEILAGE AT THE TURF INN, ANDLEARN WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE WEAN IN THE TARTAN SHAWL.
We were at common work enough, Dan and me, in the Blair Mhor when the night clouds were banking behind the Blackhill to swoop down on the fast flying winter afternoon. Indeed, it was a matter of a braxy ewe, and the poor beast lay at the hedge-side and the blood clotting at her throat, for Dan had bled her, and the briars o' many a brake trailed behind her.
"Braxy and oatmeal, Hamish," says he, "there's many a lusty lad reared on worse; but we'll be hivin' tatties and herrin' for a change, and plenty o' sour milk tae slocken the drouth o' it."
And as he stooped to tie the ewe's clits together to make her a handier load, I looked round me at the cold bare trees, asleep till the spring would waken them with sap. The hills were bleak and barren, the rocks harsh and cold with no warm crotal on them, and just the reek from the houses rising into the frosty sky.
The night was just down on us, when I heard the lilt o' a whistle, clear as a whaup's, and with a great melody. To us there came whistling a kilted lad, his knees red as collops, for he had waded the burn, and the cheeks o' him glowing like wild roses.
"Ah-ha, Neil Veg," cries Dan, for he made a work wi' weans always, "is it stravagin' after the lassies ye are this bonny nicht?"
"Indeed no, it iss not that; it's yourself I'll be after," shrilled the lad, wi' a burning face.
"And what for will ye be after me, Neil Veg?"
"I will be tellin' you by yourself alone, for my father will be sayin' to me, 'Did you find him, and him alone? '"
At that Dan took him a step aside, with a wink to me not to be minding, and the lad delivered his message in Gaelic and sped away, and his clear whistle came back to us.
"A brave lad, Hamish," says Dan; "he'll have listened to a' the ghost and bogle and bawkin stories since he could creep, and yet he'll whistle himsel' safe ower the hill and be too proud tae run, an' I'm thinkin' every muircock that craws, and every whaup that cries, out on the peat-hags, will be a bogle in his childish mind."
"There's truth in that," said I, "and I wish I could be hearin' the stories, for you have not the way o' telling them. Ye will not be believing them."
"Come ye raikin' wi' me the night and maybe ye'll be hearing some o' them," says Dan, and so when the horses were bedded and the kye fothered, we slipped through the planting and took the old peat road for it, and that I was to hear stories was all that he would tell me.
We came out on the old road to the cove, and rough enough passage we made, for a hill burn that crossed the bare rock o' the road had frozen and melted and frozen again, so that on the worst o' the hill we took our hands and knees for it, and even that comedown to a hillman was better than breaking our necks over the rocks on the low side, for the track was whiles no more than a scratch along a precipice.
When we came on to good heather again Dan stopped me.
"Bide a wee, bide a wee, James," and he took a step from me, and there came at my very ear the lone night-cry of a gull, so weird and melancholy a sound, that but for a low laugh beside me again I would have sworn the bird had passed in the darkness.
"Listen," says he; "I startled ye first with your Christian name, and ye were so made up wi' it, ye wid believe a gull brushed your lug; but listen, Hamish, listen."
From out of the night came the answer, and in my mind there came the picture I had often watched, the grey night seas and the lonely gull flying low, and ever and anon voicing its cry as though it mourned the lost spirit of the deep.
"There's just the two roads, you see, the shore road and the hill road, and a strange foot carries far, and there's aye a lad on the watch when the 'turf's in.'"
So that was Wee Neil's message; McGilp and his crew would be ashore, as many as could be spared from the schooner, and we were making for the Turf Inn, and as we travelled I asked why it came to be called that. "It's a long story," said Dan, "but maybe ye'll have noticed a hole in a smiddy wall, where they will be throwing out the ashes. Well, in this lonely place here, there werena many to trouble, and it cam' to be known that a man could get a dram if he paid for it, and as much as he liked to be payin' for. Well, well, a stranger cam' in one day and asked refreshment and got it, and then he plankit down a gowden guinea and waited for his change, for the stranger was a ganger, and here was a capture just waitin' for him.
"Well, he waited and waited and cracked away wi' the lass, for there seemed nobody about but just Meg the gleevitch, and she had talk eno' for five men, and a trim pair o' ankles forbye.
"'I'll be goin' now, mistress,' says the stranger, rising.
"'I'm sorry for that,' says Meg, and looked as if she meant it.
"'If ye'll just give me my change. . . .'
"'Change!' she cries, 'God save us, change; we sell naething here,' and she lifted the guinea oot the old jug on the shelf and handed it back. 'I thought it was just a present,' says she, makin' eyes at him, 'for a thankfu' man's free wi' his siller. Ye were lucky to get the only drop o' drink in the hoose,'—and that was true enough, for the time they had been talkin' and Meg kiltin' her skirt tae kind o' divert the stranger's attention, the lads had the keg in a safe place. Aweel, and so he had just to take shank's mare for it. I'll come back tae the hole in the wa'. There was one in the old house, and Meg cut a divot and stuffed the hole wi' it if there was nae danger, and if she had word o' excisemen or gaugers on the lookout for smuggling she took the turf oot, and that's how the place got it's name (and why we pass the word that the 'turf's in' if there's word o' a run), but it must have hurt Meg to gie back the guinea, for she's a wild long eye for siller."
We were now close to a white house, stone built and thatched, set among big plane-trees, and looking to the sea. At the door I heard Gaelic songs and great laughing, and then we went inside. At first I saw nothing but two ship's lanthorns, swung from hooks such as we use to hang hams on, and the blazing fire, where a ship's timber burned with wee blue flames licking out, as the fire got at the salt of the seven seas. Then I made out the swarthy faces turned to us, and heard Dan's name voiced by the revellers, and a woman, stout built and perky but still young, that I took to be Meg the gleevitch, from her bird-like way of making little rushes, or, as we express it, "fleein' at things," brought us steaming glasses of toddy, so strong that I think she had watered the whisky with more whisky, for the tears started to my eyes as I drank my first drink. But I felt fine and warm inside for all that. Captain McGilp, as tough a looking seaman as ever shook out a reef, hoisted himself beside Dan. He had not mind of me, I think.
"We did yon business o' Scaurdale's," he whispered, "and got the len' of a cow to keep the wean in milk, and I'll no' say but I forget where the beast came frae, for it's in the barrel now, what's left o't. The wean's in France in a convent among the nuns, where I'm envying her her innocence," and the captain became so wild and heedless in his speech that I drew away. "Ho, my cockerel," says he, "Miss Mim-mou (mim-mouth), that's the bonniest wie I ken o' gettin' yir wesan cut," and to Dan, "There's a lot o' the stallion to that colt." This would mean that I resembled my father, the minister now dead, for he survived my mother, the Laird's sister, by but a few years.
"Let the lad be, Jock McGilp, or you and me'll be cuttin' wesands," says Dan, and I could have flown at the burly smuggler's throat for the joy of Dan's backing.
"It'll be his first night, hey? Well, look at McNeilage there; he's been drunk fifteen flaming years."
"A bonny mate that—fifteen flaming years."
The mate slowly lifted his head, which had sunk on his massive chest, and as I saw his face I grew amazed, for he resembled nothing so much as a good-living, well-fed minister.
"I ha' used the sea, Cap'n, in my time. I loved the nuns and the virgins in San Iago afore we made a bonfire o' it, ay the holy nuns, but they skirled. Here's tae them, they were good while they lasted," and the unholy wretch smacked his lips as though he relished the memory more than the drink.
"Sanny McNeilage, they ca' me. I've seen what I've seen and what ye'll never see—I've seen the decks red for a week and all hands drunk;" and then he turned to me, and his face shone with kindliness, "Are ye any man wi' a cutlass, my lad?"
"No," says I, for my blood boiled at the thought of the nuns, "I wish I were."
"So do I," says he in a pitiful voice.
"All that was before your mother died," says a young lad at his elbow, fierce Ronny McKinnon, and the mate put his head in his arms and his shoulders shook with his greetin', while nods and winks went round the godless crew.
"She was English, my poor old mother," he cried, "and I would lay down my damned soul for her, but she died fifteen year ago, and she could not say 'wee tatties' in the English when she slipped her cable, for she turned into Gaelic—yes," and he looked up, the tears in his eyes and rolling down his cheeks. I think I never saw anything so hateful, but then I saw his hand at his hanger and his big shoulders haunching. "Will any o' ye be denying it?" he murmured in his pitiful voice, and then through the tears I saw the devil mocking, and knew why the crew hastened to reassure him.
Meg, the gleevitch, kept the drink going and threw more wood on the fire. "Drink up," she cries, "it's a rid tinker's night this."
"Why red tinkers, Meg?" says Dan, raising his head from close confab wi' the captain.
"Ye ken the story fine," says she, "how the weans hiv the red hair tae keep them warm maybe, lying oot."
"Not me, my lass," says Dan; "sit down here beside me and tell us."
And as we took our drink she told us of the red tinkers and when they took to the road.
"Indeed, and that will be a good story too," said an old shepherd by the fireside, with his dogs at his feet, "and I will be tellin' you another, if you will be caring. . . ."
It wore on to the small hours of the morning, and cocks began to crow, and yet we sat. Indeed, by that time I was seeing two fires, and I knew that most of the crew slept as they sat or sprawled, and the mate was again weeping and leering round for some one to fight, as though his seeming gentleness would entice a stranger. Dan was parrying with Meg, for in her story she had made great stress on a gipsy lass, and all with knowing looks in Dan's direction; but at last we made our homeward way, of which I remember little, except that Dan had me on his back on the worst of the road, and I was singing.
Next morning I was ill, and black looks I got at the breakfast, although my aunt was kind enough and I caught her smiling at me, for I suppose I must have cut a queer enough figure, but my uncle was very stern. After I had made some pretence of eating, I rose, and he asked me, in his grandest manner, to come to him in an hour.
He was among his books, for he was more of a bookworm than his folks, and standing in front of the fire as I entered.
"Hamish," said he, "I thought more of ye. Dan is no model to follow," says he; "forbye, your head is not so strong, if that be any excuse for drink and devilry on his pairt. I ken of his ongoings, but I hold my peace, for he minds his work, and I have a promise to his father, my brother, that's lying far frae his kith and kin in the field of Malplaquet. Let this be a warning to ye, Hamish, for this morning ye were looking lamentable," says he, "just lamentable."
The shame of my first night's ploy at the Turf Inn lay heavy on me for a while, and then I would be thinking of the swarthy crew with their knives and their fierce oaths at the cards, of the spluttering glowing fire and the old men of the glens in the glow of it, and when I heard the wind moan and cry in the planting in the night, I longed to hear the old dread stories of a people long dead who had raised great stones on our wind-swept moors, and marked their heroes' resting-places with cairns.
Something of this I told to Dan as we gathered in the sheep from the far hills on the day before the big storm. I mind it fine, the grey heavy sky, the bursts of wind that rose ever and anon in the hills, and died away with an eerie cry, and made me think that all the winds had word to gather somewhere, and were hastening to the feast like corbies to a dying ewe.
There was the smell of snow in the air, and the moss pools were frozen hard, and beautiful it was to see the stag-horn moss entombed in the clear ice, and the wee water-plants, pale and cold and pitiful, at the bottom of the pools. Round the far marches we gathered—the wild shy wethers, seeing the dogs, paused as if to question the right of the intruders, and then bounded away like goats, and in my mind's eye I see yet the whitey-yellow wool where the wind ruffled the fleeces. Dan was very quiet that day, speaking seldom except to the dogs.
"There's something no canny coming, Hamish," said he; "I feel it in my banes. We're but puir craturs when a's said and done. A pig can see the wind, and there's them that can hear the grass growing, but a man just breenges on, blin', blin', and fou o' pride."
And again, "Ye've a terrible hankerin' for bawkins,[1] Hamish. I whiles think ye will be some old Druid priest come back that's forgotten the word o' power, but kens dimly in his mind that the white glistening berries o' the oak and the old standing stanes are freens. Ye're no feart o' bawkins, and ye're never tired o' hearing about them. Aweel, it's a kind o' bravery I envy ye, for weel I mind that first time I heard the Black Hound o' Nourn bay. I can feel the tingle of fear run in my bones yet when I think o' the dogs leaving me alane in that unchancey wood, and that devil beast near me in the dark."
By this time we were at Bothanairidh, maybe a heather mile from Craignaghor, the flock heading quietly in and the dogs at heel, and at a bare hawthorn tree Dan stopped.
"An' this, Hamish, will be another o' your freens," said he. "There's many a lilting laugh hidden in the ears o' this old tree, for here it was the cailleachs cam' tae spin in the long summer forenights, when everybody left their hames and took their beasts tae the hill for the summer. There were no dykes or hedges in those days, and the beasts had to be herded on the hill if the crops were to come to anything. Aweel, the men a' went to the fishing and a' the weemen stayed at Bothanairidh, and in the evenings the young lassies would be making great laughing while the cailleachs span; and once, long long ago, when the crotal was young on the rocks on the moors, there came a swarthy lad and said fareweel tae his lass under this tree. There was red wild blood in the boy, and before he came back he had seen a many men swing from the yard-arm. Ay, when he did return, he met a red bride, for another had awaited his coming.
"'This will be the bride ye are seeking,' snarled he that waited, and gave the sailor the dagger where the throat dimples above the collar-bone. And they say the swarthy lad writhed him up against the old tree and laughed.
"'As long as this tree stands,' he cried, 'you'll never hold to your coward heart the lass ye have done the dirty killin' for,' and died. Well, Hamish, I'm no' hand at stories, but the old hawthorn had aye flourished white until then, and after that the flourish was fine rich red, and when he that slew the swarthy lad sought to tear the tree down, his hair changed colour in a night, and the strange folks' mark was on him, and he wandered in the hills and died."
As we stood, I fitted into Dan's brief story—for his tale seemed to me to resemble more the headings of a story than a real story,—I fitted in a background of great wind-swept spaces, of bare rocks and cold heather and that poor love-maddened outcast wandering alone, and wondered what black pool cooled his brow at the last of it, and there came to my ears a distant cry, and so sure was I that I had imagined it, that I never turned to look, till Dan's laugh roused me.
"Come away from the standin' stanes and the heroes' graves. That wasna the skirl o' a ghost, but a hail frae a sonsy lass—but what gars her risk her bonny legs in yon daft-like wie beats me."
"I think," says I, "yon'll be Finlay Stuart's Uist powny; there's none here has the silver mane and tail. . . ."
"Imphm," says Dan; "imphm, Hamish, as Aul' Nick said when his mouth was fu'. Yon's Finlay's beast, and I'm thinkin' o' a' Finlay's lassies, there's just wan wid bother her noddle tae come here away, and that's Mirren; but wae's me," said he, with his droll smile, "she's set her cap at the excise-man, they tell me."
The lass drew up her pony beside us, and, man, they were a picture, these two—her hair, blown all loose, rippling like a wave, and the flush of youth glowing in her face and neck, and her eyes shining, and the noble Hieland pony, with his great curved neck and round dark barrel, and the flowing silver mane and tail. To me she bowed coldly enough, but with all the grace of one whose men-folk called themselves Royal, or maybe from Appin—especially in their cups. Although it seems the Royal Stuart race were none too particular whatever, but Dan had always his own way with the lassies.
"Has the de'il run away wi' the excise-man, Mirren, that you're risking horseflesh among the peat-bogs?"
"No," she cries, "no, but I wish he would be taking the whole dollop o' them to his hob, and then maybe decent folks would be having peace."
"That would stamp ye Finlay's lass if I didna ken already," says Dan.
"Ken me," cried the maid; "I'm well kent as a bad sixpence—a lass that should ha' been a lad wi' work to do or fighting, instead o' sitting—sitting like a peat stack, or"—with a fine flare o' colour—"like a midden waiting to be 'lifted.'"
"Ye're hard to please, my dear; there's many a lad wid be sair put oot if ye took to the breeks. . . ."
"It will not be this gab clash I came to be hearin', Dan McBride, but a most private business."
"Oh, don't be minding Hamish, my lass; he canna pass a rick o' barley but his eyes and mouth water. It'sjust lamentable," said he.
Her red lips took a curl at that, and then her speech came all in a rush.
"I've heard—oh, do not be asking me how I will be hearing these things, but the preventive men are lying at the cove waiting for theGull, and I thought maybe if she came the night, wi' a storm comin' from the southard and them trying to make the port, they might all be taken away and transported, and he would be among them. . . ."
"Gilchrist the exciseman, Mirren?"
"Why will ye be naming that man to me?" she cried, in a burst of passion. "Is it not bad enough to be doing that I let him tell me their plans, and him not knowing where I carry them."
"I might have kent the breed o' ye wouldna be content wi' an exciseman, Mirren. Aweel, Hamish and me will just be having a sail this night, storm or no', and theGullcan coorie into mony's the neuk among the rocks; but whit bates me is how they fun' oot the cove."
"It would just be Dol Bob that told," whispered Mirren.
"The dirty slink," cried Dan. "I'm thinking there will be some talk between that man and me soon; but I'm no good enough looking to be thinking ye rade here to warn me, Mirren, so I'll be tellin' Ronny McKinnon tae keep his heart up yet when theSeagull'shere, but ye'll hiv a big handfu' wi' Ronny."
"I would not be having him less," she cried, a little pleased as I thought; and then, as she turned to go, "There's a bonny wild lass at McCurdy's old hut, Dan, and she told me where to look for ye. Ye might tell her Mirren Stuart was speiring for her kindly, and thinking naething of Dan McBride, for the look she gied me out o' her black een made me grue." [2]
So Belle was still at McCurdy's hut. But Dan was thoughtful again, and never spoke till we had the sheep in the low sheltered fields.
But coming home he was whimsical. "Are they not droll now, the lassies, Hamish—here's Mirren Stuart, namely for her good looks, and for the bold spirit of her. Many's the house she has saved with that same Hielan' pony, for Gilchrist, a game lad among gangers, canna keep anything from Mirren, and here she is among the heather wi' word o' treachery, and d'ye ken who she will be doing it for?"
"No," said I, "except this McKinnon ye spoke of."
"Ay, McKinnon, just wild Ronny, that she cast out wi' years ago when he was a decent farmer's son, close to her own place in the Glen yonder at the far end o' Lamlash, before he slipped away on theSeagull."
"I am wishing, Dan," said I, "that ye kent less about the smugglers."
"A man must be doing something, Hamish, to get any pith out o' life. This is what I am thinking we will be doing the night. We will tell the Laird that it will be as well that somebody should be giving an eye to the sheep he has wintering at Lamlash and the South End, and then we will make for McKelvie's Inn at Lamlash and get a boat across to the Holy Island, and gie McGilp a signal frae the seaward side o' it, where it will not be seen except in the channel. McKelvie at the Quay Inn will ken a' about that. There's a man in the island ye will be glad to meet if he's in his ordinar—McDearg they ca' him—and after that, Hamish, we will stravaig to the South End and see the sheep there and come back hame again. Are ye game for it?" says he.
"Ay, Dan, but there's just this—who is this Dol Beag?"
"Dol Beag has a boat and a wife and weans, and he's a sour riligous man, keen for siller at any price. Well, I'm hoping the gangers have paid him well by this time, for I am thinking he will not enjoy it long."
[1] Fearsome apparitions.
[2] Shiver involuntarily.
WE TRAMP THROUGH THE SNOW TO McKELVIE'S INN.
With the afternoon came snow, round hard flakes like wee snowballs, dry and silent and all-pervading, and the hills were changed, and there came on the sea that queer mysterious snow light, and then the wind rose skirling, sweeping the uplands bare and filling the quiet hollows.
At supper-time the gale was at its height, the roar from the iron-bound shore was like giants in battle, and I knew that on the black rocks the spray was rising in drifting white smoke, and the rocks trembling to the onset of the seas.
Behind the stackyard, in the old trees, the crows were complaining bitterly with their hard clap-clap tongues, and now and then a great crashing warned of the death of some old storm-scarred veteran of the wood. But it was fine, the music of the storm, the blatter of the snow and the wailing cry of the wind, before a great devastating blast came.
Fine to think that the stackyard was safe and sheltered, and the beasts warm and well, were tearing away at their fodder all unconcerned, and that the sheep were in the low ground of many sheltering knowes and sturdy whin-bushes, comfortable as sheep could well be, and the thought came to me of how Belle was faring in her lonely sheiling. When the supper was made a meal of and the horn spoons of the lads still busy, Dan had a word with my uncle, for my aunt was mainly taken up watching each new trick of her bairn these days.
"This snaw," says Dan, "will likely haud, and I would like fine to ken if a' these hogs ye hiv wintering over the hill will be getting enough keep.[1] I'm thinking Hamish and me will be as well tae inquire the night before it gets worse outside, for worse it'll be, and we'll be back as soon as the weather betters."
At this my uncle takes a turn round his room with a thoughtful frown on his brow.
"No pranks," says he; "I'll have no gallivanting, but I ken fine ye have an interest in the beasts. . . . Ye can go," and as we turned to leave the room, he wheeled round with outstretched arm and his white finger pointing.
"No pranks, mind. I'll have no pranks."
"God's life," says Dan, as we muffled ourselves for our tramp—"God's life, Hamish, he's queer names for things, that uncle o' yours; there's nae prank in my heid this night—a queer prank it would be no' tae warn McGilp,"—and as we tramped through the kitchen where the lassies were coorieing over the fire telling bawkin stories, and edging closer to the farm lads for comfort when the gale moaned and whined in the wide chimney—as we tramped through, old Betty took Dan by the sleeve.
"Let go, ye old randy," cried he, in a great pretence of terror. "I'm thinking the old ones are perkier than the young ones these days. . . ."
"Och, my bairn, my bairn," cried the old woman, her two hands on him, "will ye not be stopping in this night, this devil's night? It's nae hogs that's taking ye trakin' weary miles this very night, and fine ye ken the hogs are weel, but ye're just leadin' the young lad astray efter some quean that'll be stickin' tae him like the buttons on his coat.
"Wae's me, wae's me, will ye not have enough truck wi' the wenches already that ye mak' me lie eching and pechin' and listening for the death-watch on sic a nicht,"—and at that Jean giggled hysterically and crept closer to Tam, and the old dame turned on her like a flash.
"Wheest, ye besom, wi' your deleries; there's trouble enough aboot the night without you skirling like a craking hen. It's no' your kind I'm feared for, ye useless one, but these wild hill lassies, for when the devil is loose among the hills, he gars the wild blood leap in their veins, and the wind tae loose the knot o' their lang hair—ay, and he'll bring the man that'll gar them tingle at his touch, and send the red blood flaming in their cheeks."
Dan's smile was broader and broader, and I noticed the red blood flaming in the cheeks of our own sonsy dairy lassies, Liz and Betty. . . .
"Ye were bred in the hills yourself, old mother," says Dan, and put an arm round the withered old neck, "and I'm kissing you for that," and we went out into the smother of the snowstorm.
At the byre end the old rowan-trees were creaking and groaning to the violence of the gale, the bourtree bushes were flattened near to the ground, and everywhere was white. The driven snow melted on my tongue as I gasped, and I felt the flakes melt in my eyes; but we followed the road by instinct, for where the hedges should have been only a black blur showed. On the low road it was not so bad; but when we took the hill road again, I fain would have turned my back to the gale, and stood like a stirk on a wet day, but I powled on after Dan, thinking shame of my coward heart. Below us the sea roared like a cold, cold, cruel hell; the maddened anger of the breakers made me shiver with dread, and the gloating, horrible grumbling as the seas rumbled into the coves made a cold sweat break on my back and limbs. But I bent my head before the gale and clawed my way upwards with numbed fingers clutching like talons to the heather, and prayed that the roots might hold. So we toiled upwards, Dan always leading, and sometimes I saw him turning and knew he was speaking; but the wind cut the words as they left his lips, and bore them tearing and shrieking to the sea below.
Before we gained the top of the hill I saw Dan climbing upwards from the old peat track, and I followed dumbly as he led me into an old quarry, long since disused except by the sheep on the warm summer days, and there we lay almost exhausted, content just to know that the storm rushed over our pitiful retreat, and it seems droll to me now that I spoke scarcely above my breath; but then it seemed as though the storm-king might hear me if I raised my voice.
But when Dan spoke the black anger was trembling in his voice.
"They're lying there snug and dry in our cove, d—-n them, and that poorGullstraining and crying out there, reaching for her hame, and them ready to pounce on her crew, the crawling slinks,"—and I knew he was thinking of the Preventive men.
In a while we crawled to the path again, and clawed our way to the top of the hill, and there below us was a wondrous sight. The sea ran inwards in a noble bay, and the bay was almost landlocked with an island, but down below us was a myriad twinkling lights, hundreds of them, rising and falling. The snow had taken off for a little, and a hazy moon hurrying behind grey clouds showed us the ships tossing and straining at their cables. Some of the lights seemed to move slowly past the others, and these I took to be vessels dragging their anchors.
We stood looking down a while, for with the stopping of the snow a weight seemed to be lifted from us, and then made our way downwards towards the sea. After our fight upwards, the descent seemed easy and almost calm, although the wind was howling still; but we were close to farmed land now, and company, and once in a field sheltered by the wood of the Point, we came on sheep, standing and lying close in by the trees, and Dan bawled into my ear, "The hogs are doing finely, Hamish; I hadna expected to see them," and I remembered that we were wintering sheep with old Hector of the Point as well as Easdale and Birrican. We struck the shore road and passed the big rock, and the sea was washing over the road, carrying spars, and bamboos, and sailors' beds, and leaving them high and dry on the fields by the roadside.
Groups of noisy seamen passed us with a great clop-clopping of sea-boots, and many little thatch houses we hurried by, until we came to the Quay Inn, where there were many people gathered, and pushed ourselves through drunken, quarrelling sailors to the counter.
[1] Forage.
WE SAIL IN McKELVIE'S SKIFF TO THE HOLY ISLAND.
Through the throng of bearded sailors we strode and made our way to the kitchen of the Quay Inn. A place sacred to kenspeckle folk it was, and from its smoke-stained rafters hung many pieces of bacon and dried shallots, and there were also bunches of centaury, and camomile, and dandelion root, and bogbean, for the goodman's wife was cunning in medicines of the older-fashioned sort. In this place the noise from the common room was not so plainly heard, and indeed it gave me the impression of a haven from the boisterous spirit there.
As I stood before the blazing fire, guiltily conscious of the puddle of water at my feet where the snow had melted, Dan left the kitchen by a door leading to a yard and stables, and I heard him speaking to some one; and then when he came back there was the goodwife with him, and Dan cried for a long hot drink, for the flesh was frozen on his bones. At that the goodwife, with many "to be sures" and "of courses," hurried herself here and there, and all the time she would be talking of the sheep in this terrible weather, and of our long tramp across the hill; and then she handed us the drink, and would not be having any payment at all for it, for were we not freens of her ain folk (however far out), and strangers too, moreover? And then the low door opened, and the innkeeper entered from the taproom, a dark man, very heavy across the shoulders, and a little bent on his legs like a sailor. I had seen him as we entered, black-bearded, silent, with his two swarthy sons, eyeing his company from below pent-house brows. His eyes, blue and keen, took us in from stem to stern, as the sailors say, and he came close to Dan before the fire, and—
"Ay," says he, "it'll be the boat again," and his voice was a growl.
"Just that," says Dan, sipping his drink, and then he talked quickly, and I heard him tell of Mirren Stuart's message and of Dol Rob Beag's treachery (for he had taken the word to the Preventives of where McGilp kept his cargo in the cove above the Snib before it was carted inland, or stowed in many an innocent-looking smack bound for the mainland).
"Dol Rob Beag will be slipping his cable one of these fine nights," growled the listener; and then, "There's just the caves at the Rhu Ban," [1] says he.
"I had that in my head," says Dan, "for the gangers are in the Cove at Bealach an sgadan, and McGilp will be in the Channel. McDearg o' the Isle House is in this to his oxters. There's just nothing for it but to show a glim on the seaward side o' the Isle, and McGilp will take theGullto the Rhu Ban when the wind takes off; but, man, it's risky, devilish risky, wi' the bay fou o' boats."
"It's the deil's own night," agreed the innkeeper, "black as pitch and blowing smoke, but the snow will be helping us too," and then we sat before the fire all silent for a while, the goodwife busy with her infusions and brews.
"Will ye be remembering the night they pressganged McKillop?" thus suddenly to Dan.
"A droll night's work yon."
"Ye see," turning to me, "this Neil McKillop would be a likely lad, clever on the boats, and clever wi' the snares—ay, clever, clever—and kept his mother well. Ay—well, there came a night like this, but not so much wind, and the pressgang boat slipped into the bay, and nobody knowing, and ashore came the crew o' her, and many's the likely lad they took, and among them Neil McKillop. The boat would just be shoving off from the old Stone Quay when his mother came there in her white mutch.
"'Give me back my son, my only son,' she cried, standing on the quay-head; 'you will not be taking away the one that keeps me in meat and drink, me an old, old woman. Och, bring him back, my lad, and I'll be blessing ye and praying for ye in your bloody wars.'
"At that a tarry breeks up with an oar and skelps a splash o' water at the old woman, and laughed at her with the wind blowing her skirts, and showing her lean shanks.
"'Go back to your weeds and your snakes, ye witch," he cries in the Gaelic; 'we'll make a sailor-man out o' your whelp,' and the oars began to plash.
"Down on her knees went the oldcailleach. 'Bring him to me, ye hounds, before I put a curse on ye,' and she tore her coorie from her head, and the wind tore through the strands of her white hair, and they rose like elf-locks. High above her head she threw her arm, her fingers stiff and pointing, there on the quay-head, an awesome sight in the mirk of a half moon.
"Then slowly, slowly, softly she began—
"'Cursed be ye all, seed, breed, and generations o' ye. The madness o' the sea come on ye in the still night watches, friendless, friendless on the face o' the waters be your lives, and your deaths too foul for the sea to be giving you a cleanly burial.' Then in a skirl o' rage, her face working, 'The foul things o' the deep shall reive the flesh from ye in your death, and in your lives ye shall mourn for the quiet streams o' fresh water and the sight of green things growing—and never, never, never get nigh them. . . .'
"In the boat the men lay on their oars, with faces white below the tan o' wind and weather, and then hurriedly she came astern, and Neil McKillop sprang on the quay, and to his mother, and the pressgang boat shot into the haze off the land, and the mother and son went back to the croft on the hillside."
His tale finished, McKelvie drained his glass at a gulp, and his lips pressed together as though he were unwilling that even the volatile essence might escape, and then—
"We'll go," says he. "Robin!"
At his word one of the swarthy sons entered and stood waiting, and through the open door to the common room I saw groups of sailors, asleep on the floor before the fire, and asleep on the benches where they sat; yet some hardened drinkers kept the drink going.
"Ye see, Hamish," Dan whispered, "there's a big sea running, and these sailor boys would rather risk the floor than their wee boats."
I felt a sinking at my heart, for I knew that the sailors were sweirt to risk their lives, yet there was not one timid face among them, but many bold and truculent—men used to risk their lives, and maybe enjoying the risk. But I held my peace, for I thought shame of my terror, and before Dan too. So the four of us went out quietly the back way and came to the quay, where we found a boat on the lee side, afloat, and with the mast stepped, and all ready for hoisting the sail, and I wondered if Dan's talking to the goodwife in the inn yard had had anything to do with it, for the boats at that time of the year were mostly upturned on the beach, and indeed most of the dingies and gigs from the ships were also drawn up.
Robin McKelvie slipped down the quay-wall as nimbly as a cat, and busied himself with the sail, doing what I know not, though I prayed he might not loosen any reef, and his father followed, more slowly, for he was a heavier man, but wonderfully active in a boat. Then Dan bade me climb down, and I scrambled down and found my feet on a gunwale just as I expected to feel the water, so I sat down in the boat suddenly, and Dan was beside me in a wee while.
Robin had the sail up, and made fast, as his father cast off and took the tiller, and the roar of the sea all round me as we sailed from the lee of the quay at first filled me with fear, but soon I felt the skiff rise to the first sea, and I forgot my terror in watching the helmsman.
"Ay, ay," he spoke softly; "they're coming now, the three sisters," and his eyes seemed to pierce the gloom for the three rolling curling waves as he shouldered the skiff over them. Sometimes I watched the water curling over the gunwale, and wondered if ever again I would reach the land, and then a wave would break somewhere near, and the helmsman would mutter—
"I ken ye; I will be hearing your whispering," and it seemed to me as if he were a cunning old warrior in the midst of well-tried foes, wary and courageous, and always winning through. But in the middle of the bay the waves rose madly round us, the stout skiff was tossed like a cork, now perched giddily on the crest, and now racing madly to the trough, and then to the crest again with a horrible side motion (which I think seamen call yawing), most fearful of all. But McKelvie spoke to his boat as I have heard horsemen speak to their horses.
When a squall struck us and the skiff lay down to it, he would croon softly—
"You will not be killing yourself, lass—easy, easy,—oh, but you are eager for the sea," and I knew that I was watching a master hand, a man cunning in the moods of the sea; but as I sat he bade me bale the water out of the boat, for it was slushing about high over the floor-boards, and these had come adrift, and were moving with every motion, so I baled with a will, glad for something mechanical to do, to keep my eyes off the menacing waves which seemed to rush up to devour us, and as if we were too poor a prey, spurned us away. Then I saw that we were in calmer water, and the steep shore of the Isle seemed close to, and the light of the white house clear, and in a little time the sail came rattling down, and the skiff's keel grated on the flat gravel, and we sprang ashore and put the anchor on the beach though the tide was going back.
And as we made our way over the gravelly shore I saw a crouching figure rise from among the wrack and come to us.
"Oh, oh; have ye come for me, father? Have ye come for me at last?" and a girl flung herself into McKelvie's arms, and hung there crying.
"Wheest, lass, wheest," commanded the innkeeper sternly.
"Oh, I just crept as near the sea as I could go, for oh, yon hoose is no' canny, and a' day the ravens from the Red Rocks have walked in at the doors, fluttering and croaking, and the Red Man is crying that he's gaun tae his hame the night; and McRae piping to him a' day, and him drinking and blaspheming. . . ."
"If McDearg's gaun the night, we'll maybe hae news tae stop him, my dear," said Dan. "Anywie, ye're surely no' feart of a raven's croaking?"
With that we started for the Isle House, the whitewash of it looking yellowish against the snow, and all about us the flapping of wings and the crying of sea-birds as our feet scrunched on the gravel.
"I canna go there," cried the lass. "I just canna; let me bide in the boat," and then, as she saw her brother take the lantern from the bows, she ran to him.
"Take me wi' ye, Robin. I'll speil tae the Goat's Ledge wi' ye; but oh, do not be making me go back there. . . ."
"Wheest, my lassie, my poor wee lassie," said her father; "there's nae harm will come on you, wi' your father and Robin beside ye; but you will not be mentioning any Goat's Ledge, for the devil himself will carry word to the Preventives."
So, standing some way from the skiff, we held a council of war, and at length Robin took his lantern and left us to climb to the Goat Ledge and make the warning signal, should M'Gilp be in the channel, and we others made for an outhouse, where we left McKelvie's lass content enough wi' two collies, for she was at her service in the Isle House, and they kent her. We left her there sitting on a bag of corn and the dogs at her feet, and made our way through the yard to the house.
[1] Bhuda ban=white headland.
THE DEATH OF McDEARG, THE RED LAIRD.
While we were still in the yard the door opened, throwing a scad of light over the snow, and a high screiching voice came to us—
"Come in, lads, come in; the lassies are weary waiting for their lads, the poor bit things, sair negleckit on this weary isle, wi' nane to see their ankles but scarts[1] and solangeese."
And as we entered she held out a dry wrinkled hand.
"Prosperous New Year, Young Dan. Six bonny sons Auld Kate wishes ye, tall braw lads that'll no feel the weight o' your coffin; but if a' tales be true, you'll no' be in want. Ech, they're clever, clever, your lassies. Same to you, McKelvie. Your lass has ta'en the rue the day. Happy New Year, young sir; you'll be a McBride too," and the old withered crone peered at me through eyes bleared, as it seemed to me, with the peat reek of a hundred winters.
I was sore amazed at our welcome, for it was not near New Year, and I wondered if the scad of light on the snow, shining on us, had taken the old woman back to her younger days, but Dan took me out of my amazement.
"Humour her, Hamish; humour the weemen. A new face is New Year to AuldKate that keeps house tae McDearg."
"Och, it's the lassies will be the pleased ones, coiling the blankets round them; it's Auld Kate that kens," and then she gave a screitchy hooch and began to sing in her cracked thin voice—
'The man's no' born and he never will be,The man's no born that will daunton me.'
It's that I used to be singing to your grandfather, Dan, when I was at my service in Nourn. He had a terrible grip, your grandfather, and the devil was in him; but he's deid, they're a' deid but Auld Kate. But we'll have a dram, and you'll be seeing the Red Laird." And in a little I saw that there was more than old age the matter.
There came the noise of piping in that strange house, and we tramped along a stone-flagged passage, and entered a room looking to the sea, and there, before a great fire, was McDearg, an old man, with evil looking from his eyes. He sat in his great chair, his head on his breast, and his shepherd, with the pipes on his knee, sat listening.
"A brave night, a brave night, and the devil on the roof-tree, McBride. What seek ye o' the Red Laird? TheGull, say ye; the Preventives—to hell wi' the Preventives; there's a bonny cove at the Rhu Ban, lads; but ye're in good time to see the devil coming for Red Roland."
A terrible squall struck the house and moaned round the gables, and the lowes blew into the room.
"D'ye hear him, the laughing o' him, and his blackbirds spying all day—ay, the Ravens from the Red Rocks; but they have nae terrors for Roland McDearg."
A long time he was silent, and then slowly the words came—
"McRae, McRae (for the McRaes were all pipers), play me back, back till I hear my mother laughing, in the evening, till I see the grass, green, green and beautiful in the sun, and the golden ben-weeds swaying to the breeze, and I am a boy again—I, Red Roland, searching among the heather, with the scent o' wild honey around me, searching for the shy white heather to bring coyly to my lass, and bravely the sun shines among the hills, and the hawk's brown wings flutter in the blue vault. Play me back, McRae, till I hear the water wimpling on the hill burns, when I lie flat to drink, the brown peaty water, McRae, and the sheep looking at me before they run. The sun and the sea and the wild winds o' my youth, McRae; bring them back to me before I go."
As he spoke, the Red Laird lolled his head on the back of his chair. His eyes were closed, and his mind looked backwards; and as he cried for the sun and the growing grass and the wave of the wind in the hay, his hand rose and fell. And McRae, McRae the piper, looked long into the glowing fire, looked till his harsh face softened and the smiling came round his eyes, and softly, softly he played. And in his playing I saw the goodman bend over his wife and whisper. I saw her face glow in the evening sun, and I heard her laughter, clear and sweet like diamonds ajingle, as she struck him playfully, and walked stately and slow to the green where her children played on the lush grass, and ever and ever she looked over her shoulder for her man, because he was her lover still. And I saw a boy moving among the crags, the honey dust round his knees, and ever and ever his eyes searched the heather, and I heard his cry of gladness as he fell down beside the lucky heather, white and chaste as a virgin.
And I looked at Dan and saw him far away in his youth, and even McKelvie looked not comfortable. But the Laird was all happy, a boy again with all his days before him, and when McRae made an end of his piping, said Dan with a queer sigh—
"A great gift, Hamish, to be drowned in drink," and as I watched the piper gulp his usquebach I kent what he meant.
But at his stopping, the Laird rose. "Let be the days o' innocence, McRae. The March, The March, now, and the onset o' battle. Dirl it out, dirl it out, for Red Roland was first in the charge, and the cries o' fear made the blood tingle in his back, the women screaming, and the men crying, and the red blood flowing, and my father's sword dauntless in the van—bring it back, McRae. Make my cauld blood hot as in my manhood."
When he cried for the battle-music, his clenched fist beat the air, his long locks tossed like an old lion's mane, and the war love shone in his eyes. A great change came on the piper. He stood his full height, as straight as a young larch tree, and a cold deadly pride came on his face, and then with a great swing he threw the drones to his shoulder, his arm caressed the bag, and his foot beat, beat, beat like a restive horse, till he got the very swing of his pibroch.
Then with that fine prideful swing of his shoulders he started to march, and I saw the clansmen gather, wet from the mountain torrents, with knees red-scarred by the briars of many a wood. I heard the clamour of their talk, and the high note of their anger, and then swiftly, silently, below a pale moon I saw their ranks lock and the grim march begin, onward, onward to the southlands.
And then I heard the wail of the southern mothers, and the laughing cry of the clansmen as the foemen stood to arms, the wild devilish lilt of it for glory or a laughing death, and all around a black, black land, lighted alone with blazing farms, and the broad red swathe where the hillmen trailed. Came the very struggle, the gasping for breath, the cry of the fallen, the hand-to-hand grip, and then the great blare of triumph, and the Red Laird yelled aloud—
"Through, by God, through!"
"I've lived my life, McBride, my ain wild life, and the sadness is coming on me, to leave my bonny hills and the cold splash o' a summer's sea. The sadness o' the silent peaks and the gloom o' the hidden valleys, McBride—ay, but it's fine, the sadness, better than the heated joys o' the south." And again McRae played, looking into the heart of the fire, and the far-away look in his eyes, and as he played I felt a lump rise in my throat, for a sorrow I kent not, except that the wind moaned eerily through the thatch, and grey and gurly grew the sea, with the black jackdaws flying low inshore. The uneasy cattle were lowing in the byre, and the rain fell in great drops from the leafless trees—fell on the cold wet earth, and the fire on the hearth was out, and cold white ash marked where nevermore would peat be lighted; and oh! I heard the wail of the mourners, and saw the sobbing daughter cling to her mother, and the youngest son leave for the wars, the last of his house and name, and his name forgotten in the glens already.
"Stop him, stop him," I cried; "there's cold death at my very side, and his breath on my cheek like an east wind," and I would have run from the room.
"Death," cried the Red Laird—"death. I flouted him in my youth; I wrestled with him and flung him from me. I laughed at his cold eyes across a naked sword, and spurned him on the heather; but now in my age, when my bones are brittle and my arms shrunk, he creeps behind me again, sure, sure o' his prey," and as he spoke he crouched like a stealthy enemy, one groping hand outstretched. Then he flung himself upright, his eyes flashing, dauntless as a lion.
"Come then, Death, to the last grips wi' Red Roland; ay, your cold hand is at my throat, old warrior—ay, but mine is firmer yet. The Onset, the Onset, the blare o' it, the madness o' it for Red Roland's last fight," and at his words the swinging lamp went out with the last great gust of the gale, and in the darkness came the crash of a fallen man, and Red Roland lay dead in the red glow of his own fire. And as we stood there, Robin McKelvie came in with the word that theGullwas battling in the channel.
* * * * * *
And they carried the dead man and laid him decently on his bed.
Behind Robin, the house servants, stout dairymaids from the mainland, stood awhisper, their sonsy red cheeks pale and mottled with fear, and among them came the bullock-feeders; for the Red Laird fattened stock for the mainland markets, and had his own quay, where the carrying vessels moored in these days, and from the kitchen came the moaning of old Kate.
"Ochone, ochone, he's gone, the strong one, and I mind me when his back was like a barn door and the love-locks curling on his brow," and she came into the chamber wringing pitiful, toil-worn hands, and the servants after her, ashiver to be left alone in the dim passage. Round the fire they huddled, none speaking except in whispers, as though they feared the great unseen Presence; and as they sat in that eerie silence there came the hollow clop-clop of sea-boots in the passage, and I saw the serving maids stiffen and straighten as they sat, and a look of terrible fear came on their faces.
And McKelvie's lass skirled, "He's coming," and cooried back in a corner.
"Can ye not hear the tramping?" and she thrust an arm before her head as a bairn will to escape a cuff.
With that the door opened, and McKelvie entered in high sea-boots, but the fear did not leave them, for the Laird was wont to wear sea-boots when the weather was bad on his rocky isle; and with their minds all a-taut for warnings and signs, the tramping in the flagged passage was fearsome enough. Indeed, I breathed the more freely myself when McKelvie entered with Dan at his heels.
Dan had a stone jar in his hand, and he poured a stiff jorum, and held it to auld Kate, greetin' at the fireside.
"The Red Laird's gone tae his ain folk, cailleach," says Dan, standing straight and manly beside the huddled old woman. "Good points he had and bad, but he's finished his last rig and taken the long fee.
"Drink tae the memory o' him, Kate: ye kent him weel, and he had aye a dram for a ceilidher."
"Ou ay, Dan, mo leanabh, ou ay; but I cannot thole the thought o' his spirit fleeing among the cauld clear stars, for there's nae heaven for him if his ain piper is no there to cheer him, or mak' him wae. Och, ay, I'll tak' the dram, but I'll be sore afraid there's plenty o' pipers in hell wi' the devils dancing on hot coals tae their springs, and he'll maybe be well enough."
As Dan put round the drink the doleful mood lifted a wee, and the lads started to tell stories.
"I mind me," said Donald, the shepherd—"I mind o' a night I had on the hills at the time o' the lambing, and in the grey o' the morning, when the rocks are whispering one to another, and will be just back in their places when a man comes near them, and when ye hear voices speaking not plainly, because o' the scish o' the burn on the gravelly mounds, but if ye listen till the burn is quiet a wee, ye'll be hearing the laughing o' the Wee Folk at their games.
"Mora, in the grey o' the morning, I would be just among the sprits[2] above the loch-side, when there came an eerie 'swish, swish' at my side, slow and soft. I thought it would be a hare, and I stopped to let her get away, for I would not be crossing her path, but see her I could not, and I turned round to speak to 'Glen,' and there was no dog there at all.
"Ay, well, I whistled and I whistled in that dreary place till the noise of it put a fear on me, and I started on again, and there at my side was the swish, swish in the sprits, and I would be poking my crook among them, but when I would be stopping it would be stopping, and I felt my hair bristle on my neck for the fear on me; but I pushed on, looking at my feet and all round me, till something inside of myself made me be looking up, and there was something before me, wi' eyes glowering at me—oh, big, big it was, as a stack o' hay, and it was in my path, and I shut my eyes and stood, for it would kill me. And when nothing would be happening I opened my two eyes, and it was not there, and then I looked round with just my head, and aw!"—and a shudder went through the shepherd, and he gulped at his drink,—"it was just at my own very shoulder grinning at me. And I ran and ran, skirling like a hare, and it behind me—ran till I felt my heart beating in my throat, and ran through burn and briars and hedges till I ran into the barn and fell on the straw, and remembered no more."
"And why," says I, "did you not run into your ain house?"
"Are you not knowing that?" says Donald. "If I had run to my house and the door shut, I would just be fallin' dead on the doorstep."
"There's McGilp," says Dan. "He aye carries a sail needle in his kep lining, and he'll say it's just to be handy, but it's aye been in the same place. An' what will it be for, Neil Crubach?"
Neil looked up, his blue eyes hazy with dreaming things out of the past. His face was very beautiful, and his body massive and strong, but he halted on his leg, and could walk but lamely.
"Oh," says Neil, with a kindly smile, "you will be knowing that surely, and you a McBride, and reared among the rocks and the bonnie heather.
"It will just be that when our forefathers would be among the hill sat night, many and many's the time the evil one would be coming to them and speaking, and sometimes he would be coming in the form of a black dog, like the Black Hound o' Nourn, wi' a red tongue lolling from his mouth, and sometimes he would be a wild cat louping among the rocks, hissing and spitting wi' his eyes lowin', and the old wise ones in the far glen found the power in the unknown places in the hills, and they said to the young hunters and warriors, 'Aye be carrying steel, for steel will sever all bargains,' but a skein-dubh is the best to be carrying in the hills, for a devil will not come near the black-hefted knife wi' a strong bright blade—no," and Neil Crubach smiled, and looked among the red embers for his dreams.
And then, still looking into the embers, he began to speak in his soft-voiced way—
"They're bonnie wee things, the Wee Folk, and merry as the lambs inJune.
"When my leg would be troubling me sorely in my mind, and me a lad fit to break a man's back, and to fling the great stone from me like a chuckle—ay, in these long-ago days, there was a lass, and, och, she was just to me in my mind like the sun rising from the sea on a summer morning, and I could have taken her away in my own arms, for I would be fierce like my folk, in their hate and their love, and whiles I would be feeling in me the wish to be killing her nearly just to watch her eyes opening like the sky when the white woolly clouds are drifting apart, and among the hills when I wandered I would be dreaming of holding her in my arms, for they would be great arms in these old days; and one day she came, and I told her all that was in my heart, and she said never a word, but just put her white round arms on my shoulder and her head on my breast."
For a long time he was silent, and I saw the servant lassies look at one another, their terrors all forgot in the beauty of his picture, for there was colour in his very tone.
"I would be carrying her in my arms, for was she not but a mountain flower, but when I would have taken her up I saw her eyes with a great pity in them for my lameness, and I felt hell rising in my heart, for were not my folk straight in their limbs, and nimble as goats among the rocks? and then she saw my face, and I think there would be black murder in it, but for myself, not for my white flower, for Neil Crubach I hated when my love looked on this poor limb (it was only a little shorter, but I knew the pride that was in his race).
"Then my love looked into my soul.
"'Neil,' she said, and drew my head down to her—'Neil, my hero, take me up,' and I took her up, and she lay curled in my arms, with her lips at my neck, and then she whispered, 'Neil, you will not be angry if I say it now.'
"'Never angry, mo ghaoil,' and my heart stopped to be listening.
"'I wish—I just wish, Neil, mo ghaoil, that you would be more lame, for my mother will be seeing us too soon, and I want aye to stay here.'" Neil was just thinking aloud.
"A year, just a wee year, with her smiling at her spinning, and running to meet me in the far fields to be carried home—ay, she would be calling my arms 'home,'—and when we would be ceilidhing she would be saying, 'Neil, it will be time your lass was "home," and her eyes would be laughing at me, and no one else would be knowing at all.'
"A year, a wee year, and she lay like a white flower, still and cold, and all my love could not make her hear.
"And I sat by her silent spinning-wheel and waited till she should come back night by night; I forgot the old kirkyard, for how would the earth be keeping my love from coming to me, and as I sat came my old mother, and she was wise and gentle to her lame son.
"'My son, if you would be lying behind the wee hill when the moon is young, maybe you would be forgiving your old mother'—for when she was sad she blamed herself for the fall that left me lame, even when I laughed and made nothing of it in her hearing.
"Behind the wee hill I lay when the moon was young and the grass was cool on my brow, and I would be hearing the breathings of the hills in the silence as they slept, and the moon sailed behind a black cloud and all the world was dark, and I heard a great laughing in the dark near me like diamonds and pearls sparkling, so wee was the sound and so bright the laughing, and then the moon sailed out clear silver in a blue sky, and there were all the Wee Folk at their games on the short turf. Bravely, bravely were they dressed in their green coats, and near me, sitting and looking with longing eyes I saw my own love, and she was looking down a wee, wee track in the grass, but it seemed to me hundreds of miles. And my love cried and waved as she looked down the path, and I heard her laughing, my own love, and then, 'Hurry fast, Neil, and take me home'; and again I heard her laughing joyously, and then in the track of grass, away and away, I saw a-coming one that halted on his foot, and he was away and away, but my love clapped her hands, and ran down the path with her arms stretched out to be carried home, and I saw all the Wee Folk run to welcome the one that halted on his foot, and I knew that the path that they were travelling so fast was just Time, and slowly, slowly only can Neil Crubach march, but she is running to meet me—my love."
By this time old Kate had forgotten her troubles, and was away back in her youth, when, if all accounts be true, there were few, few fit to hold a candle to her wild beauty or devilry.
"Och, the nights like this would not be hindering the ploys when my leg was the talk o' a parish, and my cheeks like the wild red rose. We had a' the lads to pick and choose among, Bell and me; and mora, it was not gear they cam' courting for.
"There was a time we slept in the bochan to be nearer the beasts, we would be telling the old ones, but maybe it was not for that at all, for your grandfather was raiking then, Dan McBride, it kinna runs in the breed o' ye. Ay, well, we were in bed, Bell and me, when the Laird o' Nourn whistled low outside. 'The devil take ye, Kate,' Bell would be crying, 'he'll be in,' for there was only divots in the window in the bochan. 'He will that,' says I, and I saw the divots tumbling, and in he came assourying wi' two o' us, and us feart when he gied his great nicker o' a laugh, for fear he would be awakening the old folks, or rouse the dogs, although they kent him well enough, a rake like themselves."
"Was he no' the auld devil?" says Dan with a laugh; "two o' ye, and the best-looking lassies in the countryside."
"He wasna aul'," cried Kate—"aul'; he was as like you as two trout. He got us two suits o' sailors' claes and he cam' tae see us dressed in them, and bonny sailors we made, Bell and me, and we went to the Glen and called on our uncles. It was dark inside, and they were sitting ower the fire talking slow and loud, and we went in.
"'What will you be wantin' here in God's name?' said Angus.
"'We've nae money and nae meat,' said I, 'and our ship has sailed without us, and we're starving.'
"'Starving, John, starving, will ye be hearin' the poor sailor lads. We have not got any money, John, to be giving, but gie the lads an egg apiece, John, an egg apiece; and John brought us an egg, and then Bell winked at me, and 'Ye hard old scart,' says I in the Gaelic, and he got up on his feet, for he would be knowing my voice, and he could not be understanding it at all, and when we had finished our devilry I gave him the egg what I was fit and ran, and Angus would be crying—
"'Give me the graip, John; give me the graip. Angus will kill boas (both).'
"So an' on the night wore through; whiles we would be telling old stories, and there would be times when we sat silent except for auld Kate whimpering at the fireside.
"These were the days and these were the nights, ochone and ochone, for the like o' them we'll be seeing nevermore."
And in the morning the women made a meal, moving stealthily about the house and keeping together when the men went out to their beasts—for birth or death, wedding or christening, the beasts must be looked to, and that's good farming. The seas were breaking white in the bay and the ships lay at the stretch of their cables, but although we searched long and ardently, we could not find theSeagull. We were downcast and silent, and no man looked at his neighbour, for the fear was on all of our hearts that McGilp and his crew were lost, and at last I voiced my dread to the innkeeper.
"Ye do not ken McGilp to be speaking that way," said he, and his voice was hoarse as a raven's croak. "We could not have run a cargo last night wi' the sea like a boiling pot; and if theGullhad anchored off the Rhu Ban Cove there would be plenty to be wondering why she was there. No, no, my lad; there's sailor men on theGull, and a wee thing will not frighten them. She just ran before it, man, and she's standing off and on till the night."
And so it proved, for that night McGilp himself was rowed ashore, and his eyes were red as a rabbit's wi' the lashing o' the sea, and the white salt was dried on his beard.
With him was McNeilage, his mate, his face red and shining like a well-fed minister, and the drink to his thrapple.
"A great night last night," said he. "Och, a night like the old roaring times when every ship on God's seven seas was a fortune for the lifting."
We were on the shore at the Rhu Ban, working and toiling at the cargo with the oars muffled, and no man speaking above his breath, and when we had the cargo in the coves, and the seaweed and trash from the shore concealing it, we made our way to the outhouse where McKelvie's lass had waited, for there were friends of the dead Laird's in the house, and new men are hard to trust in the smuggling. And at the outhouse I spoke to fierce Ronny McKinnon as he stood among the crew.
"Ronny," said I, "there was a bonny lass putting herself about for ye, or ye might have been listening to mice cheeping instead o' the waves out there."
"I've been in many's the ploy," says Ronny, "and the lassies liked me well enough, except just one."
"Would her name be Mirren now?" said I.
"I'll no' say but it might just be that," says Ronny, with a thinking look in his eyes.
"There was a lass o' that name, on a Hielan' pony, met Dan and me at Bothanairidh the day before the snow," says I. "She talked about ye for a while."
"She would be having nothing good to be saying," says he with a laugh. "For everything I did was a fault except just I would be sitting at home with my old mother, and so I just fell in wi' McGilp, and left the lassies to claver among themsel's for a year or two, for they will have too many cantrips for a simple man."
"It would just be that lass that told us about the Preventives lying in the cove near the Snib, and she was sore feart a lad Ronny McKinnon would be transported."
"And would she be saying just that," says Ronny.
"She would just," says I.
"It's no like her temper at a', but I'll be thanking her for that kind thought," says he, and commenced to his whistling o' pipers' tunes.
[1] Cormorants.
[2] Boghay.