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diff --git a/old/43729-h/43729-h.htm b/old/43729-h/43729-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index a2df334..0000000 --- a/old/43729-h/43729-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5983 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> - -<!DOCTYPE html -PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" -"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> -<head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> -<title> -The Lost Pibroch, by Neil Munro -</title> -<style type="text/css"> - <!-- - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 100%; font-style:normal; - margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; - text-align: right;} - .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} - span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 1 } - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - --> -</style> -</head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Pibroch, by Neil Munro - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Lost Pibroch -And other Sheiling Stories - -Author: Neil Munro - -Release Date: September 15, 2013 [EBook #43729] -Last Updated: March 8, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PIBROCH *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - -</pre> - -<div style="height: 8em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h1> -THE LOST PIBROCH -</h1> -<h3> -AND OTHER SHEILING STORIES -</h3> -<p> -<br /> -</p> -<h2> -By Neil Munro -</h2> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<p> -<b>CONTENTS</b> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE LOST PIBROCH </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0002"> RED HAND </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0003"> THE SECRET OF THE HEATHER-ALE </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0004"> BOBOON'S CHILDREN </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE FELL SERGEANT. </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0006"> BLACK MURDO </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE SEA-FAIRY OF FRENCH FORELAND. </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0008"> SHUDDERMAN SOLDIER </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0009"> WAR. </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0010"> A FINE PAIR OF SHOES </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0011"> CASTLE DARK. </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0012"> A GAELIC GLOSSARY. </a> -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -THE LOST PIBROCH -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>O the make of a piper go seven years of his own learning and seven -generations before. If it is in, it will out, as the Gaelic old-word says; -if not, let him take to the net or sword. At the end of his seven years -one born to it will stand at the start of knowledge, and leaning a fond -ear to the drone, he may have parley with old folks of old affairs. -Playing the tune of the “Fairy Harp,” he can hear his forefolks, plaided -in skins, towsy-headed and terrible, grunting at the oars and snoring in -the caves; he has his whittle and club in the “Desperate Battle” (my own -tune, my darling!), where the white-haired sea-rovers are on the shore, -and a stain's on the edge of the tide; or, trying his art on Laments, he -can stand by the cairn of kings, ken the colour of Fingal's hair, and see -the moon-glint on the hook of the Druids! -</p> -<p> -To-day there are but three pipers in the wide world, from the Sound of -Sleat to the Wall of France. Who they are, and what their tartan, it is -not for one to tell who has no heed for a thousand dirks in his doublet, -but they may be known by the lucky ones who hear them. Namely players -tickle the chanter and take out but the sound; the three give a tune the -charm that I mention—a long thought and a bard's thought, and they -bring the notes from the deeps of time, and the tale from the heart of the -man who made it. -</p> -<p> -But not of the three best in Albainn today is my story, for they have not -the Lost Pibroch. It is of the three best, who were not bad, in a place I -ken—Half Town that stands in the wood. -</p> -<p> -You may rove for a thousand years on league-long brogues, or hurry on -fairy wings from isle to isle and deep to deep, and find no equal to that -same Half Town. It is not the splendour of it, nor the riches of its folk; -it is not any great routh of field or sheep-fank, but the scented winds of -it, and the comfort of the pine-trees round and about it on every hand. My -mother used to be saying (when I had the notion of fairy tales), that once -on a time, when the woods were young and thin, there was a road through -them, and the pick of children of a country-side wandered among them into -this place to play at sheilings. Up grew the trees, fast and tall, and -shut the little folks in so that the way out they could not get if they -had the mind for it. But never an out they wished for. They grew with the -firs and alders, a quiet clan in the heart of the big wood, clear of the -world out-by. -</p> -<p> -But now and then wanderers would come to Half Town, through the gloomy -coves, under the tall trees. There were packmen with tales of the -out-world. There were broken men flying from rope or hatchet. And once on -a day of days came two pipers—Gilian, of Clan Lachlan of -Strathlachlan, and Rory Ban, of the Macnaghtons of Dundarave. -</p> -<p> -They had seen Half Town from the sea—smoking to the clear air on the -hillside; and through the weary woods they came, and the dead quiet of -them, and they stood on the edge of the fir-belt. -</p> -<p> -Before them was what might be a township in a dream, and to be seen at the -one look, for it stood on the rising hill that goes back on Lochow. -</p> -<p> -The dogs barked, and out from the houses and in from the fields came the -quiet clan to see who could be here. Biggest of all the men, one they -named Coll, cried on the strangers to come forward; so out they went from -the wood-edge, neither coy nor crouse, but the equal of friend or foe, and -they passed the word of day. -</p> -<p> -“Hunting,” they said, “in Easachosain, we found the roe come this way.” - </p> -<p> -“If this way she came, she's at Duglas Water by now, so you may bide and -eat. Few, indeed, come calling on us in Half Town; but whoever they are, -here's the open door, and the horn spoon, and the stool by the fire.” - </p> -<p> -He took them in and he fed them, nor asked their names nor calling, but -when they had eaten well he said to Rory, “You have skill of the pipes; I -know by the drum of your fingers on the horn spoon.” - </p> -<p> -“I have tried them,” said Rory, with a laugh, “a bit—a bit. My -friend here is a player.” - </p> -<p> -“You have the art?” asked Coll. -</p> -<p> -“Well, not what yoo might call the whole art,” said Gilian, “but I can -play—oh yes!I can play two or three ports.” - </p> -<p> -“You can that!” said Rory. -</p> -<p> -“No better than yourself, Rory.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, maybe not, but—anyway, not all tunes; I allow you do -'Mackay's Banner' in a pretty style.” - </p> -<p> -“Pipers,” said Coll, with a quick eye to a coming quarrel, “I will take -you to one of your own trade in this place—Paruig Dali, who is -namely for music.” - </p> -<p> -“It's a name that's new to me,” said Rory, short and sharp, but up they -rose and followed Big Coll. -</p> -<p> -He took them to a bothy behind the Half Town, a place with turf walls and -never a window, where a blind man sat winding pirns for the weaver-folks. -</p> -<p> -“This,” said Coll, showing the strangers in at the door, “is a piper of -parts, or I'm no judge, and he has as rare a stand of great pipes as ever -my eyes sat on.” - </p> -<p> -“I have that same,” said the blind man, with his face to the door. “Your -friends, Coll?” - </p> -<p> -“Two pipers of the neighbourhood,” Rory made answer. “It was for no piping -we came here, but by the accident of the chase. Still and on, if pipes are -here, piping there might be.” - </p> -<p> -“So be it,” cried Coll; “but I must go back to my cattle till night comes. -Get you to the playing with Paruig Dali, and I'll find you here when I -come back.” And with that he turned about and went off. -</p> -<p> -Parig put down the ale and cake before the two men, and “Welcome you are,” - said he. -</p> -<p> -They ate the stranger's bite, and lipped the stranger's cup, and then, -“Whistle 'The Macraes' March,' my fair fellow,” said the blind man. -</p> -<p> -“How ken you I'm fair?” asked Rory. -</p> -<p> -“Your tongue tells that. A fair man has aye a soft bit in his speech, like -the lapping of milk in a cogie; and a black one, like your friend there, -has the sharp ring of a thin burn in frost running into an iron pot. 'The -Macraes' March,' <i>laochain</i>.” - </p> -<p> -Rory put a pucker on his mouth and played a little of the fine tune. -</p> -<p> -“So!” said the blind man, with his head to a side, “you had your lesson. -And you, my Strathlachlan boy without beard, do you ken 'Muinntir a' -Ghlinne so'?” - </p> -<p> -“How ken ye I'm Strathlachlan and beardless?” asked Gilian. -</p> -<p> -“Strathlachlan by the smell of herring-scale from your side of the house -(for they told me yesterday the gannets were flying down Strathlachlan -way, and that means fishing), and you have no beard I know, but in what -way I know I do not know.” Gilian had the <i>siubhal</i> of the pibroch -but begun when the blind man stopped him. -</p> -<p> -“You have it,” he said, “you have it in a way, the Macarthur's way, and -that's not my way. But, no matter, let us to our piping.” - </p> -<p> -The three men sat them down on three stools on the clay floor, and the -blind man's pipes passed round between them. -</p> -<p> -“First,” said Paruig (being the man of the house, and to get the vein of -his own pipes)—“first I'll put on them 'The Vaunting.'” He stood to -his shanks, a lean old man and straight, and the big drone came nigh on -the black rafters. He filled the bag at a breath and swung a lover's arm -round about it. To those who know not the pipes, the feel of the bag in -the oxter is a gaiety lost. The sweet round curve is like a girl's waist; -it is friendly and warm in the crook of the elbow and against a man's -side, and to press it is to bring laughing or tears. -</p> -<p> -The bothy roared with the tuning, and then the air came melting and sweet -from the chanter. Eight steps up, four, to the turn, and eight down went -Paruig, and the <i>piobaireachd</i> rolled to his fingers like a man's -rhyming. The two men sat on, the stools, with their elbows on their knees, -and listened. -</p> -<p> -He played but the <i>urlar</i>, and the <i>crunluadh</i> to save time, and -he played them well. -</p> -<p> -“Good indeed! Splendid, my old fellow!” cried the two; and said Gilian, -“You have a way of it in the <i>crunluadh</i> not my way, but as good as -ever I heard.” - </p> -<p> -“It is the way of Padruig Og,” said Rory. -</p> -<p> -“Well I know it! There are tunes and tunes, and 'The Vaunting' is not bad -in its way, but give me 'The Macraes' March.'” - </p> -<p> -He jumped to his feet and took the pipes from the old man's hands, and -over his shoulder with the drones. -</p> -<p> -“Stand back, lad!” he cried to Gilian, and Gilian went nearer the door. -</p> -<p> -The march came fast to the chanter—the old tune, the fine tune that -Kintail has heard before, when the wild men in their red tartan came over -hill and moor; the tune with the river in it, the fast river and the -courageous that kens not stop nor tarry, that runs round rock and over -fall with a good humour, yet no mood for anything but the way before it. -The tune of the heroes, the tune of the pinelands and the broad straths, -the tune that the eagles of Loch Duich crack their beaks together when -they hear, and the crows of that country-side would as soon listen to as -the squeal of their babies. -</p> -<p> -“Well! mighty well!” said Paruig Dali. “You have the tartan of the clan in -it.” - </p> -<p> -“Not bad, I'll allow,” said Gilian. “Let me try.” - </p> -<p> -He put his fingers on the holes, and his heart took a leap back over two -generations, and yonder was Glencoe! The grey day crawled on the white -hills and the Mack roofs smoked below. Snow choked the pass, <i>eas</i> -and corn filled with drift and flatted to the brae-face; the wind tossed -quirky and and in the little bashes and among the smooring lintels and -joists; the Mood of old and young lappered on the hearthstone, and the -bairn, with a knifed throat, had an icy lip on a frozen teat. Out of the -place went the tramped path of the Campbell butchers—far on their -way to Glenlyon and the towns of paper and ink and liars—“Muinntir -a' ghlinne so, muinntir a' ghlinne so!—People, people, people of -this glen, this glen, this glen!” - </p> -<p> -“Dogs! dogs! O God of grace—dogs and cowards!” cried Rory. “I could -be dirking a Diarmaid or two if by luck they were near me.” - </p> -<p> -“It is piping that is to be here,” said Paruig, “and it is not piping for -an hour nor piping for an evening, but the piping of Dunvegan that stops -for sleep nor supper.” - </p> -<p> -So the three stayed in the bothy and played tune about while time went by -the door. The birds flew home to the branches, the longnecked beasts -flapped off to the shore to spear their flat fish; the rutting deers -bellowed with loud throats in the deeps of the wood that stands round Half -Town, and the scents of the moist night came gusty round the door. Over -the back of Auchnabreac the sun trailed his plaid of red and yellow, and -the loch stretched salt and dark from Cairn Dubh to Creaggans. -</p> -<p> -In from the hill the men and the women came, weary-legged, and the bairns -nodded at their heels. Sleepiness was on the land, but the pipers, piping -in the bothy, kept the world awake. -</p> -<p> -“We will go to bed in good time,” said the folks, eating their suppers at -their doors; “in good time when this tune is ended.” But tune came on -tane, and every tune better than its neighbour, and they waited. -</p> -<p> -A cruisie-light was set alowe in the blind man's bothy, and the three men -played old tunes and new tunes—salute and lament and brisk dances -and marches that coax tired brogues on the long roads. -</p> -<p> -“Here's 'Tulloch Ard' for you, and tell me who made it,” said Rory. -</p> -<p> -“Who kens that? Here's 'Raasay's Lament,' the best port Padruig Mor ever -put together.” - </p> -<p> -“Tunes and tunes. I'm for 'A Kiss o' the King's Hand.'” - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“Thug mi pòg 'us pòg 'us pòg, -Thug mi pòg do làmh an righ, -Cha do chuir gaoth an craicionn caorach, -Fear a fhuair an fhaoilt ach mi!” - </pre> -<p> -Then a quietness came on Half Town, for the piping stopped, and the people -at their doors heard but their blood thumping and the night-hags in the -dark of the firwood. -</p> -<p> -“A little longer and maybe there will be more,” they said to each other, -and they waited; but no more music came from the drones, so they went in -to bed. -</p> -<p> -There was quiet over Half Town, for the three pipers talked about the Lost -Tune. -</p> -<p> -“A man my father knew,” said Gilian, “heard a bit of it once in Moideart. -A terrible fine tune he said it was, but sore on the mind.” - </p> -<p> -“It would be the tripling,” said the Macnaghton, stroking a reed with a -fond hand. -</p> -<p> -“Maybe. Tripling is ill enough, but what is tripling? There is more in -piping than brisk fingers. Am I not right, Paruig?” “Right, oh! right. The -Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i> asks for skilly tripling, but Macruimen himself -could not get at the core of it for all his art.” - </p> -<p> -“You have heard it then!” cried Gilian. -</p> -<p> -The blind man stood up and filled out his breast. -</p> -<p> -“Heard it!” he said; “I heard it, and I play it—on the <i>feadan</i>, -but not on the full set. To play the tune I mention on the full set is -what I have not done since I came to Half Town.” - </p> -<p> -“I have ten round pieces in my sporran, and a bonnet-brooch it would take -much to part me from; but they're there for the man who'll play me the -Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i>” said Gilian, with the words tripping each other -to the tip of his tongue. -</p> -<p> -“And here's a Macnaghton's fortune on the top of the round pieces,” cried -Rory, emptying his purse on the table. -</p> -<p> -The old man's face got hot and angry. “I am not,” he said, “a tinker's -minstrel, to give my tuning for bawbees and a quaich of ale. The king -himself could not buy the tune I ken if he had but a whim for it. But when -pipers ask it they can have it, and it's yours without a fee. Still if you -think to learn the tune by my piping once, poor's the delusion. It is not -a port to be picked up like a cockle on the sand, for it takes the -schooling of years and blindness forbye.” - </p> -<p> -“Blindness?” - </p> -<p> -“Blindness indeed. The thought of it is only for the dark eye.” - </p> -<p> -“If we could hear it on the full set!” - </p> -<p> -“Come out, then, on the grass, and you'll hear it, if Half Town should -sleep no sleep this night.” - </p> -<p> -They went out of the bothy to the wet short grass. Ragged mists shook o'er -Cowal, and on Ben Ime sat a horned moon like a galley of Lorn. -</p> -<p> -“I heard this tune from the Moideart man—the last in Albainn who -knew it then, and he's in the clods,” said the blind fellow. -</p> -<p> -He had the mouthpiece at his lip, and his hand was coaxing the bag, when a -bairn's cry came from a house in the Half Town—a suckling's whimper, -that, heard in the night, sets a man's mind busy on the sorrows that folks -are born to. The drones clattered together on the piper's elbow and he -stayed. -</p> -<p> -“I have a notion,” he said to the two men. “I did not tell you that the -Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i> is the <i>piobaireachd</i> of good-byes. It is -the tune of broken clans, that sets the men on the foray and makes cold -hearth-stones. It was played in Glenshira when Gilleasbuig Gruamach could -stretch stout swordsmen from Boshang to Ben Bhuidhe, and where are the -folks of Glenshira this day? I saw a cheery night in Carnus that's over -Lochow, and song and story busy about the fire, and the Moideart man -played it for a wager. In the morning the weans were without fathers, and -Carnus men were scattered about the wide world.” - </p> -<p> -“It must be the magic tune, sure enough,” said Gilian. -</p> -<p> -“Magic indeed, <i>laochain!</i> It is the tune that puts men on the open -road, that makes restless lads and seeking women. Here's a Half Town of -dreamers and men fattening for want of men's work. They forget the world -is wide and round about their fir-trees, and I can make them crave for -something they cannot name.” - </p> -<p> -“Good or bad, out with it,” said Rory, “if you know it at all.” - </p> -<p> -“Maybe no', maybe no'. I am old and done. Perhaps I have lost the right -skill of the tune, for it's long since I put it on the great pipe. There's -in me the strong notion to try it whatever may come of it, and here's for -it.” - </p> -<p> -He put his pipe up again, filled the bag at a breath, brought the booming -to the drones, and then the chanter-reed cried sharp and high. -</p> -<p> -“He's on it,” said Rory in Gilian's ear. -</p> -<p> -The groundwork of the tune was a drumming on the deep notes where the -sorrows lie—“Come, come, come, my children, rain on the brae and the -wind blowing.” - </p> -<p> -“It is a salute.” said Rory. -</p> -<p> -“It's the strange tune anyway,” said Gilian; “listen to the time of yon!” - </p> -<p> -The tune searched through Half Town and into the gloomy pine-wood; it put -an end to the whoop of the night-hag and rang to Ben Bhreac. Boatmen deep -and far on the loch could hear it, and Half Town folks sat up to listen. -</p> -<p> -It's story was the story that's ill to tell—something of the heart's -longing and the curious chances of life. It bound up all the tales of all -the clans, and made one tale of the Gaels' past. Dirk nor sword against -the tartan, but the tartan against all else, and the Gaels' target fending -the hill-land and the juicy straths from the pock-pitted little black men. -The winters and the summers passing fast and furious, day and night -roaring in the ears, and then again the clans at variance, and warders on -every pass and on every parish. -</p> -<p> -Then the tune changed. -</p> -<p> -“Folks,” said the reeds, coaxing. “Wide's the world and merry the road. -Here's but the old story and the women we kissed before. Come, come to the -flat-lands rich and full, where the wonderful new things happen and the -women's lips are still to try!” - </p> -<p> -“To-morrow,” said Gilian in his friend's ear—“to-morrow I will go -jaunting to the North. It has been in my mind since Beltane.” - </p> -<p> -“One might be doing worse,” said Rory, “and I have the notion to try a -trip with my cousin to the foreign wars.” - </p> -<p> -The blind piper put up his shoulder higher and rolled the air into the <i>crunluadh -breabach</i> that comes prancing with variations. Pride stiffened him from -heel to hip, and hip to head, and set his sinews like steel. -</p> -<p> -He was telling of the gold to get for the searching and the bucks that may -be had for the hunting. “What,” said the reeds, “are your poor crops, -slashed by the constant rain and rotting, all for a scart in the bottom of -a pot? What are your stots and heifers—black, dun, and yellow—to -milch-cows and horses? Here's but the same for ever—toil and sleep, -sleep and toil even on, no feud nor foray nor castles to harry—only -the starved field and the sleeping moss. Let us to a brisker place! Over -yonder are the long straths and the deep rivers and townships strewn thick -as your corn-rigs; over yonder's the place of the packmen's tales and the -packmen's wares: steep we the withies and go!” - </p> -<p> -The two men stood with heads full of bravery and dreaming—men in a -carouse. “This,” said they, “is the notion we had, but had no words for. -It's a poor trade piping and eating and making amusement when one might be -wandering up and down the world. We must be packing the haversacks.” - </p> -<p> -Then the <i>crunluadh mach</i> came fast and furious on the chanter, and -Half Town shook with it. It buzzed in the ear like the flowers in the -Honey Croft, and made commotion among the birds rocking on their eggs in -the wood. -</p> -<p> -“So! so!” barked the <i>iolair</i> on Craig-an-eas. -</p> -<p> -“I have heard before it was an ill thing to be satisfied; in the morning -I'll try the kids on Maam-side, for the hares here are wersh and tough.” - </p> -<p> -“Hearken, dear,” said the <i>londubh</i>, “I know now why my beak is gold; -it is because I once ate richer berries than the whortle, and in season -I'll look for them on the braes of Glenfinne.” - </p> -<p> -“Honk-unk,” said the fox, the cunning red fellow, “am not I the fool to be -staying on this little brae when I know so many roads elsewhere?” - </p> -<p> -And the people sitting up in their beds in Half Town moaned for something -new. “Paruig Dall is putting the strange tune on her there,” said they. -“What the meaning of it is we must ask in the morning, but, <i>ochanoch!</i> -it leaves one hungry at the heart.” And then gusty winds came snell from -the north, and where the dark crept first, the day made his first showing, -so that Ben Ime rose black against a grey sky. -</p> -<p> -“That's the Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i>,” said Paruig Dali when the bag sunk -on his arm. -</p> -<p> -And the two men looked at him in a daze. -</p> -<p> -Sometimes in the spring of the year the winds from Lorn have it their own -way with the Highlands. They will come tearing furious over the hundred -hills, spurred the faster by the prongs of Cruachan and Dunchuach, and the -large woods of home toss before them like corn before the hook. Up come -the poor roots and over on their broken arms go the tall trees, and in the -morning the deer will trot through new lanes cut in the forest. -</p> -<p> -A wind of that sort came on the full of the day when the two pipers were -leaving Half Town. -</p> -<p> -“Stay till the storm is over,” said the kind folks; and “Your bed and -board are here for the pipers forty days,” said Paruig Dali. But “No” said -the two; “we have business that your <i>piobaireachd</i> put us in mind -of.” - </p> -<p> -“I'm hoping that I did not play yon with too much skill,” said the old -man. -</p> -<p> -“Skill or no skill,” said Gilian, “the like of yon I never heard. You -played a port that makes poor enough all ports ever one listened to, and -piping's no more for us wanderers.” - </p> -<p> -“Blessings with thee!” said the folks all, and the two men went down into -the black wood among the cracking trees. -</p> -<p> -Six lads looked after them, and one said, “It is an ill day for a body to -take the world for his pillow, but what say you to following the pipers?” - </p> -<p> -“It might,” said one, “be the beginning of fortune. I am weary enough of -this poor place, with nothing about it but wood and water and tufty grass. -If we went now, there might be gold and girls at the other end.” - </p> -<p> -They took crooks and bonnets and went after the two pipers. And when they -were gone half a day, six women said to their men, “Where can the lads -be?” - </p> -<p> -“We do not know that,” said the men, with hot faces, “but we might be -looking.” They kissed their children and went, with <i>cromags</i> in -their hands, and the road they took was the road the King of Errin rides, -and that is the road to the end of days. -</p> -<p> -A weary season fell on Half Town, and the very bairns dwined at the breast -for a change of fortune. The women lost their strength, and said, “To-day -my back is weak, tomorrow I will put things to right,” and they looked -slack-mouthed and heedless-eyed at the sun wheeling round the trees. Every -week a man or two would go to seek something—a lost heifer or a -wounded roe that was never brought back—and a new trade came to the -place, the selling of herds. Far away in the low country, where the winds -are warm and the poorest have money, black-cattle were wanted, so the men -of Half Town made up long droves and took them round Glen Beag and the -Rest. -</p> -<p> -Wherever they went they stayed, or the clans on the roadside put them to -steel, for Half Town saw them no more. And a day came when all that was -left in that fine place were but women and children and a blind piper. -</p> -<p> -“Am I the only man here?” asked Paruig Dali when it came to the bit, and -they told him he was. -</p> -<p> -“Then here's another for fortune!” said he, and he went down through the -woods with his pipes in his oxter. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -RED HAND -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE smell of wet larch was in the air, and Glenaora was aburst to the -coaxing of Spring. Paruig Dali the piper—son of the son of Iain Mor—filled -his broad chest with two men's wind, and flung the drones over his -shoulder. They dangled a little till the bag swelled out, and the first -blast rang in the ear of the morning. Rough and noisy, the reeds cried -each other down till a master's hand held them in check, and the long soft -singing of the <i>piobaireachd</i> floated out among the tartan ribbons. -The grey peak of Drimfern heard the music; the rock that wards the mouth -of Carnus let it pass through the gap and over the hill and down to the -isles below; Dun Corr-bhile and Dunchuach, proud Kilmune, the Paps of -Salachary, and a hundred other braes around, leaned over to listen to the -vaunting notes that filled the valley. “The Glen, the Glen is mine!” sang -the blithe chanter; and, by Finne's sword, Macruimen himself could not -have fingered it better! -</p> -<p> -It was before Paruig Dali left for Halt Town; before the wars that -scorched the glens; and Clan Campbell could cock its bonnet in the face of -all Albainn. Paruig was old, and Paruig was blind, as the name of him -tells, but he swung with a king's port up and down on the short grass, his -foot firm to every beat of the tune, his kilt tossing from side to side -like a bard's song, his sporran leaping gaily on his brown knees. Two -score of lilting steps to the bumside, a slow wheel on a brogue-heel, and -then back with the sun-glint on the buckles of his belt. -</p> -<p> -The men, tossing the caber and hurling the <i>clachncart</i> against the -sun beyond the peat-bog, paused in their stride at the chanter's boast, -jerked the tartan tight on their loins, and came over to listen; the -women, posting blankets for the coming sheiling, stopped their splashing -in the little linn, and hummed in a dream; and men and women had mind of -the days that were, when the Glen was soft with the blood of men, for the -Stewarts were over the way from Appin. -</p> -<p> -“God's splendour! but he can play too,” said the piper's son, with his -head areel to the fine tripling. -</p> -<p> -Then Paruig pushed the bag further into his oxter, and the tune changed. -He laid the ground of “Bodaich nam Briogais,” and such as knew the story -saw the “carles with the breeks” broken and flying before Glenurchy's -thirsty swords, far north of Morven, long days of weary march through -spoiled glens. -</p> -<p> -“It's fine playing, I'll allow,” said the blind man's son, standing below -a saugh-tree with the bag of his bannered pipes in the crook of his arm. -He wore the dull tartan of the Diarmaids, and he had a sprig of gall in -his bonnet, for he was in Black Duncan's tail. “Son of Paruig Dali,” said -the Chief seven years ago come Martinmas, “if you're to play like your -father, there's but Dunvegan for you, and the schooling of Patrick -Macruimen.” So Tearlach went to Skye—cold isle of knives and caves—and -in the college of Macruimen he learned the <i>piob-mhor</i>. Morning and -evening, and all day between, he fingered the <i>feadan</i> or the full -set—gathering and march, massacre and moaning, and the stately -salute. Where the lusty breeze comes in salt from Vatemish across Loch -Vegan, and the purple loom of Uist breaks the sunset's golden bars, he -stood on the braes over against Borearaig and charmed the grumbling tide. -And there came a day that he played “The Lament of the Harp-Tree,” with -the old years of sturdy fight and strong men all in the strain of it, and -Patrick Macruimen said, “No more, lad; go home: Lochow never heard another -like you.” As a cock with its comb uncut, came the stripling from Skye. -</p> -<p> -“Father,” he had said, “you play not ill for a blind man, but you miss the -look on the men's faces, and that's half the music. Forbye, you are old, -and your fingers are slow on the grace-notes. Here's your own flesh and -blood can show you fingering there was never the like of anywhere east the -Isles.” - </p> -<p> -The stepmother heard the brag. “<i>A pheasain!</i>” she snapped, with hate -in her peat-smoked face. “Your father's a man, and you are but a boy with -no heart for a long day. A place in Black Duncan's tail, with a gillie to -carry your pipes and knapsack, is not, mind ye, all that's to the making -of a piper.” - </p> -<p> -Tearlach laughed in her face. “Boy or man,” said he, “look at me! north, -east, south, and west, where is the one to beat me? Macruimen has the -name, but there were pipers before Macruimen, and pipers will come after -him.” - </p> -<p> -“It's maybe as you say,” said Paruig. “The stuff's in you, and what is in -must out; but give me <i>cothrom na Feinne</i>, and old as I am, with -Finne's chance, and that's fair play, I can maybe make you crow less -crouse. Are ye for trying?” - </p> -<p> -“I am at the training of a new chanter-reed,” said Tearlach; “but let it -be when you will.” - </p> -<p> -They fixed a day, and went out to play against each other for glory, and -so it befell that on this day Paruig Dali was playing “The Glen is Mine” - and “Bodaich nam Briogais” in a way to make stounding hearts. -</p> -<p> -Giorsal snapped her fingers in her stepson's face when her husband closed -the <i>crunluadh</i> of his <i>piobaireachd.</i> -</p> -<p> -“Can you better it, bastard?” snarled she. -</p> -<p> -“Here goes for it, whatever!” said Tear-lach, and over his back went the -banner with its boar's head sewn on gold. A pretty lad, by the cross! -clean-cut of limb and light of foot, supple of loin, with the toss of the -shoulder that never a decent piper lacked. The women who had been at the -linn leaned on each other all in the soft larch-scented day, and looked at -him out of deep eyes; the men on the heather arose and stood nigher. -</p> -<p> -A little tuning, and then -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“Is comadh leam's comadh leam, cogadh na sithe, -Marbhar 'sa chogadh na crochar's an t-sith mi.” - </pre> -<p> -“Peace or war!” cried Giorsal, choking in anger, to her man—“peace -or war! the black braggart! it's an asp ye have for a son, goodman!” - </p> -<p> -The lad's fingers danced merry on the chanter, and the shiver of something -to come fell on all the folk around. The old hills sported with the -prancing tune; Dun Corrbhile tossed it to Drimfem, and Drimfern sent it -leaping across the flats of Kilmune to the green corries of Lecknamban. -“Love, love, the old tune; come and get flesh!” rasped a crow to his mate -far off on misty Ben Bhreac, and the heavy black wings flapped east. The -friendly wind forgot to dally with the pine-tuft and the twanging -bog-myrtle, the plash of Aora in its brown linn was the tinkle of wine in -a goblet. “Peace or war, peace or war; come which will, we care not,” sang -the pipe-reeds, and there was the muster and the march, hot-foot rush over -the rotting rain-wet moor, the jingle of iron, the dunt of pike and targe, -the choked roar of hate and hunger, batter and slash and fall, and behind, -the old, old feud with Appin! -</p> -<p> -Leaning forward, lost in a dream, stood the swank lads of Aora. They felt -at their hips, where were only empty belts, and one said to his child, -“White love, get me yon long knife with the nicks on it, and the -basket-hand, for I am sick of shepherding.” The bairn took a look at his -face and went home crying. -</p> -<p> -And the music still poured on. 'Twas “I got a Kiss o' the King's Hand” and -“The Pretty Dirk,” and every air better than another. The fairy pipe of -the Wee Folk's Knowe never made a sweeter fever of sound, yet it hurt the -ears of the women, who had reason to know the payment of pipers' springs. -</p> -<p> -“Stop, stop, O Tearlach og!” they cried; “enough of war: have ye not a -reel in your budget?” - </p> -<p> -“There was never a reel in Boreraig,” said the lad, and he into “Duniveg's -Warning,” the tune Coll Ciotach heard his piper play in the west on a day -when a black bitch from Dunstaffnage lay panting for him, and his barge -put nose about in time to save his skin. -</p> -<p> -“There's the very word itself in it,” said Paruig, forgetting the taunting -of Giorsal and all but a father's pride. -</p> -<p> -'Twas in the middle of the “Warning” Black Duncan, his toe on the stirrup, -came up from Castle Inneraora, with a gillie-wet-foot behind, on his way -to Lochow. -</p> -<p> -“It's down yonder you should be, Sir Piper, and not blasting here for -drink,” said he, switching his trews with his whip and scowling under -black brows at the people. “My wife is sick of the <i>clarsach</i> and -wants the pipes.” - </p> -<p> -“I'm no woman's piper, Lochow; your wife can listen to the hum of her -spinning-wheel if she's weary of her harp,” said the lad; and away rode -the Chief, and back to the linn went the women, and the men to the <i>cabar</i> -and the stone, and Tearlach, with an extra feather in his bonnet, home to -Inneraora, leafing a gibe as he went, for his father. -</p> -<p> -Paruig Dali cursed till the evening at the son he never saw, and his wife -poisoned his mind. -</p> -<p> -“The Glen laughs at you, man, from Carnus to Croit-bhile. It's a black, -burning day of shame for you, Paruig Dall!” - </p> -<p> -“Lord, it's a black enough day for me at the best!” said the blind man. -</p> -<p> -“It's disgraced by your own ill-got son you are, by a boy with no blood on -his <i>biodag</i>, and the pride to crow over you.” - </p> -<p> -And Paruig cursed anew, by the Cross and the Dogs of Lorn, and the White -Glaive of Light the giants wear, and the Seven Witches of Cothmar. He was -bad though he was blind, and he went back to the start of time for his -language. “But <i>Dhé!</i> the boy can play!” he said at the last. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, <i>amadain dhoill</i>” cried the woman; “if it was I, a claw was off -the cub before the mouth of day.” - </p> -<p> -“Witless woman, men have played the pipes before now, lacking a finger: -look at Alasdair Corrag!” - </p> -<p> -“Allowing; but a hand's as easy to cut as a finger for a man who has -gralloched deer with a keen <i>sgian-dubh</i>. Will ye do't or no'?” - </p> -<p> -Parig would hearken no more, and took to his pillow. -</p> -<p> -Rain came with the gloaming. Aora, the splendid river, roared up the dark -glen from the Salmon Leap; the hills gathered thick and heavy round about -the scattered townships, the green new tips of fir and the copper leaves -of the young oaks moaned in the wind. Then salt airs came tearing up from -the sea, grinding branch on branch, and the whole land smoked with the -drumming of rain that slanted on it hot and fast. -</p> -<p> -Giorsal arose, her clothes still on her, put a plaid on her black head, -and the thick door banged back on the bed as she dived into the storm. Her -heavy feet sogged through the boggy grass, the heather clutched at her -draggled coat-tails to make her stay, but she filled her heart with one -thought, and that was hate, and behold! she was on the slope of the Black -Bull before her blind husband guessed her meaning. Castle Inneraora lay at -the foot of the woody dun, dozing to the music of the salt loch that made -tumult and spume north and south in the hollow of the mountains. Now and -then the moon took a look at things, now and then a night-hag in the -dripping wood hooted as the rain whipped her breast feathers; a roe leaped -out of the gloom and into it with a feared hoof-plunge above Carlonan; a -thunderbolt struck in the dark against the brow of Ben Ime and rocked the -world. -</p> -<p> -In the cold hour before the mouth of day the woman was in the piper's room -at the gate of Inneraora, where never a door was barred against the night -while Strong Colin the warder could see from the Fort of Dunchuach to -Cladich. Tearlach the piper lay on his back, with the glow of a half-dead -peat on his face and hands. “Paruig, Paruig!” said the woman to herself, -as she softly tramped out the peat-fire and turned to the bed. And lo! it -was over. Her husband's little black knife made a fast sweep on the -sleeper's wrist, and her hand was drenched with the hot blood of her -husband's son. -</p> -<p> -Tearlach leaped up with a roar in the dark and felt for his foe; but the -house was empty, for Giorsal was running like a hind across the soaked -stretch of Caimban. The lightning struck at Glenaora in jagged fury and -confusion; the thunder drummed hollow on Creag -</p> -<p> -Dubh: in a turn of the pass at the Three Bridges the woman met her -husband. -</p> -<p> -“Daughter of hell!” said he, “is't done? and was't death?” - </p> -<p> -“Darling,” said she, with a fond laugh, “'twas only a brat's hand. You can -give us 'The Glen is Mine!' in the morning.” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -THE SECRET OF THE HEATHER-ALE -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>OWN Glenaora threescore and ten of Diarmaid's stout fellows took the road -on a fine day. They were men from Carnus, with more of Clan Artair than -Campbell in them; but they wore Gilleasbuig Gruamach's tartan,. and if -they were not on Gilleasbuig Gruamach's errand, it makes little difference -on our story. It was about the time Antrim and his dirty Irishers came -scouring through our glens with flambeaux, dirk and sword and other arms -invasive, and the country was back at its old trade of fighting, with not -a sheiling from end to end, except on the slopes of Shira Glen, where a -clan kept free of battle and drank the finest of heather-ale that the -world envied the secret of. -</p> -<p> -“Lift we and go, for the Cattle's before!” said Alasdair Piobaire on the -chanter of a Dunvegan great-pipe—a neat tune that roared gallant and -far from Carnus to Bara-caldine; so there they were, the pick of swank -fellows on the road! -</p> -<p> -At the head of them was Niall Mor a' Chamais—the same gentleman -namely in story for many an art and the slaughter of the strongest man in -the world, as you'll find in the writings of my Lord Archie. “God! look at -us!” said he, when his lads came over the hill in the grey mouth of day. -“Are not we the splendid men? Fleas will there be this day in the hose of -the Glenshira folk.” And he sent his targe in the air in a bravado, -catching it by the prong in its navel, smart and clean, when it whirled -back. -</p> -<p> -Hawks yelped as they passed; far up on Tullich there was barking of -eagles; the brogues met the road as light as the stagslot; laughing, -singing, roaring; sword-heads and pikes dunting on wooden targets—and -only once they looked back at their women high on the brae-face. -</p> -<p> -The nuts were thick on the roadside, hanging heavy from swinging branches, -and some of the men pulled them off as they passed, stayed for more, -straggled, and sang bits of rough songs they ken over many of on -Lochowside to this day. So Niall Mor glunched at his corps from under his -bonnet and showed his teeth. -</p> -<p> -“Gather in, gather in,” said he; “ye march like a drove of low-country -cattle. Alasdair, put 'Baile Inneraora' on her!” - </p> -<p> -Alasdair changed his tune, and the good march of Clan Diarmaid went -swinging down the glen. -</p> -<p> -The time passed; the sun stood high and hot; clucking from the -fir-plantings came woodcock and cailzie; the two rivers were crossed, and -the Diarmaids slockened their thirst at the water of Altan Aluinn, whose -birth is somewhere in the bogs beside tall Bhuidhe Ben. -</p> -<p> -Where the clans met was at the Foal's Gap, past Maam. A score of the -MacKellars ran out in a line from the bushes, and stotted back from the -solid weight of Diarmaid moving in a lump and close-shouldered in the -style Niall Mor got from the Italian soldier. Some fell, hacked on the -head by the heavy slash of the dry sword; some gripped too late at the -pikes that kittled them cruelly; and one—Iver-of-the-Oars—tripped -on a root of heather, and fell with his breast on the point of a -Diarmaid's dirk. -</p> -<p> -To the hills went a fast summons, and soon at the mouth of the gap came -twoscore of the MacKellars. They took a new plan, and close together faced -the green tartan, keeping it back at the point of steel, though the pick -of Glenaora wore it, and the brogues slipped on the brae-face. It was fast -cut and drive, quick flash of the dirk, with the palm up and the hand low -to find the groin, and a long reach with the short black knife. The choked -breath hissed at teeth and nose, the salt smell of new blood brought a -shiver to birch-leaf and gall. But ever the green tartan had the best of -it. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Bas, bas, Dhiarmaid!</i>” cried Calum Dubh, coming up on the back of -his breaking two-score with fresh lads from Elerigmor, bed-naked to the -hide, and a new fury fell on the two clans tearing at it in the narrow -hollow in between the rocky hills. So close they were, there was small -room for the whirl of the basket-hilt, and “Mind Tom-a-Phubaill and the -shortened steel!” cried Niall Mor, smashing a pretty man's face with a -blow from the iron guard of his Ferrara sword. The halberts, snapped at -the haft to make whittles, hammered on the target-hides like stones on a -coffin, or rang on the bosses; the tartan ripped when the stuck one rolled -on his side before the steel could be twisted out; below the foot the -grass felt warm and greasy, and the reason was not ill to seek. -</p> -<p> -Once it looked like the last of Calum Dubh. He was facing Niall Mor, sword -and targe, and Niall Mor changed the sword to the other hand, pulled the -<i>sgian-dubh</i> from his garter, and with snapping teeth pushed like a -lightning fork below MacKellar's target. An Elerigmor man ran in between; -the little black knife sunk into his belly with a moist plunge, and the -blood spouted on the deer-horn haft. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Mallachd ort!</i> I meant yon for a better man,” cried Niall Mor; “but -it's well as it is, for the secret's to the fore,” and he stood up dour -and tall against a new front of Mac-Kellar's men. -</p> -<p> -Then the sky changed, and a thin smirr of warm rains fell on the glen like -smoke; some black-cattle bellowed at the ford in a wonder at where their -herds could be, and the herds—stuck, slashed, and cudgelled—lay -stiffening on the torn grass between the gap and Mac-Kellar's house. From -end to end of the glen there was no man left but was at the fighting. The -hook was tossed among the corn; the man hot-foot behind the roe, turned -when he had his knife at its throat, to go to war; a lover left his lass -among the heather; and all, with tightened belts, were at the old game -with Clan Diarmaid, while their women, far up on the sappy levels between -the hill-tops and beside the moor-lochs, span at the wheel or carded wool, -singing songs with light hearts and thinking no danger. -</p> -<p> -Back went MacKellar's men before Niall -</p> -<p> -Mor and his sturdy lads from Camus, the breeder of soldiers—back -through the gap and down on the brae to the walls of Calum Dubh. -</p> -<p> -“'Illean, 'illean!” cried Calum; “lads, lads! they have us, sure enough. -Oh! pigs and thieves! squint mouths and sons of liars!” - </p> -<p> -The cry gathered up the strength of all that was left of his clan, Art and -Uileam, the Maam lads, the brothers from Drimlea and two from over Stron -hill, and they stood up together against the Carnus men—a gallant -madness! They died fast and hard, and soon but Calum and his two sons were -left fencing, till a rush of Diarmaids sent them through the door of the -house and tossed among the peats. -</p> -<p> -“Give in and your lives are your own,” said Niall Mor, wiping his sword on -his shirtsleeve, and with all that were left of his Diarmaids behind his -back. -</p> -<p> -To their feet stood the three MacKellars. -</p> -<p> -Calum looked at the folk in front of him, and had mind of other ends to -battles. “To die in a house like a rat were no great credit,” said he, and -he threw his sword on the floor, where the blades of Art and Uileam soon -joined it. -</p> -<p> -With tied arms the father and his sons were taken outside, where the air -was full of the scents of birch and gall new-washed. The glen, clearing -fast of mist, lay green and sweet for mile and mile, and far at its mouth -the fat Blaranbuie woods chuckled in the sun. -</p> -<p> -“I have you now,” said Niall Mor. “Ye ken what we seek. It's the old ploy—the -secret of the ale.” - </p> -<p> -Calum laughed in his face, and the two sons said things that cut like -knives. -</p> -<p> -“Man! I'm feared ye'll rue this,” said Niall Mor, calm enough. “Ye may -laugh, but—what would ye call a gentleman's death?” - </p> -<p> -“With the sword or the dagger in the hand, and a Diarmaid or two before -me,” cried Calum. -</p> -<p> -“Well, there might be worse ways of travelling yont—indeed there -could ill be better; but if the secret of the ale is not to be ours for -the asking, ye'll die a less well-bred death.” - </p> -<p> -“Name it, man, name it,” said Calum. “Might it be tow at the throat and a -fir-branch.” - </p> -<p> -“Troth,” said Niall Mor, “and that were too gentle a travelling. The -Scaurnoch's on our way, and the crows at the foot of it might relish a -Glen Shira carcass.” - </p> -<p> -Uileam whitened at the notion of so ugly an end, but Calum only said, “Die -we must any way,” and Art whistled a bit of a pipe-tune, grinding his heel -on the moss. -</p> -<p> -Niall Mor made to strike the father on the face, but stayed his hand and -ordered the three in-by, with a few of his corps to guard them. Up and -down Glen Shira went the Diarmaids, seeking the brewing-cave, giving hut -and home to the flame, and making black hearths and low lintels for the -women away in the sheilings. They buried their dead at Kilblaan, and, with -no secret the better, set out for Scaurnoch with Calum and his sons. -</p> -<p> -The MacKellars were before, like a <i>spreidh</i> of stolen cattle, and -the lot of the driven herd was theirs. They were laughed at and spat on, -and dirk-hilts and <i>cromags</i> hammered on their shoulders, and through -Blaranbuie wood they went to the bosky elbow of Dun Corr-bhile and round -to the Dun beyond. -</p> -<p> -Calum, for all his weariness, stepped like a man with a lifetime's plans -before his mind; Art looked about him in the fashion of one with an eye to -woodcraft; Uileam slouched with a heavy foot, white at the jaw and wild of -eye. -</p> -<p> -The wood opened, the hunting-road bent about the hill-face to give a level -that the eye might catch the country spread below. Loch Finne stretched -far, from Ardno to French Foreland, a glassy field, specked with one sail -off Creaggans. When the company came to a stand, Calum Dubh tossed his -head to send the hair from his eyes, and looked at what lay below. The -Scaurnoch broke at his feet, the grey rock-face falling to a depth so deep -that weary mists still hung upon the sides, jagged here and there by the -top of a fir-tree. The sun, behind the Dun, gave the last of her glory to -the Cowal Hills; Hell's Glen filled with wheeling mists; Ben Ime, Ben -Vane, and Ben Arthur crept together and held princely converse on the -other side of the sea. -</p> -<p> -All in a daze of weariness and thinking the Diarmaids stood, and looked -and listened, and the curlews were crying bitter on the shore. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, haste ye, lads, or it's not Carnus for us to-night,” cried Niall Mor. -“We have business before us, and long's the march to follow. The secret, -black fellow!” - </p> -<p> -Calum Dubh laughed, and spat in a bravado over the edge of the rock. -</p> -<p> -“Come, fool; if we have not the word from you before the sun's off Sithean -Sluaidhe, your sleep this night is yonder,” and he pointed at the pit -below. -</p> -<p> -Calum laughed the more. “If it was hell itself,” said he, “I would not -save my soul from it.” - </p> -<p> -“Look, man, look! the Sithean Sluaidhe's getting black, and any one of ye -can save the three yet. I swear it on the cross of my knife.” - </p> -<p> -Behind the brothers, one, John-Without-Asking, stood, with a gash on his -face, eager to give them to the crows below. -</p> -<p> -A shiver came to Uileam's lips; he looked at his father with a questioning -face, and then stepped back a bit from the edge, making to speak to the -tall man of Chamis. -</p> -<p> -Calum saw the meaning, and spoke fast and thick. -</p> -<p> -“Stop, stop,” said he; “it's a trifle of a secret, after all, and to save -life ye can have it.” - </p> -<p> -Art took but a little look at his father's face, then turned round on -Shira Glen and looked on the hills where the hunting had many a time been -sweet. “Maam no more,” said he to himself; “but here's death in the hero's -style!” - </p> -<p> -“I thought you would tell it,” laughed Niall Mor. “There was never one of -your clan but had a tight grip of his little life.” - </p> -<p> -“Ay!” said Calum Dubh; “but it's <i>my</i> secret. I had it from one who -made me swear on the holy steel to keep it; but take me to Carnus, and -I'll make you the heather-ale.” - </p> -<p> -“So be't, and——” - </p> -<p> -“But there's this in it, I can look no clansmen nor kin in the face after -telling it, so Art and Uileam must be out of the way first.” - </p> -<p> -“Death, MacKellar?” - </p> -<p> -“That same.” - </p> -<p> -Uileam shook like a leaf, and Art laughed, with his face still to Shira, -for he had guessed his father's mind. -</p> -<p> -“Faith!” said Niall Mor, “and that's an easy thing enough,” and he nodded -to John-Without-Asking. -</p> -<p> -The man made stay nor tarry. He put a hand on each son's back and pushed -them over the edge to their death below. One cry came up to the listening -Diarmaids, one cry and no more—the last gasp of a craven. -</p> -<p> -“Now we'll take you to Camus, and you'll make us the ale, the fine ale, -the cream of rich heather-ale,” said Niall Mor, putting a knife to the -thongs that tied MacKellar's arms to his side. -</p> -<p> -With a laugh and a fast leap Calum Dubh stood back on the edge of the rock -again. -</p> -<p> -“Crook-mouths, fools, pigs' sons! did ye think it?” he cried. “Come with -me and my sons and ye'll get ale, ay, and death's black wine, at the foot -of Scaurnoch.” He caught fast and firm at John-Without-Asking, and threw -himself over the rock-face. They fell as the scart dives, straight to the -dim sea of mist and pine-tip, and the Diarmaids threw themselves on their -breasts to look over. There was nothing to see of life but the crows -swinging on black feathers; there was nothing to hear but the crows -scolding. -</p> -<p> -Niall Mor put the bonnet on his head and said his first and last friendly -thing of a foe. -</p> -<p> -“Yon,” said he, “had the heart of a man!” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -BOBOON'S CHILDREN -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>ROM Knapdale to Lorn three wandering clans share the country between -them, and of the three the oldest and the greatest are the swart -Macdonalds, children of the Old Boboon. -</p> -<p> -You will come on them on Wade's roads,—jaunty fellows, a bit dour in -the look, and braggart; or girls with sloe-eyes, tall and supple, not with -a flat slouching foot on the soil, but high in the instep, bounding and -stag-sure. At their head will be a long lean old man on crutches—John -Fine Macdonald— -</p> -<p> -Old Boboon, the father and head of the noblest of wandering tribes. -</p> -<p> -“Sir,” will Boboon say to you, “I am the fellow you read of in books as -the teller of Fingalian tales; wilt hear one of them for a poor Saxon -shilling, or wilt buy my lures for the fish? Or perhaps a display of -scholarly piping by my daughter's son—the gallant scamp!—who -has carried arms for his king?” - </p> -<p> -If one must have the truth, the piping is bad piping, but the fish-lures -and the tales are the best in the world. You will find some of the tales -in the writings of Iain Og of Isla—such as “The Brown Bear of the -Green Glen”; but the best are to hear as Boboon minds them when he sits -with you on the roadside or on the heather beside the evening fire, when -the brown fluffy eagles bark at the mist on Braevallach. Listen well to -them, for this person has the gift. He had it from his father, who had it -from <i>his</i> father, who had it from a mother, who, in deep trouble and -disease, lay awake through long nights gathering thoughts as healthy folks -gather nuts—a sweet thing enough from a sour husk. -</p> -<p> -And if time were your property (as it should be the portion of every -wiselike man), you might hear many tales from Old Boboon, but never the -tale of his own three chances. -</p> -<p> -It happened once upon a time that the captain in the town took a notion to -make Boboon into a tame house-man instead of a creature of the woods and -highways. He took him first by himself and clapped him into a kilt of his -own tartan eight yards round the buttocks, full pleated, with hose of fine -worsted, and a coat with silver buttons. He put a pickle money in his -sporran, and gave him a place a little way down his table. The feeding was -high and the work was to a wanderer's fancy; for it was but whistling to a -dog now and then, chanting a stave, or telling a story, or roaming through -the garden behind the house. -</p> -<p> -“Ho, ho!” said Boboon, “am not I the sturdy fellow come to his own?” and -about the place he would go with a piper's swagger, switching the grass -and shrubs with a withie as he went, in the way gentlemen use -riding-sticks. -</p> -<p> -But when Inneraora town lay in the dark of the winter night, and the -captain's household slept, Boboon would hear his clan calling on him -outside the wall. -</p> -<p> -“Boboon! oh, Boboon! old hero! come and collogue with your children.” - </p> -<p> -He would go to the wall, which was lower on the inside than the out (and -is, indeed, the wall of old Quinten, where a corps of Campbells, -slaughtered by Inverlochy dogs, lie under a Latin stone), and he would -look down at his friends running about like pole-cats in the darkness, in -their ragged kilts and trews, their stringy hair tossing in the wind. The -women themselves would be there, with the bairns whining on their backs. -</p> -<p> -“Ay! ay! this is you, my hearty folk!” he would say; “glad am I to see you -and smell the wood-fire reek off you. How is it on the road?” - </p> -<p> -“From here we have not moved since you left us, John Fine. We are camped -in the Blue Quarry, and you never came near your children and friends.” - </p> -<p> -“God! and here's the one that's sorry for that same. But over the walls -they will not let me. 'If gentleman you would be,' says the captain, 'you -must keep out of woods and off the highway.'” - </p> -<p> -“And you like it, Boboon?” - </p> -<p> -“Like it, heroes! But for the honour and ease of it, give me a fir-root -fire in Glen Croe and a dinner of <i>fuarag</i>. It is not the day so much -as the night. Lying in-by there on a posted-bed, I choke for the want of -air, though the windows and doors are open wide.” - </p> -<p> -“Come away with us, Boboon; we have little lack with the fish, and few are -our stories since you took to the town.” - </p> -<p> -“No, no, dears. Conan's curse, and I tell you no! In this place there is -comfort, and every day its own bellyful.” - </p> -<p> -“But the freedom outbye, John, old hero! Last night we had the bravest of -fires; the sparks flew like birds among the Duke's birches, the ground was -snug and dry, and-” - </p> -<p> -“Begone! I tell ye no!” - </p> -<p> -“Listen! To-day we were among the white hares beyond the Beannan, -thwacking the big fat fellows with our clubs. Such sport was not in all -Albainn!” - </p> -<p> -“White hares!” - </p> -<p> -“White hares, old John! And Alasdair Beag has some new tunes since you -left us—a <i>piobaireachd</i> he picked up from a Mull man.” - </p> -<p> -“Would it be 'Failte an Roich '?” - </p> -<p> -“Better than that by far; a masterly tune! Come out and hear him.” - </p> -<p> -But Old Boboon leaned with his arms on the wall and made no move to be off -with his children. -</p> -<p> -“Come and stravaig,” said the girls, and his daughter Betty put a foot in -a cranny and pulled herself up beside him to put coaxing arms round his -neck. -</p> -<p> -“Calf of my heart!” said Boboon, stroking her hair, soft handed. -</p> -<p> -“We have the fine feeding,” said the girl in his ear. “Yesterday it was -plotted trout in the morning and tunnag's eggs; dinner was a collop off a -fat hind.” - </p> -<p> -“A grailoched hind?” - </p> -<p> -“No, nor grailoched! That is a fool's fashion and the spoiling of good -meat. But come with us, father. Think of the burns bubbling, and the stars -through the branches, and the fresh airs of the morning!” - </p> -<p> -“Down, down, you bitch! Would ye tempt me?” cried Boboon, pushing the girl -from the wall and hurrying back with shaking knees to the Latin stone. The -night was deep black, and for all he could tell by eyesight, he might have -been in the middle of breezy Moor Rannoch, but the town gables crowded -'thick and solid round his heart. He missed the free flowing winds; there -was a smell of peat and coal from dead house-fires, and he spat the dust -of lime from his throat. -</p> -<p> -Over the wall the clan scraped and skurried as weasels do. They dared make -no noise for fear the town should waken, but in hoarse voices they called -all together— -</p> -<p> -“Boboon, Boboon, oh! come home to the wood, Boboon!” - </p> -<p> -“Am not I the poor caged one?” said Boboon to himself, and he ran in that -he might hear no more. -</p> -<p> -It was the same the next night and the next, and it looked like going on -without end. Ever the wanderers coming at night to the wall and craving -their head to come out. And one night they threw over a winged black-cock, -that fell with beating feathers at Boboon's feet as he stood in the dark -listening to the swart Macdonalds whining outbye. -</p> -<p> -He picked up the bird and ran kind fingers through its feathers. The heat -coursed in its breast and burned to a fever in its wounded oxter. Its -little heart beat on Boboon's thumb like a drumstick. -</p> -<p> -“Poor bird!” said he; “well I ken where ye came from, and the merry times -ye had. Ye hatched in the braes of Ben Bhuidhe, and clucked on the reedy -places round about the side of that tall hill. Before your keen eyes in -the morning was the Dubh Loch, and the Shira—winding like a silver -belt. Sure am I ye took wing for it with the day, and over Stuc Scardan to -Aora Glen to make merry among your mates in the heather and the fern. Oh! -<i>choillich-dhuibh, choillich-dhuibh</i>, hard's our fate with broken -wings and the heart still strong!” - </p> -<p> -He thrawed the bird's neck, and then went over the wall to join his clan. -</p> -<p> -His second chance ended no better. He was back in a new kilt and jacket a -twelvemonth later, and this time the captain tried the trick of a dog's -freedom—oat on the road as he liked by day, but kennel at night. -</p> -<p> -One day Boboon was on his master's errand round Stron. It was the spring -of the year. The shore, at the half-ebb, was clean and sweet, and the tide -lapped at the edge as soft as a cat at milk. -</p> -<p> -Going round Stron on the hard yellow road, he got to think of the sea's -good fortune,—of the many bays it wandered into by night or day; of -its friendship with far-out forelands, and its brisk quarrels with the -black rocks. Here was no dyke at any time, but all freedom, the -restlessness and the roaming, sleep or song as the mood had it, and the -ploys with galleys and gabberts; the cheery halloo of the winds and the -waving of branches on foreign isles to welcome one. -</p> -<p> -The road opened before him in short swatches—the sort of road a -wanderer likes, with not too much of it to be seen at one look. In the -hazel-wood by the way the bark of the young trees glistened like brass; -thin new switches shot out straight as shelisters. -</p> -<p> -John Fine, with the sun heating his back, started at the singing of -Donnacha Ban's “Coire Cheathaich”:— -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“O 'twas gladsome to go a-hunting -Out in the dew of the sunny mom! -For the great red stag was never wanting, -Nor the fawn, nor the doe with never a horn. -My beauteous corri, my misty corri! -What light feet trod thee in joy and pride! -What strong hand gathered thy precious treasures, -What great hearts leaped on thy craggy side!” - </pre> -<p> -Rounding Dundarave, the road lay straight before him till it thinned in -the distance to a needle-point pricking the trees, and at the end of it -was a cloud of dust. -</p> -<p> -“What have I here?” said Boboon to himself, stretching out with long -steps, the kilt flapping against the back of his knees. -</p> -<p> -The cloud came close, and lo! here was his own clan on the march, draggled -and stoury, rambling, scattered like crows, along the road. -</p> -<p> -“Boboon! Boboon!” they cried, and they hung about him, fingering his fine -clothes. -</p> -<p> -He looked at their brown flesh, he saw the yellow soil in the crannies of -their brogues, the men loose and blackguardly, the women red-cheeked, -ripe, and big-breasted, with bold eyes, and all had enchantment for him! A -stir set up in his heart that he could not put down. -</p> -<p> -“Where were you yesterday?” he asked. -</p> -<p> -“On the side of the Rest in Glen Croe, with dry beds of white hay and no -hurry.” - </p> -<p> -“Where are you for?” - </p> -<p> -“Have you forgotten the wanderer's ways, Boboon? Where does this road go -to?” - </p> -<p> -“Well ye ken, my heroes! It goes to the end of a man's will. If the man' -says, 'I bide here,' it's the end of the road; but if he has the notion, -it will take him to the end of days. That, by my soul! is the charm of all -roads that are not in towns; and now that I think of it, let the captain -whistle on his errand, for I'm Boboon and sick of the causey stones.” - </p> -<p> -So night found Boboon and his clan far in at the back of Auchnabreac, -town-muir and bonny place, where some we ken would sooner be than -wandering o'er the world. -</p> -<p> -And the days passed, and at Martinmas the captain was at Kilmichael -Market, and he came on Boboon with his people on the edge of the -market-place. Boboon in those days was as straight as a young saugh-wand, -sharp and thin, all thong at the joints, and as supple as a wild cat. He -was giving a display with the <i>sgian-dubh</i>, stabbing it on the ground -at the back of his left heel and twisting his right arm round the leg to -get the blade out of the ground without bending the knee. It was a trick -to take the eye, but neither bardic nor soldierly, yet there was a throng -of drovers about him. Along with him was his daughter Betty, who took -after him for looks, but had her dead mother's dainty tongue, and from her -mother a little book-schooling John Fine had never the need of. -</p> -<p> -The eye of the captain fell on the two of them as they stood there, with -their forty clan-folk going about the market, and he was gripped by a new -notion to give Boboon the third and the last chance. -</p> -<p> -“Boboon!” he said, “come back to the town this once, and I'll put you and -your daughter up together in a house of your own.” - </p> -<p> -Before a week was out the thing was as he wanted. Boboon and Betty got a -room in Macvicar's Land, with a wooden floor, and a fire on the side of -the wall with a built-in chimney, and other gentilities beside. They -stayed for months, and they stayed for years, and the clan craved them in -vain to come home. Betty was put to the books and the arts of ladydom by -the captain's mother and sister, and she took to them like a Ridir's -daughter. She lost the twang of the road-folk; she put her errant hair in -leash; she grew to the habit of snodding and redding, until for grace and -good looks she was the match of them that taught her. -</p> -<p> -One day the captain, walking in his garden in deep cogitation, fell in the -way of the girl as she roamed among the bushes. He got for the first time -the true glance of her (for one may look at a person for years and not see -the reality till a scale falls from the eyes), and behold! here was a -woman who set his heart drumming. -</p> -<p> -It was that very night Boboon put an end to his last chance. -</p> -<p> -The strong sun of the day left the night hot and clammy, and a haze hung -on the country such as one sees in these parts in keenest frost. -Macvicar's Land was full of smells—of sweating flesh and dirty -water, of fish and the rotting airs of sunless holes—and the dainty -nose of Macdonald took a disgust. He flung open door and window, and -leaned out at the window with his neck bared and his mouth stretched wide -gasping to the air. The bairns in the back-land looked up and laughed. -</p> -<p> -“Look at Boboon, Boboon, Boboon, the father of Lady Betty!” they cried, -and John Fine shook his fist and cursed their families. -</p> -<p> -But there was no ease from the trouble in this fashion, so he got up and -went behind the town, and threw himself under the large trees with an ear -to the ground. Beside him the cattle crunched the sappy grass in so sweet -and hearty mouthfuls that he could well wish he had the taste of nature -himself, and they breathed great breaths of content. His keen ears could -catch the hopping of beasts on the grass and the scratching of claws in -the wood, he could hear the patter of little feet, and the birds above him -scraping on the bark when they turned in their sleep. A townman would -think the world slept, so great was the booming of quietness; but Boboon -heard the song of the night, the bustle of the half world that thrives in -shade and starshine. -</p> -<p> -Leaning now on an elbow, he let his eyes rove among the beeches, into the -bossy tops, solemn and sedate, and the deep recesses that might be full of -the little folk of fairy-land at their cantrips. And then farther back and -above all was Dunchuach the stately, lifting its face, wood-bearded, to -the stars! -</p> -<p> -“If a wind was here it was all I wanted,” said Boboon, and when he said it -the wind came—a salty air from the sea. The whole country-side -cooled and gave out fresh scents of grass and earth. -</p> -<p> -“O God! O God!” cried the wanderer, “here we are out-by, the beasts and -the birds and the best of Boboon together! Here is the place for ease and -the full heart.” - </p> -<p> -He up and ran into the town, and up to the captain's gate and in. -</p> -<p> -“Master,” he cried, 'it's the old story,—I must be taking the road -for it; here's no rest for John Fine Macdonald!” - </p> -<p> -“But you'll leave the girl,” said the captain, who saw the old fever in -the man's eyes; “I have taken a notion of her, and—” - </p> -<p> -“So be it! let her bide.” - </p> -<p> -“I'll marry her before the morn's out.” - </p> -<p> -“Marry!” cried Boboon, putting back his hair from his face with a nervous -hand. “You would marry a wanderer's child?” - </p> -<p> -“Well, they'll talk, no doubt; but she has gifts to make them forget, and -she's good enough to make a king's woman.” - </p> -<p> -“Sir,” said Boboon, “I have but one thing to say, and that's our own -Gaelic old-word, 'There are few lapdogs in a fox's litter.'” The captain's -face got as red as his vest, and he had a ready hand up for an answer to -Boboon, but he had mind the man was the girl's father. -</p> -<p> -“I'll risk it,” he said, “and you can go your wandering ways, for Betty is -willing.” - </p> -<p> -“No doubt, no doubt,” said Boboon, and he went. In the hollow of the night -he was hooting back like a boy at the hoolets on the slopes of -Coillevraid, and at the mouth of day, in a silver wet light, he was -standing on the edge of the hills that look on two lochs, his head high -like a scenting deer's. He turned him round about to all airts with his -eyes from Cruachan to Cowal, and as far between Knapdale and Lorn as a -wanderer has vision, and yonder, down at Kames, was the camp of his clan! -</p> -<p> -Betty his daughter left Macvicar's Land in the morning and went to be -captain's wife, with a seat in the kirk and callers from the castle -itself. -</p> -<p> -“Wait, wait,” said old Craignure, when the tale reached him, “you'll see -the fox come out on her ere long.” - </p> -<p> -But the fox was not there; it was skipping a day, as the fox will do -sometimes when the day before has been good hunting. All went well with -the woman till the worst that might have been the best happened, and she -died with her first child. It was the year of the stunted oats, that -brought poverty to Inneraora and black bread to the captain's board; but -black bread and brochan would have been the blithest of meat for him if -Betty was left to share it. He took to the bottle, and left the boy to -women who had no skill of wild youth. -</p> -<p> -And the child grew like a fir-tree, straight and tall, full of hot blood, -swung about by whim and the moment's fancy. For him it was ever the horse -and gun, a snatched dinner and hearty, and off to the wood or hill. He got -to know the inner ways of the beasts that hide in the coarse grasses and -the whin; at a whistle he could coax flapping birds to come to heel. A -loose vest and a naked neck for ever were marring his gentility, and his -closest friends were countrymen with hard hands and the loud ready laugh. -</p> -<p> -One day it came to the captain's mind that something must be made of this -young blade, and he sent for him. -</p> -<p> -“Boy,” said he, “are you at your books?” - </p> -<p> -“No, but—but I ken a short way with the badgers,” the lad made -answer. -</p> -<p> -“Did you have a lesson this morning?” - </p> -<p> -“Never a lesson,” said the lad; “I was too busy living.” - </p> -<p> -“Living, said ye?” - </p> -<p> -“Living. I was at the swimming at the Creags, and beaking in the sun on -the braes above the Garron beside the march wall where the hedgehogs -creep, and I am new from the shinty,” and he shook the shinty-stick in his -hand. -</p> -<p> -The captain took to pondering, his chin on his hand and his elbows on the -table, where a bottle and glass lay beside him. -</p> -<p> -After a bit he said, “Look ye, my son, what are ye meaning to be?” - </p> -<p> -“I'm for the sword-work,” the lad said, in a flash, his face twitching. -</p> -<p> -“I would sooner see you in hell first!” cried the captain, thumping the -board till the glass rang. He had seen foreign wars himself and had a hack -on the groin. -</p> -<p> -That was the first of the feud between them. They fought it dour and they -fought it hard, the father for the crafts of peace and the lad for his own -way, and at last one day the captain said— -</p> -<p> -“To the door, brat, and your lair with the Boboons you belong to! Faith, -and your grandfather was right when he said there was never a lapdog in a -fox's litter.” - </p> -<p> -Who he came of, the lad had no notion, for the swart Macdonalds never came -near the town after Boboon left it for the last time; but he put on his -bonnet, and went out of the house and on to the highroad. -</p> -<p> -It was well on to winter, a brawling day, with the leaves of the Duke's -trees swishing thick and high over the thatch and through the streets of -the Duke's town. Snug stood the gables, friendly and warm, and the -window-lozens winked with the light of big peat-fires within. Over the -breast the seabirds yelped and crows craked without a stop, stirring about -in the branches behind Macvicar's Land. And the salt wind! It blew in from -the low bay at one end of the town and through it to the other, and before -it went a lad into the wide world that starts at the factor's corner. -</p> -<p> -“By the shore-side to the low country, or by the woods to the hills?” the -lad asked himself. He had the <i>caman</i> still in his hand, and he -tossed it in the air. “Bas for the highway, <i>cas</i> for the low,” said -he. The shinty fell <i>bos</i>, and our hero took to it for the highway to -the north. He swithered at the Arches, and looked back on the front of the -town and the quay with the oil-lights on it. He was half in the humour to -bide, but he put the notion behind him and stretched to the brae, -whistling a piper's march. At the head of the brae the town houses were -lost to him, and this so soon he could not put up with, so he went down on -a way to the right a little and stood on the grass of the Winterton field. -</p> -<p> -Fast and dark the night was falling, a heavy smirr of rain was drooking -the grass, and the trees on every hand shook the water in blobs from the -branches. Through them the lights of the finest town in the world shone -damp and woe-begone. -</p> -<p> -“There are good folk in't, and bad folk in't,” said the lad to himself; -“but somehow 'twas never the place for me!” - </p> -<p> -He turned and went into the road through the wood, savage at heart, -without a thought of where his sleep would be. When he came to -Kennachregan, there was the scad of a fire above the trees beside the -roaring river, and he went down and looked over a march dyke at a band of -wanderers under the trees. Young and old, men and women, they lay steaming -on soft beds of springy spruce-branches with their toes to the crackling -logs, snoring as snore sound sleepers, sheltered from the rain by the -thick branches, the side of the hill, and here and there a canvas -covering. There was but one of them up—a long old man with lank jaws -and black eyes—John Fine Macdonald. He was stirring up the logs with -the shod of a crutch and humming a Perth song, and before the hottest of -the fire a plucked bird was roasting. -</p> -<p> -The smell of the meat and the wood-fire rose to the dykeside where the lad -stood shivering in his wet clothes, and the comfort of the camp was -something he could not pass by. -</p> -<p> -He took a jump over the dyke and went out in the light of the fire, -wondering what would be his welcome. Old Boboon looked up with his hand -over his eyes, then rose on his crutches and put a hand on the young -fellow's shoulder. -</p> -<p> -“You're from Inneraora town?” said he. -</p> -<p> -“I am,” said the lad; “but it's Inneraora no more for me.” - </p> -<p> -“Ho! ho!” laughed the old wanderer. “Sit ye down, ye scamp, and take your -fingers to a pick of your grandfather's hen. Boboon's children may be slow -and far, but home's aye home to them!” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -THE FELL SERGEANT. -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T is ill enough to have to die in Glenaora at any season, but to get the -word for travelling from it on yon trip in the spring of the year is hard -indeed. The gug-gug will halloo in your ears to bid you bide a wee and see -the red of the heather creep on Tom-an-dearc; the soft and sap-scented -winds will come in at the open door, and you will mind, maybe, of a day -long-off and lost when you pulled the copper leaves of the bursting oak -and tossed them among a girl's hair. Oh! the long days and the strong -days! They will come back to you like the curious bit in a tune that is -vexatious and sweet, and not for words or a set thought. You will think of -the lambs on the slopes, of the birds tearing through the thousand ways in -the woods, of the magic hollows in below the thick-sown pines, of the -burns, deep at the bottom of <i>eas</i> and corri, spilling like gold on a -stair. And then, it may be, Solomon Carrier's cart goes by to the town, -the first time since the drifts went off the high road; you hear the -clatter of the iron shoes, and your mind will go with him to the throng -street where the folks are so kind and so free. -</p> -<p> -But to turn your back for the last at that time on Lecknamban must come -sorest of all. For Lecknamban has seven sheilings hidden in its hills, -where the grass is long and juicy, and five burns that are aye on the -giggle like girls at a wedding, and the Aora daunders down in front of the -knowe, full of fish for the Duke alone, but bonny for earl or caird. -</p> -<p> -It was in this same glen, in this same Lecknamban, in the spring of a -year, a woman was at her end. She was a woman up in years but not old, a -black Bana-Mhuileach who had seen pleasant things and trials like all who -come to this queer market-place; but now when the time was come to take -the long road with no convoy, only the good times were in her -recollection. And though Glenaora was not her calf-country (for she came -but a year ago to bide with a friend), she was swear't to turn heel on a -place so cosy. -</p> -<p> -She sat propped up in a box-bed, on pillows, with her face to the open -door, and the friendly airs of the country-side came in to stir her hair. -With them came scents of the red earth and the grass, birch-tree and -myrtle, from the moor. But more than all they brought her who was at her -end a keen craving for one more summer of the grand world. Strong in her -make and dour at the giving-in, she kept talking of the world's affairs -and foolishness to the folk about her who were waiting the Almighty's will -and the coming of the stretching-board. Her fingers picked without a stop -at the woolly bits of the blankets, and her eyes were on as much of the -knowe below the house as she could see out at the open door. It was yellow -at the foot with flowers, and here and there was a spot of blue from the -cuckoo-brogue. -</p> -<p> -“Women, women,” she said with short breaths, “I'm thinking aye, when I see -the flowers, of a man that came from these parts to Duart. He sang 'Mo -Nighean Dubh' in a style was never heard before in our place, and he once -brought me the scented cuckoo-brogues from Aora.” - </p> -<p> -Said the goodwife, “Aoirig, poor woman, it is not the hour for ancient old -<i>sgeuls</i>; be thinking of a canny going.” - </p> -<p> -“Going! it was aye going with me,” said the woman in the bed. “And it was -aye going when things were at their best and I was the keener for them.” - </p> -<p> -“It's the way of God, my dear, <i>ochanie!</i>” said one of the two -Tullich sisters, putting a little salt in a plate for-the coming business. -</p> -<p> -“O God! it's the hard way, indeed. And I'm not so old as you by two or -three clippings.” - </p> -<p> -“Peace, Aoirig, heart; you had your own merry times, and that's as much as -most of us have claim to.” - </p> -<p> -“Merry times! merry times!” said Aoirig, humped among the bedding, her -mind wandering. -</p> -<p> -Curls of the peat-reek coiled from the floor among the <i>cabars</i> or -through the hole in the roof; a lamb ran by the door bleating for its -mother, and the whistling of an <i>uiseag</i> high over the grass where -his nest lay ran out to a thin thread of song. The sound of it troubled -the dying woman, and she asked her friends to shut the door. Now and again -Maisie would put a wet cloth to her lips and dry the death-sweat from her -face. The goodwife was throng among chests and presses looking for sheets, -shrouds, and dead-caps. -</p> -<p> -“It's a pity,” said she, “you brought no grave-clothes with you from Mull, -my dear.” - </p> -<p> -“Are you grudging me yours?” asked Aoirig, coming round from wandering. -</p> -<p> -“No, nor grudging; fine ye ken it, cousin. But I know ye have them, and -it's a pity you should be dressed in another's spinning than your own.” - </p> -<p> -“Ay, they're yonder sure enough: clean and ready. And there's more than -that beside them. The linen I should have brought to a man's home.” - </p> -<p> -“You and your man's home! Is it Duart, my dear, among your own folk, or -down to Inishail, you would have us take you?” Aoirig coughed till the red -froth was at her lips. -</p> -<p> -“Duart is homely and Inishail is holy, sure enough, but I would have it -Kilmalieu. They tell me it's a fine kirkyard; but I never had the luck to -see it.” - </p> -<p> -“It's well enough, I'll not deny, and it would not be so far to take you. -Our folk have a space of their own among the MacVicars, below the parson.” - </p> -<p> -The woman in the bed signed for a sip of water, and they had it fast at -her lips. -</p> -<p> -“Could you be putting me near the Macnicols?” she asked in a weakening -voice. “The one I speak of was a Macnicol.” - </p> -<p> -“Ay, ay,” said the goodwife; “they were aye gallant among the girls.” - </p> -<p> -“Gallant he was,” said the one among the blankets. “I see him now. The -best man ever I saw. It was at a wedding——” - </p> -<p> -The woman's breast racked and the spume spattered over the home-spun -blankets. -</p> -<p> -Maisie was heating a death-shift at the peat-fire, turning it over in her -hands, letting the dry airs into every seam and corner. -</p> -<p> -Looking at her preparation, the dying woman caught back her breath to ask -why such trouble with a dead-shift. -</p> -<p> -“Ye would not have it on damp and cold,” said Maisie, settling the -business. “I doubt it'll be long in the sleeves, woman, for the goodwife -has a lengthy reach.” - </p> -<p> -“It was at a marriage in Glenurchy,” said Aoirig in a haver, the pillows -slipping down behind her back. “Yonder he is. A slim straight lad. Ronnal, -O Ronnal my hero! What a dancer! not his match in Mull. Aye so——” - </p> -<p> -A foot could be heard on the road, and one of the two sisters ran out, for -she knew whom it would be. They had sent word to the town by Solomon in -the morning for Macnicol the wright to come up with the stretching-board, -thinking there was but an hour more for poor Macnicol's were the -footsteps, and there he was with the stretching-board under his arm—a -good piece of larch rubbed smooth by sheet and shroud, and a little hollow -worn at the head. He was a fat man, rolling a bit to one side on a short -leg, gross and flabby at the jowl, and thick-lipped; but he might have -been a swanky lad in his day, and there was a bit of good-humour in the -corner of his eye, where you will never see it when one has been born with -the uneasy mind. He was humming to himself as he came up the brae a -Badenoch ditty they have in these parts on the winter nights, gossiping -round the fire. Whom he was going to stretch he had no notion, except that -it was a woman and a stranger to the glen. -</p> -<p> -The sister took him round to the corner of the house and in at the byre -door, and told him to wait. “It'll not be long now,” she said. -</p> -<p> -“Then she's still to the fore,” said the wright. “I might have waited on -the paymaster's dram at Three Bridges if I had ken't. Women are aye thrawn -about dying. They'll put it off to the last, when a man would be glad to -be taking the road. Who is she, poor woman?” - </p> -<p> -“A cousin-german of Nanny's,” said the sister, putting a bottle before -him, and whipping out for some bannock and cheese. He sat down on a -shearing-stool, facing the door, half open, between the byre he was in and -the kitchen where Aoirig was at the dying. The stretching-board leaned -against the wall outside. -</p> -<p> -“Aye so gentle, so kind,” the woman in the bed was saying in her last -dover. “He kissed me first on a day like this. And the blue flowers from -Aora?” - </p> -<p> -In the byre the wright was preeing the drink and paying little heed to -food. It was the good warm stuff they brew on the side of Lochow, the -heart of the very heart of the barley-fields, with the taste of gall and -peat, and he mellowed with every quaich, and took to the soft lilting of -Niall Ban's song:— -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“'I am the Sergeant fell but kind -(Ho! ho! heroes, agus ho-e-ro! ); -I only lift but the deaf and blind, -The wearied-out and the rest-inclined. -Many a booty I drive before, -Through the glens, through the glens.' -said the Sergeant Mor.” - </pre> -<p> -Ben the house the goodwife was saying the prayers for the dying woman the -woman should have said for herself while she had the wind for it, but -Aoirig harped on her love-tale. She was going fast, and the sisters, -putting their hands to her feet, could feel that they were cold as the -rocks. Maisie's arms were round her, and she seemed to have the notion -that here was the grip of death, for she pushed her back. -</p> -<p> -“I am not so old—so old. There is Seana, my neighbour at Duart—long -past the fourscore and still spinning—I am not so old—God of -grace—so old—and the flowers——” - </p> -<p> -A grey shiver went over her face; her breast heaved and fell in; her voice -stopped with a gluck in the throat. -</p> -<p> -The women stirred round fast in the kitchen. Out on the clay floor the two -sisters pushed the table and laid a sheet on it, the goodwife put aside -the pillows and let Aoirig's head fall back on the bed. Maisie put her -hand to the clock and stopped it. -</p> -<p> -“Open the door, open the door!” cried the goodwife, turning round in a -hurry and seeing the door still shut. -</p> -<p> -One of the sisters put a finger below the sneck and did as she was told, -to let out the dead one's ghost. -</p> -<p> -Outside, taking the air, to get the stir of the strong waters out of his -head, was the wright. -</p> -<p> -He knew what the opening of the door meant, and he lifted his board and -went in with it under his arm. A wafting of the spring smells came in at -his back, and he stood with his bonnet in his hand. -</p> -<p> -“So this is the end o't?” he said in a soft way, stamping out the fire on -the floor. -</p> -<p> -He had but said it when Eurig sat up with a start in the bed, and the -women cried out. She opened her eyes and looked at the man, with his fat -face, his round back, and ill-made clothes, and the death-deal under his -oxter, and then she fell back on the bed with her face stiffening. -</p> -<p> -“Here's the board for ye,” said the wright, his face spotted white and his -eyes staring. “I'll go out a bit and take a look about me. I once knew a -woman who was terribly like you, and she came from Mull.” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -BLACK MURDO -</h2> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“Mas breug uam e is breug thugam e.” - -—Gaelic Proverb. -</pre> -<h3> -I. -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>LACK MURDO'S wife was heavy, and 'twas the time the little brown nats -were pattering in Stronbuie wood. Stronbuie spreads out its greenness to -the sun from the slope of Cladich. It is, in its season, full of the -piping of birds and the hurry of wings, and the winds of it have the smell -of a fat soil. The Diarmaids were the cunning folk to steal it; for if -Stronshira is good, Stronbuie is better; and though the loops of Aora -tangle themselves in the gardens of the Red Duke, Lochow has enchantment -for the galley of a king. Fraoch Eilean, Innis Chonell, and Innis Chonain—they -cluster on the bend of it like the gems on a brooch, Inishail of the Monks -makes it holy, and Cruachan-ben, who lords it over Lorn, keeps the cold -north wind from the shore. They may talk of Glenaora, but Stronbuie comes -close, close to the heart! -</p> -<p> -For all that, 'twas on a time a poor enough place for a woman in yon -plight; for the rest of the clan crowded down on Innistiynich, all -fighters and coarse men of the sword, and a skilly woman or a -stretching-board was no nearer than a day's tramp over the hill and down -Aora glen to the walls of Inneraora. If one died on Cladich-side then—and -'twas a dying time, for the Athol dogs were for ever at the harrying—it -was but a rough burying, with no corranach and no mort-cloth; if a child -came, it found but cold water and a cold world, whatever hearts might be. -But for seven years no child came for Black Murdo. -</p> -<p> -They say, in the Gaelic old-word, that a stolen bitch will never throw -clean pups nor a home-sick woman giants. Murdo recked nothing of that when -he went wooing in a time of truce to Croit-bhile, the honey-croft that -makes a red patch on the edge of Creag Dubh. He brought Silis home to the -dull place at Stronbuie, and she baked his bannocks and ploughed his bit -of soil, but her heart never left salt Finne-side. In the morning she -would go to the hill to look through the blurred glen, and she would have -made bargains with the ugliest crow that could flap on feathers for a -day's use of his wings. She could have walked it right often and gaily to -her people's place, but Black Murdo was of Clan Artair, and Artairich had -not yet come under the <i>bratach</i> of Diarmaid, and bloody knives made -a march-dyke between the two tartans. -</p> -<p> -Seven years and seven days went by, and Black Murdo, coming in on an -evening after a hard day at the deer, found Silis making the curious wee -clothes. He looked at her keen, questioning, and she bleached to the lips. -</p> -<p> -“So!” said he. -</p> -<p> -“Just so,” said she, breaking a thread with her teeth, and bending till -the peat-flame dyed her neck like wine. -</p> -<p> -“God, and I'm the stout fellow!” said he, and out he went, down all the -way to Portinsherrich, and lusty he was with the ale among the pretty men -there. -</p> -<p> -Weeks chased each other like sheep in a fank, and Silis grew sick at the -heart. There's a time for a woman when the word of a woman is sweeter than -a harp; but there were only foolish girls at Innistrynich, and coarse men -of the sword. So Murdo stayed in from the roes when the time crept close. -To see him do the heavy work of the house and carrying in the peats was a -sorry sight. -</p> -<p> -Silis kept dreaming of Finne-side, where she had heard the long wave in -the spring of the year when she had gone home on a password to a woman's -wedding with Long Coll. The same Long Coll had brothers, and one had put a -man's foolish sayings in her ears before ever she met Murdo, she a thin -girl like a saugh-wand and not eighteen till Beltane. They called him—no -matter—and he had the way with the women. Faith, it's the strange -art! It is not looks, nor dancing, nor the good heart, nor wit, but some -soft fire of the eye and maybe a song to the bargain. Whatever it was, it -had Silis, for all that her goodman Murdo had a man's qualities and -honesty extra. -</p> -<p> -They say, “<i>Cnuic is sluic is Alpeinich, ach cuin a thàinig Artharaich?</i>”(1) -in the by-word; but Artharaich had age enough for a <i>taibhsear</i> -whatever, for Black Murdo had the Sight. -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -1 The hills and hollows and Clan Alpine came together, but -when arose Clan Artair? -</pre> -<p> -It's the curious thing to say of a man with all his parts that he should -be <i>taibhsear</i> and see visions; for a <i>taibhsear</i>, by all the -laws, should be an old fellow with little use for swords or shinny-sticks. -But Murdo missed being a full taibhsear by an ell, so the fit had him -seldom. He was the seventh son of a mother who died with the brand of a -cross on her brow, and she was kin to the Glenurchy Woman. And something -crept over him with the days, that put a mist in his eyes when he looked -at Silis; but “I'm no real <i>taibhsear</i>,” he said to himself, “and I -swear by the black stones it is no cloth. A man with all the Gift might -call it a shroud high on her breast, but——” - </p> -<p> -“Silis, <i>a bhean!</i> shall it be the Skilly Dame of Inneraora?” - </p> -<p> -A light leaped to the woman's eyes, for the very thing was in her mind. -</p> -<p> -“If it could be,” she said, slowly; “but it's not easy to get her, for -black's your name on Aoraside.” - </p> -<p> -“Black or white, Murdo stands in his own shoes. He has been at the gate of -Inneraora when Strong Colin the warder had little thought of it.” - </p> -<p> -“Then, oh heart! it must be soon—tomorrow—but——” - </p> -<p> -The mouth of day found Silis worse, and Murdo on his way to Inneraora. -</p> -<p> -He stepped it down Glenaora like Coll Mor in the story, or the man with -the fairy shoes. A cloud was over Tullich and a wet wind whistled on -Kennachregan. The man's target played dunt on his back, so hasty was he, -for all that the outposts of Big Colin had hawk's eyes on the pass. He had -got the length of Alt Shelechan when a Diarmaid came out on him from the -bracken with a curse on his mouth. He was a big Diarmaid, high-breasted -and stark, for there's no denying there was breed in the pigs. -</p> -<p> -“Ho, ho, lad!” said he, crousely, “it's risking it you are this day!” - </p> -<p> -Black Murdo's hands went to his sides, where a ready man's should ready -be; but he had sight of Silis. He could see her in Stronbuie in the bothy, -on the wee creepy-stool beside the peats, and he knew she was saying the -Wise Woman's Wish that Diarmaid mothers have so often need of. Length is -length, and it's a far cry to Lochow sure enough; but even half a <i>taibhsear</i> -takes no count of miles and time. -</p> -<p> -He spoke softly. “I go to Inneraora for the Skilly Woman. My wife is a -daughter of your folks, and she'll have none but the dame who brought -herself home.” - </p> -<p> -“Death or life?” asked the Diarmaid, a freckled hand still on the -basket-hilt. He put the question roughly, for nobody likes to lose a ploy. -</p> -<p> -“Life it is, my lad. It's not to dress corpses but to wash weans she's -wanted.” - </p> -<p> -“Ho-chutt!” went the blade back against the brass of the scabbard (for he -was <i>duin-uasal</i> who carried it), and the man's face changed. -</p> -<p> -“Pass!” he said. “I would not stand in a bairn's way to life. Had it been -shrouds instead of sweelers, we could have had it out, for a corpse is in -no great hurry. But troth it's yourself is the tight one, and I would have -liked a bit of the old game.” - </p> -<p> -“No more than Murdo, red fellow!” - </p> -<p> -“Murdo! So be't; yet Murdo will give me his dirk for gate-pay, or they'll -be saying farther down that Calum, as good a man, kept out of his way.” - </p> -<p> -The <i>biodag</i> went flying into the grass at Calum's feet, and Murdo -went leaping down the glen. It was like stalking deer for the Diarmaids. -Here and there he had to go into the river or among the hazel-switches, or -crawl on his stomach among the gall. -</p> -<p> -From Kilmune to Uchdan-barracaldine the red fellows were passing, or -playing with the <i>clachneart</i> or the <i>cabar,</i> or watching their -women toiling in the little fields. -</p> -<p> -“Thorns in their sides!” he said to himself, furious at last, when another -keen-eyed Diarmaid caught sight of his tartan and his black beard among -some whins. It was a stripling with only a dirk, but he could gather fifty -men on the crook of his finger. -</p> -<p> -“Stand!” cried the Diarmaid, flashing the dirk out. “What want ye so far -over this way?” - </p> -<p> -Murdo, even in the rage, saw Silis, a limp creature, sweating in her -pains, her black eyes (like the sloe) keen on the door. So close, so sure, -so sorrowful! He could have touched her on the shoulder and whispered in -her ear. -</p> -<p> -“I am Black Murdo,” he told the lad. “I am for Inneraora for the Skilly -Woman for my wife, child of your own clan.” - </p> -<p> -“Death or life?” - </p> -<p> -“Life.” - </p> -<p> -“'Tis a bonny targe ye have, man; it might be doing for toll.” - </p> -<p> -The lad got it, and Murdo went on his way. He found the Skilly Woman, who -put before him sour milk and brose. But he would not have drink or sup, so -back through the Diarmaids they went without question (for the woman's -trade was as good as the chief's convoy), till they came to Tom-an-dearc. -Out upon them there a fellow red and pretty. -</p> -<p> -“Hold!” he said, as if it had been dogs. “What's the name of ye, black -fellow?” Murdo cursed in his beard. “My name's honest man, but I have not -time to prove it.” - </p> -<p> -“Troth that's a pity. But seeing there's the <i>caüleach</i> with you, you -must e'en go your way. There's aye some of you folk on the -stretching-board. Ye want heart, and ye die with a flaff of wind. Lend me -your sword, <i>'ille!</i>'' -</p> -<p> -“Squint-mouth!” cried Murdo, “your greedy clan took too much off me this -day already for me to part with the sweetest blade Gow-an-aora ever beat -on iron. I took it from one of your cowards at Carnus, and if it's back it -goes, it's not with my will.” - </p> -<p> -“Then it's the better man must have it,” said the red fellow, and, Lord, -he was the neat-built one! They took off their coats, and for lack of -bucklers rolled them round their arms, both calm and canny. The Diarmaid -was first ready with his brand out, and Murdo put to his point. For a -little the two men stood, spread out, hard-drawn behind the knees, with -the cords of the neck like thongs, then at it with a clatter of steel. -</p> -<p> -The Skilly Woman, with the plaid pulled tight over her grey hair, sat with -sunk eyes on a stone and waited without wonder. She had sons who had died -in brawls at Kilmichael market, or in the long foray far in Kintail; and -her man, foster-brother to a chief, got death in the strange foreign wars, -where the pay was not hide and horn but round gold. -</p> -<p> -A smoky soft smirr of rain filled all the gap between the hills, though -Sithean Sluaidhe and Dunchuach had tips of brass from a sun dropping -behind the Salachary hills. The grass and the gall lost their glitter and -became grey and dull; the hill of Lecknamban, where five burns are born, -coaxed the mist down on its breast like a lover. It was wet, wet, but -never a drop made a rush bend or a leaf fall. Below the foot the ground -was greasy, as it is in a fold at the dippingtime; but the two men pulled -themselves up with a leap on it as if it might be dry sand, and the -brogues made no error on the soil. -</p> -<p> -First the Diarmaid pressed, for he had it over the other man in youth, and -youth is but tame when it's slow or slack. Murdo waited, all eyes that -never blinked, with the basket well up, and kept on his toes. “Splank, -sp-ll-ank, sp-ll-ank—<i>siod e</i>!” said the blades, and the -Diarmaid's for a time made the most of the music, but he never got inside -the black fellow's guard. Then Murdo took up the story with a snap of the -teeth, skelping hard at the red one till the hands dirled in the basket -like a bag of pins. The smirr gathered thicker, and went to rain that fell -solid, the brogues grew like steeped bladders on the feet, a scatter of -crows made a noisy homing to the trees at Tullich, and Aora gobbled like -swine in a baron's trough. -</p> -<p> -“Haste ye, heroes,” said the old woman, cowering on the wet stone; “haste -ye, dears; it's mighty long ye are about it.” - </p> -<p> -The Diarmaid turned the edge twice on the coated arm, and Murdo wasted his -wind to curse. Then he gave the stroke that's worth fifty head of kyloes -(fine they know that same all below Cladichl), and a red seam jumped to -the Diarmaid's face. All his heart went to stiffen his slacking heavy arm, -and he poured on Murdo till Murdo felt it like a rain of spears. One hot -wandering stroke he got on the bonnet, and for want of the bowl of brose -at Inneraora, the wind that should go to help him went inside, and turned -his stomach. Sweat, hot and salt, stung his eyes, his ears filled with a -great booming, he fell in a weary dream of a far-off fight on a witched -shore, with the waves rolling, and some one else at the fencing, and -caring nought, but holding guard with the best blade Gow-an-aora ever took -from flame. Back stepped the Diarmaid, sudden, and sweep went his steel at -the shaking knees. -</p> -<p> -A bairn's cry struck Murdo's ear through the booming and sent him full -awake. He drew back the stretched foot fast, and round the red one's sword -hissed through air. “Foil! foil!” said Murdo, and he slashed him on the -groin. -</p> -<p> -“That'll do, man; no more,” said the Skilly Woman, quickly, -</p> -<p> -“I may as well finish him; it's lame he'll be all his days any way, and -little use is a man with a halt in a healthy clan.” - </p> -<p> -“Halt or no halt, let him be; he's my second cousin's son.” - </p> -<p> -Murdo looked for a bit at the bloody thing before him, but the woman -craved again with bony fingers on his wrist; so he spat on the dirty green -tartan and went. The smoke rose from him and hung about with a smell of -wearied flesh, the grey of the mist was black at Carnus. When the pair -came over against Lochow, where one can see the holy isle when it is day, -the night was deep and cold; but the woman bent at the cross with a “<i>Mhoire -Mhathair</i>,” and so did the man, picking the clotted blood from his ear. -They dropped down the brae on the house at last. -</p> -<p> -For a little Black Murdo's finger hung on the sneck, and when he heard a -sound he pushed in the door. -</p> -<p> -All about the house the peat-reek swung like mist on the mountain. Wind -and rain fought it out on Cladich brae, and when it was not the wind that -came bold through the smoke-hole in the roof, 'twas the rain, a beady -slant that hissed on the peats like roasting herrings. The woman lay slack -on the bed, her eyes glossed over with the glass that folks see the great -sights through, and her fingers making love over the face and breast of a -new-born boy that cried thinly at her knees. A lighted cruisie spluttered -with heavy smell at the end of a string on a rafter. -</p> -<p> -“O Skilly Woman, Skilly Woman, it's late we are,” said Black Murdo. -</p> -<p> -“Late enough, as ye say, just man. Had ye bartered an old sword for twenty -minutes on the Tom-an-dearc, I was here before danger.” - </p> -<p> -Then the Skilly Woman set him on the wet windy side of the door, and went -about with busy hands. -</p> -<p> -The man, with the ragged edge of his kilt scraping his knees and the rain -bubbling in his brogues, leaned against the wattled door and smeared the -blood from his brow. A cold wind gulped down from Glenurchy and ghosts -were over Inishail. The blast whirled about and whirled about, and swung -the rowan like a fern, and whistled in the gall, and tore the thatch, all -to drown a child's cry. The blackness crowded close round like a wall, and -flapped above like a plaid—Stronbuie was in a tent and out of the -world. Murdo strained to hear a voice, but the wind had the better of him. -He went round to the gable, thinking to listen at the window, but the -board on the inside shut the wind and him out. The strange emptiness of -grief was in his belly. -</p> -<p> -Inside, the Skilly One went like a witch, beak-nosed and half-blind. There -was clatter of pans and the dash of water, the greeting of the child and -the moan of the mother. What else is no man's business. For all she was -skilly the old dame had no thought of the woman sinking. -</p> -<p> -“You'll have blithe-meat in the morning,” she said, cheerily, from the -fireside. -</p> -<p> -Silis made worse moan than before. -</p> -<p> -“Such a boy, white love! And hair like the copper! His hide is mottled -like a trout's back; calf of my heart!” - </p> -<p> -Silis, on her side, put out white craving arms. “Give it to me, wife; give -it to me.” - </p> -<p> -“Wheesht! rest ye, dear, rest ye,” said the Skilly Dame. -</p> -<p> -But she put the bairn in its mother's arms. Silis, when she had it on her -breast, sobbed till the bed shook. -</p> -<p> -“Is not he the hero, darling?” said the Skilly Woman. “It's easy seen he's -off Clan Diarmaid on one side, for all that yoar hair is black as the -sloe. Look at the colour of him!” - </p> -<p> -Fright was in the mother's face. “Come close, come close till I tell you,” - she said, her long hair damp on her milky shoulders. -</p> -<p> -The Skilly Woman put down her head and listened with wonder. -</p> -<p> -“Me-the-day! Was I not the blind one to miss it? His name, white love? No -one shall ken it from me, not even Murdo.” - </p> -<p> -A man's name took up the last breath of Silis; she gave a little shiver, -and choked with a sound that the old crone had heard too often not to -know. -</p> -<p> -She looked, helpless, for a little at the bed, then felt the mother's -feet. They were as cold as stone. -</p> -<p> -A cry caught Murdo's ear against the wattles, and he drove in the door -with his shoulder, heeding no sneck nor bar. -</p> -<p> -“Am not I the blind fool?” said the crone. -</p> -<p> -“There's your wife gone, cheap enough at the price of a yard of steel.” - </p> -<p> -They stood and looked at the bed together, the bairn crying without -notice. -</p> -<p> -“I knew it,” said the man, heaving; “<i>taibhsear</i> half or whole, I -could see the shroud on her neck!” - </p> -<p> -The grey light was drifting in from Cladich. The fir-trees put stretched -fingers up against the day, and Murdo was placing a platter of salt on a -bosom as cold and as white as the snow. -</p> -<p> -“You're feeding him on the wrong cloth,” said he, seeing the crone give -suck to the child from a rag of Diarmaid tartan dipped in goat's milk. -</p> -<h3> -II. -</h3> -<p> -The boy grew like a tree in a dream, that is seed, sapling, and giant in -one turn on the side. Stronbuie's wattled bothy, old and ugly, quivered -with his laughing, and the young heather crept closer round the door. The -Spotted Death filled Inishail with the well-fed and the warm-happed; but -the little one, wild on the brae, forgotten, sucking the whey from rags -and robbing the bush of its berries, gathered sap and sinew like the child -of kings. It is the shrewd way of God! There was bloody enough work forby, -for never a sheiling passed but the brosey folks came pouring down -Glenstrae, scythe, sword, and spear, and went back with the cattle before -them, and redness and smoke behind. But no raider put hand on Black Murdo, -for now he was <i>taibhsear</i> indeed, and the <i>taibhsear</i> has magic -against dub or steel. How he became <i>taibhsear</i> who can be telling? -When he buried Silis out on the isle, his heart grew heavy, gloom seized -him, the cut of the Diarmaid's sword gave a quirk to his brain that -spoiled him for the world's use. He took to the hills no more in sport, he -carried Gow-an-aora's sword no more in battle, for all that it cost him so -dear. A poor man's rig was his at the harvest because of his Gift, and the -cailzie cock or the salmon never refused his lure. -</p> -<p> -Skill of the daymore, the seven cuts, and yon ready slash worth fifty head -of kyloes, he gave to the boy, and then the quick cunning parry, and the -use of the foot and knee that makes half a swordsman. -</p> -<p> -But never a spot of crimson would he have on Rory's steel. -</p> -<p> -“First dip in the blood of the man with the halt, and then farewell to -ye!” he said, wearying for the day when the boy should avenge his mother. -</p> -<p> -Folks—far-wandered ones—brought him news of the man with the -halt that was his giving, the Diarmaid whose bargain for a sword on -Tom-an-dearc cost Silis her life. He passed it on to the boy, and he -filled him with old men's tales. He weaved the cunning stories of the pigs -of Inneraora, for all that the boy's mother came from their loins, and he -made them—what there may well be doubts of—cowards and weak. -</p> -<p> -“They killed your mother, Rory: her with the eyes like the sloe and the -neck like snow. Swear by the Holy Iron that the man with the halt we ken -of gets his pay for it.” - </p> -<p> -Rory swore on the iron. It is an easy thing for one when the blood is -strong and the <i>biodag</i> still untried. He lay awake at night, -thinking of his mother's murderer till the sweat poured. He would have -been on the track of him before ever he had won his man's bonnet by -lifting the <i>clach-cuid-fear</i>, but Murdo said, “Let us be sure. You -are young yet, and I have one other trick of fencing worth while biding -for.” - </p> -<p> -At last, upon a time, Murdo found the boy could match himself, and he -said, “Now let us to this affair.” - </p> -<p> -He took the boy, as it were, by the hand, and they ran up the hills and -down the hills, and through the wet glens, to wherever a Diarmaid might -be; and where were they not where strokes were going? The hoodie-crow was -no surer on the scent of war. Blar-na-leine took them over the six valleys -and the six mountains; Cowal saw them on the day the Lamonts got their -bellyful; a knock came on them on the night when the Stewarts took their -best from Appin and flung themselves on Inneraora, and they went out -without a word and marched with that high race. -</p> -<p> -But luck was with the man with the halt they sought for. At muster for -raid, or at market, he was there, swank man and pretty but for the -lameness he had found on an ill day on Tom-an-dearc. He sang songs round -the ale with the sweetness of the bird, and his stories came ready enough -off the tongue. Black Murdo and the boy were often close enough on his -heel, but he was off and away like the corp-candle before they were any -nigher. If he had magic, it could have happened no stranger. -</p> -<p> -Once, a caird who went round the world with the jingle of cans on his back -and a sheaf of withies in his oxter, told them that a lame Diarmaid was -bragging at Kilmichael fair that he would play single-stick for three days -against the country-side. They sped down to Ford, and over the way; but -nothing came of it, for the second day had found no one to come to the -challenge, and the man with the halt was home again. -</p> -<p> -Black Murdo grew sick of the chase, and the cub too tired of it. For his -father's fancy he was losing the good times—many a fine exploit -among the Atholmen and the brosey folks of Glenstrae; and when he went -down to Innistrynich to see the lads go out with belt and plaid, he would -give gold to be with them. -</p> -<p> -One day, “I have dreamed a dream,” said Murdo, “Our time is come: what we -want will be on the edge of the sea, and it will be the third man after -dawn. Come, son, let us make for Inneraora.” - </p> -<p> -Inneraora lies now between the bays, sleeping day and night, for the old -times are forgot and the nettle's on Dunchuach. Before the plaid of -MacCailein Mor was spread from Cowal to Cruachan, it was the stirring -place; high and dry on the bank of Slochd-a-chubair, and the dogs -themselves fed on buck-flesh from the mountains, so rowth the times! One -we ken of has a right to this place or that place yonder that shall not be -named, and should hold his head as high on Aora as any chief of the boar's -snout; but <i>mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!</i> the black bed of Macartair is -in the Castle itself, and Macartair is without soil or shield. How -Diarmaid got the old place is a sennachie's tale. “As much of the land as -a heifer's hide will cover,” said the foolish writing, and MacCailein had -the guile to make the place his own. He cut the hide of a long-backed -heifer into thin thongs, and stretched it round Stronbuie. There is day -about to be seen with his race for that! Over to Inneraora then went -Murdo, and Rory clad for fighting, bearing with him the keen old sword. -'Twas a different time going down the glen then from what it was on the -misty day Murdo fetched the Skilly Dame; for the Diarmaids he met by the -way said, “'Tis the Lochow <i>taibhsear</i> and his tail,” and let them by -without a word, or maybe with a salute. They went to the Skilly Dame's -house, and she gave them the Gael's welcome, with bannocks and crowdie, <i>marag-dkubh</i> -and ale. But she asked them not their business, for that is the way of the -churl. She made them soft-scented beds of white hay in a dirty black -corner, where they slept till cockcrow with sweet weariness in their -bones. -</p> -<p> -The morning was a grey day with frost and snow. Jumping John's bay below -the house was asleep with a soft smoke like a blanket over it. Lean deer -from behind the wood came down trotting along the shore, sniffing the -saltness, and wondering where the meat was. With luck and a good <i>sgian-dubh</i> -a quick lad could do some gralloching. The tide was far out from Ard -Rannoch to the Gallows-tree, and first there was the brown wrack, and then -there was the dun sand, and on the edge of the sand a bird went stalking. -The old man and the young one stood at the gable and looked at it all. -</p> -<p> -It was a short cut from below the castle to the point of Ard Rannoch, if -the tide was out, to go over the sand. “What we wait on,” said Murdo, -softly, “goes across there. There will be two men, and them ye shall not -heed, but the third is him ye ken of. Ye'll trap him between the whin-bush -and the sea, and there can be no escaping unless he takes to the swimming -for it.” - </p> -<p> -Rory plucked his belts tight, took out the good blade wondrous quiet, -breathing fast and heavy. The rich blood raced up his back, and tingled -hot against his ruddy neck. -</p> -<p> -“What seest thou, my son?” said Murdo at last. -</p> -<p> -“A man with a quick step and no limp,” quoth the lad. -</p> -<p> -“Let him pass.” - </p> -<p> -Then again said the old man, “What seest thou?” - </p> -<p> -“A <i>bodach</i> frail and bent, with a net on his shoulder,” said Rory. -</p> -<p> -“Let him pass.” - </p> -<p> -The sun went high over Ben Ime, and struck the snow till the eyes were -blinded. Rory rubbed the sweat from his drenched palm on the pleat of his -kilt, and caught the basket-hand tighter. Over Aora mouth reek went up -from a fishing-skiff, and a black spot stood out against the snow. -</p> -<p> -“What seest thou now, lad?” asked Murdo. -</p> -<p> -“The man with the halt,” answered the lad. -</p> -<p> -“Then your time has come, child. The stroke worth the fifty head, and pith -on your arm!” - </p> -<p> -Rory left the old man's side, and went down through a patch of shelisters, -his mouth dry as a peat and his heart leaping. He was across the wrack and -below the pools before the coming man had noticed him. But the coming man -thought nothing wrong, and if he did, it was but one man at any rate, and -one man could use but one sword, if swords were going. Rory stepped on the -edge of the sand, and tagged the bonnet down on his brow, while the man -limped on between him and the sea. Then he stepped out briskly and said, -“Stop, pig!” He said it strangely soft, and with, as it were, no heart in -the business; for though the lame man was strong, deepbreasted, supple, -and all sound above the belt, there was a look about him that made the -young fellow have little keenness for the work. -</p> -<p> -“Pig?” said the Diarmaid, putting back his shoulders and looking under his -heavy brows. “You are the Lochow lad who has been seeking for me?” - </p> -<p> -“Ho, ho! red fellow; ye kent of it, then?” - </p> -<p> -“Red fellow! It's red enough you are yourself, I'm thinking. I have no -great heed to draw steel on a lad of your colour, so I'll just go my way.” - And the man looked with queer wistful eyes over his shoulder at the lad, -who, with blade-point on the sand, would have let him pass. -</p> -<p> -But up-by at the house the <i>taibhsear</i> watched the meeting. The quiet -turn it took was beyond his reading, for he had thought it would be but -the rush, and the fast fall-to, and no waste of time, for the tide was -coming in. -</p> -<p> -“White love, give him it!” he cried out, making for the shore. “He looks -lame, but the pig's worth a man's first fencing.” - </p> -<p> -Up went the boy's steel against the grey cloud, and he was at the throat -of the Diarmaid like a beast. “Malison on your black heart, murderer!” he -roared, still gripping his broadsword. The Diarmaid flung him off like a -child, and put up his guard against the whisking of his blade. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, foolish boy!” he panted wofully as the lad pressed, and the grey -light spread over sea and over shore. The quiet tide crawled in about -their feet; birds wheeled on white feathers with mocking screams; the old -man leaned on his staff and cheered the boy. The Diarmaid had all the -coolness and more of art, and he could have ended the play as he wanted. -But he only fended, and at last the slash worth fifty head found his neck. -He fell on his side, with a queer twisted laugh on his face, saying, -“Little hero, ye fence—ye fence——” - </p> -<p> -“Haste ye, son! finish the thing!” said the <i>taibhsear,</i> all shaking, -and the lad did as he was told, hocking at the spurt the blood made. He -was pushing his dirk in the sand to clean it, when his eye fell on the -Skilly Woman hirpling nimbly down to the shore. She was making a loud cry. -</p> -<p> -“God I God! it's the great pity about this,” said she, looking at Murdo -cutting the silver buttons off the corpse's jacket. “Ken ye the man that's -there dripping?” - </p> -<p> -“The man's no more,” said Rory, cool enough. “He has gone travelling, and -we forgot to ask his name.” - </p> -<p> -“Then if happy you would be, go home to Lochow, and ask it not, nor aught -about him, if you wouldn't rue long. You sucked your first from a Diarmaid -rag, and it was not for nothing.” - </p> -<p> -Murdo drew back with a clumsy start from the dead man's side and looked -down on his face, then at the boy's, queerly. “I am for off,” said he at -last with a sudden hurry. “You can follow if you like, red young one.” And -he tossed the dead man's buttons in Rory's face! -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -THE SEA-FAIRY OF FRENCH FORELAND. -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>NCE I saw a fairy King, and it was in the Castle up-by. The Castle took -fire, and a fine blaze it made at the foot of Dunchaach. A boy, I ran with -the rest to carry out the MacCailein's rich gear, and behold! I wandered -and lost my way in that large place where is a window for every day in the -year. Up the long stairs and through the far passages, and over the -shining sounding floors went I, barefoot, with a feared eye on every hole -and corner. At every door it was, “Surely now I'm with the folks at the -fire”; but every door was a way into a quieter quietness, and the Castle -was my own. I sat at last on a black chair that had a curious twisted -back, and the tears went raining on the lap of my kilt. -</p> -<p> -Long, long I sat, and sore I grat, my mind full, not so much of my way -lost, but of the bigness of things, and the notion of what it would be to -have to live in a castle at night, with doors on every hand for ghosts to -rap at, and crooked passages without end for gowsty winds to moan in. -Thinks I, “The smallest hut in the town for me, with all plain before me, -with the one door shut and my face to it, and the candlelight seeking into -every crack and cranny!” - </p> -<p> -It was then that the fairy King came on me out of the sewed cloth hanging -on the wall. -</p> -<p> -He was a dainty wee man, in our own tartan, with a steel plate on his -breast baronly-style, and strange long curly hair. I ran my wet eyes down -seven silver buttons the shape of salmon on the front of his vest before I -let myself go, but go I must, so I put fast heels on my fright. I galloped -with a frozen tongue through miles of the Duke's castle till a door -brought me out on the grass of Cairnban, in front of the friendly bleeze -that my own folks were pouring the stoups of water on. -</p> -<p> -That was the only time the quiet folk and I came to a meeting, though our -family was always gleg at seeing things. A cousin-german once saw the -fairy bull that puts up in Loch Steallaire-bhan behind the town. It came -on a jaunt to the glen in the guise of a rich maiden, and my cousin, the -son of the house, made love to her. One night—in a way that I need -not mention—he found himself in her room combing down her yellow -hair, and what was among her hair but fine sand that told the whole story? -“You are a <i>gruagach</i> of the lake!” cried the lad, letting the comb -drop on the floor, with his face white, and the thing tarned to its own -shape and went bellowing to the shore. -</p> -<p> -And there was a man—blessings with him! for he's here no more—who -would always be going up on Sithean Sluaidhe to have troke with the wee -people on that fine knowe. He would bring them tastings of honey and -butter to put them in a good key, and there they would dance by the hour -for his diversion to the piping of a piper who played on drones of grass -with reeds made of the midge's thrapple. -</p> -<p> -Still, in all my time I know but one body who could find the way to the -den of the Sea-Fairies, and she was a lass whose folks were in Ceannmor at -the time the French traffickers were coming here to swap casks of claret -wine for the finest herrings in the wide world. -</p> -<p> -It was her custom to go down on the hot days to the shore at the -Water-foot when the tide was far out, and the sand was crusting with salt -in the sun, and the wrack-balls burst with the heat, and the water lay -flat like oil, and lazy, for want of a breath of wind. Sometimes it would -be the French Foreland she would seek, and sometimes Dalchenna; but when -the Frenchmen were at the Foreland she kept clear of it by the counsel of -a cautious father. -</p> -<p> -Up the loch they would sail, the Frenchmen, in their gabberts, and hove-to -with their casks to change for the cured herrings. A curious people they -were, not much like our own good Gaels in many a way, but black-avised and -slim; still with some of the Gael's notions about them too, such as the -humour of fighting and drinking and scouring the countryside for girls. -</p> -<p> -But it happened that one year they left behind them only a wine of -six-waters, and did some other dirty tricks forbye, and there was for long -a feud, so that the Frenchmen behooved to keep to their boats and bargain -with the curers over the gun'le. -</p> -<p> -On a day at that time, Marseli that I speak of had been bathing at the -Ceannmor rocks—having a crave for salt water the Ceannmor folks -nowadays are not very namely for. When she had her gown on again, she went -round to Dalchenna sands and out far to the edge of the tide, where she -sat on a stone and took to the redding of her hair, that rolled in copper -waves before the comb—rich, thick, and splendid. -</p> -<p> -Before her, the tide was on the turn so slow and soft that the edge of it -lifted the dry sand like meal. All about on the weedy stones the -tailor-tartans leaped like grasshoppers, the spout-fish stuck far out of -the sand and took a fresh gloss on their shells from the sun. -</p> -<p> -You might seek from shire to shire for a handsomer maid. She was at the -age that's a father's heartbreak, rounding out at the bosom and mellowing -at the eyes; her skin was like milk, and the sigh was at her lips as often -as the song. But though she sighed, it was not for the Ceannmor fishermen, -coarse-bearded, and rough in their courting; for she had vanity, from her -mother's side, and queer notions. The mother's family had been rich in -their day, with bards and thoughtful people among them. -</p> -<p> -“If a sea-fairy could see me now,” said Marseli, “it might put him in the -notion to come this way again,” and she started to sing the child-song— -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“Little folk, little folk, come to me, -From the lobbies that lie below the sea.” - </pre> -<p> -“<i>So agad el</i>” cried a gull at her back, so plainly that she tamed -fast to look, and there was the fairy before her! -</p> -<p> -Up got Marseli, all shaking and ready to fly, but the fairy-man looked -harmless enough as he bowed low to her, and she stayed to put her hair -behind her ears and draw her gown closer. -</p> -<p> -He was a little delicate man the smallest of Marseli's brothers could have -put in his oxter, with close curled hair, and eyes as black as Ridir -Lochiel's waistcoat. His clothes were the finest of the fine, -knee-breeches with silk hose, buckled brogues, a laced jacket, and a -dagger at his belt—no more like a fairy of the knowe than the green -tree's like the gall. -</p> -<p> -“You're quick enough to take a girl at her word,” said Marseli, cunning -one, thinking to hide from him the times and times she had cried over the -sands for the little sea-folks to come in with the tide. -</p> -<p> -The fairy-man said something in his own tongue that had no sense for the -girl, and he bowed low again, with his bonnet waving in his hand, in the -style of Charlie Munn the dancer. -</p> -<p> -“You must speak in the Gaelic,” said Marseli, still a bit put about; “or -if you have not the Gaelic, I might be doing with the English, though -little I care for it.” - </p> -<p> -“Faith,” said the fairy-man, “I have not the Gaelic, more's the pity, but -I know enough English to say you're the prettiest girl ever I set eyes on -since I left my own place.” - </p> -<p> -(Ho! hoi was he not the cunning one? The fairies for me for gallantry!) -</p> -<p> -“One of such judgment can hardly be uncanny,” thought Marseli, so she -stayed and cracked with him in the English tongue. -</p> -<p> -The two of them walked up over the sand to the birch-trees, and under the -birches the little fellow asked Marseli to sit down. -</p> -<p> -“You are bigger than I looked for in a sea-fairy,” said she when the crack -was a little bit on. -</p> -<p> -“A fairy?” said the little fellow, looking at her in the flash of an eye. -</p> -<p> -“Yes! Though I said just now that you took one fast at her word, the truth -to tell is, that always when the tide went out I sang at your back-doors -the song you heard to-day for the first time. I learned it from Beann -Francie in the Horse Park.” - </p> -<p> -The stranger had a merry laugh—not the roar of a Finne fisherman—and -a curions way of hitching the shoulders, and the laugh and the -shoulder-hitch were his answer for Marseli. -</p> -<p> -“You'll be a king in the sea—in your own place—or a prince -maybe,” said the girl, twisting rushes in her hand. -</p> -<p> -The man gave a little start and got red at the face. -</p> -<p> -“Who in God's name said so?” asked he, looking over her shoulder deep into -the little birch-wood, and then uneasy round about him. -</p> -<p> -“I guessed it,” said Marseli. “The kings of the land-fairies are -by-ordinar big, and the dagger is ever on their hips.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, indeed,” said the little fellow, “to say I was king were a bravado, -but I would not be just denying that I might be Prince.” - </p> -<p> -And that way their friendship began. -</p> -<p> -At the mouth of many nights when the fishing-boats were off at the -fishing, or sometimes even by day when her father and her two brothers -were chasing the signs of sea-pig and scart far down on Tarbert, Marseli -would meet her fairy friend in a cunning place at the Black-water-foot, -where the sea puts its arms well around a dainty waist of lost land. Here -one can see Loch Finne from Ardno to Strathlachlan: in front lift the long -lazy Cowal hills, and behind is Auchnabreac wood full of deer and birds. -Nowadays the Duke has his road round about this cunning fine place, but -then it lay forgotten among whins that never wanted bloom, and thick, -soft, salty grass. Two plantings of tall trees kept the wind off, and the -centre of it beaked in warm suns. It was like a garden standing out upon -the sea, cut off from the throng road at all tides by a cluster of salt -pools and an elbow of the Duglas Water. -</p> -<p> -Here the Sea-Fairy was always waiting for the girl, walking up and down in -one or other of the tree clumps. He had doffed his fine clothes after -their first meeting for plain ones, and came douce and soberly, but aye -with a small sword on his thigh. -</p> -<p> -The girl knew the folly of it; but tomorrow was always to be the last of -it, and every day brought new wonders to her. He fetched her rings once, -of cunning make, studded with, stones that tickled the eye in a way the -cairngorm and the Cromalt pearl could never come up to. -</p> -<p> -She would finger them as if they were the first blaeberries of a season -and she was feared to spoil their bloom, and in a rapture the Sea-Fairy -would watch the sparkle of eyes that were far before the jewels. -</p> -<p> -“Do your folk wear these?” she asked. -</p> -<p> -“Now and then,” he would say, “now and then. Ours is a strange family: -to-day we may have the best and the richest that is going, to-morrow who -so poor, without a dud to our backs and a mob crying for our heads?” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Ochanorie!</i> They are the lovely rings any way.” - </p> -<p> -“They might be better; they would need to be much better, my dear, to be -good enough for you.” - </p> -<p> -“For me!” - </p> -<p> -“They're yours—for a kiss or two,” and he put out an arm to wind -round the girl's waist. -</p> -<p> -Marseli drew back and put up her chin and down her brows. -</p> -<p> -“'<i>Stad!</i>” she cried. “We ken the worth of fairy gifts in these -parts. Your rings are, likely enough, but chuckie-stones if I could but -see them. Take them back, I must be going home.” - </p> -<p> -The little man took the jewels with a hot face and a laugh. -</p> -<p> -“Troth,” he said, “and the same fal-fals have done a lover's business with -more credit to them before this. There are dames in France who would give -their souls for them—and the one they belong to.” - </p> -<p> -“You have travelled?” said Marseli. “Of course a sea-fairy-” - </p> -<p> -“Can travel as he likes. You are not far wrong, my dear. Well, well, I ken -France! O France, France! round and about the cold world, where's your -equal?” - </p> -<p> -His eyes filled with tears, and the broad-cloth on his breast heaved -stormily, and Marseli saw that here was some sad thinking. -</p> -<p> -“Tell me of Fairydom,” said she, to change him off so dull a key. -</p> -<p> -“'Tis the same, the same. France and fairyland, 'tis the same, self-same, -madame,” said the sea-prince, with a hand on his heart and a bow. -</p> -<p> -He started to tell her of rich and rolling fields, flat and juicy, waving -to the wind; of country houses lost and drowned among flowers. “And all -the roads lead one way,” said he, “to a great and sparkling town. Rain or -shine, there is comfort, and there is the happy heart! The windows open on -the laughing lanes, and the girls lean out and look after us, who prance -by on our horses. There is the hollow hearty hoof-beat on the causey -stones; in the halls the tables gleam with silver and gold; the round red -apples roll over the platter among the slim-stemmed wine-beakers. It is -the time of soft talk and the head full of gallant thoughts. Then there -are the nights warm and soft, when the open doors let out the laughing and -the gliding of silk-shooned feet, and the airs come in heavy with the -scent of breckan and tree!” - </p> -<p> -“On my word,” said Marseli, “but it's like a girl's dream!” - </p> -<p> -“You may say it, black-eyes, <i>mo chridhe!</i> The wonder is that folk -can be found to live so far astray from it. Let me tell you of the -castles.” And he told Marseli of women sighing at the harp for -far-wandered ones, or sewing banners of gold. Trumpets and drums and the -tall chevaliers going briskly by with the jingle of sword on heel on the -highway to wars, every chevalier his love and a girl's hands warm upon his -heart. -</p> -<p> -That night Marseli went early abed to wander in fairydom. -</p> -<p> -Next day the sea-gentleman had with him a curious harp that was not -altogether a harp, and was hung over the neck by a ribbon. -</p> -<p> -“What hast here?” asked Marseli. -</p> -<p> -“A salve for a sore heart, lass! I can play on it some old tunes, and by -the magic of it I'm back in my father's home and unafeared.” - </p> -<p> -He drew his white fingers over the strings and made a thin twittering of -music sweeter than comes from the <i>clarsach</i>-strings, but foreign and -uncanny. To Marseli it brought notions of far-off affairs, half sweet, -half sad, like the edges of dreams and the moods that come on one in -loneliness and strange places, and one tune he played was a tune she had -heard the French traffickers sing in the bay in the slack seasons. -</p> -<p> -“Let me sing you a song,” said he, “all for yourself.” - </p> -<p> -“You are bard?” she said, with a pleased face. -</p> -<p> -He said nothing, but touched on the curious harp, and sang to the girl's -eyes, to the spark of them and the dance of them and the deep thought -lurking in their corners, to her lips crimson like the rowan and curled -with pride, to the set of breast and shoulder, and the voice melting on -the tongue. -</p> -<p> -It was all in the tune and the player's looks, for the words were fairy to -the girl, but so plain the story, her face burned, and her eyes filled -with a rare confusion. -</p> -<p> -“'Tis the enchantment of fairydom,” said she. “Am not I the <i>oinseach</i> -to listen? I'll warrant yon have sung the same to many a poor girl in all -airts of the world?” - </p> -<p> -The little one laughed and up with the shoulders. “On my sword,” quo' he, -“I could be content to sing to you and France for all my time. Wilt come -with a poor Prince on a Prince's honour?” - </p> -<p> -He kissed her with hot lips; his breath was in her hair; enchantment fell -on her like a plaid, but she tore herself away and ran home, his craving -following at her heels. -</p> -<p> -That night Marseli's brothers came to knives with the French traffickers, -and the morning saw the black-avised ones sailing out over-sea for home. -Back to French Foreland they came no more, and Finne-side took to its own -brewing for lack of the red wine of France. -</p> -<p> -That, too, was the last of the Sea-Fairy. -</p> -<p> -Marseli went to the Water-foot and waited, high tide and low; she cried -the old child tune and she redded her hair, but never again the little man -with the dainty clothes, and the sword upon his thigh. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -SHUDDERMAN SOLDIER -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>EYOND the Beannan is the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, and a stone-put farther -is the knowe where Shudderman Soldier died in the snow. He was a half-wit -who was wise enough in one thing, for he knew the heart of a maid, and the -proof of it came in the poor year, when the glen gathered its com in -boats, and the potato-shaws were black when they burst the ground, and the -catechist's horse came home by Dhuloch-side to a widow that reckoned on no -empty saddle. And this is the story. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Ho, ho, suas e!</i>” said the nor' wind, and the snow, and the black -frost, as they galloped down Glenaora like a leash of strong dogs. It was -there was the pretty business! The Salachary hills lost their sink and -swell in the great drifts that swirled on them in the night; the dumb -white swathes made a cold harvest on the flats of Kilmune; the frost -gripped tight at the throats of the burns, and turned the Salmon-Leap to a -stack of silver lances. A cold world it was, sure enough, at the mouth of -day! The bloodshot sun looked over Ben Ime for a little, and that was the -last of him. The sheep lay in the shoulder of the hill with the drift many -a crook's-length above them, and the cock-of-the-mountain and the white -grouse, driven on the blast, met death with a blind shock against the edge -of the larch-wood. -</p> -<p> -Up from Lochow, where Kames looks over to Cruachan, and Cruachan cocks his -grey cap against Lorn, a foolish lad came that day for a tryst that was -made by a wanton maid unthinking. Half-way over the hill he slipped on the -edge of a drift, and a sore wound in the side he got against a splinter of -the blue stone of the Quey's Rock; but he pushed on, with the blood oozing -through his cut vest. Yet, in spite of himself, he slept beyond the Bog of -the Fairy-Maid. <i>Mo-thruaigh! mo-thruaigh!</i> -</p> -<p> -The Fairy-Maid came and covered him up close and warm with a white blanket -that needs no posting, and sang the soft tune a man hears but once, and -kissed him on the beard as he slept in the drift—and his name had -been Ellar Ban. -</p> -<p> -Round by the king's good highroad came Solomon the carrier with his cart, -and many a time he thought of turning between Carnus and Kilmune. But he -was of the stuff of Clan Coll, and his mare was Proud Maisie. He had a -boll of meal from Portinsherrich, from the son of a widow woman who was -hungry in Inneraora and waiting for that same. -</p> -<p> -“No Ellar here yet!” he said at Kilmune when he asked, and they told him. -“Then there's a story to tell, for if he's not here, he's not at Karnes, -and his grave's on the grey mountain.” - </p> -<p> -Later came Luath, the collie of Ellar, slinking through the snow wet and -weary, and without wind enough for barking. 'Twas as good as the man's -ghost. -</p> -<p> -The shepherds came in from the fanks, and over from the curling at -Carlonan, to go on a search. -</p> -<p> -Long Duncan of Drimfem, the slim swarthy champion, was there before them. -He was a pretty man—the like never tied a shoe in Glenaora—and -he was the real one who had Mairi's eye, which the dead fellow thought had -the laugh only for him. But, lord! a young man with a good name with the -shinty and the <i>clachneart</i> has other things to think of than the -whims of women, and Donacha never noticed. -</p> -<p> -“We'll go up and see about it—about him at once, Main,” he said, -sick-sorry for the girl. All the rest stood round pitying, because her -kists were said to be full of her own spinning for the day that was not to -be. -</p> -<p> -Mairi took him to the other side of the peat-stack, and spoke with a red -face. -</p> -<p> -“Is it any use your going till the snow's off the hill, Drimfem?” she -said, biting at the corner of her brattie, and not looking the man in the -face. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Dhia gleiih sinn!</i> it's who knows when the white'll be off the -snouts of these hills, and we can't wait till—— I thought it -would ease your mind.” And Donacha looked at the maid stupid enough. For a -woman with her heart on the hill, cold, she was mighty queer on it. -</p> -<p> -“Yes, yes; but it's dangerous for you to go up, and the showers so heavy -yet. It's not twenty finger-lengths you can see in front of you, and you -might go into the bog.” - </p> -<p> -“Is't the bog I would be thinking of, Main? It's little fear there is of -that, for here is the man that has been on Salachary when the mist was -like smoke, as well as when the spittle froze in my mouth. Oh, I'm not the -one to talk; but where's the other like me?” - </p> -<p> -Mairi choked. “But, Dona—— but, Drimfem, it's dead Ellar must -be; and—and—you have a widow mother to mind.” Donacha looked -blank at the maid. She had the sweet face, yon curve of the lip, and the -soft turn of the neck of all Arthur's children, ripe of the cheek, with -tossed hair like a fairy of the lake, and the quirk of the eye that never -left a plain man at ease if he was under the threescore. There were knives -out in the glen for many a worse one. -</p> -<p> -It was the lee of the peat-stack they stood in, and the falling flakes -left for a while without a shroud a drop of crimson at the girl's feet. -She was gripping tight at her left wrist under the cover of her apron till -the nails cut the flesh. There was the stress of a dumb bard's sorrow in -her face; her heart was in her eyes, if there had been a woman to see it; -but Drimfern missed it, for he had no mind of the dance at the last Old -New Year, or the ploy at the sheep-dipping, or the nuts they cracked on -the hot peats at Hallowe'en. -</p> -<p> -The girl saw he was bound to go. He was as restless as if the snow was a -swarm of <i>seangans</i>. She had not two drops of blood in her lips, but -she tried to laugh as she took something out from a pocket and half held -it out to him. He did not understand at first, for if he was smart on the -<i>caman</i> ball, 'twas slow in the ways of women he was. -</p> -<p> -“It's daft I am. I don't know what it is, Donacha, but I had a dream that -wasn't canny last night, and I'm afraid, I'm afraid,” said the poor girl. -“I was going to give you——” - </p> -<p> -Drimfern could not get the meaning of the laugh, strained as it was. He -thought the maid's reason was wandering. -</p> -<p> -She had, whatever it was—a square piece of cloth of a woman's sewing—into -the man's hand before he knew what she would be after; and when his -fingers closed on it, she would have given a king's gold to get it back. -But the Tullich lads, and the Paymaster's shepherd from Lecknamban, with -Dol' Splendid and Francie Ro, in their plaids, and with their crooks, came -round the gable-end. Luath, who knew Glenaora as well as he knew Creag -Cranda, was with them, and away they went for the hill. All that Donacha -the blind one said, as he put the sewing in his pocket to look at again, -was, “Blessing with thee!” for all the world like a man for the fair. -</p> -<p> -Still the nor' wind, and the snow, and the dark frost said “<i>Suas e!</i>” - running down the glen like the strong dogs on the peching deer; and the -men were not a hundred yards away from the potato-pit when they were -ghosts that went out altogether, without a sound, like Drimendorran's Grey -Dame in the Red Forester's story. -</p> -<p> -A white face on a plump neck stood the sting of the storm dourly, though -the goodwife said it would kill her out there, and the father cried -“Shame!” on her sorrow, and her a maiden. “Where's the decency of you?” - says he, fierce-like; “if it was a widow you were this day you couldn't -show your heart more.” And into the house he went and supped two cogies of -brose, and swore at the <i>sgalag</i> for noticing that his cheeks were -wet. -</p> -<p> -When the searchers would be high on the hill Shudderman came on the maid. -He was a wizened, daft old one, always in a tinker Fencible's tartan trews -and scarlet doublet. He would pucker his bare brown face like a foreign -Italian, and whistle continually. The whistle was on his face when he came -on the girl standing behind the byre, looking up with a corpse's whiteness -where the Beannan should be. -</p> -<p> -“Te-he! Lord! but we're cunning,” said the soldier. “It's a pity about -Ellar, is it not, white darling?” - </p> -<p> -Mairi saw nothing, but swallowed a sob. Was this thing to know her secret, -when the wise old women of the glen never guessed it? There was something -that troubled her in his look. -</p> -<p> -The wee creature put his shoulder against the peats, and shoved each hand -up the other sleeve of his doublet, while he whistled soft, and cunningly -looked at the maid. The cords of her neck were working, and her breast -heaved sore, but she kept her teeth tight together. -</p> -<p> -“Ay, ay, it's an awful thing, and him so fond, too,” he went on; and his -face was nothing but a handful of wrinkles and peat-smoke. It was a bigger -ploy for the fool than a good dinner. -</p> -<p> -“What—who—who are you talking about, you poor <i>amadan?</i>” - cried Mairi, desperately. -</p> -<p> -“Och, it's yourself that'll know. They're saying over at Tullich and upbye -at Miss Jean's, Accurach, that it's a bonny pair you would make, you and -Ellar. Yonnat Yalla says he was the first Lochow man ever she saw that -would go a mile out of his way for a lass, and I saw him once come the -roundabout road by Cladich because it was too easy to meet you coming the -short cut over the hill. Oh! there's no doubt he was fond, fond, and-” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Amadan!</i>” cried the maid, with no canny light in her eyes. -</p> -<p> -“Hoots! You're not angry with me, darling. I ken, I ken. Of course -Drimfern's the swanky lad too, but it's not very safe this night on yon -same hill. There's the Bog of the Fairy-Maid that never was frozen yet, -and there's the Quey's Rock, and—te-he! I wouldn't give much for -some of them not coming back any more than poor Ellar. It's namely that -Drimfem got the bad eye from the Glenurchy woman come Martinmas next -because of his taking up with her cousin-german's girl, Morag Callum.” - </p> -<p> -“Yon <i>spàgachd</i> doll, indeed!” - </p> -<p> -“God, I do not know about that! but they're telling me he had her up at -all the reels at Baldy Geepie's wedding, whatever, and it's a Maclean -tartan frock she got for the same—I saw it with my own eyes.” - </p> -<p> -“Lies, lies, lies,” said the girl to herself her lips dry, her hands and -feet restless to do some crazy thing to kill the pain in her heart. -</p> -<p> -She was a little helpless bird in the hands of the silly one. -</p> -<p> -He was bursting himself inside with laughing, that couldn't be seen for -the snow and the cracks on his face. -</p> -<p> -“But it's not marriages nor tartan you'll be thinking on, Mairi, with your -own lad up there stiff. Let Morag have Drimfem——” - </p> -<p> -“You and your Morag! Shudderman, if it was not the crazy one you were, you -would see that a man like Donacha Drimfern would have no dealings with the -breed of MacCallum, tinker children of the sixty fools.” - </p> -<p> -“Fools here or fools there, look at them in the castle at Duntroon! And -Drimfern is——” - </p> -<p> -“Drimfern again! Who's thinking of Drimfern, the mother's big pet, the -soft, soft creature, the poor thing that's daft about the shinty and the -games—and—and—— Go inbye, haverer, and——oh, -my heart, my heart!” - </p> -<p> -“Cripple Callum,” whistled the daft wee one; and faith it was the great -sport he was having! The flame sparkled in the lass's eyes; she stamped -furiously in the snow. She could have gone into the house, but the -Shudderman would follow, and the devil was in him, and she might just as -well tell her story at the cross-roads as risk. So she stayed. -</p> -<p> -“Come in this minute, O foolish one!” her mother came to the door and -craved; but no. -</p> -<p> -The wee <i>bodach</i> took a wee pipe from his big poke and started at the -smoking. When his match went out the dark was almost flat on the glen, and -a night-hag complained with a wean's cry in the planting beyond the burn. -At each draw of the pipe the eyes of the soldier glinted like a ferret's, -and like any ferret's they were watching. He put in a word between-while -that stabbed the poor thing's heart, about the shame of love in maids -uncourted, and the cruelty of maids that cast love-looks for mischief. -There were some old havers about himself here and there among the words: -of a woman who changed her mind and went to another man's bed and board; -of sport up the glen, and burials beyond; and Ellar Ban's widow mother, -and the carry-on of Drimfem and the Glenurchy woman's cousin-german's -girl. And it was all ravelled, like the old story Loch Finne comes up on -the shore to tell when the moon's on Sithean Sluaidhe. -</p> -<p> -The girl was sobbing sore. “Man!” she said at last, “give me the peace of -a night till we know what is.” The <i>amadan</i> laughed at her, and went -shauchling down to the cotter's, and Mairi went in out of the darkness. -</p> -<p> -The hours passed and passed, and the same leash of strong dogs were -scouring like fury down Glenaora, and the moon looked a little through a -hole, and was sickly at the sight, and went by in a hurry. A collie's bark -in the night came to the house where the people waited round the peats, -and “Oh, my heart!” said poor Mairi. -</p> -<p> -The father took the tin lantern with the holes in it, and they all went -out to the house-end. The lantern-light stuck long needles in the night as -it swung on the goodman's finger, and the byre and the shed and the -peat-stack danced into the world and out of it, and the clouds were only -an arm's-length overhead. -</p> -<p> -The men were coming down the brae in the smother of snow, carrying -something in a plaid. The dog was done with its barking, and there was no -more sound from the coming ones than if they were ghosts. Like enough to -ghosts they looked. No one said a word till the goodman spoke. -</p> -<p> -“You have him there?” he said. -</p> -<p> -“Ay, <i>beatmachi leis!</i> all that there is of him,” said the -Paymaster's man; and they took it but an' ben, where Mairi's mother had -the white dambrod cloth she had meant for herself, when her own time came, -on the table. -</p> -<p> -“It's poor Ellar, indeed,” said the goodman, noticing the fair beard. -</p> -<p> -“Where's Donacha? where's Drimfern?” cried Mairi, who had pulled herself -together and come in from the byre-end, where she had waited to see if -there was none of the watchers behind. -</p> -<p> -The Paymaster's man was leaning against the press-door, with a face like -the clay; Dol' Splendid was putting a story in the <i>sgalag's</i> ear; -the Tullich men were very busy on it taking the snow off their boots. -Outside the wind had the sorry song of the curlew. -</p> -<p> -“Me-the-day! it's the story of this there is to tell,” at last said -Francie Ro, with a shake of the head. “Poor Drimfern——” - </p> -<p> -“Drimfem—ay, where's Drimfem in all the world?” said the goodman, -with a start. He was standing before his girl to keep her from seeing the -thing on the table till the wife had the boots covered. It was the face of -a <i>cailleach</i> of threescore Mairi had. -</p> -<p> -“It's God knows! We were taking Ellar there down, turn about resting. It -was a cruel business, for the drifts. There's blood on his side where he -fell somewhere, and Drimfern had to put a clout on it to keep the blood -off his plaid. That's Drimfern's plaid. When Donacha's second turn was -over up at the bog, we couldn't get a bit of him. He's as lost as the deer -the Duke shot, and we looked and whistled for hours.” The maid gave a wee -turn to the door, shivered, and fell like a clod at her mother's feet. -</p> -<p> -“Look at yon, now! Am not I the poor father altogether?” said the old man -with a soft lip to his friends. “Who would think, and her so healthy, and -not married to Ellar, that she would be so much put about? You'll excuse -it in her, lads, I know, for she's not twenty till the dipping-time, and -the mother maybe spoiled her.” - </p> -<p> -“Och, well,” said the Splendid one, twisting his bonnet uneasy in his -hands, “I've seen them daft enough over a living lad, and it's no great -wonder when this one's dead.” They took the maid beyond to the big room by -the kitchen, and a good mother's morning for Drimfern was set by the men. -They had a glass before going home, and when they were gone the <i>bochdans</i> -came in the deep hollow of the night and rattled the windows and shook the -door-sneck; but what cared yon long white thing on the goodwife's dambrod -tablecloth? -</p> -<p> -At the mouth of day there was one woman with a gnawing breast looking -about the glen-foot among the snow for the Shudder-man soldier. She found -him snedding the shaft of a shinny-stick at the Stronmagachan Gate, and -whistling as if it was six weeks south of Whitsunday and the woods piping -in the heat. -</p> -<p> -“I ken all about it, my white little lamb,” he said with a soft speech. -“All about them finding Ellar, and losing a better man, redding put her to -rights. A search in the maybe, but any way one that some will miss more.” - </p> -<p> -“God's heavy, heavy on a woman!” said the poor child. “I gave Donacha a -sampler with something sewn on it yesterday, and the men, when they go up -the hill to look for him to-day, will get it on him—and—it -would——” - </p> -<p> -“Ay, ay, ay! I ken, my dear. We'll put that right, or I'm no soldier.” And -the little man cocked his bonnet on his head like a piper. Then he was -sorry for the pride of it, and he pulled it down on his face, and whistled -to stop his nose from jagging. -</p> -<p> -“My heart! my bruised heart! they're saying sorry things of Ellar, and -Donacha dead. The cotter's wife was talking this morning, and it'll send -me daft!” - </p> -<p> -“Blind, blind,” quo' the soldier; “but you'll not be shamed, if the <i>amadan</i> -can help it.” - </p> -<p> -“But what can you do, my poor Shudderman? And yet—and yet—there's -no one between Carnus and Croit-bhile I can speak to of it.” - </p> -<p> -“Go home, white love, and I'll make it right,” said the daft one, and -faith he looked like meaning it. -</p> -<p> -“Who knows?” thought the girl. Shudderman was chief enough with the -Glenurchy woman, and the Glenurchy woman sometimes gave her spells to her -friends. So Mairi went home half comforted. -</p> -<p> -A cogie of brose and a bit braxy in his belly, and a farl of cake in his -poke, and out stepped the Shudderman with never a word to any one about -the end of his journey. Dol' Splendid had told him the story of the night -before, and whereabout Drimfern was lost, close beyond the Beannan. He -would find the body and the sampler, he promised himself as he plunged up -the brae at Taravh-dubh. The dogs were nearly as furious as the night -before, and the day's eye was blear. Hours passed, and the flats of -Kilmune were far below. -</p> -<p> -There was nothing in all the world but whiteness, and a silly old <i>bodach</i> -with a red coat trailing across it. Shudderman Soldier sank his head -between his shoulders as he pushed himself up with his hazel crook, his -tartan trews in rags about his ankles, his doublet letting in the teeth of -the wind here and there, and at the best grudging sore its too tight -shelter for his shrunk body. He had not the wind to whistle, but he gasped -bits of “Faill-il-o,” and between he swore terribly at the white hares -that jerked across in front of him with the ill-luck of a lifetime on -their backs. -</p> -<p> -If it was the earth that was white, the sky was not far behind it; if they -were paper, it would take schooling to write on them straight, for there -wasn't a line between them. The long sweep of Balantyre itself was lost, -and the Beannan stone was buried. The creature's brogues were clods of -snow, ugly, big, without a shape: his feet were lumps of ice; his knees -shook under his frail skinful of bones; but, by the black stones, 'twas -the man's heart he had! -</p> -<p> -When the snow made a paste on his win'ard cheek, he had it off with a jerk -of the head, and one of the jerks put off his bonnet. Its frozen ribbons -had been whipping his eyes, and he left it where it fell, with never a -glance over his shoulder. His hair clogged with flakes that kept the frost -even after they fell. It was a peching effort for the foot of the Beannan -brae. -</p> -<p> -“Poor lamb, poor Mairi, calf of my heart!” gasped the soldier to himself. -He was staggering half blind through the smother of snow, now and then -with a leg failing below him, and plunging him right or left. Once his -knees shut like a gardener's gully, and he made a crazy heap in the drift. -His tired wrists could hardly bring him up, and the corpse of the world -swung in his eyes when he was on his feet again and trying to steady -himself. -</p> -<p> -There's a green knoll beside the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, where the wee -folks dance reels when the moon's on it, and there the old fellow -struggled to. He thought if he was up there he would see some sign of what -he wanted. Up he pushed, with the hazel <i>cromag</i> bending behind him, -and his brogues slipping on the round snow-soles. Up he went, with the -pluck of a whole man, let alone a poor silly object; up he went till he -got his foot on the top, and then his heart failed, for he saw nothing of -what he sought. -</p> -<p> -“I'll look again when I'm out of this foolish sleep,—I'll see better -when I waken,” said the poor <i>amadan;</i> and behold the dogs were on -him! and he was a man who was. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<p> -For all that, the story tells, Drimfern was no ghost. When he was lost he -found Kames, where the Callum girl was that came to his fire-end later and -suckled his clan. And Ellar's mother, dressing her son's corpse in the -house at Kilmune, found on his wound a sampler that went with him to his -long home in green Inishail. Its letters, sewn in the folly of a woman, -told her story:— -</p> -<p> -“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than -wine.” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -WAR. -</h2> -<h3> -I. -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T was the pause of the morning, when time stands, and night and day -breathe hard ere they get to grips. A cock with a foggy throat started at -the crowing, down at Slochd-a-Chubair. Over from Stron a shrewd thin wind -came to make stir among the trees in the Duke's big garden, and the crows -rasped their beaks on the beech-branches, for they knew that here was the -day's forerunner. Still and on the town slept, stretched full out, dour -set on the business. Its quirky lanes and closes were as black as the pit. -There was only one light in all the place, and a big town and a bonny it -is, house and house with high outside stairs and glass windows, so that -the wonder is the King himself does not take thought to stay in it, even -if it were only for the comfort of it and the company of the MacCailein -Mor. Only one light, and that was splashing, yellow, and mixed with a -thick peat-reek, out of Jean Rob's open door, facing the bay, on the left, -on the Lowlands road. Now and then Jean would come to the door and stand, -a blob of darkness in the yellow light, to see if the day was afoot on Ben -Ime, or to throw a look at the front of the town for signs of folk -stirring. -</p> -<p> -“Not a peep, not a peep! Sleep! sleep! Few of them part with a man to-day -with so sore a heart as Jean Rob.” - </p> -<p> -Then back to her Culross girdle, for she was at the baking of bannocks to -go in her husband's <i>dorlach</i> for the wars. -</p> -<p> -She had not shut an eye all night. Rob snored at her side slow and heavy -while she lay on her back on a bed of white hay, staring up at the black -larch joists glinting with the red scad of the peats. She was a Crarae -woman, and that same people were given to be throng with the head, and she -kept thinking, thinking even on. At last she could bide it no longer, so -she up with a leap on the floor to face a new day and all the luck of it. -</p> -<p> -About the luck being good or ill there might be little doubt. It was the -year after they started at the building of the Castle, a laggard spring at -the hind-end of a cruel winter, with not a fin in all the seas for the -poor fishermen, and black mutton at six Saxon shillings the side. And what -the wars were about Jean Rob or her like little knew or cared. Very -little, like enough, as is the way with wars, but any way wars there were: -the Duke and his House would have it that their people must up and on with -belt and target, and away on the weary road like their fathers before -them. Some said it was the old game with the Inverlochy dogs (rive them -and seize them!); others, that some bastard was at variance with the Duke -about the Papist Stewarts—a silly lad called Tearlach with a pack of -wild Irishers and daddy Macleans and Macdonalds and Camerons from the -Isles and the North at his back. -</p> -<p> -“Bundle and Go” it was any way in Campbell country from Cruachan to Cowal, -from Cantyre to the march of Keppochan, and that's the fine rolling land -of sappy grasses and thick woods. In the heart and midst of it Duke Archie -played dirl on the boss of his shield on a cold March day, and before -night swords were at the sharping from shore to shore. That's war for ye— -</p> -<p> -quicker than flame, surer than word of mouth, and poor's the man who says -“What for?” to his chief. -</p> -<p> -Rob Donn, for all that, was vassal to no man; for he was come of the -swordsmiths of the glen, and they had paper to show that their rigs were -held for no service other than beating out good fighting steel on the -anvil. Poor, as he was, he could wear one feather in his bonnet if his -fancy was on feathers, and no one bragged more of his forefolk. But -Elrigmor—a thin old man with little stomach for quarrels—offered -twenty pounds English for a man to take his place with the Campbells; and -Rob took the money and the loan of Elrigmor's sword, half for the sake of -the money and half for the sake of a bit play with Sir Claymore. -</p> -<p> -Said he to his wife, jingling the Geordies in his hand on the day he got -them, “Here's the price of a hero; and troth it's little enough for a good -armsmith's blood!” - </p> -<p> -“Don't say it, Rob,” said Jean. -</p> -<p> -“Och! I am but laughing at thee, good-wife. Brave dogs would they be that -would face the tusks of the Diarmaid boars. Like the wind on the chaff—troosh!—we'll -scatter them! In a week I'll be home.” - </p> -<p> -“In a week?” - </p> -<p> -“To be sure, Jean. I'll buy with the money a stot or two on the road to -bring back with me, for there's little lifting in the Duke's corps, more's -the pity! My grandfather seldom came back from the wars without a few head -of cattle before him.” - </p> -<p> -So the money went in Rob Donn's sporran, and Jean would have bit her -tongue out before she would crave for part o't from a man going among -strangers and swords. -</p> -<p> -The bairn had but one word for her father from then till he started, and -that was “Cockade.” What it was the little one never knew, but that it was -something braw and costly, a plaything for a father to go far off for. -</p> -<p> -“Two or three of them, my white love!” would Rob Donn say, fond and -hearty. “They'll be as thick as nuts on the ground when we're done of the -gentry that wear them on their bonnets.” And he had a soft wet eye for the -child, a weakling, white and thin, never quite the better of the snell -winds of winter. If cockades, indeed, were to be had for the fighting of a -fortnight without sleep, Rob Donn would have them for her. -</p> -<p> -So now was the morning to put on fighting gear and go on the foray for -white cockades. -</p> -<p> -By-and-by a cruisie-light crept out at the gables of the town, and the -darkness filled with the smell of new peat burning. Aora, spluttering past -Jean Rob's door with a gulp into the Cooper's Pool, made, within the -house, the only sound of the morning. -</p> -<p> -Jean scraped the meal off her hands and went again to the door to look -about and listen. -</p> -<p> -“Ay, ay! up at last,” she said to herself. -</p> -<p> -“There's the Major's light, and Kate Mhor up for the making of his -breakfast, and a lowe in the weaver's shed. The Provost's is dark—poor -man!—it's little his lady is caring!” - </p> -<p> -She was going to turn about and in, when the squeal of a bagpipe came from -the town-head, and the player started to put his drones in order. “Ochan! -ochan!” said poor Jean, for here, indeed, was the end of her hopes; there -was no putting back from the Duke's errand. She listened a little to the -tuning as if it was the finest of <i>piobaireachds</i>, and it brought a -curious notion to her mind of the first reel she danced with her man to -the squeezing of that same sheepskin. Then the reeds roared into the air -of “Baile Inneraora.” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Och a Dhé! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob!”</i> she cried in to the -man among the blankets, but there was no need for the summons. The -gathering rang far ben in the chambers of sleep, and Rob was stark awake, -with a grasp at his hip for the claymore. -</p> -<p> -“Troth! I thought it was the camp! and them on us,” he laughed foolishly -in his beard. -</p> -<p> -Up and down the street went Dol' Dubh, the Duke's second piper, the same -who learned the art of music right well from the Macruimens of Boreraig, -and he had as sweet a finger on the chanter as Padruig himself, with the -nerve to go round the world. Fine, fine it was for him, be sure, to be the -summoner to battle! Lights jumped to the little lozens of the windows and -made streaks on the cracks of the doors, and the Major's man came from his -loft ganting with a mouth like the glee'd gun, a lantern swinging on a -finger, making for the stable to saddle his master's horse. A garret -window went up with a bang, and Peter MacIntyre, wright, pat out a towsy -head and snuffed the air. It was low tide in the two bays, and the town -was smelling less of peat-reek than of sea-wrack and saltness. One star -hung in the north over Dunchuach. -</p> -<p> -“They have the good day for starting the jaunt, whatever,” said the -wright. “If I was a stone or two lighter, and had one to look after the -shop, it's off on this ploy I would be too.” He took in his head, the top -nodding briskly on his Kilmarnock bonnet, and wakened the wife to help him -on with his clothes. -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“Aora, Aora, Baile Inneraora, -I got a bidding to Baile Inneraora; -I got the bidding, but little they gave me, -Aora, Aora, Baile Chailein Mhoir!” - </pre> -<p> -Dol' Dubh was up at the Cross, swelled out like a net-bow, blasting -furiously, his heart athump with the piper's zest. Doors drummed, windows -screeched in their cases, women's voices went from land to land, and the -laugh and cry of bairns new roused from the hot toss of dreams. Far up the -highroad a horse's hoofs were dunting hollow and hearty on the stones, and -by-and-by through the Arches trotted the Cornal, his tall body straight -and black against the dun of the gables. He had a voice like a rutting -deer. “Master Piper,” he roared to Dol' Dubh, tugging his beast back on -its haunches, “stop that braggart air and give us 'Bundle and Go,' and God -help the Campbell that's not on the Cadger's Quay before the sun's over -Stron Point!” - </p> -<p> -“Where is the air like it?” said Dol' to himself, slacking a reed with a -thumb-nail. “Well they ken it where little they love it with its -vaunting!” But he up with his drones on his shoulder and into the tune -that had the Cornal's fancy. Beside him the Cornal stood at his horse's -stirrup in the grey-brown of the morning, his head still light with the -bottle of claret wine his lady in Lecknamban had put before him ere he had -boot over saddle. -</p> -<p> -Then the town stirred to its affairs. The Major's horse went clattering -over the cobblestones to his door-end, the arm-room door opened, and old -Nanny Bheag, who kept the key, was lifted off her feet and in, on the rush -of young lads making for the new guns Lome Clerk had up from the Low -Country. On the belts of the older men, loth to leave the fire-end, -mothers and wives were hanging bags with thick farls of cake, and cheese, -and the old Aora salve for swordcuts. -</p> -<p> -If they had their way of it, these <i>caille-achan</i>, the fighting gear -would be all kebbucks of cheese and dry hose, and no powder and ball. The -men blustered, high-breasted, with big words in their beards, and no name -too dirty for the crew they were off to scatter—praising themselves -and making the fine prophecies, as their folks did before them with better -rights when the town was more in the way of going to wars. Or they roundly -scolded the weans for making noise, though their eyes were learning every -twist of the copper hair and every trick of the last moment, to think on -when long and dreary would be the road before them. -</p> -<p> -There was a break in Dol' Dubh's music, and high over the big town rang -the Cornal's voice, starting the bairns in their sleep and setting them up -and screaming. -</p> -<p> -“Laggards! laggards! O lazy ones! Out! out! Campbells before were never so -swear't to be marching. It is time to be steeping the withies!” - </p> -<p> -Hard back went the stout doors on the walls, and out ran the folk. The -brogues skliffed and hammered; men with muskets, swords, dirks, and targes -ran down the street, and women and children behind them. A tumult filled -the town from side to side and end to end, and the lanes and closes were -streaming with the light from gaping doors. -</p> -<p> -Old and young, the boy and the snooded girl, women with bairn at breast, -<i>bodach</i> and <i>cailleach</i>, took to the Cross muster, leaving the -houses open to the wind and to the world. The cats thrummed by the fires, -and the smell of the sea-wrack came in beside them. -</p> -<p> -“I have you here at last,” said the Cornal, dour and dark, throwing his -keen eyes along the row of men. “Little credit are ye to my clan and -chief, and here's to the Lowlands low, and would to God I was there now -among the true soldados with stomachs for slaughter and the right skill of -fence and musketoon! A short tulzie, and a tow at the thrapple of bastard -Chevalier would there be in that case. Here's but a wheen herds, weavers, -and gillies holding Brown Betty like a kail-runt!” - </p> -<p> -He was one of the Craignish Campbells, the Cornal—Dugald, brother of -Lachan who got death at a place called Fontenoy in the summer before—very -sib to the Duke, and it behoved the town-men to say nothing. But they -cursed his eyes to each other on the corners of their mouths, and if he -knew it he had sense enough to say nothing. -</p> -<p> -The women and bairns and the old folks stood in a great crowd behind the -Cornal's horse. The Major's mare with him in the sell was dancing an -uncanny spring near the Arches, full of freshness and fine feeding as a -battle-horse should be, but overly much that way for a man sixteen -finger-lengths round the belly and full of fish and ale. From Glen Beag -came the slow morning, gusty and stinging; Stob-an-Eas stood black against -the grey of it; the tide stretched from shore to shore unfriendly and -forlorn. -</p> -<p> -Jean Rob, with the bairn at her brattie-string, was with the other women -seeing her man away, stupid with two sorrows—one because he was -going, and the other because he had twenty pounds in his sporran that he -might well be doing without; for he was leaving the woman without a groat, -and only a boll of meal in the girnel and a wee firkin of salted fish. -</p> -<p> -The steady breeze came yet from Stron, and sat snug in the sails of the -six boats that carried the Duke's men over to Cowal. Brog-and-Turk's skiff -put out first, himself at the helm in his tarry jacket; the others, deep -down, followed close on her heels. One by one they fell off from the quay. -The men waved their bonnets and cried cheerily and vaunting, as was aye -the good grace of Clan Diarmaid at the first and the last of forays. -</p> -<p> -“Blessings with ye!” cried the folk left behind, wet-eyed; and even the -Provost's wife took a grief at her inside to see her man with a shaking -lip look round the sail of the hin'most boat. Cheering and weeping, -singing and <i>ochain!</i> there they were on the quay and on the sea, our -own folk, our dear folk; and who were ever like them when it came to the -bit, and stout hearts or kind hearts were wanted? -</p> -<p> -“Stand back, kindred!” cried the Cornal, putting spurs to his horse, and -he pranced up the town-head, a pretty man, to join the Major and gallop -round the loch-head to join the corps at Cairn-dubh. -</p> -<p> -Dol' Dubh stopped his playing at the bow of Brog-an-Turk's skiff when she -gulped the first quaich of brine, and the men in all the boats started to -sing the old boat-song of “Aora Mo Chridhe tha mi seoladh”— -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“Aora, my heart, I am sailing, sailing, -Far to the South on the slope of the sea; -Aora <i>mo chridhe</i>, it is cold is the far land, -Bitter the stranger with wands on his doorway. -Aora Mochree!” - </pre> -<p> -It came back on the wind with a sorrow to break hearts, sinking and -swelling as the wind took the fancy, and the long-necked herons stood on -the fringe of the tide with their heads high to listen. The sails got -scattered and shrunk, and the tune got thin and low, and lost at last in -the swish of the waves on the shore, and the ears of those who listened -heard the curlew piping cursedly loud over the Cooper's Pool. A grey cold -day with rain on the tail of it. High Creag Dubh with its firs and alders -and rowans stark and careless over the hollow town. Broad day and -brightness, and the cruisies and candles burning the ghosts of flame in -the empty houses, with doors wide to the empty street and the lanes and -closes! -</p> -<h3> -II. -</h3> -<p> -The wanderer has ever the best of it, and wae wae are the hearts behind I -Is it for war or sport, or for the red gold, that a man turns heel on his -home and takes the world for his pillow? In his pack is the salve for care -as well as for sword-cuts, for ever and always are new things happening. -The road crooks through the curious glens; the beasts trot among the grass -and fern and into the woods; the girls (the dear ones, the red-lipped -ones!) come from the milking of the white-shouldered cattle and look with -soft black eyes as he passes, and there is a new tale at the corner of -every change-house fire. All that may befall a packman; but better's the -lot of the fighter with steel at his haunch, fire at his heart, and every -halt a day closer to them he would be seeking. -</p> -<p> -But the folks behind in the old place! <i>Mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!</i> -Daybreak, and hot sun, and the creeping in of the night, when the door -must be snecked on the rover; the same place, and still with a want in it, -and only guessing at where and how is the loved one out on strange ways on -the broad world. -</p> -<p> -Far up the long Highlands the Campbells were on their way. Loch Sloy and -Glen Falloch, Rannoch's bleakness and Ben Alder's steepness, and each -morning its own wet grass and misty brae, and each night its dreams on the -springy heather. -</p> -<p> -A woman was weeping on Achadunan because that her man was gone and her -chimney stone was cold, and Rob Donn's sporran was emptied at her feet, -though he knew not so much as the name of her. But he took a thought and -said, “I'll keep the half, for long's the way before us, and ill is -travelling among strangers without a round-piece in the purse.” That was -but a day's march from Jean Rob, and she was making a supper of crowdie -that was the first meal of the day. -</p> -<p> -On Spey-side was the camp of the Argylls, and card-play round the fires, -with the muskets shining, and the pipes playing sweeter for slumber than -for rouse. -</p> -<p> -“I will put my watch on this turn,” said a black Lowlander in the heat of -the game. -</p> -<p> -“Rob Donn's watch is the sun on Toman-uardar,” said our hero, “but here -are ten yellow Geordies,” and out went his fortune among the roots of the -gall. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Troosh! beannachd leat!</i>” and the coin was a jingle in the other -one's pouch. -</p> -<p> -“I have plenty more where it came from, and cattle enough forbye,” said -our braggart, and he turned on his elbow whistling “Crodh Chailein.” - </p> -<p> -But let them follow the drum who will, for us the story's beside the -hearth. It is not a clatter of steel and the tulzies of Chevaliers, but -the death of an only bairn. -</p> -<p> -In her house on the Lowlands road Jean Rob starved with the true Highland -pride, that sets a face content against the world at kirk or market. -Between her and a craving stomach lay but shell-fish and herbs, for she -had not a plack to spend, and the little one got all the milk that came -from Mally, the dappled one, drying up for calving. Break of day would see -the woman, white, thin, keen-eyed, out on the ebb before the fishing-boats -were in, splashing in the pools in the sand for partans and clabbie-doos, -or with two ready fingers piercing the sand to pull the long spout-fish -from his hiding. Or she would put little stakes in the sand, and between -them a taut line with baited hooks to coax the fish at high tide. But ill -was her luck, indeed, for few were the fish that came to the lure to be -lifted again at ebb. -</p> -<p> -Above Kilmalieu on the sea side of Dunchu-ach, in the tangle and dark of -the trees, among the soft splashing soil, the wild leeks gave a scent to -the air. These would Jean gather, and the nettle too, and turn them to -thin broth; but that same was no fare for a Crarae stomach. -</p> -<p> -At night when the wee one slept, the mother would have her plaid on her -head, and through the town, barefoot, in the darkness, passing the folk at -the close-mouths quickly for fear they would speak to her, and her heart -would crave for share of the noble supper that made steam from the door of -her cousin the rich merchant. -</p> -<p> -Like a ghost sometimes, wandering about the Cadger's Quay or the -gutting-stools, where she would be looking for a dropped giley or a bake -from the nets, she would come on a young woman. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Dhe!</i> Jean Rob! is it thyself that is here?” - </p> -<p> -“Just Jean, my darling, for a little turn, because of the stir in the -town, and the smell of the barking nets. Well I like the smell of the -bark, and the wind takes little of it up the Lowlands road.” - </p> -<p> -“Thou art not coming out much since the men went to the North. Art well at -the house—the little one, now, bless her?” - </p> -<p> -“Splendid, splendid, <i>m' eudail</i>. Faith, it is too fat we will be -getting on the fortune Rob got from Elrigmor.” - </p> -<p> -“Indeed, yes, Jean, it was the great luck! When a poor person comes——” - </p> -<p> -“Hut tut! Poor nor rich, my people had their own place on Lochowside, and -little did my Rob need MacNicol's dirty money; but he was aye fond of a -'horo-yally,' and that's the way of his being among them.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, well, if that's the way, our own people were good enough on a time; -but a pedigree, thou wilt allow, is a poor plaster for a pain in the -stomach. For me, I would have a good shaking of herring and money in the -town. It was but black brochan for our one meal to-day, and my mother -poorly.” - </p> -<p> -“My dear! <i>och</i>, my dear! and I to brag of plenty! Little enough, in -truth, is on my own board; but I have a boiling of meal if you come for it -in the morning.” - </p> -<p> -“Kindly, kindly, thou good dame. It would be but a loan.” - </p> -<p> -“Yes, indeed, one will be running out of the wherewithal now and again, -and 'twas aye 'Mine is yours and yours is mine' in Gaeldom. But I must be -stepping.” - </p> -<p> -And while Jean Rob starved, there was never a word from the best and -bravest off at the wars, or how they fared, only now and then a half tale -from a travelling caird or a Low-Country carrier about gatherings and -skirling pipes and hard knocks. His Grace himself kept a horse or two and -a good rider on the other side of the Rest, to gallop hot-hoof into the -Castle with the first news of how his clan won; but weary was the waiting. -</p> -<p> -The town took to its old appearance, the aged men clack-clacking with the -shuttle, the boys scattering seed over the rig-and-fur of the ploughed -fields, the women minding their houses. And that, too, is war for ye! The -dirk is out, the brogues trail over the hills and through the glens, the -clans meet and clash, the full heart belches blood, the grass soaks, the -world and the chance of it is put on the luck of a swinging stroke at yon -one's neck. War! war! red and lusty—the jar of it fills the land! -But oh, <i>mo chridhe!</i> home in Glen Shie are women and bairns living -their own day's life, and the crack will be blithe in the sheilings to -come, for all your quarrels. Where is Hector, and where is -Gilean-of-the-Axe, and where is Diarmaid of the boar's snout? They are all -gone but for an old song at the sheiling-fire, and life, love, and the -Fell Sergeant still come and go in the place the warriors made such stir -in! A stranger would think there was little amiss in the Duke's town. The -women sang their long songs of love and yore as they span about the wheel -and carded the wool; the bairns guddled in Jumping John's burn, and tore -their kilts among the whins, and came home with the crows, redfaced and -hungry-warned. At the ale-house there was traffic by day, and heavy -drovers and gaugers stamped their feet to the choruses at night. The day -lengthened, and comforting winds came from the two bonny black glens; the -bracken put on new growths, like the crook of St Molach that's up-by in -the Castle; Easachosain reeled to the piping of birds. -</p> -<p> -There might be an eye many times a-day on the Stron Point to see if a -horseman was rounding it, and the cruisies were kept burning a little -longer at night in case the news would come in the darkness like the Athol -thieves. But patience was ever the gift of the Gael, and few lost heart. -</p> -<p> -And at last the news came of Culloden Moor. -</p> -<p> -It was on a Sunday—a dry clear day—and all the folk were at -the church, with old Colin the minister sweating at it for the good of the -Ceannloch fishermen in the loft. He was in the middle of his prayer when a -noise came over the town, a dunting of hoofs on the causey of the -Provost's house-front. -</p> -<p> -“Amen!” said the cunning Colin, quick as could be, and then, “Friends, -here is news for us,” and down the pulpit steps he ran briskly like a lad -of twenty. -</p> -<p> -Peter MacIntyre set back the bolt from the door with a bang, and past him -the people made rush. The Duke's rider from over the Rest was there in the -saddle of a grey garron foaming at the mouth and its hurdies in a tremble. -</p> -<p> -“Your tidings, your tidings, good man!” cried the people. -</p> -<p> -The lad sat stark in the saddle, with his eyes wet and his nose pricking -with the Gaelic pride. -</p> -<p> -“I have been at the Castle, and-” - </p> -<p> -“Your news, just man.” - </p> -<p> -“I have been at the Castle, and Mac-Cailein Mor, who said I rode well from -the Rest, said I might come in-by and carry my budget to you.” - </p> -<p> -“Out with it, Paruig, little hero. Is't good or ill?” - </p> -<p> -“What would it be, my heroes, with our own lads, but good? Where's the -beat of them? It's 'The Glen is Mine' Dol' Dubh will be playing this day -on Culloden, for ours is the battle. They scattered the dirty Northmen and -the Irishers like chaff, and Cailein Mor himself gave me a horn of ale -from his own hands on the head o't.” - </p> -<p> -A roar went up that stirred the crows on Scaurnoch, and there was a Sunday -spoiled for you; for the ale went free and merry in the change-house at -the Duke's charge till the moon was over Ben Ime. -</p> -<p> -But there were five houses with the clocks stopped (for the ghosts take no -heed of time); five houses with the glasses turned face to the wall (for -who dare look in glass to see a wraith at the back of the shoulder?); -there were four widows and five mothers wet faced, keening for five fine -men who had been, and whose names were now writ on paper on the church -door. -</p> -<h3> -III. -</h3> -<p> -Day followed day, and still home came no Campbells. They were far to the -dreary North, plying sword and fire among the bad clans, harrying for the -glory of Mac-Cailein Mor. -</p> -<p> -And at last on a day the sea-pigs rolled and blew off Stron Point, and the -scarts dived like arrows from the sun's eye, deep into a loch boiling with -fish. Night found the brown sails bellying out on the scudding smacks, and -the snouts of skiff and galley tearing the waves to get among the spoil. -Bow-to-back, the nets spotted Finne mile on mile; the kind herrings -crowded thick into them; the old luck was back, and the quays in the -morning heard the fine tune of the cadger's clinking silver. In a hurry of -hurries the fleet came up to the mouth of Shira—Tarbert men, -Strathlachlan men, Minard men, black fellows from MacCallum country, and -the wine-traffickers from French Foreland to swap sour claret for the -sweet fat fish. -</p> -<p> -It was ho-rol and spill the bicker in yon town, for all that the best of -its men were away and afar at the killing. The smoke was black from the -fires in the Cooper's Pool, the good healthy smell of the gut-pots sought -up to the Castle door. Little doubt his Grace (<i>beannachd leis!</i>) -would come out to the door-step and curse because it made him bock his -breakfast, dainty man! -</p> -<p> -Throng though the town was, round about the little house on the left of -the Lowlands Road crept a queer quietness. The cow had dried, and the dull -weather kept the spout fish too deep down in the sand for the ready -fingers to reach them. So the household of Rob Donn starved to the bone. -</p> -<p> -“To-morrow—they will be home tomorrow,” said Jean to herself every -day to keep up her heart; but the days went by, and though it was -something to know that Rob was not among the killed at Culloden, it was -not something to stay the stomach. A stone-throw off were the best and -kindest hearts in the world: the woman's cousin, the rich merchant, would -give all he had on his board if he knew her trouble, and friends without -number would share the last bite with her. But to ask it would be to say -she was at the lowest, and to tell that Rob had left her nothing, and she -would sooner die in her pride. -</p> -<p> -Such people as passed her way—and some of them old gossips—would -have gone in, but the withie was aye across the door, and that's the sign -that business is doing within no one dare disturb. The withie was ever -there except at night, when Jean was scouring the countryside for -something to eat. -</p> -<p> -The bairn dwined so fast that even the mother (and blind indeed's the -mother at that bit) saw a little of it. There was no longer the -creepie-stool at the back of the house, in the sun, and the bairn on it, -watching the birds; her shanks grew thin like spirtles; her eyes sank far -ben in her face, and she would not go the length of the door. She sat at -the fireside and laughed her poor cold laugh less every day, till one long -thought came to her that kept her busy at the thinking from morning till -night with a face like a <i>cailleach</i> of eighty. -</p> -<p> -“White love, white love,” Jean would be saying, “your father is on the -road with stots and a pouch of cockades.” - </p> -<p> -At that the bairn would come back from her roaming; but soon she was off -again into the deeps of mind, her wide eyes like the windows of an empty -house for all that could be seen through them. -</p> -<p> -“Oh! but it will be the fine cockade,” poor Jean would press—“what -am I saying?—the pack of your father will be full of them. Not the -white ones of silk only, but the red and the grassy green, my little calf. -You'll be wearing them when you will.” - </p> -<p> -No heeding in the bairn's face. -</p> -<p> -Then Jean would go out and pull the tansy at the door, and give it to the -little one to get the fine scent. The curious shells from the shore, too, -would she gather, and lay in rings about the chair, and call her the Queen -in her castle. For ever would there be a song at her lips, even if the -drops would be in her eyes—old daft songs from fairs and weddings, -and fairy rhyming and cheery stories about the Good People up on Sithean -Sluaidhe. Her fingers were for ever soft about the bairn, her flesh and -blood, stroking in the hair, softening the cushion, petting her in every -hand's-turn. She made a treat to herself by asking her, now and then, -something that had to be answered “Yes” or “No,” and “Mother” was so sweet -in her ears that she would be content to hear no more in all her lifetime. -</p> -<p> -All the day the bairn crouched up in a hoop-chair with her neck slack and -her chin on her breast. Jean was loth to leave her in her bed in the -mornings, for she had a notion that to get her out of the blankets and to -put her in the clothes of the busy world would be to keep her in the trim -for living on. -</p> -<p> -Still there was no sign of the men returning. Often was Jean's foot at the -door and her hand over her eyes to see if there was no stir at Stron or -Kilachatrine, and but for good stuff, her heart failed five-score times -a-day. -</p> -<p> -At last, on a day of days, the bairn could not be stirred to notice -anything. The tansy fell out of her fingers, and she picked at the wool of -the plaid that wrapped her; the shells had no charm for her eye. -</p> -<p> -Jean made the pack of the coming father as routh as a magic cave. “That -father of yours, darling, what a many wonderful things he will bring! I -see him on the road. Stots, and cows with milk brimming from the udders, -and a pet sheep for his <i>caileag bheag</i>; pretty gold and silver -things, and brooches and shining stuff. That father of yours! Hurry, -father, hurry! Jingling things, and wee fairy-men, and bells to ring for -you, m' eudail; pretty glasses and dishes to play with, and—O my -darling! my darling!” - </p> -<p> -The bairn's face lost the deep red spots; her little mouth slacked and -fell; her eyes shut on the sight of the fine things her poor mother made -for her out of a rich and willing mind. -</p> -<p> -Jean lifted her and put her on the bed, and ran with a gutting-knife to -where Mally the dappled one lay at the back. -</p> -<p> -“I must be doing it!” said the woman, and she bled the brute as they do in -the poor years in Lorn, and took the cogie of blood into the house to make -a pudding of. The last handful of meal in the girael went into the pot -with the warm blood, and she was stirring it with a spoon over the fire -when the child cluttered at the throat. -</p> -<p> -Jean turned about with a cry, and at the minute a bagpipe's lilting came -over the glassy bay from Stron Point. -</p> -<p> -It was Clan Campbell back from the wars, the heroes! clouted about the -heads and with stains on their red waistcoats that were thicker than wine -makes. Dol' Dubh played the old port, sweet and jaunty, at the head of -them; the Cornal and the Major snuffed the herrings and said, “Here's our -own place, sure enough! See the smoke from our own peats! And the fine -cock of the cap on Dunchuach!” - </p> -<p> -On the Lowlands road the town emptied itself, and the folks ran fast and -furious—the boys first, the young women next, and the old folks -peching behind. But if the town was up on the warriors soon, the Duke -himself was before it. He saw the first of the Company from the Castle, -and he was in the saddle for all his threescore, like a boy, and down like -the wind to Boshang Gate. -</p> -<p> -“Halt!” cried the Cornal to his men, and Dol' Dubh's bag emptied itself -with a grant. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Tha sibh an sol!</i> You are here, cousin,” said the Duke. “Proud am I -to see you and our good lads. They did the old trick well!” - </p> -<p> -“They did that, MacCailein. The stuff's aye to the fore.” - </p> -<p> -“It's in the blood, man. We have't in us, high or low. I have but one -thing to vex me.” - </p> -<p> -“Name it, cousin.” - </p> -<p> -“Well ye ken, Cornai. It's that I had not been with you to see the last -crushing Clan Campbell may need to give to an asp's head.” - </p> -<p> -“It was a good ploy missed, I'll not deny.” - </p> -<p> -“What about the Tearlach one? Well plucked, they are telling me?” - </p> -<p> -“As foolish a lad as ever put tartan on hip, my lord! Frenchy, Frenchy, -MacCailein! all outside and no cognisance. Yourself or any of your -forebears at the head of his clans could have scoured all Albainn of -Geordie's Low-Country red-coats, and yet there were only six thousand true -Gaels in all the fellow's corps.” - </p> -<p> -“To read my letters, you would think the whole North was on fire!” - </p> -<p> -“A bantam's crow, cousin. Clan Campbell itself could have thrawed the neck -of it at any time up to Dunedin.” - </p> -<p> -“They made a fair stand, did they not? -</p> -<p> -“Uch! Poor eno'—indeed it was not what you would call a coward's -tulzie either.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, well, that's over, lads I I am proud of my clan and town. <i>Slochd -a Chubair gu bragh!</i> Stack your guns in the arm-room, see your wives -and bairns, and come up-by to the Castle for the heroes' bite and sup. -Who's that with the white cockade in his bonnet? Is't Rob Donn?” - </p> -<p> -“It is Rob Donn, cousin, with a bit of the ribbon contrivance for the -diversion of his bairn. He tore it from the bonnet of the seventh man he -put an end to.” - </p> -<p> -“There's luck in the number, any way, though it was a dear plaything. -March!” Down the road, with their friends hanging about them, and the boys -carrying guns and knapsacks, went the men for the town, and Rob Donn left -the company as it passed near his own door. -</p> -<p> -“Faith! 'tis a poor enough home-coming, without wife or bairn to meet -one,” said he, as he pushed in the door. -</p> -<p> -“Wife! wife!” he cried ben among the peat-reek, “there's never a stot, but -here's the cockade for the little one!” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -A FINE PAIR OF SHOES -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE beginnings of things are to be well considered—we have all a -little of that art; but to end well and wisely is the gift of few. Hunters -and herds on the corri and the hill—they are at the simple end of -life, and ken the need for the task complete. The stag must be gralloched -ere ye brag of him, the drove must be at the market ere ye say anything of -the honesty of the glens ye pass through. -</p> -<p> -And what I like best about our own Gaels is their habit of bringing the -work of a day or the work of a lifetime to what (in their own notions) is -an end round and polished. -</p> -<p> -When our women die, they do it with something of a daintiness. Their -dead-clothes are in the awmrie; I have seen them with the cakes toasted -and the board set for their funerals. Travelling wide on unfriendly -foreign roads, living by sword or wit, you know that our men, the poorest -among them, with an empty sporran, kept the buttons of their duds of good -silver, to pay, if need be, for something more than a gangrel's burial. I -like to think of him in story who, at his end in bed, made the folk trick -him out in gallant style with tartan, targe, brogue, and bonnet, and the -sword in his hand. -</p> -<p> -“A Gaelic gentleman,” said he, “should come to his journey's end somewhat -snod and well-put-on.” And his son played “Cha till mi tuilidh” (“I return -no more”) on the bag-pipe by his firm command. -</p> -<p> -It is not even in this unco undertaking of Death that the polish must be -put on the task (though poor's the creature who dies clumsily); it should -be the same with every task of a day. -</p> -<p> -And so Baldi Crom, making a fine pair of shoes on a day in Carnus, put the -best skill of his fingers to every stitch. He had been working at them -since the command came in the morning, and now it was the mouth of night, -and on one of them the finest of the fine sewing was still to do. About -the place there was nobody but the old man, for he was the last, in a way, -of the old stock of Carnus (now a <i>larach</i> of low lintels, and the -nettle over all); and he was without woman to put <i>caschrom</i> to his -soil or hip to a creel of peats. And so he lived on the brae of Camus—that -same far up and lonely in the long glen. -</p> -<p> -“They'll be the best I ever put brog in,” said he, looking fondly at the -fine work, the yellow thread standing out on the toes, patterned like a -leaf of the whortleberry, set about with the serpent-work of the old -crosses. Bite nor sap, kail nor crowdie, did he taste all day. Working in -the light of his open door, he could see, if he had the notion, the whole -glen rolled out before him, brimming with sun, crossed in the heat of the -day by deer from Dalavich seeking for the woods of Loch Finne; the blue -reek of the townships at the far end might have cheered him with the -thought that life was in sight though his house was lonely. But crouped -over the lap-stone, he made love to his work, heeding nothing else but the -sewing of the fine pair of shoes. -</p> -<p> -It was the night before the town market. Droves of bellowing cattle—heifers, -stots, and stirks—were going down the glen from Port Sonachan, -cropping hurried mouthfuls by the way as they went and as the dogs would -let them. And three Benderloch drovers came off the road and into Baldi -Crom's house, after the night was down on the glen and he had the cruisie -lighted. They sat them down round the fire in the middle of the floor and -ate bannocks and cheese. -</p> -<p> -“How's thy family, 'Illeasbuig?” said a drover, stirring up the peat as if -he were at his own door-end. Down on the roadside the cattle, black and -yellow, crushed the sappy grass and mourned in bellows for their lost -fields. -</p> -<p> -“Splendid! splendid!” said the old man, double over his shoes, fondling -them with the fingers of a mother on a first baby. The light was low in -the cruisie, for the oil was well down, and the fire and the cruisie made -a ring of light that could scarcely slip over the backs of the men sitting -round the peats. A goat scratched his head but-and-ben against the -wattles; in corners the darkness was brown and thick. -</p> -<p> -“I hear Cailen's in the Low-country, but what has come of Tormaid?” said -one, with knee-breeches, and hose of coarse worsted. -</p> -<p> -The old man gave a quick start, and the lapstone fell from his knees, the -shoe he was at with it. He bent over and felt like a blind man for them on -the floor before he made answer. -</p> -<p> -“Tormaid, my gallant son! Ye have not heard of him lately, then?” - </p> -<p> -“Never a word, 'Illeasbuig. People on the going foot, like drovers, hear -all the world's gossip but the <i>sgeuls</i> of their own <i>sgireachd</i>. -We have been far North since Martinmas: for us there must be many a story -to tell 'twixt here and Inneraora. A stout lad and pretty, Tormaid too, as -ever went to the beginning of fortune! Where might he be enow?” - </p> -<p> -“Here and there, friend, here and there! A restless scamp, a wanderer, but -with parts. Had he not the smart style at the game of <i>camanachi?</i> He -was namely for it in many places.” - </p> -<p> -“As neat a player as ever took shinty in hand, master! I have the name of -a fair player myself, but that much I'll allow your lad. Is he to the West -side, or farther off?” - </p> -<p> -“Farther off, friend. The pipes now—have you heard him as a player -on the chanter?” - </p> -<p> -“As a piper, 'Illeasbuig! His like was not in three shires. I have heard -him at reel and march, but these were not his fancy: for him the <i>piobaireachds</i> -that scholarly ones play!” - </p> -<p> -“My gallant boy!” said Baldi Crom, rubbing soft on the shoe with the palm -of a hand. -</p> -<p> -“Once upon a time,” said the drover, “we were on our way to a Lowland -Tryst. Down Glen Falloch a Soccach man and I heard him fill the nightfall -with the 'Bhoilich' of Morar, with the brag of a whole clan in his -warbling. He knew piping, the fellow with me, and the tear came to his -cheek, thinking of the old days and the old ploys among the dirks and <i>sgians</i>.” - </p> -<p> -“There was never the beat of him,” said the shoemaker. -</p> -<p> -“Throughither a bit—” - </p> -<p> -“But good, good at heart, man! With a better chance of fortune he might be -holding his head to-day as high as the best of them.” The drovers looked -at each other with a meaning that was not for the eyes of the old man; but -he had small chance of seeing it, for he was throng at his fine pair of -shoes. -</p> -<p> -“He had a name for many arts,” said the man with coarse hose, “but they -were not the arts that give a lad settlement and put money in his purse.” - </p> -<p> -“The hot young head, man! He would have cured,” said the old man, sewing -hard. “Think of it,” said he: “was ever a more humoursome fellow to walk a -glen with? His songs, his stories, his fast jump at one's meaning, and his -trick of leaving all about him in a good key with themselves and him. Did -ever one ask a Saxon shilling from his purse that it was not a cheery gift -if the purse held it?” - </p> -<p> -“True, indeed!” said the drovers, eating bannocks and cheese. -</p> -<p> -“'Twixt heaven and hell,” said the fellow with the coarse hose, “is but a -spang. It's so easy for some folk to deserve the one gate—so many -their gifts—that the cock-sureness leaves them careless, and they -wander into the wrong place.” - </p> -<p> -“You were speaking?” said Baldi, a little angry, though he heard but half. -</p> -<p> -“I said thy son was a fellow of many gifts,” answered the drover, in a -confusion. -</p> -<p> -“He had no unfriends that I ken of,” said the old man, busy at the shoes; -“young or old, man or woman.” - </p> -<p> -“Especially woman,” put in another drover, wrinkling at the eyes. -</p> -<p> -“I've had five sons: three in the King's service, and one in the -Low-country; here's my young wanderer, and he was—he is—the -jewel of them all!” - </p> -<p> -“You hear of him sometimes?” - </p> -<p> -“I heard of him and from him this very day,” said Baldi, busy at the -brogues, white and drawn at the face and shaking at the lips. “I have -worked at these shoes since morning, and little time is there to put bye -on them, for at Inneraora town must they be before breakfast. Solomon -Carrier, passing at three, gives me a cry and takes them.” - </p> -<p> -“They're a fine pair of shoes.” - </p> -<p> -“Fine indeed; the finest of the fine! They're for a particular one.” - </p> -<p> -“Duke John himself, perhaps?” - </p> -<p> -“No, man; a particular one, and were they not his in time a sorry man was -I. They're the best Baldi Crom ever put leather on.” - </p> -<p> -Till the turn of the night the drovers slept in their plaids, their cattle -steaming out-by in the dark, munching the coarse grass selvedge, breathing -heavy. And when the men and their beasts went in the darkness of the -morning, Baldi Crom was still throng at his fine pair of shoes. -</p> -<p> -“I'm late, I'm surely late,” said he, toiling hard, but with no -sloven-work, at his task. -</p> -<p> -The rain had come with the morning, and was threshing out-by on peat and -thatch. Inside, the fire died, and the cruisie gave warnings that its oil -was low, but Baldi Crom was too throng on the end of his task to notice. -And at last his house dropped into darkness. -</p> -<p> -“Tormaid! Tormaid! my little hero—I'm sore feared you'll die without -shoes after all,” cried the old man, staggering to the door for daylight. -He had the door but opened when he fell, a helpless lump, on the clay -floor. The rain slanted on his grey hairs and spat on a fine shoe. -</p> -<p> -Far down the good long glen the drovers were tramping after their cattle, -and the dun morning was just before them when they got to the gate of -Inneraora. Here there was a great to-do, for the kind gallows stood stark -before the Arches. Round about it were the townspeople waiting for a -hanging. -</p> -<p> -“Who is't, and what is't for?” asked the drover with the knee-breeches and -the coarse hose, pushing into the crowd. -</p> -<p> -“Tormaid, the son of the Carnus cobbler,” said a woman with a plaid over -her head. “He killed a man in a brawl at Braleckan and raped his purse. -Little enough to put tow to a pretty lad's neck for, sure enough!” “Stand -clear there!” cried a sharp voice, and the hangman and his friend came to -the scaffold's foot with a lad in front of them, his hands shackled behind -his back. He was a strong straight lad, if anything overly dour in the -look, and he wore a good coat and tiews, but neither boot nor bonnet. -Under the beam he put back his shoulders with a jerk and looked at the -folk below, then over at Dunchuach with the mist above the fort like -smoke. -</p> -<p> -“They might have given him a pair of old baucbels, if no better, to die -in,” said the drover in the woman's ear. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Ochanoch!</i> and they might!” she said. “The darling! He lost his -shoes in swimming Duglas Water to get clear, and they say he sent -yesterday to his father for a pair, but they're not come. Queer, indeed, -is that, for 'twas the brag of the folks he came of that they aye died -with a good pair of shoon on their feet!” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CASTLE DARK. -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>OU know Castle Dark, women? -</p> -<p> -“Well, we know the same, just man and blind!” - </p> -<p> -And you, my lads? -</p> -<p> -“None better, Paruig Dali; morning and night, in the moon and in the full -white day!” - </p> -<p> -Then of Castle Dark is my story. Is the cruisie alight on the rafter? More -peats, little one, on the fire. -</p> -<p> -Once upon a time Castle Dark was a place of gentility and stirring days. -You have heard it,—you know it; now it is like a deer's skull in -Wood Mamore, empty, eyeless, sounding to the whistling wind, but blackened -instead of bleached in the threshing rains. When the day shines and the -sun coaxes the drowsy mists from the levels by the river, that noble house -that was brisks up and grey-whitens, minding maybe of merry times; the -softest smirr of rain—and the scowl comes to corbie-stone and gable; -black, black grow the stones of old ancient Castle Dark! Little one, <i>m' -eudail</i>, put the door to, and the sneck down. -</p> -<p> -“True for you, Paruig Dali; you know the place as if you had seen it.” - </p> -<p> -With eyes Paruig Dali has never seen it. But my friends tell me what they -know, and beyond I have learned of myself. Up the river-side, many a time -I pass to the place and over its low dykes, dry-stone, broken and -crumbling to the heel. The moss is soft on the little roads, so narrow and -so without end, winding round the land; the nettle cocks him right -braggardly over the old home of bush and flower, poisoning the air. Where -the lady dozed in her shady seat below the alder-tree, looking out between -half-shut eyes at the proud Highlands—loch, glen, and mountain—is -but a root rotten, and hacked by the woodman's whittle. A tangle of wild -wood, bracken, and weed smothers the rich gardens of Castle Dark. -</p> -<p> -“It is so, it is so, Paruig Dali, blind man, prince among splendid pipers -and storied men!” - </p> -<p> -And to stand on the broad clanging steps that lifted from the hunting-road -to the great door—that is a thinking man's trial. To me, then, will -be coming graveyard airs, yellow and vexatious, searching eager through my -bones for this old man's last weakness. “Thou sturdy dog!” will they be -saying, “some day, some day! Look at this strong tower!” With an ear to -the gap on the side of the empty ditch, I can hear the hollowness of the -house rumbling with pains, racked at <i>cabar</i> and corner-stone, the -thought and the song gone clean away. There is no window, then, that has -not a complaint of its own; no loop-hole, no vent, no grassy chimney that -the blind fellow cannot hear the pipe of. Straight into the heart's core -of Castle Dark looks the sun; the deep tolbooth of the old reivers and the -bed-chamber of the maid are open wide to the night and to the star! -</p> -<p> -“<i>Ochan! ochan!</i>” - </p> -<p> -You that only ken the castle in common day or night and plain man's -weather have but little notion of its wonders. It was there, and black and -hollow, ere ever you were born, or Paruig Dali. To see Castle Dark one -must take the Blue Barge and venture on two trips. -</p> -<p> -“The Blue Barge, just man?” - </p> -<p> -That same. The <i>birlinn ghorm</i>, the galley of fairy Lorn. It lies in -the sunlight on the bay, or the moonlight in certain weathers, and twelve -of the handsomest sit on the seats with the oars in their hands, the red -shirt bulging over the kilt-belt. At the stem of the barge is the chair of -the visitor. Gentle or semple, 'tis the same boat and crew, and the same -cushioned chair, for all that make the jaunt to Castle Dark. My story is -of two trips a man made by Barge Blue up the river to the white stairs. -</p> -<p> -He roved round the Lowlands road on a fine summer day, and out on the -sands among the running salt threads of ebb tide. Among the shells, his -eyes (as it might be) fell on the castle, and he had a notion to make the -trip to it by a new road. Loudly he piped to sea. If loudly he piped, keen -was the hearing, for yonder came the galley of fairy Lorn, the twelve -red-shirts swinging merry at the oars and chanting a Skye <i>iorram</i>. -</p> -<p> -“Here's an exploit!” said the man of my story. “There's dignity in yon -craft, or less than red-shirts was the wearing of the scamps who row her.” - </p> -<p> -The loch curled like a feather before her and frothed far behind, and soon -her nose ran high on the sand. No word was said, but the first pair of -rowers let out a carved plank, and the fellow of my story went over it and -behind to the chair with the cushioned seat. -</p> -<p> -“To the castle?” asked the captain (as it might be), in the way of one who -speaks a master, and Adventurer said, “Castle be it.” The barge was pushed -off the sand, the oars fell on the water, and she curved into the -river-mouth. -</p> -<p> -When Adventurer reached the bridge, it was before the time of war, and the -country from end to end sat quiet, free, and honest. Our folks lived the -clean out-by life of shepherds and early risers. Round these hills, the -woods—the big green woods—were trembling with bird and beast, -and the two glens were crowded with warm homes—every door open, and -the cattle untethered on the hill. Summer found the folks like ourselves -here, far up on sappy levels among the hills, but their sheilings more -their own than ours are, with never a reiver nor a broken clan in all the -land. Good stout roads and dry went down the passes to Castle Dark from -all airts of Albainn—roads for knight and horse, but free and safe -for the gentlest girl ever so lonely. By sea came gabberts of far France -with wine and drink; by land the carriers brought rich cloths, spices, and -Italian swords such as never were before or since. I made a small <i>piobaireachd</i> -once on such a blade; if you put me over my pipes, I— -</p> -<p> -“Later the pipes, Paruig Dali, the best player in the world! to thy story -this time.” Is the cup to my right or left? Blessings! The Castle and -Barge were my story. -</p> -<p> -Up and on, then, under the bridge, went Adventurer and his company of -twelve, and he trailed white fingers over the low side of the boat, the -tide warm like new milk. Under the long arch he held up his head and -whooped gaily, like the boy he was in another dream, and Mactallamh -laughed back from behind the smell of lime-drop and <i>crotal</i> hanging -to the stones. Then into the sun again, on the wide flat river, with the -fields sloping down on each hand, nodding to the lip with rush and flower. -</p> -<p> -“Faith and here's fortune!” said Adventurer. “Such a day for sailing and -sights was never before.” - </p> -<p> -And the Blue Barge met nor stone nor stay, but ever the twelve fine lads -swinging cheerily at the oars, till they came to the white stairs. -</p> -<p> -Off the boat and up the clanging steps went Adventurer as bold as Eachan, -and the bushes waving soft on every side. The gravel crunched to his foot—the -white round gravel of Cantyre; kennelled hounds cried warning from the -ditch-side; round him were the scenting flowers and the feeling of the -little roads winding so without end all about the garden. -</p> -<p> -“Queer is this!” said he, feeling the grass-edge with his feet and -fingering the leaves. “Here, surely, is weed nor nettle, but the trim bush -and the swinging rose. The gardeners have been busy in the gardens of old -ancient Castle Dark!” - </p> -<p> -When he came to the ditch, the drawbrig was down. To the warm airs of the -day the windows, high and low, were open; a look of throng life was over -the house, and in-by some one plucked angrily at the strings of a harp. -Reek rose lazy and blue over the chimneys, the smell of roasting meats and -rich broths hung on the air. -</p> -<p> -Under a tree got Adventurer and deep in thought. And soon the harping came -to an end. A girl stepped to the bridge and over into the garden. She took -to the left by the butter-house and into My Lady's Canter, lined with -foreign trees. Along the wide far road came a man to meet her, -good-shaped, in fine clothes, tartan trews fitting close on leg and -haunch, and a leather jacket held at the middle by a <i>crioslach</i>. -</p> -<p> -Under his tree stood Adventurer as they passed back, and close beside him -the courtier pushed the hilt of a small-sword to his back and took the -woman in his arms. -</p> -<p> -“Then if ye must ken,” said he, shamefacedly, “I am for the road -to-morrow.” - </p> -<p> -The girl—ripe and full, not over-tall, well balanced, her hair waved -back from over brown eyes, gathered in a knot and breaking to a curl on -the nape of the neck like a wave on the shell-white shore—got hot at -the skin, and a foot drummed the gravel in an ill temper. -</p> -<p> -“For yon silly cause again?” she asked, her lips thinning over her teeth. -</p> -<p> -“For the old cause,” said he; “my father's, my dead brothers', my clan's, -ours for a hundred years. Do not lightly the cause, my dear; it may be -your children's yet.” - </p> -<p> -“You never go with my will,” quo' the girl again. “Here am I, far from a -household of cheery sisters, so lonely, so lonely! Oh! Morag and Aoirig, -and the young ones! were I back among them from this brave tomb!” - </p> -<p> -“Tomb, sweet!” - </p> -<p> -“Tomb said I, and tomb is it!” cried the woman, in a storm. “Who is here -to sing with me and comfort me in the misty mornings, to hearten me when -you are at wood or hill? The dreary woods, the dreary, dreary shore—they -give me the gloom! My God, what a grey day!” - </p> -<p> -(And yet, by my troth, 'twas a sunny day by the feel of it, and the birds -were chirming on every tree!) -</p> -<p> -The gentleman put his hands on the girl's shoulder and looked deep in her -eyes, thinking hard for a wee, and biting at his low lip in a nervous way. -</p> -<p> -“At night,” said he, “I speak to you of chase and the country-side's -gossip. We have sometimes neighbours in our house as now,—old -Askaig's goodwife and the Nun from Inishail—a good woman and pious.” - </p> -<p> -Up went the lady's head, and she laughed bitter and long. -</p> -<p> -“My good husband,” she said, in a weary way, “you are like all that wear -trews; you have never trained your tracking but to woodcraft, or else you -had found the wild-kit in a woman's heart.” - </p> -<p> -“There's my love, girl, and I think you love—” - </p> -<p> -“Tuts, man! I talked not of that. Love is—love, while it lasts, and -ye brag of Askaig's wife and the Nun (good Lord!), and the old harridans -your cousins from Lochow!” - </p> -<p> -“'Tis but a tirrivie of yours, my dear,” said the man, kindly, kissing her -on the teeth, and she with her hands behind her back. “Tomorrow the -saddle, Sir Claymore, and the south country! Hark ye, sweet, I'll fetch -back the most darling thing woman ever dreamt of.” - </p> -<p> -“What might his name be?” asked the girl, laughing, but still with a -bitterness, and the two went round to the ditch-brig and in-by. -</p> -<p> -Adventurer heard the little fine airs coming from the west, coiling, full -of sap-smell, crooning in turret and among the grassy gable-tops, and -piping into the empty windows. -</p> -<p> -'Twas a summer's end when he went on the next jaunt, a hot night and hung -with dripping stars. The loch crawled in from a black waste of sorrow and -strange hills, and swished on the shore, trailing among the wreck with the -hiss of fingers through ribbons of silk. My dears, my dears! the gloom of -hidden seas in night and lonely places! 'Tis that dauntens me. I will be -standing sometimes at the night's down-fall over above the bay, and -hearkening to the grinding of the salt wash on rock and gravel, and never -a sound of hope or merriment in all that weary song. You that have seeing -may ken the meaning of it; never for Paruig Dali but wonder and the heavy -heart! -</p> -<p> -“'Tis our thought a thousand times, just man; we are the stour that wind -and water make the clod of! You spoke of a second jaunt?” - </p> -<p> -As ye say. It was in winter; and the morning— -</p> -<p> -“Winter, said ye, Paruig Dali? 'Twas summer and night before.” - </p> -<p> -Winter I said, and winter it was, before <i>faoilteach</i>, and the edge -of the morning. The fellow of my <i>sgeul</i>, more than a twelvemonth -older, went to the breast wall and cried on Barge Blue that's ever waiting -for the sailor who's for sailing on fairy seas. -</p> -<p> -In she came, with her twelve red-shirts tugging bravely at the oars, and -the nose of her ripping the salt bree. Out, too, the carved plank, made, -I'll warrant, by the Norwegian fellow who fashioned the Black Bed of -MacArtair, and over it to the cushioned seat Adventurer! -</p> -<p> -The little waves blobbed and bubbled at the boat's shoulders; she put -under the arch and up the cold river to the white stairs. -</p> -<p> -It was the middle and bloodiest time of all our wars. The glens behind -were harried, and their cattle were bellowing in strange fields. Widows -grat on the brae-sides and starved with their bairns for the bere and oat -that were burned. But Adventurer found a castle full of company, the rich -scum of water-side lairds and Lowland gentry, dicing and drinking in the -best hall of Castle Dark. Their lands were black, their homes levelled, or -their way out of the country—if they were Lowland—was barred -by jealous clans. So there they were, drinking the reddest and eating the -fattest—a wanton crew, among them George Mor, namely for women and -wine and gentlemanly sword-play. -</p> -<p> -They had been at the cartes after supper. Wine lay on the table in rings -and rivers. The curtains were across the window, and the candles guttered -in the sconces. Debauched airs flaffed abroad in the room. At the head of -the board, with her hair falling out of the knot, the lady of the house -dovered in her chair, her head against George Mor's shoulder, and him -sleeping fast with his chin on his vest. Two company girls from the house -in the forest slept forward on the table, their heads on the thick of -their arms, and on either hand of them the lairds and foreigners. Of the -company but two were awake, playing at <i>bord-dubh</i>, small eyed, -oozing with drink. But they slept by-and-by like the lave, and sleep had a -hold of Castle Dark through and through. -</p> -<p> -Adventurer heard the cock crow away at the gean-tree park. -</p> -<p> -One of the girls, stirring in her sleep, touched a glass with her elbow, -and it fell on its side, the dark wine splashing over the table, crawling -to the edge, thudding in heavy drops on the shoe of the mistress of the -house, who drew back her foot without waking. But her moving started up -the man at her ear. He looked at her face, kissed her on the hair, and got -to his feet with no noise. A sour smile curdled his face when he looked -about the room, drunken and yellow-sick in the guttering candlelight. -</p> -<p> -Stretching himself, he made for the window and pulled back the curtain. -</p> -<p> -The mountain looked in on the wastrel company, with a black and blaming -scowl—the mountain set in blackness at the foot, but its brow -touching the first of a cold day. -</p> -<p> -Tree and bush stood like wraiths all about the garden, the river cried -high and snell. George Mor turned and looked at the room and its sleeping -company like corpses propped in chairs, in the light of candle and -daybreak. -</p> -<p> -The smell of the drunken chamber fogged at the back of his throat. He -laughed in a kind of bitter way, the lace shaking at his neck and -wrist-bands: then his humour changed, and he rued the night and his merry -life. -</p> -<p> -“I wish I was yont this cursed country,” said he to himself, shivering -with cold. “'Tis these folk lead me a pretty spring, and had George Mor -better luck of his company he was a decent man. And yet—and yet—who's -George Mor to be better than his neighbours? As grow the fir-trees, some -of them crooked and some of them straight, and we are the way the winds -would have us!” - </p> -<p> -He was standing in the window yet, deep in the morning's grief, running -his fingers among his curls. -</p> -<p> -Without warning the door of the room opened, and a man took one step in, -soft, without noise, white-faced, and expecting no less than he found, by -the look in his eyes. It was the goodwife's husband, still with the mud on -his shoes and the sword on his belt. He beckoned on the fellow at the -window, and went before him (the company still in their sleep), making for -the big door, and George Mor as he followed lifted a sword from a pin. -</p> -<p> -Close by Adventurer the two men stopped. It was on a level round of old -moss, damp but springy, hid from the house by some saugh-trees. -</p> -<p> -The master of the house spoke first. Said he, “It's no great surprise; -they told me at the ferry over-by that strange carry-on and George Mor -were keeping up the wife's heart in Castle Dark.” - </p> -<p> -“She's as honest a wife as ever—” - </p> -<p> -“Fairly, fairly, I'll allow—when the wind's in that airt. It's been -a dull place this for her, and I have small skill of entertainment; but, -man, I thought of her often, away in the camp!” - </p> -<p> -He was taking off his jacket as he spoke, and looking past George Mor's -shoulder and in between the trees at the loch. And now the day was fairly -on the country. -</p> -<p> -“A bit foolish is your wife—just a girl, I'm not denying; but true -at the core.” - </p> -<p> -“Young, young, as ye say, man! She'll make, maybe, all the more taking a -widow woman. She'll need looks and gaiety indeed, for my poor cause is -lost for good and all.” - </p> -<p> -“We saved the castle for you, at any rate. But for my friends in-by and -myself the flambeau was at the root o't.” - </p> -<p> -“So, my hero? In another key I might be having a glass with you over such -friendship, but the day spreads and here's our business before us.” - </p> -<p> -“I've small stomach for this. It's a fool's quarrel.” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Thoir an aire!</i>—Guard, George Mor!” - </p> -<p> -They fought warmly on the mossy grass, and the tinkle of the thin blades -set the birds chirping in the bushes, but it could not be that that -wakened my lady dovering in her chair in the room of guttering candles. -</p> -<p> -She started up in a dream, and found George Mor gone, and the mark of -muddy brogues near the door fitted in with her dream. She wakened none of -her drugged company, but hurried to the garden and in between the foreign -trees to the summons of the playing swords. -</p> -<p> -“Stop, stop, husband!” she cried before she saw who was at the fighting; -but only George Mor heard, and he half turned his head. -</p> -<p> -She was a little late. Her man, with a forefinger, was feeling the way to -the scabbard, and a gout of blood was gathering at the point of his sword, -when she got through the trees. -</p> -<p> -“Madame,” said he, cool enough but short in the breath, and bloody a -little at the mouth, “here's your gallant. He had maybe skill at -diversion, but I've seen better at the small-sword. To-night my un-friends -are coming back to harry Castle Dark, and I'm in little humour to stop -them. Fare ye weel!” - </p> -<p> -A blash of rain threshed in Adventurer's face; the tide crept at his feet, -the fall of the oars on Barge Blue sank low and travelled far off. It was -the broad day. Over above the river, Castle Dark grew black, but the -fellow of my story could not see it. -</p> -<p> -“And the woman, Paruig Dali? What came of the woman?” - </p> -<p> -Another peat on the fire, little one. So! <i>That</i> the fellow of my -story would need another trip to see. But Barge Blue is the ferry for all, -high tide or low, in the calm and in the storm. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -A GAELIC GLOSSARY. -</h2> -<p> -A bhean! O wife! -</p> -<p> -A pheasain! O brat! -</p> -<p> -Amadant fool. Amadaitt dhoill! O blind fool! -</p> -<p> -Bas, the haft of a shinty in this case. -</p> -<p> -Bàs, death. Bàs Dhiarmaid, death to Diarmaid! Beannachd, blessing. -Beannachdlets! blessing with him! -</p> -<p> -Beannachd leat! blessing with thee, farewell! Biodag, a dirk. -</p> -<p> -Btrlinn ghorm, blue barge. -</p> -<p> -Bochdan, a ghost. -</p> -<p> -Bodach, an old man. -</p> -<p> -Bord-dubh, black-board, the game of draughts. -</p> -<p> -Bratach, a banner. -</p> -<p> -Cabar, a rafter, a log of wood for throwing in Highland sports. -</p> -<p> -Caileag bkeag, a little girl. -</p> -<p> -Cailleach, old woman. Cailleachan, old women. -</p> -<p> -Camatty, club used in the game of shinty. Camanachd, the game of shinty. -</p> -<p> -Cas, foot. Cas-chrom, a primitive hand-plough. Choillich-dhuibh, O -black-cock! -</p> -<p> -Clach-cuid-fear, a lifting-stone for testing a man's strength. -</p> -<p> -Clackneart, putting-stone. -</p> -<p> -Clarsack, harp. -</p> -<p> -Cothrom na Feinne, the fair-play of Finne; man to man. Crioslach, belt, -girdle. -</p> -<p> -Cromag, a shepherd's crook. -</p> -<p> -Crotal, lichen. -</p> -<p> -Crunluadh, a movement in piping. Crunluadh breabach, a smarter movement -Crunluadh mack, the quickest part of a piobaireachd. -</p> -<p> -Dhé! O God! Dia, God. Dhia gleidh sinn! God keep us! -</p> -<p> -Dorlach, a knapsack. -</p> -<p> -Duitn'-nasal, gentleman. -</p> -<p> -Eas, waterfall or cataract. -</p> -<p> -Faoiltcach, the short season of stormy days at the end of January. -</p> -<p> -Feadan, the chanter or pipe on which pipers practise tunes before playing -them on the bagpipes. Fuarag, hasty-pudding, a mixture of oatmeal and cold -water, or oatmeal and milk or cream. -</p> -<p> -Gruagach, a sea-maiden in this case. -</p> -<p> -'Ille! lad! 'Illean! lads! -</p> -<p> -Iolair, eagle lorram, a boat-song. -</p> -<p> -Laochain! hero! comrade! -</p> -<p> -Larach, site of a ruined building. -</p> -<p> -Londubh, blackbird. -</p> -<p> -Mallachd ort! malediction on thee! -</p> -<p> -Marag-dkubh, a black pudding, made with blood and suet. -</p> -<p> -M' eudail, my darling, my treasure. -</p> -<p> -Mhoire Mkathair, an ave, “Mary Mother.” - </p> -<p> -Mo chridhe! my heart! -</p> -<p> -Mo thruaigh! alas, my trouble! -</p> -<p> -Och! ochan! ochanoch! ochanie! ochanorie! exclamations of sorrow, alas! -Och a Dhé! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob—O God! yonder it is now! -Rise, rise, Rob! -</p> -<p> -Oinseach, a female fool. -</p> -<p> -Piobaireachd, the symphony of bagpipe music, usually a lament, salute, or -gathering Piob-mhor, the great Highland bagpipe. -</p> -<p> -Seangan, an ant. -</p> -<p> -Sgalag, a male farm-servant. -</p> -<p> -Sgeul, a tale, narrative. -</p> -<p> -Sgiati-dubh, black knife, worn in the Highlander's stocking. -</p> -<p> -Sgireachd, parish. -</p> -<p> -Siod e! there it is! -</p> -<p> -Siubhal, allegro of the piobaireachd music. -</p> -<p> -Slochd-a-chubair gu bragh! the rallying cry of the old Inneraora burghers, -“Slochd-a-chubair for ever!” - </p> -<p> -So! here! So agad e! here he is! -</p> -<p> -Spàgachd, club-footed, awkward at walking. -</p> -<p> -Spreidh, cattle of all sorts, a drove. -</p> -<p> -Stad! stop! -</p> -<p> -Suas e! up with it! A term of encouragement. -</p> -<p> -Taibhsear, a visionary; one with second-sight. -</p> -<p> -Tha sibk an so! you are here! -</p> -<p> -Thoir an aire! beware! look out! -</p> -<p> -Uiseag, the skylark. -</p> -<p> -Urlar, the ground-work, adagio, or simple melody of a piobaireachd. -</p> -<div style="height: 6em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Pibroch, by Neil Munro - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PIBROCH *** - -***** This file should be named 43729-h.htm or 43729-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/7/2/43729/ - -Produced by David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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