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diff --git a/57402-0.txt b/57402-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c7dbd46 --- /dev/null +++ b/57402-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6500 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57402 *** + + + + + + + + + +THE WATCHER BY THE THRESHOLD + +JOHN BUCHAN + + + + +BY JOHN BUCHAN + + +THE WATCHER BY THE THRESHOLD +PRESTER JOHN +SALUTE TO ADVENTURERS +THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME +GREENMANTLE +THE POWER-HOUSE +THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS + + +NEW YORK + +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + + + +THE WATCHER BY +THE THRESHOLD + +BY + +JOHN BUCHAN + +_Author of "Greenmantle," +"Salute to Adventurers," +etc._ + +[Illustration: Logo] + +NEW YORK +GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + +_Copyright, 1918, +By George H. Doran Company_ + +_Printed in the United States of America_ + + +TO + +STAIR AGNEW GILLON + + +MY DEAR STAIR, + +_We have travelled so many roads together, highland and lowland, +pleasant and dreary, that I ask you to accept this book of travellers' +tales. For Scotland is a wide place to travel in for those who believe +that it is not bounded strictly by kirk and market-place, and who have +an ear for old songs and lost romances. It is of the back-world of +Scotland that I write, the land behind the mist and over the seven bens, +a place hard of access for the foot-passenger but easy for the maker of +stories. Meantime, to you, who have chosen the better part, I wish many +bright days by hill and loch in the summers to come._ + +_R. M. S. Briton, at sea_ + +_J. B._ + + +"Among idle men there be some who tarry in the outer courts, speeding +the days joyfully with dance and song. But the other sort dwell near the +portals of the House, and are ever anxious and ill at ease that they may +see something of the Shadows which come and go. Wherefore night and day +they are found watching by the threshold, in fearfulness and joy, not +without tears." Extract from the writings of Donisarius of Padua, circa +1310. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + I NO-MAN'S LAND 13 + + II THE FAR ISLANDS 100 + + III THE WATCHER BY THE THRESHOLD 137 + + IV THE OUTGOING OF THE TIDE 204 + + V THE RIME OF TRUE THOMAS 238 + + VI BASILISSA 255 + + VII DIVUS JOHNSTON 286 + +VIII THE KING OF YPRES 301 + + + + +THE WATCHER BY THE THRESHOLD + + + + +I + +NO-MAN'S-LAND + + +I: THE SHIELING OF FARAWA + +It was with a light heart and a pleasing consciousness of holiday that I +set out from the inn at Allermuir to tramp my fifteen miles into the +unknown. I walked slowly, for I carried my equipment on my back--my +basket, fly-books and rods, my plaid of Grant tartan (for I boast myself +a distant kinsman of that house), and my great staff, which had tried +ere then the front of the steeper Alps. A small valise with books and +some changes of linen clothing had been sent on ahead in the shepherd's +own hands. It was yet early April, and before me lay four weeks of +freedom--twenty-eight blessed days in which to take fish and smoke the +pipe of idleness. The Lent term had pulled me down, a week of modest +enjoyment thereafter in town had finished the work; and I drank in the +sharp moorish air like a thirsty man who has been forwandered among +deserts. + +I am a man of varied tastes and a score of interests. As an +undergraduate I had been filled with the old mania for the complete +life. I distinguished myself in the Schools, rowed in my college eight, +and reached the distinction of practising for three weeks in the Trials. +I had dabbled in a score of learned activities, and when the time came +that I won the inevitable St. Chad's fellowship on my chaotic +acquirements, and I found myself compelled to select if I would pursue a +scholar's life, I had some toil in finding my vocation. In the end I +resolved that the ancient life of the North, of the Celts and the +Northmen and the unknown Pictish tribes, held for me the chief +fascination. I had acquired a smattering of Gaelic, having been brought +up as a boy in Lochaber, and now I set myself to increase my store of +languages. I mastered Erse and Icelandic, and my first book--a monograph +on the probable Celtic elements in the Eddic songs--brought me the +praise of scholars and the deputy-professor's chair of Northern +Antiquities. So much for Oxford. My vacations had been spent mainly in +the North--in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isles, in Scandinavia and +Iceland, once even in the far limits of Finland. I was a keen sportsman +of a sort, an old-experienced fisher, a fair shot with gun and rifle, +and in my hillcraft I might well stand comparison with most men. April +has ever seemed to me the finest season of the year even in our cold +northern altitudes, and the memory of many bright Aprils had brought me +up from the South on the night before to Allerfoot, whence a dogcart had +taken me up Glen Aller to the inn at Allermuir; and now the same desire +had set me on the heather with my face to the cold brown hills. + +You are to picture a sort of plateau, benty and rock-strewn, running +ridge-wise above a chain of little peaty lochs and a vast tract of +inexorable bog. In a mile the ridge ceased in a shoulder of hill, and +over this lay the head of another glen, with the same doleful +accompaniment of sunless lochs, mosses, and a shining and resolute +water. East and west and north, in every direction save the south, rose +walls of gashed and serrated hills. It was a grey day with blinks of +sun, and when a ray chanced to fall on one of the great dark faces, +lines of light and colour sprang into being which told of mica and +granite. I was in high spirits, as on the eve of holiday; I had +breakfasted excellently on eggs and salmon-steaks; I had no cares to +speak of, and my prospects were not uninviting. But in spite of myself +the landscape began to take me in thrall and crush me. The silent +vanished peoples of the hills seemed to be stirring; dark primeval faces +seemed to stare at me from behind boulders and jags of rock. The place +was so still, so free from the cheerful clamour of nesting birds, that +it seemed a _temenos_ sacred to some old-world god. At my feet the lochs +lapped ceaselessly; but the waters were so dark that one could not see +bottom a foot from the edge. On my right the links of green told of +snake-like mires waiting to crush the unwary wanderer. It seemed to me +for the moment a land of death, where the tongues of the dead cried +aloud for recognition. + +My whole morning's walk was full of such fancies. I lit a pipe to cheer +me, but the things would not be got rid of. I thought of the Gaels who +had held those fastnesses; I thought of the Britons before them, who +yielded to their advent. They were all strong peoples in their day, and +now they had gone the way of the earth. They had left their mark on the +levels of the glens and on the more habitable uplands, both in names and +in actual forts, and graves where men might still dig curios. But the +hills--that black stony amphitheatre before me--it seemed strange that +the hills bore no traces of them. And then with some uneasiness I +reflected on that older and stranger race who were said to have held the +hill-tops. The Picts, the Picti--what in the name of goodness were they? +They had troubled me in all my studies, a sort of blank wall to put an +end to speculation. We knew nothing of them save certain strange names +which men called Pictish, the names of those hills in front of me--the +Muneraw, the Yirnie, the Calmarton. They were the _corpus vile_ for +learned experiment; but Heaven alone knew what dark abyss of savagery +once yawned in the midst of this desert. + +And then I remembered the crazy theories of a pupil of mine at St +Chad's, the son of a small landowner on the Aller, a young gentleman who +had spent his substance too freely at Oxford, and was now dreeing his +weird in the Backwoods. He had been no scholar but a certain imagination +marked all his doings, and of a Sunday night he would come and talk to +me of the North. The Picts were his special subject, and his ideas were +mad. "Listen to me," he would say, when I had mixed him toddy and given +him one of my cigars; "I believe there are traces--ay, and more than +traces--of an old culture lurking in those hills and waiting to be +discovered. We never hear of the Picts being driven from the hills. The +Britons drove them from the lowlands, the Gaels from Ireland did the +same for the Britons; but the hills were left unmolested. We hear of no +one going near them except outlaws and tinklers. And in that very place +you have the strangest mythology. Take the story of the Brownie. What is +that but the story of a little swart man of uncommon strength and +cleverness, who does good and ill indiscriminately, and then disappears? +There are many scholars, as you yourself confess, who think that the +origin of the Brownie was in some mad belief in the old race of the +Picts, which still survived somewhere in the hills. And do we not hear +of the Brownie in authentic records right down to the year 1756? After +that, when people grew more incredulous, it is natural that the belief +should have begun to die out; but I do not see why stray traces should +not have survived till late." + +"Do you not see what that means?" I had said in mock gravity. "Those +same hills are, if anything, less known now than they were a hundred +years ago. Why should not your Picts or Brownies be living to this day?" + +"Why not, indeed?" he had rejoined, in all seriousness. + +I laughed, and he went to his rooms and returned with a large +leather-bound book. It was lettered, in the rococo style of a young +man's taste, 'Glimpses of the Unknown,' and some of the said glimpses he +proceeded to impart to me. It was not pleasant reading; indeed, I had +rarely heard anything so well fitted to shatter sensitive nerves. The +early part consisted of folk-tales and folk-sayings, some of them wholly +obscure, some of them with a glint of meaning, but all of them with some +hint of a mystery in the hills. I heard the Brownie story in countless +versions. Now the thing was a friendly little man, who wore grey +breeches and lived on brose; now he was a twisted being, the sight of +which made the ewes miscarry in the lambing-time. But the second part +was the stranger, for it was made up of actual tales, most of them with +date and place appended. It was a most Bedlamite catalogue of horrors, +which, if true, made the wholesome moors a place instinct with tragedy. +Some told of children carried away from villages, even from towns, on +the verge of the uplands. In almost every case they were girls, and the +strange fact was their utter disappearance. Two little girls would be +coming home from school, would be seen last by a neighbour just where +the road crossed a patch of heath or entered a wood and then--no human +eye ever saw them again. Children's cries had startled outlying +shepherds in the night, and when they had rushed to the door they could +hear nothing but the night wind. The instances of such disappearances +were not very common--perhaps once in twenty years--but they were +confined to this one tract of country, and came in a sort of fixed +progression from the middle of last century, when the record began. But +this was only one side of the history. The latter part was all devoted +to a chronicle of crimes which had gone unpunished, seeing that no hand +had ever been traced. The list was fuller in last century;[1] in the +earlier years of the present it had dwindled; then came a revival about +the 'Fifties; and now again in our own time it had sunk low. At the +little cottage of Auchterbrean, on the roadside in Glen Aller, a +labourer's wife had been found pierced to the heart. It was thought to +be a case of a woman's jealousy, and her neighbour was accused, +convicted, and hanged. The woman, to be sure, denied the charge with her +last breath; but circumstantial evidence seemed sufficiently strong +against her. Yet some people in the glen believed her guiltless. In +particular, the carrier who had found the dead woman declared that the +way in which her neighbour received the news was a sufficient proof of +innocence; and the doctor who was first summoned professed himself +unable to tell with what instrument the wound had been given. But this +was all before the days of expert evidence, so the woman had been hanged +without scruple. Then there had been another story of peculiar horror, +telling of the death of an old man at some little lonely shieling called +Carrickfey. But at this point I had risen in protest, and made to drive +the young idiot from my room. + +"It was my grandfather who collected most of them," he said. "He had +theories,[2] but people called him mad, so he was wise enough to hold +his tongue. My father declares the whole thing mania; but I rescued the +book, had it bound, and added to the collection. It is a queer hobby; +but, as I say, I have theories, and there are more things in heaven and +earth----" + +But at this he heard a friend's voice in the Quad., and dived out, +leaving the banal quotation unfinished. + +Strange though it may seem, this madness kept coming back to me as I +crossed the last few miles of moor. I was now on a rough tableland, the +watershed between two lochs, and beyond and above me rose the stony +backs of the hills. The burns fell down in a chaos of granite boulders, +and huge slabs of grey stone lay flat and tumbled in the heather. The +full waters looked prosperously for my fishing, and I began to forget +all fancies in anticipation of sport. + +Then suddenly in a hollow of land I came on a ruined cottage. It had +been a very small place, but the walls were still half-erect, and the +little moorland garden was outlined on the turf. A lonely apple tree, +twisted and gnarled with winds, stood in the midst. + +From higher up on the hill I heard a loud roar, and I knew my excellent +friend the shepherd of Farawa, who had come thus far to meet me. He +greeted me with the boisterous embarrassment which was his way of +prefacing hospitality. A grave reserved man at other times, on such +occasions he thought it proper to relapse into hilarity. I fell into +step with him, and we set off for his dwelling. But first I had the +curiosity to look back to the tumble-down cottage and ask him its name. + +A queer look came into his eyes. "They ca' the place Carrickfey," he +said. "Naebody has daured to bide there this twenty year sin'--but I see +ye ken the story." And, as if glad to leave the subject, he hastened to +discourse on fishing. + + +II: TELLS OF AN EVENING'S TALK + +The shepherd was a masterful man; tall, save for the stoop which belongs +to all moorland folk, and active as a wild goat. He was not a new +importation, nor did he belong to the place; for his people had lived in +the remote Borders, and he had come as a boy to this shieling of Farawa. +He was unmarried, but an elderly sister lived with him and cooked his +meals. He was reputed to be extraordinarily skilful in his trade; I know +for a fact that he was in his way a keen sportsman; and his few +neighbours gave him credit for a sincere piety. Doubtless this last +report was due in part to his silence, for after his first greeting he +was wont to relapse into a singular taciturnity. As we strode across the +heather he gave me a short outline of his year's lambing. "Five pair o' +twins yestreen, twae this morn; that makes thirty-five yowes that hae +lambed since the Sabbath. I'll dae weel if God's willin'." Then, as I +looked towards the hilltops whence the thin mist of morn was trailing, +he followed my gaze. "See," he said with uplifted crook--"see that +sicht. Is that no what is written of in the Bible when it says, 'The +mountains do smoke.'" And with this piece of exegesis he finished his +talk, and in a little we were at the cottage. + +It was a small enough dwelling in truth, and yet large for a moorland +house, for it had a garret below the thatch, which was given up to my +sole enjoyment. Below was the wide kitchen with box-beds, and next to it +the inevitable second room, also with its cupboard sleeping-places. The +interior was very clean, and yet I remember to have been struck with the +faint musty smell which is inseparable from moorland dwellings. The +kitchen pleased me best, for there the great rafters were black with +peat-reek, and the uncovered stone floor, on which the fire gleamed +dully, gave an air of primeval simplicity. But the walls spoiled all, +for tawdry things of to-day had penetrated even there. Some grocers' +almanacs--years old--hung in places of honour, and an extraordinary +lithograph of the Royal Family in its youth. And this, mind you, between +crooks and fishing-rods and old guns, and horns of sheep and deer. + +The life for the first day or two was regular and placid. I was up +early, breakfasted on porridge (a dish which I detest), and then off to +the lochs and streams. At first my sport prospered mightily. With a +drake-wing I killed a salmon of seventeen pounds, and the next day had a +fine basket of trout from a hill-burn. Then for no earthly reason the +weather changed. A bitter wind came out of the northeast, bringing +showers of snow and stinging hail, and lashing the waters into storm. It +was now farewell to fly-fishing. For a day or two I tried trolling with +the minnow on the lochs, but it was poor sport, for I had no boat, and +the edges were soft and mossy. Then in disgust I gave up the attempt, +went back to the cottage, lit my biggest pipe, and sat down with a book +to await the turn of the weather. + +The shepherd was out from morning till night at his work, and when he +came in at last, dog-tired, his face would be set and hard, and his eyes +heavy with sleep. The strangeness of the man grew upon me. He had a +shrewd brain beneath his thatch of hair, for I had tried him once or +twice, and found him abundantly intelligent. He had some smattering of +an education, like all Scottish peasants, and, as I have said, he was +deeply religious. I set him down as a fine type of his class, sober, +serious, keenly critical, free from the bondage of superstition. But I +rarely saw him, and our talk was chiefly in monosyllables--short +interjected accounts of the number of lambs dead or alive on the hill. +Then he would produce a pencil and note-book, and be immersed in some +calculation; and finally he would be revealed sleeping heavily in his +chair, till his sister wakened him, and he stumbled off to bed. + +So much for the ordinary course of life; but one day--the second I think +of the bad weather--the extraordinary happened. The storm had passed in +the afternoon into a resolute and blinding snow, and the shepherd, +finding it hopeless on the hill, came home about three o'clock. I could +make out from his way of entering that he was in a great temper. He +kicked his feet savagely against the door-post. Then he swore at his +dogs, a thing I had never heard him do before. "Hell!" he cried, "can ye +no keep out o' my road, ye britts?" Then he came sullenly into the +kitchen, thawed his numbed hands at the fire, and sat down to his meal. + +I made some aimless remark about the weather. + +"Death to man and beast," he grunted. "I hae got the sheep doun frae the +hill, but the lambs will never thole this. We maun pray that it will no +last." + +His sister came in with some dish. "Margit," he cried, "three lambs +away this morning, and three deid wi' the hole in the throat." + +The woman's face visibly paled. "Guid help us, Adam; that hasna happened +this three year." + +"It has happened noo," he said, surlily. "But, by God! if it happens +again I'll gang mysel' to the Scarts o' the Muneraw." + +"O Adam!" the woman cried shrilly, "haud your tongue. Ye kenna wha hears +ye." And with a frightened glance at me she left the room. + +I asked no questions, but waited till the shepherd's anger should cool. +But the cloud did not pass so lightly. When he had finished his dinner +he pulled his chair to the fire and sat staring moodily. He made some +sort of apology to me for his conduct. "I'm sore troubled, sir; but I'm +vexed ye should see me like this. Maybe things will be better the morn." +And then, lighting his short black pipe, he resigned himself to his +meditations. + +But he could not keep quiet. Some nervous unrest seemed to have +possessed the man. He got up with a start and went to the window, where +the snow was drifting unsteadily past. As he stared out into the storm I +heard him mutter to himself, "Three away, God help me, and three wi' +the hole in the throat." + +Then he turned round to me abruptly. I was jotting down notes for an +article I contemplated in the 'Revue Celtique,' so my thoughts were far +away from the present. The man recalled me by demanding fiercely, "Do ye +believe in God?" + +I gave him some sort of answer in the affirmative. + +"Then do ye believe in the Devil?" he asked. + +The reply must have been less satisfactory, for he came forward and +flung himself violently into the chair before me. + +"What do ye ken about it?" he cried. "You that bides in a southern toun, +what can ye ken o' the God that works in thae hills and the Devil--ay, +the manifold devils--that He suffers to bide here? I tell ye, man, that +if ye had seen what I have seen ye wad be on your knees at this moment +praying to God to pardon your unbelief. There are devils at the back o' +every stane and hidin' in every cleuch, and it's by the grace o' God +alone that a man is alive upon the earth." His voice had risen high and +shrill, and then suddenly he cast a frightened glance towards the window +and was silent. + +I began to think that the man's wits were unhinged, and the thought did +not give me satisfaction. I had no relish for the prospect of being left +alone in this moorland dwelling with the cheerful company of a maniac. +But his next movements reassured me. He was clearly only dead-tired, for +he fell sound asleep in his chair, and by the time his sister brought +tea and wakened him, he seemed to have got the better of his excitement. + +When the window was shuttered and the lamp lit, I sat myself again to +the completion of my notes. The shepherd had got out his Bible, and was +solemnly reading with one great finger travelling down the lines. He was +smoking, and whenever some text came home to him with power he would +make pretence to underline it with the end of the stem. Soon I had +finished the work I desired, and, my mind being full of my pet hobby, I +fell into an inquisitive mood, and began to question the solemn man +opposite on the antiquities of the place. + +He stared stupidly at me when I asked him concerning monuments or +ancient weapons. + +"I kenna," said he. "There's a heap o' queer things in the hills." + +"This place should be a centre for such relics. You know that the name +of the hill behind the house, as far as I can make it out, means the +'Place of the Little Men.' It is a good Gaelic word, though there is +some doubt about its exact interpretation. But clearly the Gaelic +peoples did not speak of themselves when they gave the name; they must +have referred to some older and stranger population." + +The shepherd looked at me dully, as not understanding. + +"It is partly this fact--besides the fishing, of course--which interests +me in this countryside," said I, gaily. + +Again he cast the same queer frightened glance towards the window. "If +ye'll tak the advice of an aulder man," he said, slowly, "ye'll let well +alane and no meddle wi' uncanny things." + +I laughed pleasantly, for at last I had found out my hard-headed host in +a piece of childishness. "Why, I thought that you of all men would be +free from superstition." + +"What do ye call supersteetion?" he asked. + +"A belief in old wives' tales," said I, "a trust in the crude +supernatural and the patently impossible." + +He looked at me beneath his shaggy brows. "How do ye ken what is +impossible? Mind ye, sir, ye're no in the toun just now, but in the +thick of the wild hills." + +"But, hang it all, man," I cried, "you don't mean to say that you +believe in that sort of thing? I am prepared for many things up here, +but not for the Brownie,--though, to be sure, if one could meet him in +the flesh, it would be rather pleasant than otherwise, for he was a +companionable sort of fellow." + +"When a thing pits the fear o' death on a man he aye speaks well of it." + +It was true--the Eumenides and the Good Folk over again; and I awoke +with interest to the fact that the conversation was getting into strange +channels. + +The shepherd moved uneasily in his chair. "I am a man that fears God, +and has nae time for daft stories; but I havena traivelled the hills for +twenty years wi' my een shut. If I say that I could tell ye stories o' +faces seen in the mist, and queer things that have knocked against me in +the snaw, wad ye believe me? I wager ye wadna. Ye wad say I had been +drunk, and yet I am a God-fearing temperate man." + +He rose and went to a cupboard, unlocked it, and brought out something +in his hand, which he held out to me. I took it with some curiosity, +and found that it was a flint arrow-head. + +Clearly a flint arrow-head, and yet like none that I had ever seen in +any collection. For one thing it was larger, and the barb less clumsily +thick. More, the chipping was new, or comparatively so; this thing had +not stood the wear of fifteen hundred years among the stones of the +hillside. Now there are, I regret to say, institutions which manufacture +primitive relics; but it is not hard for a practised eye to see the +difference. The chipping has either a regularity and a balance which is +unknown in the real thing, or the rudeness has been overdone, and the +result is an implement incapable of harming a mortal creature. But this +was the real thing if it ever existed; and yet--I was prepared to swear +on my reputation that it was not half a century old. + +"Where did you get this?" I asked with some nervousness. + +"I hae a story about that," said the shepherd. "Outside the door there +ye can see a muckle flat stane aside the buchts. One simmer nicht I was +sitting there smoking till the dark, and I wager there was naething on +the stane then. But that same nicht I awoke wi' a queer thocht, as if +there were folk moving around the hoose--folk that didna mak' muckle +noise. I mind o' lookin' out o' the windy, and I could hae sworn I saw +something black movin' amang the heather and intil the buchts. Now I had +maybe threescore o' lambs there that nicht, for I had to tak' them many +miles off in the early morning. Weel, when I gets up about four o'clock +and gangs out, as I am passing the muckle stane I finds this bit errow. +'That's come here in the nicht,' says I, and I wunnered a wee and put it +in my pouch. But when I came to my faulds what did I see? Five o' my +best hoggs were away, and three mair were lying deid wi' a hole in their +throat." + +"Who in the world----?" I began. + +"Dinna ask," said he. "If I aince sterted to speir about thae maitters, +I wadna keep my reason." + +"Then that was what happened on the hill this morning?" + +"Even sae, and it has happened mair than aince sin' that time. It's the +most uncanny slaughter, for sheep-stealing I can understand, but no this +pricking o' the puir beasts' wizands. I kenna how they dae't either, for +it's no wi' a knife or any common tool." + +"Have you never tried to follow the thieves?" + +"Have I no?" he asked, grimly. "If it had been common sheep-stealers I +wad hae had them by the heels, though I had followed them a hundred +miles. But this is no common. I've tracked them, and it's ill they are +to track; but I never got beyond ae place, and that was the Scarts o' +the Muneraw that ye've heard me speak o'." + +"But who in Heaven's name are the people? Tinklers or poachers or what?" + +"Ay," said he, drily. "Even so. Tinklers and poachers whae wark wi' +stane errows and kill sheep by a hole in their throat. Lord, I kenna +what they are, unless the Muckle Deil himsel'." + +The conversation had passed beyond my comprehension. In this prosaic +hard-headed man I had come on the dead-rock of superstition and blind +fear. + +"That is only the story of the Brownie over again, and he is an exploded +myth," I said, laughing. + +"Are ye the man that exploded it?" said the shepherd, rudely. "I trow +no, neither you nor ony ither. My bonny man, if ye lived a twal-month in +thae hills, ye wad sing safter about exploded myths, as ye call them." + +"I tell you what I would do," said I. "If I lost sheep as you lose +them, I would go up the Scarts of the Muneraw and never rest till I had +settled the question once and for all." I spoke hotly, for I was vexed +by the man's childish fear. + +"I daresay ye wad," he said, slowly. "But then I am no you, and maybe I +ken mair o' what is in the Scarts o' the Muneraw. Maybe I ken that +whilk, if ye kenned it, wad send ye back to the South Country wi' your +hert in your mouth. But, as I say, I am no sae brave as you, for I saw +something in the first year o' my herding here which put the terror o' +God on me, and makes me a fearfu' man to this day. Ye ken the story o' +the gudeman o' Carrickfey?" + +I nodded. + +"Weel, I was the man that fand him. I had seen the deid afore and I've +seen them since. But never have I seen aucht like the look in that man's +een. What he saw at his death I may see the morn, so I walk before the +Lord in fear." + +Then he rose and stretched himself. "It's bedding-time, for I maun be up +at three," and with a short good night he left the room. + + +III: THE SCARTS OF THE MUNERAW + +The next morning was fine, for the snow had been intermittent, and had +soon melted except in the high corries. True, it was deceptive weather, +for the wind had gone to the rainy south-west, and the masses of cloud +on that horizon boded ill for the afternoon. But some days' inaction had +made me keen for a chance of sport, so I rose with the shepherd and set +out for the day. + +He asked me where I proposed to begin. + +I told him the tarn called the Loch o' the Threshes, which lies over the +back of the Muneraw on another watershed. It is on the ground of the +Rhynns Forest, and I had fished it of old from the Forest House. I knew +the merits of the trout, and I knew its virtues in a south-west wind, so +I had resolved to go thus far afield. + +The shepherd heard the name in silence. "Your best road will be ower +that rig, and syne on to the water o' Caulds. Keep abune the moss till +ye come to the place they ca' the Nick o' the Threshes. That will take +ye to the very loch-side, but it's a lang road and a sair." + +The morning was breaking over the bleak hills. Little clouds drifted +athwart the corries, and wisps of haze fluttered from the peaks. A great +rosy flush lay over one side of the glen, which caught the edge of the +sluggish bog-pools and turned them to fire. Never before had I seen the +mountain-land so clear, for far back into the east and west I saw +mountain-tops set as close as flowers in a border, black crags seamed +with silver lines which I knew for mighty waterfalls, and below at my +feet the lower slopes fresh with the dewy green of spring. A name stuck +in my memory from the last night's talk. + +"Where are the Scarts of the Muneraw?" I asked. + +The shepherd pointed to the great hill which bears the name, and which +lies, a huge mass, above the watershed. + +"D'ye see yon corrie at the east that runs straucht up the side? It +looks a bit scart, but it's sae deep that it's aye derk at the bottom +o't. Weel, at the tap o' the rig it meets anither corrie that runs doun +the ither side, and that one they ca' the Scarts. There is a sort o' +burn in it that flows intil the Dule and sae intil the Aller, and, +indeed, if ye were gaun there it wad be from Aller Glen that your best +road wad lie. But it's an ill bit, and ye'll be sair guidit if ye +try't." + +There he left me and went across the glen, while I struck upwards over +the ridge. At the top I halted and looked down on the wide glen of the +Caulds, which there is little better than a bog, but lower down grows +into a green pastoral valley. The great Muneraw still dominated the +landscape, and the black scaur on its side seemed blacker than before. +The place fascinated me, for in that fresh morning air the shepherd's +fears seemed monstrous. "Some day," said I to myself, "I will go and +explore the whole of that mighty hill." Then I descended and struggled +over the moss, found the Nick, and in two hours' time was on the loch's +edge. + +I have little in the way of good to report of the fishing. For perhaps +one hour the trout took well; after that they sulked steadily for the +day. The promise, too, of fine weather had been deceptive. By midday the +rain was falling in that soft soaking fashion which gives no hope of +clearing. The mist was down to the edge of the water, and I cast my +flies into a blind sea of white. It was hopeless work, and yet from a +sort of ill-temper I stuck to it long after my better judgment had +warned me of its folly. At last, about three in the afternoon, I struck +my camp, and prepared myself for a long and toilsome retreat. + +And long and toilsome it was beyond anything I had ever encountered. Had +I had a vestige of sense I would have followed the burn from the loch +down to the Forest House. The place was shut up, but the keeper would +gladly have given me shelter for the night. But foolish pride was too +strong in me. I had found my road in mist before, and could do it again. + +Before I got to the top of the hill I had repented my decision; when I +got there I repented it more. For below me was a dizzy chaos of grey; +there was no landmark visible; and before me I knew was the bog through +which the Caulds Water twined. I had crossed it with some trouble in the +morning, but then I had light to pick my steps. Now I could only stumble +on, and in five minutes I might be in a bog-hole, and in five more in a +better world. + +But there was no help to be got from hesitation, so with a rueful +courage I set off. The place was if possible worse than I had feared. +Wading up to the knees with nothing before you but a blank wall of mist +and the cheerful consciousness that your next step may be your +last--such was my state for one weary mile. The stream itself was high, +and rose to my armpits, and once and again I only saved myself by a +violent leap backwards from a pitiless green slough. But at last it was +past, and I was once more on the solid ground of the hillside. + +Now, in the thick weather I had crossed the glen much lower down than in +the morning, and the result was that the hill on which I stood was one +of the giants which, with the Muneraw for centre, guard the watershed. +Had I taken the proper way, the Nick o' the Threshes would have led me +to the Caulds, and then once over the bog a little ridge was all that +stood between me and the glen of Farawa. But instead I had come a wild +cross-country road, and was now, though I did not know it, nearly as far +from my destination as at the start. + +Well for me that I did not know, for I was wet and dispirited, and had I +not fancied myself all but home, I should scarcely have had the energy +to make this last ascent. But soon I found it was not the little ridge I +had expected. I looked at my watch and saw that it was five o'clock. +When, after the weariest climb, I lay on a piece of level ground which +seemed the top, I was not surprised to find that it was now seven. The +darkening must be at hand, and sure enough the mist seemed to be +deepening into a greyish black. I began to grow desperate. Here was I on +the summit of some infernal mountain, without any certainty where my +road lay. I was lost with a vengeance, and at the thought I began to be +acutely afraid. + +I took what seemed to me the way I had come, and began to descend +steeply. Then something made me halt, and the next instant I was lying +on my face trying painfully to retrace my steps. For I had found myself +slipping, and before I could stop, my feet were dangling over a +precipice with Heaven alone knows how many yards of sheer mist between +me and the bottom. Then I tried keeping the ridge, and took that to the +right, which I thought would bring me nearer home. It was no good trying +to think out a direction, for in the fog my brain was running round, and +I seemed to stand on a pin-point of space where the laws of the compass +had ceased to hold. + +It was the roughest sort of walking, now stepping warily over acres of +loose stones, now crawling down the face of some battered rock, and now +wading in the long dripping heather. The soft rain had begun to fall +again, which completed my discomfort. I was now seriously tired, and, +like all men who in their day have bent too much over books, I began to +feel it in my back. My spine ached, and my breath came in short broken +pants. It was a pitiable state of affairs for an honest man who had +never encountered much grave discomfort. To ease myself I was compelled +to leave my basket behind me, trusting to return and find it, if I +should ever reach safety and discover on what pathless hill I had been +strayed. My rod I used as a staff, but it was of little use, for my +fingers were getting too numb to hold it. + +Suddenly from the blankness I heard a sound as of human speech. At first +I thought it mere craziness--the cry of a weasel or a hill-bird +distorted by my ears. But again it came, thick and faint, as through +acres of mist, and yet clearly the sound of "articulate-speaking men." +In a moment I lost my despair and cried out in answer. This was some +forwandered traveller like myself, and between us we could surely find +some road to safety. So I yelled back at the pitch of my voice and +waited intently. + +But the sound ceased, and there was utter silence again. Still I waited, +and then from some place much nearer came the same soft mumbling speech. +I could make nothing of it. Heard in that drear place it made the nerves +tense and the heart timorous. It was the strangest jumble of vowels and +consonants I had ever met. + +A dozen solutions flashed through my brain. It was some maniac talking +Jabberwock to himself. It was some belated traveller whose wits had +given out in fear. Perhaps it was only some shepherd who was amusing +himself thus, and whiling the way with nonsense. Once again I cried out +and waited. + +Then suddenly in the hollow trough of mist before me, where things could +still be half discerned, there appeared a figure. It was little and +squat and dark; naked, apparently, but so rough with hair that it wore +the appearance of a skin-covered being. It crossed my line of vision, +not staying for a moment, but in its face and eyes there seemed to lurk +an elder world of mystery and barbarism, a troll-like life which was too +horrible for words. + +The shepherd's fear came back on me like a thunderclap. For one awful +instant my legs failed me, and I had almost fallen. The next I had +turned and ran shrieking up the hill. + +If he who may read this narrative has never felt the force of an +overmastering terror, then let him thank his Maker and pray that he +never may. I am no weak child, but a strong grown man, accredited in +general with sound sense and little suspected of hysterics. And yet I +went up that brae-face with my heart fluttering like a bird and my +throat aching with fear. I screamed in short dry gasps; involuntarily, +for my mind was beyond any purpose. I felt that beast-like clutch at my +throat; those red eyes seemed to be staring at me from the mist; I heard +ever behind and before and on all sides the patter of those inhuman +feet. + +Before I knew I was down, slipping over a rock and falling some dozen +feet into a soft marshy hollow. I was conscious of lying still for a +second and whimpering like a child. But as I lay there I awoke to the +silence of the place. There was no sound of pursuit; perhaps they had +lost my track and given up. My courage began to return, and from this it +was an easy step to hope. Perhaps after all it had been merely an +illusion, for folk do not see clearly in the mist, and I was already +done with weariness. + +But even as I lay in the green moss and began to hope, the faces of my +pursuers grew up through the mist. I stumbled madly to my feet; but I +was hemmed in, the rock behind and my enemies before. With a cry I +rushed forward, and struck wildly with my rod at the first dark body. +It was as if I had struck an animal, and the next second the thing was +wrenched from my grasp. But still they came no nearer. I stood trembling +there in the centre of those malignant devils, my brain a mere +weathercock and my heart crushed shapeless with horror. At last the end +came, for with the vigour of madness I flung myself on the nearest, and +we rolled on the ground. Then the monstrous things seemed to close over +me, and with a choking cry I passed into unconsciousness. + + +IV. THE DARKNESS THAT IS UNDER THE EARTH + +There is an unconsciousness that is not wholly dead, where a man feels +numbly and the body lives without the brain. I was beyond speech or +thought, and yet I felt the upward or downward motion as the way lay in +hill or glen, and I most assuredly knew when the open air was changed +for the close underground. I could feel dimly that lights were flared in +my face, and that I was laid in some bed on the earth. Then with the +stopping of movement the real sleep of weakness seized me, and for long +I knew nothing of this mad world. + + * * * * * * * + +Morning came over the moors with birdsong and the glory of fine +weather. The streams were still rolling in spate, but the hill-pastures +were alight with dawn, and the little seams of snow were glistening like +white fire. A ray from the sunrise cleft its path somehow into the +abyss, and danced on the wall above my couch. It caught my eye as I +wakened, and for long I lay crazily wondering what it meant. My head was +splitting with pain, and in my heart was the same fluttering nameless +fear. I did not wake to full consciousness; not till the twinkle of sun +from the clean bright out-of-doors caught my senses did I realise that I +lay in a great dark place with a glow of dull firelight in the middle. + +In time things rose and moved around me, a few ragged shapes of men, +without clothing, shambling with their huge feet and looking towards me +with curved beast-like glances. I tried to marshal my thoughts, and +slowly, bit by bit, I built up the present. There was no question to my +mind of dreaming; the past hours had scored reality upon my brain. Yet I +cannot say that fear was my chief feeling. The first crazy terror had +subsided, and now I felt mainly a sickened disgust with just a tinge of +curiosity. I found that my knife, watch, flask, and money had gone, but +they had left me a map of the countryside. It seemed strange to look at +the calico, with the name of a London printer stamped on the back, and +lines of railway and highroad running through every shire. Decent and +comfortable civilisation! And here was I a prisoner in this den of +nameless folk, and in the midst of a life which history knew not. + +Courage is a virtue which grows with reflection and the absence of the +immediate peril. I thought myself into some sort of resolution, and lo! +when the Folk approached me and bound my feet I was back at once in the +most miserable terror. They tied me, all but my hands, with some strong +cord, and carried me to the centre, where the fire was glowing. Their +soft touch was the acutest torture to my nerves, but I stifled my cries +lest some one should lay his hand on my mouth. Had that happened, I am +convinced my reason would have failed me. + +So there I lay in the shine of the fire, with the circle of unknown +things around me. There seemed but three or four, but I took no note of +number. They talked huskily among themselves in a tongue which sounded +all gutturals. Slowly my fear became less an emotion than a habit, and I +had room for the smallest shade of curiosity. I strained my ear to catch +a word, but it was a mere chaos of sound. The thing ran and thundered +in my brain as I stared dumbly into the vacant air. Then I thought that +unless I spoke I should certainly go crazy, for my head was beginning to +swim at the strange cooing noise. + +I spoke a word or two in my best Gaelic, and they closed round me +inquiringly. Then I was sorry I had spoken, for my words had brought +them nearer, and I shrank at the thought. But as the faint echoes of my +speech hummed in the rock-chamber, I was struck by a curious kinship of +sound. Mine was sharper, more distinct, and staccato; theirs was +blurred, formless, but still with a certain root-resemblance. + +Then from the back there came an older being, who seemed to have heard +my words. He was like some foul grey badger, his red eyes sightless, and +his hands trembling on a stump of bog-oak. The others made way for him +with such deference as they were capable of, and the thing squatted down +by me and spoke. + +To my amazement his words were familiar. It was some manner of speech +akin to the Gaelic, but broadened, lengthened, coarsened. I remembered +an old book-tongue, commonly supposed posed to be an impure dialect once +used in Brittany, which I had met in the course of my researches. The +words recalled it, and as far as I could remember the thing, I asked him +who he was and where the place might be. + +He answered me in the same speech--still more broadened, lengthened, +coarsened. I lay back with sheer amazement. I had found the key to this +unearthly life. + +For a little an insatiable curiosity, the ardour of the scholar, +prevailed. I forgot the horror of the place, and thought only of the +fact that here before me was the greatest find that scholarship had ever +made. I was precipitated into the heart of the past. Here must be the +fountainhead of all legends, the chrysalis of all beliefs. I actually +grew lighthearted. This strange folk around me were now no more +shapeless things of terror, but objects of research and experiment. I +almost came to think them not unfriendly. + +For an hour I enjoyed the highest of earthly pleasures. In that strange +conversation I heard--in fragments and suggestions--the history of the +craziest survival the world has ever seen. I heard of the struggles with +invaders, preserved as it were in a sort of shapeless poetry. There were +bitter words against the Gaelic oppressor, bitterer words against the +Saxon stranger, and for a moment ancient hatreds flared into life. Then +there came the tale of the hill-refuge, the morbid hideous existence +preserved for centuries amid a changing world. I heard fragments of old +religions, primeval names of god and goddess, half-understood by the +Folk, but to me the key to a hundred puzzles. Tales which survive to us +in broken disjointed riddles were intact here in living form. I lay on +my elbow and questioned feverishly. At any moment they might become +morose and refuse to speak. Clearly it was my duty to make the most of a +brief good fortune. + +And then the tale they told me grew more hideous. I heard of the +circumstances of the life itself and their daily shifts for existence. +It was a murderous chronicle--a history of lust and rapine and +unmentionable deeds in the darkness. One thing they had early +recognised--that the race could not be maintained within itself; so that +ghoulish carrying away of little girls from the lowlands began, which I +had heard of but never credited. Shut up in those dismal holes, the +girls soon died, and when the new race had grown up the plunder had been +repeated. Then there were bestial murders in lonely cottages, done for +God knows what purpose. Sometimes the occupant had seen more than was +safe, sometimes the deed was the mere exuberance of a lust of slaying. +As they gabbled their tales my heart's blood froze, and I lay back in +the agonies of fear. If they had used the others thus, what way of +escape was open for myself? I had been brought to this place, and not +murdered on the spot. Clearly there was torture before death in store +for me, and I confess I quailed at the thought. + +But none molested me. The elders continued to jabber out their stories, +while I lay tense and deaf. Then to my amazement food was brought and +placed beside me--almost with respect. Clearly my murder was not a thing +of the immediate future. The meal was some form of mutton--perhaps the +shepherd's lost ewes--and a little smoking was all the cooking it had +got. I strove to eat, but the tasteless morsels choked me. Then they set +drink before me in a curious cup, which I seized on eagerly, for my +mouth was dry with thirst. The vessel was of gold, rudely formed, but of +the pure metal, and a coarse design in circles ran round the middle. +This surprised me enough, but a greater wonder awaited me. The liquor +was not water, as I had guessed, but a sort of sweet ale, a miracle of +flavour. The taste was curious, but somehow familiar; it was like no +wine I had ever drunk, and yet I had known that flavour all my life. I +sniffed at the brim, and there rose a faint fragrance of thyme and +heather honey and the sweet things of the moorland. I almost dropped it +in my surprise; for here in this rude place I had stumbled upon that +lost delicacy of the North, the heather ale. + +For a second I was entranced with my discovery, and then the wonder of +the cup claimed my attention. Was it a mere relic of pillage, or had +this folk some hidden mine of the precious metal? Gold had once been +common in these hills. There were the traces of mines on Cairnsmore: +shepherds had found it in the gravel of the Gled Water; and the name of +a house at the head of the Clachlands meant the "Home of Gold." + +Once more I began my questions, and they answered them willingly. There +and then I heard that secret for which many had died in old time, the +secret of the heather ale. They told of the gold in the hills, of +corries where the sand gleamed and abysses where the rocks were veined. +All this they told me, freely, without a scruple. And then, like a +clap, came the awful thought that this, too, spelled death. These were +secrets which this race aforetime had guarded with their lives; they +told them generously to me because there was no fear of betrayal. I +should go no more out from this place. + +The thought put me into a new sweat of terror--not at death, mind you, +but at the unknown horrors which might precede the final suffering. I +lay silent, and after binding my hands they began to leave me and go off +to other parts of the cave. I dozed in the horrible half-swoon of fear, +conscious only of my shaking limbs, and the great dull glow of the fire +in the centre. Then I became calmer. After all, they had treated me with +tolerable kindness: I had spoken their language, which few of their +victims could have done for many a century; it might be that I had found +favour in their eyes. For a little I comforted myself with this +delusion, till I caught sight of a wooden box in a corner. It was of +modern make, one such as grocers use to pack provisions in. It had some +address nailed on it, and an aimless curiosity compelled me to creep +thither and read it. A torn and weather-stained scrap of paper, with the +nails at the corner rusty with age; but something of the address might +still be made out. Amid the stains my feverish eyes read, "To Mr M----, +Carrickfey, by Allerfoot Station." + +The ruined cottage in the hollow of the waste with the single gnarled +apple-tree was before me in a twinkling. I remembered the shepherd's +shrinking from the place and the name, and his wild eyes when he told me +of the thing that had happened there. I seemed to see the old man in his +moorland cottage, thinking no evil; the sudden entry of the nameless +things; and then the eyes glazed in unspeakable terror. I felt my lips +dry and burning. Above me was the vault of rock; in the distance I saw +the fire-glow and the shadows of shapes moving around it. My fright was +too great for inaction, so I crept from the couch, and silently, +stealthily, with tottering steps and bursting heart, I began to +reconnoitre. + +But I was still bound, my arms tightly, my legs more loosely, but yet +firm enough to hinder flight. I could not get my hands at my leg-straps, +still less could I undo the manacles. I rolled on the floor, seeking +some sharp edge of rock, but all had been worn smooth by the use of +centuries. Then suddenly an idea came upon me like an inspiration. The +sounds from the fire seemed to have ceased, and I could hear them +repeated from another and more distant part of the cave. The Folk had +left their orgy round the blaze, and at the end of the long tunnel I saw +its glow fall unimpeded upon the floor. Once there, I might burn off my +fetters and be free to turn my thoughts to escape. + +I crawled a little way with much labour. Then suddenly I came abreast an +opening in the wall, through which a path went. It was a long straight +rock-cutting, and at the end I saw a gleam of pale light. It must be the +open air; the way of escape was prepared for me; and with a prayer I +made what speed I could towards the fire. + +I rolled on the verge, but the fuel was peat, and the warm ashes would +not burn the cords. In desperation I went farther, and my clothes began +to singe, while my face ached beyond endurance. But yet I got no nearer +my object. The strips of hide warped and cracked, but did not burn. Then +in a last effort I thrust my wrists bodily into the glow and held them +there. In an instant I drew them out with a groan of pain, scarred and +sore, but to my joy with the band snapped in one place. Weak as I was, +it was now easy to free myself, and then came the untying of my legs. +My hands trembled, my eyes were dazed with hurry, and I was longer over +the job than need have been. But at length I had loosed my cramped knees +and stood on my feet, a free man once more. + +I kicked off my boots, and fled noiselessly down the passage to the +tunnel mouth. Apparently it was close on evening, for the white light +had faded to a pale yellow. But it was daylight, and that was all I +sought, and I ran for it as eagerly as ever runner ran to a goal. I came +out on a rock-shelf, beneath which a moraine of boulders fell away in a +chasm to a dark loch. It was all but night, but I could see the gnarled +and fortressed rocks rise in ramparts above, and below the unknown +screes and cliffs which make the side of the Muneraw a place only for +foxes and the fowls of the air. + +The first taste of liberty is an intoxication, and assuredly I was mad +when I leaped down among the boulders. Happily at the top of the gully +the stones were large and stable, else the noise would certainly have +discovered me. Down I went, slipping, praying, my charred wrists aching, +and my stockinged feet wet with blood. Soon I was in the jaws of the +cleft, and a pale star rose before me. I have always been timid in the +face of great rocks, and now, had not an awful terror been dogging my +footsteps, no power on earth could have driven me to that descent. Soon +I left the boulders behind, and came to long spouts of little stones, +which moved with me till the hillside seemed sinking under my feet. +Sometimes I was face downwards, once and again I must have fallen for +yards. Had there been a cliff at the foot, I should have gone over it +without resistance; but by the providence of God the spout ended in a +long curve into the heather of the bog. + +When I found my feet once more on soft boggy earth, my strength was +renewed within me. A great hope of escape sprang up in my heart. For a +second I looked back. There was a great line of shingle with the cliffs +beyond, and above all the unknown blackness of the cleft. There lay my +terror, and I set off running across the bog for dear life. My mind was +clear enough to know my road. If I held round the loch in front I should +come to a burn which fed the Farawa stream, on whose banks stood the +shepherd's cottage. The loch could not be far; once at the Farawa I +would have the light of the shieling clear before me. + +Suddenly I heard behind me, as if coming from the hillside, the patter +of feet. It was the sound which white hares make in the wintertime on a +noiseless frosty day as they patter over the snow. I have heard the same +soft noise from a herd of deer when they changed their pastures. Strange +that so kindly a sound should put the very fear of death in my heart. I +ran madly, blindly, yet thinking shrewdly. The loch was before me. +Somewhere I had read or heard, I do not know where, that the brutish +aboriginal races of the North could not swim. I myself swam powerfully; +could I but cross the loch I should save two miles of a desperate +country. + +There was no time to lose, for the patter was coming nearer, and I was +almost at the loch's edge. I tore off my coat and rushed in. The bottom +was mossy, and I had to struggle far before I found any depth. Something +plashed in the water before me, and then something else a little behind. +The thought that I was a mark for unknown missiles made me crazy with +fright, and I struck fiercely out for the other shore. A gleam of +moonlight was on the water at the burn's exit, and thither I guided +myself. I found the thing difficult enough in itself, for my hands +ached, and I was numb from my bonds. But my fancy raised a thousand +phantoms to vex me. Swimming in that black bog water, pursued by those +nameless things, I seemed to be in a world of horror far removed from +the kindly world of men. My strength seemed inexhaustible from my +terror. Monsters at the bottom of the water seemed to bite at my feet, +and the pain of my wrists made me believe that the loch was boiling hot, +and that I was in some hellish place of torment. + +I came out on a spit of gravel above the burn mouth, and set off down +the ravine of the burn. It was a strait place, strewn with rocks; but +now and then the hill turf came in stretches, and eased my wounded feet. +Soon the fall became more abrupt, and I was slipping down a hillside, +with the water on my left making great cascades in the granite. And then +I was out in the wider vale where the Farawa water flowed among links of +moss. + +Far in front, a speck in the blue darkness, shone the light of the +cottage. I panted forward, my breath coming in gasps and my back shot +with fiery pains. Happily the land was easier for the feet as long as I +kept on the skirts of the bog. My ears were sharp as a wild beast's with +fear, as I listened for the noise of pursuit. Nothing came but the +rustle of the gentlest hill-wind and the chatter of the falling streams. + +Then suddenly the light began to waver and move athwart the window. I +knew what it meant. In a minute or two the household at the cottage +would retire to rest, and the lamp would be put out. True, I might find +the place in the dark, for there was a moon of sorts and the road was +not desperate. But somehow in that hour the lamplight gave a promise of +safety which I clung to despairingly. + +And then the last straw was added to my misery. Behind me came the pad +of feet, the pat-patter, soft, eerie, incredibly swift. I choked with +fear, and flung myself forward in a last effort. I give my word it was +sheer mechanical shrinking that drove me on. God knows I would have lain +down to die in the heather, had the things behind me been a common +terror of life. + +I ran as man never ran before, leaping hags, scrambling through green +well-heads, straining towards the fast-dying light. A quarter of a mile +and the patter sounded nearer. Soon I was not two hundred yards off, and +the noise seemed almost at my elbow. The light went out, and the black +mass of the cottage loomed in the dark. + +Then, before I knew, I was at the door, battering it wearily and yelling +for help. I heard steps within and a hand on the bolt. Then something +shot past me with lightning force and buried itself in the wood. The +dreadful hands were almost at my throat, when the door was opened and I +stumbled in, hearing with a gulp of joy the key turn and the bar fall +behind me. + + +V: THE TROUBLES OF A CONSCIENCE + +My body and senses slept, for I was utterly tired, but my brain all the +night was on fire with horrid fancies. Again I was in that accursed +cave; I was torturing my hands in the fire; I was slipping barefoot +among jagged boulders; and then with bursting heart I was toiling the +last mile with the cottage light--now grown to a great fire in the +heavens--blazing before me. + +It was broad daylight when I awoke, and I thanked God for the +comfortable rays of the sun. I had been laid in a box-bed off the inner +room, and my first sight was the shepherd sitting with folded arms in a +chair regarding me solemnly. I rose and began to dress, feeling my legs +and arms still tremble with weariness. The shepherd's sister bound up my +scarred wrists and put an ointment on my burns; and, limping like an old +man, I went into the kitchen. + +I could eat little breakfast, for my throat seemed dry and narrow; but +they gave me some brandy-and-milk, which put strength into my body. All +the time the brother and sister sat in silence, regarding me with covert +glances. + +"Ye have been delivered from the jaws o' the Pit," said the man at +length. "See that," and he held out to me a thin shaft of flint. "I fand +that in the door this morning." + +I took it, let it drop, and stared vacantly at the window. My nerves had +been too much tried to be roused by any new terror. Out of doors it was +fair weather, flying gleams of April sunlight and the soft colours of +spring. I felt dazed, isolated, cut off from my easy past and pleasing +future, a companion of horrors and the sport of nameless things. Then +suddenly my eye fell on my books heaped on a table, and the old distant +civilisation seemed for the moment inexpressibly dear. + +"I must go--at once. And you must come too. You cannot stay here. I tell +you it is death. If you knew what I know you would be crying out with +fear. How far is it to Allermuir? Eight, fifteen miles; and then ten +down Glen Aller to Allerfoot, and then the railway. We must go together +while it is daylight, and perhaps we may be untouched. But quick, there +is not a moment to lose." And I was on my shaky feet, and bustling among +my possessions. + +"I'll gang wi' ye to the station," said the shepherd, "for ye're clearly +no fit to look after yourself. My sister will bide and keep the house. +If naething has touched us this ten year, naething will touch us the +day." + +"But you cannot stay. You are mad," I began; but he cut me short with +the words, "I trust in God." + +"In any case let your sister come with us. I dare not think of a woman +alone in this place." + +"I'll bide," said she. "I'm no feared as lang as I'm indoors and there's +steeks on the windies." + +So I packed my few belongings as best I could, tumbled my books into a +haversack, and, gripping the shepherd's arm nervously, crossed the +threshold. The glen was full of sunlight. There lay the long shining +links of the Farawa burn, the rough hills tumbled beyond, and far over +all the scarred and distant forehead of the Muneraw. I had always +looked on moorland country as the freshest on earth--clean, wholesome, +and homely. But now the fresh uplands seemed like a horrible pit. When I +looked to the hills my breath choked in my throat, and the feel of soft +heather below my feet set my heart trembling. + +It was a slow journey to the inn at Allermuir. For one thing, no power +on earth would draw me within sight of the shieling of Carrickfey, so we +had to cross a shoulder of hill and make our way down a difficult glen, +and then over a treacherous moss. The lochs were now gleaming like +fretted silver; but to me, in my dreadful knowledge, they seemed more +eerie than on that grey day when I came. At last my eyes were cheered by +the sight of a meadow and a fence; then we were on a little byroad; and +soon the fir-woods and corn-lands of Allercleuch were plain before us. + +The shepherd came no farther, but with brief good-bye turned his solemn +face hillwards. I hired a trap and a man to drive, and down the ten +miles of Glen Aller I struggled to keep my thoughts from the past. I +thought of the kindly South Country, of Oxford, of anything comfortable +and civilised. My driver pointed out the objects of interest as in duty +bound, but his words fell on unheeding ears. At last he said something +which roused me indeed to interest--the interest of the man who hears +the word he fears most in the world. On the left side of the river there +suddenly sprang into view a long gloomy cleft in the hills, with a vista +of dark mountains behind, down which a stream of considerable size +poured its waters. + +"That is the Water o' Dule," said the man in a reverent voice. "A graund +water to fish, but dangerous to life, for it's a' linns. Awa' at the +heid they say there's a terrible wild place called the Scarts o' +Muneraw,--that's a shouther o' the muckle hill itsel' that ye see,--but +I've never been there, and I never kent ony man that had either." + +At the station, which is a mile from the village of Allerfoot, I found I +had some hours to wait on my train for the south. I dared not trust +myself for one moment alone, so I hung about the goods-shed, talked +vacantly to the porters, and when one went to the village for tea I +accompanied him, and to his wonder entertained him at the inn. When I +returned I found on the platform a stray bagman who was that evening +going to London. If there is one class of men in the world which I +heartily detest it is this; but such was my state that I hailed him as a +brother, and besought his company. I paid the difference for a +first-class fare, and had him in the carriage with me. He must have +thought me an amiable maniac, for I talked in fits and starts, and when +he fell asleep I would wake him up and beseech him to speak to me. At +wayside stations I would pull down the blinds in case of recognition, +for to my unquiet mind the world seemed full of spies sent by that +terrible Folk of the Hills. When the train crossed a stretch of moor I +would lie down on the seat in case of shafts fired from the heather. And +then at last with utter weariness I fell asleep, and woke screaming +about midnight to find myself well down in the cheerful English +midlands, and red blast-furnaces blinking by the railwayside. + +In the morning I breakfasted in my rooms at St Chad's with a dawning +sense of safety. I was in a different and calmer world. The lawn-like +quadrangles, the great trees, the cawing of rooks, and the homely +twitter of sparrows--all seemed decent and settled and pleasing. Indoors +the oak-panelled walls, the shelves of books, the pictures, the faint +fragrance of tobacco, were very different from the gimcrack adornments +and the accursed smell of peat and heather in that deplorable cottage. +It was still vacation-time, so most of my friends were down; but I spent +the day hunting out the few cheerful pedants to whom term and vacation +were the same. It delighted me to hear again their precise talk, to hear +them make a boast of their work, and narrate the childish little +accidents of their life. I yearned for the childish once more; I craved +for women's drawing-rooms, and women's chatter, and everything which +makes life an elegant game. God knows I had had enough of the other +thing for a lifetime! + +That night I shut myself in my rooms, barred my windows, drew my +curtains, and made a great destruction. All books or pictures which +recalled to me the moorlands were ruthlessly doomed. Novels, poems, +treatises I flung into an old box, for sale to the second-hand +bookseller. Some prints and water-colour sketches I tore to pieces with +my own hands. I ransacked my fishing-book, and condemned all tackle for +moorland waters to the flames. I wrote a letter to my solicitors, +bidding them go no further in the purchase of a place in Lorn I had long +been thinking of. Then, and not till then, did I feel the bondage of the +past a little loosed from my shoulders. I made myself a night-cap of +rum-punch instead of my usual whisky-toddy, that all associations with +that dismal land might be forgotten, and to complete the renunciation I +returned to cigars and flung my pipe into a drawer. + +But when I woke in the morning I found that it is hard to get rid of +memories. My feet were still sore and wounded, and when I felt my arms +cramped and reflected on the causes, there was that black memory always +near to vex me. + +In a little term began, and my duties--as deputy-professor of Northern +Antiquities--were once more clamorous. I can well believe that my +hearers found my lectures strange, for instead of dealing with my +favourite subjects and matters, which I might modestly say I had made my +own, I confined myself to recondite and distant themes, treating even +these cursorily and dully. For the truth is, my heart was no more in my +subject. I hated--or I thought that I hated--all things Northern with +the virulence of utter fear. My reading was confined to science of the +most recent kind, to abstruse philosophy, and to foreign classics. +Anything which savoured of romance or mystery was abhorrent; I pined +for sharp outlines and the tangibility of a high civilisation. + +All the term I threw myself into the most frivolous life of the place. +My Harrow schooldays seemed to have come back to me. I had once been a +fair cricketer, so I played again for my college, and made decent +scores. I coached an indifferent crew on the river. I fell into the +slang of the place, which I had hitherto detested. My former friends +looked on me askance, as if some freakish changeling had possessed me. +Formerly I had been ready for pedantic discussion, I had been absorbed +in my work, men had spoken of me as a rising scholar. Now I fled the +very mention of things I had once delighted in. The Professor of +Northern Antiquities, a scholar of European reputation, meeting me once +in the Parks, embarked on an account of certain novel rings recently +found in Scotland, and to his horror found that, when he had got well +under weigh, I had slipped off unnoticed. I heard afterwards that the +good old man was found by a friend walking disconsolately with bowed +head in the middle of the High Street. Being rescued from among the +horses' feet, he could only murmur, "I am thinking of Graves, poor man! +And a year ago he was as sane as I am!" + + * * * * * * * + +But a man may not long deceive himself. I kept up the illusion valiantly +for the term; but I felt instinctively that the fresh schoolboy life, +which seemed to me the extreme opposite to the ghoulish North, and as +such the most desirable of things, was eternally cut off from me. No +cunning affectation could ever dispel my real nature or efface the +memory of a week. I realised miserably that sooner or latter I must +fight it out with my conscience. I began to call myself a coward. The +chief thoughts of my mind began to centre themselves more and more round +that unknown life waiting to be explored among the wilds. + +One day I met a friend--an official in the British Museum--who was full +of some new theory about primitive habitations. To me it seemed +inconceivably absurd; but he was strong in his confidence, and without +flaw in his evidence. The man irritated me, and I burned to prove him +wrong, but I could think of no argument which was final against his. +Then it flashed upon me that my own experience held the disproof; and +without more words I left him, hot, angry with myself, and tantalised +by the unattainable. + +I might relate my _bona-fide_ experience, but would men believe me? I +must bring proofs, I must complete my researches, so as to make them +incapable of disbelief. And there in those deserts was waiting the key. +There lay the greatest discovery of the century--nay, of the millennium. +There, too, lay the road to wealth such as I had never dreamed of. Could +I succeed, I should be famous for ever. I would revolutionise history +and anthropology; I would systematise folk-lore; I would show the world +of men the pit whence they were digged and the rock whence they were +hewn. + +And then began a game of battledore between myself and my conscience. + +"You are a coward," said my conscience. + +"I am sufficiently brave," I would answer. "I have seen things and yet +lived. The terror is more than mortal, and I cannot face it." + +"You are a coward," said my conscience. + +"I am not bound to go there again. It would be purely for my own +aggrandisement if I went, and not for any matter of duty." + +"Nevertheless you are a coward," said my conscience. + +"In any case the matter can wait." + +"You are a coward." + + * * * * * * * + +Then came one awful midsummer night, when I lay sleepless and fought the +thing out with myself. I knew that the strife was hopeless, that I +should have no peace in this world again unless I made the attempt. The +dawn was breaking when I came to the final resolution; and when I rose +and looked at my face in a mirror, lo! it was white and lined and drawn +like a man of sixty. + + +VI: SUMMER ON THE MOORS + +The next morning I packed a bag with some changes of clothing and a +collection of notebooks, and went up to town. The first thing I did was +to pay a visit to my solicitors. "I am about to travel," said I, "and I +wish to have all things settled in case any accident should happen to +me." So I arranged for the disposal of my property in case of death, and +added a codicil which puzzled the lawyers. If I did not return within +six months, communications were to be entered into with the shepherd at +the shieling of Farawa--post-town Allerfoot. If he could produce any +papers, they were to be put into the hands of certain friends, +published, and the cost charged to my estate. From my solicitors I went +to a gunmaker's in Regent Street and bought an ordinary six-chambered +revolver, feeling much as a man must feel who proposed to cross the +Atlantic in a skiff and purchased a small life-belt as a precaution. + +I took the night express to the North, and, for a marvel, I slept. When +I awoke about four we were on the verge of Westmoreland, and stony hills +blocked the horizon. At first I hailed the mountain-land gladly; sleep +for the moment had caused forgetfulness of my terrors. But soon a turn +of the line brought me in full view of a heathery moor, running far to a +confusion of distant peaks. I remembered my mission and my fate, and if +ever condemned criminal felt a more bitter regret I pity his case. Why +should I alone among the millions of this happy isle be singled out as +the repository of a ghastly secret, and be cursed by a conscience which +would not let it rest? + +I came to Allerfoot early in the forenoon, and got a trap to drive me up +the valley. It was a lowering grey day, hot and yet sunless. A sort of +heat-haze cloaked the hills, and every now and then a smurr of rain +would meet us on the road, and in a minute be over. I felt wretchedly +dispirited; and when at last the white-washed kirk of Allermuir came +into sight and the broken-backed bridge of Aller, man's eyes seemed to +have looked on no drearier scene since time began. + +I ate what meal I could get, for, fears or no, I was voraciously hungry. +Then I asked the landlord to find me some man who would show me the road +to Farawa. I demanded company, not for protection--for what could two +men do against such brutish strength?--but to keep my mind from its own +thoughts. + +The man looked at me anxiously. + +"Are ye acquaint wi' the folks, then?" he asked. + +I said I was, that I had often stayed in the cottage. + +"Ye ken that they've a name for being queer. The man never comes here +forbye once or twice a-year, and he has few dealings wi' other herds. +He's got an ill name, too, for losing sheep. I dinna like the country +ava. Up by yon Muneraw--no that I've ever been there, but I've seen it +afar off--is enough to put a man daft for the rest o' his days. What's +taking ye thereaways? It's no the time for the fishing?" + +I told him that I was a botanist going to explore certain hill-crevices +for rare ferns. He shook his head, and then after some delay found me an +ostler who would accompany me to the cottage. + +The man was a shock-headed, long-limbed fellow, with fierce red hair and +a humorous eye. He talked sociably about his life, answered my hasty +questions with deftness, and beguiled me for the moment out of myself. I +passed the melancholy lochs, and came in sight of the great stony hills +without the trepidation I had expected. Here at my side was one who +found some humour even in those uplands. But one thing I noted which +brought back the old uneasiness. He took the road which led us farthest +from Carrickfey, and when to try him I proposed the other, he vetoed it +with emphasis. + +After this his good spirit departed, and he grew distrustful. + +"What mak's ye a freend o' the herd at Farawa?" he demanded a dozen +times. + +Finally, I asked him if he knew the man, and had seen him lately. + +"I dinna ken him, and I hadna seen him for years till a fortnicht syne, +when a' Allermuir saw him. He cam doun one afternoon to the +public-hoose, and begood to drink. He had aye been kenned for a +terrible godly kind o' a man, so ye may believe folk wondered at this. +But when he had stuck to the drink for twae days, and filled himsel' +blind-fou half-a-dozen o' times, he took a fit o' repentance, and raved +and blethered about siccan a life as he led in the muirs. There was some +said he was speakin' serious, but maist thocht it was juist daftness." + +"And what did he speak about?" I asked sharply. + +"I canna verra weel tell ye. It was about some kind o' bogle that lived +in the Muneraw--that's the shouthers o't ye see yonder--and it seems +that the bogle killed his sheep and frichted himsel'. He was aye +bletherin', too, about something or somebody ca'd Grave; but oh! the man +wasna wise." And my companion shook a contemptuous head. + +And then below us in the valley we saw the shieling, with a thin shaft +of smoke rising into the rainy grey weather. The man left me, sturdily +refusing any fee. "I wantit my legs stretched as weel as you. A walk in +the hills is neither here nor there to a stoot man. When will ye be +back, sir?" + +The question was well-timed. "To-morrow fortnight," I said, "and I want +somebody from Allermuir to come out here in the morning and carry some +baggage. Will you see to that?" + +He said "Ay," and went off, while I scrambled down the hill to the +cottage. Nervousness possessed me, and though it was broad daylight and +the whole place lay plain before me, I ran pell-mell, and did not stop +till I reached the door. + +The place was utterly empty. Unmade beds, unwashed dishes, a hearth +strewn with the ashes of peat, and dust thick on everything, proclaimed +the absence of inmates. I began to be horribly frightened. Had the +shepherd and his sister, also, disappeared? Was I left alone in this +bleak place, with a dozen lonely miles between me and human dwellings? I +could not return alone; better this horrible place than the unknown +perils of the out-of-doors. Hastily I barricaded the door, and to the +best of my power shuttered the windows; and then with dreary forebodings +I sat down to wait on fortune. + +In a little I heard a long swinging step outside and the sound of dogs. +Joyfully I opened the latch, and there was the shepherd's grim face +waiting stolidly on what might appear. + +At the sight of me he stepped back. "What in the Lord's name are ye +daein' here?" he asked. "Didna ye get enough afor?" + +"Come in," I said, sharply. "I want to talk." + +In he came with those blessed dogs,--what a comfort it was to look on +their great honest faces! He sat down on the untidy bed and waited. + +"I came because I could not stay away. I saw too much to give me any +peace elsewhere. I must go back, even though I risk my life for it. The +cause of scholarship demands it as well as the cause of humanity." + +"Is that a' the news ye hae?" he said. "Weel, I've mair to tell ye. +Three weeks syne my sister Margit was lost, and I've never seen her +mair." + +My jaw fell, and I could only stare at him. + +"I cam hame from the hill at nightfa' and she was gone. I lookit for her +up hill and doun, but I couldna find her. Syne I think I went daft. I +went to the Scarts and huntit them up and doun, but no sign could I see. +The Folk can bide quiet enough when they want. Syne I went to Allermuir +and drank mysel' blind,--me, that's a God-fearing man and a saved soul; +but the Lord help me, I didna ken what I was at. That's my news, and day +and night I wander thae hills, seekin' for what I canna find." + +"But, man, are you mad?" I cried. "Surely there are neighbours to help +you. There is a law in the land, and you had only to find the nearest +police-office and compel them to assist you." + +"What guid can man dae?" he asked. "An army o' sodgers couldna find that +hidy-hole. Forby, when I went into Allermuir wi' my story the folk +thocht me daft. It was that set me drinking, for--the Lord forgive +me!--I wasna my ain maister. I threepit till I was hairse, but the +bodies just lauch'd." And he lay back on the bed like a man mortally +tired. + +Grim though the tidings were, I can only say that my chief feeling was +of comfort. Pity for the new tragedy had swallowed up my fear. I had now +a purpose, and a purpose, too, not of curiosity but of mercy. + +"I go to-morrow morning to the Muneraw. But first I want to give you +something to do." And I drew roughly a chart of the place on the back of +a letter. "Go into Allermuir to-morrow, and give this paper to the +landlord at the inn. The letter will tell him what to do. He is to raise +at once all the men he can get, and come to the place on the chart +marked with a cross. Tell him life depends on his hurry." + +The shepherd nodded. "D'ye ken the Folk are watching for you? They let +me pass without trouble, for they've nae use for me, but I see fine +they're seeking you. Ye'll no gang half a mile the morn afore they grip +ye." + +"So much the better," I said. "That will take me quicker to the place I +want to be at." + +"And I'm to gang to Allermuir the morn," he repeated, with the air of a +child conning a lesson. "But what if they'll no believe me?" + +"They'll believe the letter." + +"Maybe," he said, and relapsed into a doze. + +I set myself to put that house in order, to rouse the fire, and prepare +some food. It was dismal work; and meantime outside the night darkened, +and a great wind rose, which howled round the walls and lashed the rain +on the windows. + + +VII: IN TUAS MANUS, DOMINE! + +I had not gone twenty yards from the cottage door ere I knew I was +watched. I had left the shepherd still dozing, in the half-conscious +state of a dazed and broken man. All night the wind had wakened me at +intervals, and now in the half-light of morn the weather seemed more +vicious than ever. The wind cut my ears, the whole firmament was full of +the rendings and thunders of the storm. Rain fell in blinding sheets, +the heath was a marsh, and it was the most I could do to struggle +against the hurricane which stopped my breath. And all the while I knew +I was not alone in the desert. + +All men know--in imagination or in experience--the sensation of being +spied on. The nerves tingle, the skin grows hot and prickly, and there +is a queer sinking of the heart. Intensify this common feeling a +hundredfold, and you get a tenth part of what I suffered. I am telling a +plain tale, and record bare physical facts. My lips stood out from my +teeth as I heard, or felt, a rustle in the heather, a scraping among +stones. Some subtle magnetic link seemed established between my body and +the mysterious world around. I became sick--acutely sick--with the +ceaseless apprehension. + +My fright became so complete that when I turned a corner of rock, or +stepped in deep heather, I seemed to feel a body rub against mine. This +continued all the way up the Farawa water, and then up its feeder to the +little lonely loch. It kept me from looking forward; but it likewise +kept me in such a sweat of fright that I was ready to faint. Then the +motion came upon me to test this fancy of mine. If I was tracked thus +closely, clearly the trackers would bar my way if I turned back. So I +wheeled round and walked a dozen paces down the glen. + +Nothing stopped me. I was about to turn again, when something made me +take six more paces. At the fourth something rustled in the heather, and +my neck was gripped as in a vice. I had already made up my mind on what +I would do. I would be perfectly still, I would conquer my fear, and let +them do as they pleased with me so long as they took me to their +dwelling. But at the touch of the hands my resolutions fled. I struggled +and screamed. Then something was clapped on my mouth, speech and +strength went from me, and once more I was back in the maudlin childhood +of terror. + + * * * * * * * + +In the cave it was always a dusky twilight. I seemed to be lying in the +same place, with the same dull glare of firelight far off, and the same +close stupefying smell. One of the creatures was standing silently at my +side, and I asked him some trivial question. He turned and shambled down +the passage, leaving me alone. + +Then he returned with another, and they talked their guttural talk to +me. I scarcely listened till I remembered that in a sense I was here of +my own accord, and on a definite mission. The purport of their speech +seemed to be that, now I had returned, I must beware of a second flight. +Once I had been spared; a second time I should be killed without mercy. + +I assented gladly. The Folk then, had some use for me. I felt my errand +prospering. + +Then the old creature which I had seen before crept out of some corner +and squatted beside me. He put a claw on my shoulder, a horrible, +corrugated, skeleton thing, hairy to the finger-tips and nailless. He +grinned, too, with toothless gums, and his hideous old voice was like a +file on sandstone. + +I asked questions, but he would only grin and jabber, looking now and +then furtively over his shoulder towards the fire. + +I coaxed and humoured him, till he launched into a narrative of which I +could make nothing. It seemed a mere string of names, with certain words +repeated at fixed intervals. Then it flashed on me that this might be a +religious incantation. I had discovered remnants of a ritual and a +mythology among them. It was possible that these were sacred days, and +that I had stumbled upon some rude celebration. + +I caught a word or two and repeated them. He looked at me curiously. +Then I asked him some leading question, and he replied with clearness. +My guess was right. The midsummer week was the holy season of the year, +when sacrifices were offered to the gods. + +The notion of sacrifices disquieted me, and I would fain have asked +further. But the creature would speak no more. He hobbled off, and left +me alone in the rock-chamber to listen to a strange sound which hung +ceaselessly about me. It must be the storm without, like a park of +artillery rattling among the crags. A storm of storms surely, for the +place echoed and hummed, and to my unquiet eye the very rock of the roof +seemed to shake! + +Apparently my existence was forgotten, for I lay long before any one +returned. Then it was merely one who brought food, the same strange meal +as before, and left hastily. When I had eaten I rose and stretched +myself. My hands and knees still quivered nervously; but I was strong +and perfectly well in body. The empty, desolate, tomb-like place was +eerie enough to scare any one; but its emptiness was comfort when I +thought of its inmates. Then I wandered down the passage towards the +fire which was burning in loneliness. Where had the Folk gone? I +puzzled over their disappearance. + +Suddenly sounds began to break on my ear, coming from some inner chamber +at the end of that in which the fire burned. I could scarcely see for +the smoke; but I began to make my way towards the noise, feeling along +the sides of rock. Then a second gleam of light seemed to rise before +me, and I came to an aperture in the wall which gave entrance to another +room. + +This in turn was full of smoke and glow--a murky orange glow, as if from +some strange flame of roots. There were the squat moving figures, +running in wild antics round the fire. I crouched in the entrance, +terrified and yet curious, till I saw something beyond the blaze which +held me dumb. Apart from the others and tied to some stake in the wall +was a woman's figure, and the face was the face of the shepherd's +sister. + +My first impulse was flight. I must get away and think,--plan, achieve +some desperate way of escape. I sped back to the silent chamber as if +the gang were at my heels. It was still empty, and I stood helplessly in +the centre, looking at the impassable walls of rock as a wearied beast +may look at the walls of its cage. I bethought me of the way I had +escaped before and rushed thither, only to find it blocked by a huge +contrivance of stone. Yards and yards of solid rock were between me and +the upper air, and yet through it all came the crash and whistle of the +storm. If I were at my wits' end in this inner darkness, there was also +high commotion among the powers of the air in that upper world. + +As I stood I heard the soft steps of my tormentors. They seemed to think +I was meditating escape, for they flung themselves on me and bore me to +the ground. I did not struggle, and when they saw me quiet, they +squatted round and began to speak. They told me of the holy season and +its sacrifices. At first I could not follow them; then when I caught +familiar words I found some clue, and they became intelligible. They +spoke of a woman, and I asked, "What woman?" With all frankness they +told me of the custom which prevailed--how every twentieth summer a +woman was sacrificed to some devilish god, and by the hand of one of the +stranger race. I said nothing, but my whitening face must have told them +a tale, though I strove hard to keep my composure. I asked if they had +found the victims. "She is in this place," they said; "and as for the +man, thou art he." And with this they left me. + +I had still some hours; so much I gathered from their talk, for the +sacrifice was at sunset. Escape was cut off for ever. I have always been +something of a fatalist, and at the prospect of the irrevocable end my +cheerfulness returned. I had my pistol, for they had taken nothing from +me. I took out the little weapon and fingered it lovingly. Hope of the +lost, refuge of the vanquished, ease to the coward,--blessed be he who +first conceived it! + +The time dragged on, the minutes grew to hours, and still I was left +solitary. Only the mad violence of the storm broke the quiet. It had +increased in fury, for the stones at the mouth of the exit by which I +had formerly escaped seemed to rock with some external pressure, and +cutting shafts of wind slipped past and cleft the heat of the passage. +What a sight the ravine outside must be, I thought, set in the forehead +of a great hill, and swept clean by every breeze! Then came a crashing, +and the long hollow echo of a fall. The rocks are splitting, said I; the +road down the corrie will be impassable now and for evermore. + +I began to grow weak with the nervousness of the waiting, and by-and-by +I lay down and fell into a sort of doze. When I next knew consciousness +I was being roused by two of the Folk, and bidden get ready. I stumbled +to my feet, felt for the pistol in the hollow of my sleeve, and prepared +to follow. + +When we came out into the wider chamber the noise of the storm was +deafening. The roof rang like a shield which has been struck. I noticed, +perturbed as I was, that my guards cast anxious eyes around them, +alarmed, like myself, at the murderous din. Nor was the world quieter +when we entered the last chamber, where the fire burned and the remnant +of the Folk waited. Wind had found an entrance from somewhere or other, +and the flames blew here and there, and the smoke gyrated in odd +circles. At the back, and apart from the rest, I saw the dazed eyes and +the white old drawn face of the woman. + +They led me up beside her to a place where there was a rude flat stone, +hollowed in the centre, and on it a rusty iron knife, which seemed once +to have formed part of a scythe-blade. Then I saw the ceremonial which +was marked out for me. It was the very rite which I had dimly figured as +current among a rude people, and even in that moment of horror I had +something of the scholar's satisfaction. + +The oldest of the Folk, who seemed to be a sort of priest, came to my +side and mumbled a form of words. His fetid breath sickened me; his dull +eyes, glassy like a brute's with age, brought my knees together. He put +the knife in my hands, dragged the terror-stricken woman forward to the +altar, and bade me begin. + +I began by sawing her bonds through. When she felt herself free she +would have fled back, but stopped when I bade her. At that moment there +came a noise of rending and crashing as if the hills were falling, and +for one second the eyes of the Folk were averted from the frustrated +sacrifice. + +Only for a moment. The next they saw what I had done, and with one +impulse rushed towards me. Then began the last scene in the play. I sent +a bullet through the right eye of the first thing that came on. The +second shot went wide; but the third shattered the hand of an elderly +ruffian with a club. Never for an instant did they stop, and now they +were clutching at me. I pushed the woman behind, and fired three rapid +shots in blind panic, and then, clutching the scythe, I struck right and +left like a madman. + +Suddenly I saw the foreground sink before my eyes. The roof sloped down, +and with a sickening hiss a mountain of rock and earth seemed to +precipitate itself on the foremost of my assailants. One, nipped in the +middle by a rock, caught my eye by his hideous writhings. Two only +remained in what was now a little suffocating chamber, with embers from +the fire still smoking on the floor. + +The woman caught me by the hand and drew me with her, while the two +seemed mute with fear. "There's a road at the back," she screamed. "I +ken it. I fand it out." And she pulled me up a narrow hole in the rock. + + * * * * * * * + +How long we climbed I do not know. We were both fighting for air, with +the tightness of throat and chest, and the craziness of limb which mean +suffocation. I cannot tell when we first came to the surface, but I +remember the woman, who seemed to have the strength of extreme terror, +pulling me from the edge of a crevasse and laying me on a flat rock. It +seemed to be the depth of winter, with sheer-falling rain and a wind +that shook the hills. + +Then I was once more myself and could look about me. From my feet yawned +a sheer abyss, where once had been a hill-shoulder. Some great mass of +rock on the brow of the mountain had been loosened by the storm, and in +its fall had caught the lips of the ravine and blocked the upper outlet +from the nest of dwellings. For a moment, I feared that all had been +destroyed. + +My feeling--Heaven help me!--was not thankfulness for God's mercy and my +escape, but a bitter mad regret. I rushed frantically to the edge, and +when I saw only the blackness of darkness I wept weak tears. All the +time the storm was tearing at my body, and I had to grip hard by hand +and foot to keep my place. + +Suddenly on the brink of the ravine I saw a third figure. We two were +not the only fugitives. One of the Folk had escaped. + +I ran to it, and to my surprise the thing as soon as it saw me rushed to +meet me. At first I thought it was with some instinct of +self-preservation, but when I saw its eyes I knew the purpose of fight. +Clearly one or other should go no more from the place. + +We were some ten yards from the brink when I grappled with it. Dimly I +heard the woman scream with fright, and saw her scramble across the +hillside. Then we were tugging in a death-throe, the hideous smell of +the thing in my face, its red eyes burning into mine, and its hoarse +voice muttering. Its strength seemed incredible; but I, too, am no +weakling. We tugged and strained, its nails biting into my flesh, while +I choked its throat unsparingly. Every second I dreaded lest we should +plunge together over the ledge, for it was thither my adversary tried to +draw me. I caught my heel in a nick of rock, and pulled madly against +it. + +And then, while I was beginning to glory with the pride of conquest, my +hope was dashed in pieces. The thing seemed to break from my arms, and, +as if in despair, cast itself headlong into the impenetrable darkness. I +stumbled blindly after it, saved myself on the brink, and fell back, +sick and ill, into a merciful swoon. + + * * * * * * * + + +VIII: NOTE IN CONCLUSION BY THE EDITOR + +At this point the narrative of my unfortunate friend, Mr Graves of St +Chad's, breaks off abruptly. He wrote it shortly before his death, and +was prevented from completing it by the attack of heart failure which +carried him off. In accordance with the instructions in his will, I have +prepared it for publication, and now in much fear and hesitation, give +it to the world. First, however, I must supplement it by such facts as +fall within my knowledge. + +The shepherd seems to have gone to Allermuir and by the help of the +letter convinced the inhabitants. A body of men was collected under the +landlord, and during the afternoon set out for the hills. But +unfortunately the great midsummer storm--the most terrible of recent +climatic disturbances--had filled the mosses and streams, and they found +themselves unable to proceed by any direct road. Ultimately late in the +evening they arrived at the cottage of Farawa, only to find there a +raving woman, the shepherd's sister, who seemed crazy with brain-fever. +She told some rambling story about her escape, but her narrative said +nothing of Mr Graves. So they treated her with what skill they +possessed, and sheltered for the night in and around the cottage. The +next morning the storm had abated a little, and the woman had recovered +something of her wits. From her they learned that Mr Graves was lying in +a ravine on the side of the Muneraw in imminent danger of his life. A +body set out to find him; but so immense was the landslip, and so +dangerous the whole mountain, that it was nearly evening when they +recovered him from the ledge of rock. He was alive, but unconscious, and +on bringing him back to the cottage it was clear that he was, indeed, +very ill. There he lay for three months, while the best skill that could +be got was procured for him. By dint of an uncommon toughness of +constitution he survived; but it was an old and feeble man who returned +to Oxford in the early winter. + +The shepherd and his sister immediately left the countryside, and were +never more heard of, unless they are the pair of unfortunates who are at +present in a Scottish pauper asylum, incapable of remembering even their +names. The people who last spoke with them declared that their minds +seemed weakened by a great shock, and that it was hopeless to try to get +any connected or rational statement. + +The career of my poor friend from that hour was little short of a +tragedy. He awoke from his illness to find the world incredulous; even +the country-folk of Allermuir set down the story to the shepherd's +craziness and my friend's credulity. In Oxford, his argument was +received with polite scorn. An account of his experiences which he drew +up for the 'Times' was refused by the editor; and an article on +"Primitive Peoples of the North," embodying what he believed to be the +result of his discoveries, was unanimously rejected by every responsible +journal in Europe. At first, he bore the treatment bravely. Reflection +convinced him that the colony had not been destroyed. Proofs were still +awaiting his hand, and with courage and caution he might yet triumph +over his enemies. But unfortunately, though the ardour of the scholar +burned more fiercely than ever and all fear seemed to have been purged +from his soul, the last adventure had grievously sapped his bodily +strength. In the spring following his accident he made an effort to +reach the spot--alone, for no one could be persuaded to follow him in +what was regarded as a childish madness. He slept at the now deserted +cottage of Farawa, but in the morning found himself unable to continue, +and with difficulty struggled back to the shepherd's cottage at +Allercleuch, where he was confined to bed for a fortnight. Then it +became necessary for him to seek health abroad, and it was not till the +following autumn that he attempted the journey again. He fell sick a +second time at the inn of Allermuir, and during his convalescence had +himself carried to a knoll in the inn garden, whence a glimpse can be +obtained of the shoulder of the Muneraw. There he would sit for hours +with his eyes fixed on the horizon, and at times he would be found +weeping with weakness and vexation. The last attempt was made but two +months before his last illness. On this occasion he got no farther than +Carlisle, where he was taken ill with what proved to be a premonition of +death. After that he shut his lips tightly, as though recognising the +futility of his hopes. Whether he had been soured by the treatment he +received, or whether his brain had already been weakened, he had become +a morose silent man, and for the two years before his death had few +friends and no society. From the obituary notice in the 'Times' I take +the following paragraph, which shows in what light the world had come to +look upon him:-- + +"At the outset of his career he was regarded as a rising scholar in one +department of archæology, and his Taffert lectures were a real +contribution to an obscure subject. But in afterlife he was led into +fantastic speculations; and when he found himself unable to convince his +colleagues, he gradually retired into himself, and lived practically a +hermit's life till his death. His career, thus broken short, is a sad +instance of the fascination which the recondite and the quack can +exercise even over men of approved ability." + +And now his own narrative is published, and the world can judge as it +pleases about the amazing romance. The view which will doubtless find +general acceptance is that the whole is a figment of the brain, begotten +of some harmless moorland adventure and the company of such religious +maniacs as the shepherd and his sister. But some who knew the former +sobriety and calmness of my friend's mind may be disposed timorously and +with deep hesitation to another verdict. They may accept the narrative, +and believe that somewhere in those moorlands he met with a horrible +primitive survival, passed through the strangest adventure, and had his +fingers on an epoch-making discovery. In this case they will be inclined +to sympathise with the loneliness and misunderstanding of his latter +days. It is not for me to decide the question. Though a +fellow-historian, the Picts are outside my period, and I dare not +advance an opinion on a matter with which I am not fully familiar. But I +would point out that the means of settling the question are still +extant, and I would call upon some young archæologist, with a reputation +to make, to seize upon the chance of the century. Most of the expresses +for the North stop at Allerfoot; a ten-miles' drive will bring him to +Allermuir; and then with a fifteen-miles' walk he is at Farawa and on +the threshold of discovery. Let him follow the burn and cross the ridge +and ascend the Scarts of the Muneraw, and, if he return at all, it may +be with a more charitable judgment of my unfortunate friend. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] The narrative of Mr. Graves was written in the year 1898. + +[2] In the light of subsequent events I have jotted down the materials +to which I refer. The last authentic record of the Brownie is in the +narrative of the shepherd of Clachlands, taken down towards the close of +last century by the Reverend Mr. Gillespie, minister of Allerkirk, and +included by him in his 'Songs and Legends of Glen Aller.' The +authorities on the strange carrying-away of children are to be found in +a series of articles in a local paper, the 'Allerfoot Advertiser,' +September and October 1878, and a curious book published anonymously at +Edinburgh in 1848, entitled 'The Weathergaw.' The records of the +unexplained murders in the same neighbourhood are all contained in Mr. +Fordoun's 'Theory of Expert Evidence,' and an attack on the book in the +'Law Review' for June 1881. The Carrickfey case has a pamphlet to +itself--now extremely rare--a copy of which was recently obtained in a +bookseller's shop in Dumfries by a well-known antiquary, and presented +to the library of the Supreme Court in Edinburgh. + + + + +II + +THE FAR ISLANDS + + + "Lady Alice, Lady Louise, + Between the wash of the tumbling seas----" + + +I + +When Bran the Blessed, as the story goes, followed the white bird on the +Last Questing, knowing that return was not for him, he gave gifts to his +followers. To Heliodorus he gave the gift of winning speech, and +straightway the man went south to the Italian seas, and, becoming a +scholar, left many descendants who sat in the high places of the Church. +To Raymond he gave his steel battle-axe, and bade him go out to the +warrior's path and hew his way to a throne; which the man forthwith +accomplished, and became an ancestor in the fourth degree of the first +king of Scots. But to Colin, the youngest and the dearest, he gave no +gift, whispering only a word in his ear and lying a finger on his +eyelids. Yet Colin was satisfied, and he alone of the three, after +their master's going, remained on that coast of rock and heather. + +In the third generation from Colin, as our elders counted years, came +one Colin the Red, who built his keep on the cliffs of Acharra and was a +mighty sea-rover in his day. Five times he sailed to the rich parts of +France, and a good score of times he carried his flag of three stars +against the easterly vikings. A mere name in story, but a sounding piece +of nomenclature well garnished with tales. A master-mind by all +accounts, but cursed with a habit of fantasy; for hearing in his old age +of a land to the westward, he forthwith sailed into the sunset, and +three days later was washed up, a twisted body, on one of the outer +isles. + +So far it is but legend, but with his grandson, Colin the Red, we fall +into the safer hands of the chroniclers. To him God gave the unnumbered +sorrows of story-telling, for he was a bard, cursed with a bard's +fervours, and none the less a mighty warrior among his own folk. He it +was who wrote the lament called 'The White Waters of Usna,' and the +exquisite chain of romances, 'Glede-red Gold and Grey Silver.' His tales +were told by many fires, down to our grandfathers' time, and you will +find them still pounded at by the folk-lorists. But his airs--they are +eternal. On harp and pipe they have lived through the centuries; twisted +and tortured, they survive in many song-books; and I declare that the +other day I heard the most beautiful of them all murdered by a band at a +German watering-place. This Colin led the wanderer's life, for he +disappeared at middle-age, no one knew whither, and his return was long +looked for by his people. Some thought that he became a Christian monk, +the holy man living in the sea-girt isle of Cuna, who was found dead in +extreme old age, kneeling on the beach, with his arms, contrary to the +fashion of the Church, stretched to the westward. + +As history narrowed into bonds and forms the descendants of Colin took +Raden for their surname, and settled more firmly on their lands in the +long peninsula of crag and inlets which runs west to the Atlantic. Under +Donald of the Isles they harried the Kings of Scots, or, on their own +authority, made war on Macleans and Macranalds, till their flag of the +three stars, their badge of the grey-goose feather, and their on-cry of +"Cuna" were feared from Lochalsh to Cantire. Later they made a truce +with the King, and entered into the royal councils. For years they +warded the western coast, and as king's lieutenants smoked out the +inferior pirates of Eigg and Toronsay. A Raden was made a Lord of Sleat, +another was given lands in the low country and the name Baron of +Strathyre, but their honours were transitory and short as their lives. +Rarely one of the house saw middle age. A bold, handsome, and stirring +race, it was their fate to be cut off in the rude warfare of the times, +or, if peace had them in its clutches, to man vessel and set off once +more on those mad western voyages which were the weird of the family. +Three of the name were found drowned on the far shore of Cuna; more than +one sailed straight out of the ken of mortals. One rode with the Good +Lord James on the pilgrimage of the Heart of Bruce, and died by his +leader's side in the Saracen battle. Long afterwards a Raden led the +western men against the Cheshire archers at Flodden, and was slain +himself in the steel circle around the king. + +But the years brought peace and a greater wealth, and soon the cold +stone tower was left solitary on the headland, and the new house of +Kinlochuna rose by the green links of the stream. The family changed its +faith, and an Episcopal chaplain took the place of the old mass-priest +in the tutoring of the sons. Radens were in the '15 and the '45. They +rose with Bute to power, and they long disputed the pride of Dundas in +the northern capital. They intermarried with great English houses till +the sons of the family were Scots only in name, living much abroad or in +London, many of them English landowners by virtue of a mother's blood. +Soon the race was of the common over-civilised type, graceful, +well-mannered, with abundant good looks, but only once in a generation +reverting to the rugged northern strength. Eton and Oxford had in turn +displaced the family chaplain, and the house by the windy headland grew +emptier and emptier save when grouse and deer brought home its fickle +masters. + + +II + +A childish illness brought Colin to Kinlochuna when he had reached the +mature age of five, and delicate health kept him there for the greater +part of the next six years. During the winter he lived in London, but +from the late northern spring, through all the long bright summers, he +lived in the great tenantless place without company--for he was an only +child. A French nurse had the charge of his doings, and when he had +passed through the formality of lessons there were the long pinewoods at +his disposal, the rough moor, the wonderful black holes with the rich +black mud in them, and best of all the bay of Acharra, below the +headland, with Cuna lying in the waves a mile to the west. At such times +his father was busy elsewhere; his mother was dead; the family had few +near relatives; so he passed a solitary childhood in the company of +seagulls and the birds of the moor. + +His time for the beach was the afternoon. On the left as you go down +through the woods from the house there runs out the great headland of +Acharra, red and grey with mosses, and with a nimbus always of screaming +seafowl. To the right runs a low beach of sand, passing into rough +limestone boulders and then into the heather of the wood. This in turn +is bounded by a reef of low rocks falling by gentle breaks to the +water's edge. It is crowned with a tangle of heath and fern, bright at +most seasons with flowers, and dwarf pine-trees straggle on its crest +till one sees the meaning of its Gaelic name, "The Ragged Cock's-Comb." +This place was Colin's playground in fine weather. When it blew rain or +snow from the north he dwelt indoors among dogs and books, puzzling his +way through great volumes from his father's shelves. But when the mild +west-wind weather fell on the sea, then he would lie on the hot +sand--Amèlie the nurse reading a novel on the nearest rock--and kick his +small heels as he followed his fancy. He built great sand castles to the +shape of Acharra old tower, and peopled them with preposterous knights +and ladies; he drew great moats and rivers for the tide to fill; he +fought battles innumerable with crackling seaweed, till Amèlie, with her +sharp cry of "Colín, Colín," would carry him houseward for tea. + +Two fancies remained in his mind through those boyish years. One was +about the mysterious shining sea before him. In certain weathers it +seemed to him a solid pathway. Cuna, the little ragged isle, ceased to +block the horizon, and his own white road ran away down into the west, +till suddenly it stopped and he saw no farther. He knew he ought to see +more, but always at one place, just when his thoughts were pacing the +white road most gallantly, there came a baffling mist to his sight, and +he found himself looking at a commonplace sea with Cuna lying very real +and palpable in the offing. It was a vexatious limitation, for all his +dreams were about this pathway. One day in June, when the waters slept +in a deep heat, he came down the sands barefoot, and lo! there was his +pathway. For one moment things seemed clear, the mist had not gathered +on the road, and with a cry he ran down to the tide's edge and waded in. +The touch of water dispelled the illusion, and almost in tears he saw +the cruel back of Cuna blotting out his own magic way. + +The other fancy was about the low ridge of rocks which bounded the bay +on the right. His walks had never extended beyond it, either on the +sands or inland, for that way lay a steep hillside and a perilous bog. +But often on the sands he had come to its foot and wondered what country +lay beyond. He made many efforts to explore it, difficult efforts, for +the vigilant Amèlie had first to be avoided. Once he was almost at the +top when some seaweed to which he clung gave way, and he rolled back +again to the soft warm sand. By-and-by he found that he knew what was +beyond. A clear picture had built itself up in his brain of a mile of +reefs, with sand in bars between them, and beyond all a sea-wood of +alders slipping from the hill's skirts to the water's edge. This was not +what he wanted in his explorations, so he stopped, till one day it +struck him that the westward view might reveal something beyond the +hogbacked Cuna. One day, pioneering alone, he scaled the steepest +heights of the sea-weed and pulled his chin over the crest of the ridge. +There, sure enough, was his picture--a mile of reefs and the tattered +sea-wood. He turned eagerly seawards. Cuna still lay humped on the +waters, but beyond it he seemed to see his shining pathway running far +to a speck which might be an island. Crazy with pleasure he stared at +the vision, till slowly it melted into the waves, and Cuna the +inexorable once more blocked the skyline. He climbed down, his heart in +a doubt between despondency and hope. + +It was the last day of such fancies, for on the morrow he had to face +the new world of school. + + * * * * * * * + +At Cecil's Colin found a new life and a thousand new interests. His +early delicacy had been driven away by the sea-winds of Acharra, and he +was rapidly growing up a tall, strong child, straight of limb like all +his house, but sinewy and alert beyond his years. He learned new games +with astonishing facility, became a fast bowler with a genius for +twists, and a Rugby three-quarters full of pluck and cunning. He soon +attained to the modified popularity of a private school, and, being +essentially clean, strong, and healthy, found himself a mark for his +juniors' worship and a favourite with masters. The homage did not spoil +him, for no boy was ever less self-possessed. On the cricket-ground and +the football-field he was a leader, but in private he had the nervous, +sensitive manners of the would-be recluse. No one ever accused him of +"side"--his polite, halting address was the same to junior and senior; +and the result was that wild affection which simplicity in the great is +wont to inspire. He spoke with a pure accent, in which lurked no +northern trace; in a little he had forgotten all about his birthplace +and his origin. His name had at first acquired for him the sobriquet of +"Scottie," but the title was soon dropped from its manifest inaptness. + +In his second year at Cecil's he caught a prevalent fever, and for days +lay very near the brink of death. At his worst he was wildly delirious, +crying ceaselessly for Acharra and the beach at Kinlochuna. But as he +grew convalescent the absorption remained, and for the moment he seemed +to have forgotten his southern life. He found himself playing on the +sands, always with the boundary ridge before him, and the hump of Cuna +rising in the sea. When dragged back to his environment by the inquiries +of Bellew, his special friend, who came to sit with him, he was so +abstracted and forgetful that the good Bellew was seriously grieved. +"The chap's a bit cracked, you know," he announced in hall. "Didn't know +me. Asked me what 'footer' meant when I told him about the Bayswick +match, and talked about nothing but a lot of heathen Scotch names." + +One dream haunted Colin throughout the days of his recovery. He was +tormented with a furious thirst, poorly assuaged at long intervals by +watered milk. So when he crossed the borders of dreamland his first +search was always for a well. He tried the brushwood inland from the +beach, but it was dry as stone. Then he climbed with difficulty the +boundary ridge, and found little pools of salt water, while far on the +other side gleamed the dark black bog-holes. Here was not what he +sought, and he was in deep despair, till suddenly over the sea he caught +a glimpse of his old path running beyond Cuna to a bank of mist. He +rushed down to the tide's edge, and to his amazement found solid ground. +Now was the chance for which he had long looked, and he ran happily +westwards, till of a sudden the solid earth seemed to sink with him, +and he was in the waters struggling. But two curious things he noted. +One was that the far bank of mist seemed to open for a pin-point of +time, and he had a gleam of land. He saw nothing distinctly, only a line +which was not mist and was not water. The second was that the water was +fresh, and as he was drinking from this curious new fresh sea he awoke. +The dream was repeated three times before he left the sick-room. Always +he wakened at the same place, always he quenched his thirst in the fresh +sea, but never again did the mist open for him and show him the strange +country. + + * * * * * * * + +From Cecil's he went to the famous school which was the tradition in his +family. The Head spoke to his house-master of his coming. "We are to +have another Raden here," he said, "and I am glad of it, if the young +one turns out to be anything like the others. There's a good deal of +dry-rot among the boys just now. They are all too old for their years +and too wise in the wrong way. They haven't anything like the enthusiasm +in games they had twenty years ago when I first came here. I hope this +young Raden will stir them up." The house-master agreed, and when he +first caught sight of Colin's slim, well-knit figure, looked into the +handsome kindly eyes, and heard his curiously diffident speech, his +doubts vanished. "We have got the right stuff now," he told himself, and +the senior for whom the new boy fagged made the same comment. + +From the anomalous insignificance of fagdom Colin climbed up the School, +leaving everywhere a record of honest good-nature. He was allowed to +forget his cricket and football, but in return he was initiated into the +mysteries of the river. Water had always been his delight, so he went +through the dreary preliminaries of being coached in a tub-pair till he +learned to swing steadily and get his arms quickly forward. Then came +the stages of scratch fours and scratch eights, till after a long +apprenticeship he was promoted to the dignity of a thwart in the Eight +itself. In his last year he was Captain of Boats, a position which joins +the responsibility of a Cabinet Minister to the rapturous popular +applause of a successful warrior. Nor was he the least distinguished of +a great band. With Colin at seven the School won the Ladies' after the +closest race on record. + +The Head's prophecy fell true, for Colin was a born leader. For all his +good-humour and diffidence of speech, he had a trick of shutting his +teeth which all respected. As captain he was the idol of the school, and +he ruled it well and justly. For the rest, he was a curious boy with +none of the ordinary young enthusiasms, reserved for all his kindliness. +At house "shouters" his was not the voice which led the stirring strains +of "Stroke out all you know," though his position demanded it. He cared +little about work, and the School-house scholar, who fancied him from +his manner a devotee of things intellectual, found in Colin but an +affected interest. He read a certain amount of modern poetry with +considerable boredom; fiction he never opened. The truth was that he had +a romance in his own brain which, willy nilly, would play itself out, +and which left him small relish for the pale second-hand inanities of +art. Often, when with others he would lie in the deep meadows by the +river on some hot summer's day, his fancies would take a curious colour. +He adored the soft English landscape, the lush grasses, the slow +streams, the ancient secular trees. But as he looked into the hazy green +distance a colder air would blow on his cheek, a pungent smell of salt +and pines would be for a moment in his nostrils, and he would be gazing +at a line of waves on a beach, a ridge of low rocks, and a shining +sea-path running out to--ah, that he could not tell! The envious Cuna +would suddenly block all the vistas. He had constantly the vision before +his eyes, and he strove to strain into the distance before Cuna should +intervene. Once or twice he seemed almost to achieve it. He found that +by keeping on the top of the low rock-ridge he could cheat Cuna by a +second or two, and get a glimpse of a misty something out in the west. +The vision took odd times for recurring,--once or twice in lecture, once +on the cricket-ground, many times in the fields of a Sunday, and once +while he paddled down to the start in a Trials race. It gave him a keen +pleasure: it was his private domain, where at any moment he might make +some enchanting discovery. + +At this time he began to spend his vacations at Kinlochuna. His father, +an elderly ex-diplomat, had permanently taken up his abode there, and +was rapidly settling into the easy life of the Scots laird. Colin +returned to his native place without enthusiasm. His childhood there had +been full of lonely hours, and he had come to like the warm south +country. He found the house full of people, for his father entertained +hugely, and the talk was of sport and sport alone. As a rule, your very +great athlete is bored by Scots shooting. Long hours of tramping and +crouching among heather cramp without fully exercising the body; and +unless he has the love of the thing ingrained in him, the odds are that +he will wish himself home. The father, in his new-found admiration for +his lot, was content to face all weathers; the son found it an effort to +keep pace with such vigour. He thought upon the sunlit fields and reedy +watercourses with regret, and saw little in the hills but a rough waste +scarred with rock and sour with mosses. + +He read widely throughout these days, for his father had a taste for +modern letters, and new books lay littered about the rooms. He read +queer Celtic tales which he thought "sickening rot," and mild Celtic +poetry which he failed to understand. Among the guests was a noted +manufacturer of fiction, whom the elder Raden had met somewhere and +bidden to Kinlochuna. He had heard the tale of Colin's ancestors and the +sea headland of Acharra, and one day he asked the boy to show him the +place, as he wished to make a story of it. Colin assented unwillingly, +for he had been slow to visit this place of memories, and he did not +care to make his first experiment in such company. But the gentleman +would not be gainsaid, so the two scrambled through the sea-wood and +climbed the low ridge which looked over the bay. The weather was mist +and drizzle; Cuna had wholly hidden herself, and the bluff Acharra +loomed hazy and far. Colin was oddly disappointed: this reality was a +poor place compared with his fancies. His companion stroked his peaked +beard, talked nonsense about Colin the Red and rhetoric about "the +spirit of the misty grey weather having entered into the old tale." +"Think," he cried; "to those old warriors beyond that bank of mist was +the whole desire of life, the Golden City, the Far Islands, whatever you +care to call it." Colin shivered, as if his holy places had been +profaned, set down the man in his mind most unjustly as an "awful little +cad," and hurried him back to the house. + + * * * * * * * + +Oxford received the boy with open arms, for his reputation had long +preceded him. To the majority of men he was the one freshman of his +year, and gossip was busy with his prospects. Nor was gossip +disappointed. In his first year he rowed seven in the Eight. The next +year he was captain of his college boats, and a year later the O.U.B.C. +made him its president. For three years he rowed in the winning Eight, +and old coaches agreed that in him the perfect seven had been found. It +was he who in the famous race of 18-- caught up in the last three +hundred yards the quickened stroke which gave Oxford victory. As he grew +to his full strength he became a splendid figure of a man--tall, supple, +deep-chested for all his elegance. His quick dark eyes and his kindly +hesitating manners made people think his face extraordinarily handsome, +when really it was in no way above the common. But his whole figure, as +he stood in his shorts and sweater on the raft at Putney, was so full of +youth and strength that people involuntarily smiled when they saw him--a +smile of pleasure in so proper a piece of manhood. + +Colin enjoyed life hugely at Oxford, for to one so frank and well +equipped the place gave of its best. He was the most distinguished +personage of his day there, but, save to school friends and the men he +met officially on the river, he was little known. His diffidence and his +very real exclusiveness kept him from being the centre of a host of +friends. His own countrymen in the place were utterly nonplussed by him. +They claimed him eagerly as a fellow, but he had none of the ordinary +characteristics of the race. There were Scots of every description +around him--pale-faced Scots who worked incessantly, metaphysical Scots +who talked in the Union, robustious Scots who played football. They were +all men of hearty manners and many enthusiasms,--who quoted Burns and +dined to the immortal bard's honour every 25th of January; who told +interminable Scotch stories, and fell into fervours over national +sports, dishes, drinks, and religions. To the poor Colin it was all +inexplicable. At the remote house of Kinlochuna he had never heard of a +Free Kirk or a haggis. He had never read a line of Burns, Scott bored +him exceedingly, and in all honesty he thought Scots games inferior to +southern sports. He had no great love for the bleak country, he cared +nothing for the traditions of his house, so he was promptly set down by +his compatriots as "denationalised and degenerate." + +He was idle, too, during these years as far as his "schools" were +concerned, but he was always very intent upon his own private business. +Whenever he sat down to read, when he sprawled on the grass at river +picnics, in chapel, in lecture--in short, at any moment when his body +was at rest and his mind at leisure--his fancies were off on the same +old path. Things had changed, however, in that country. The boyish +device of a hard road running over the waters had gone, and now it was +invariably a boat which he saw beached on the shingle. It differed in +shape. At first it was an ugly salmon-coble, such as the fishermen used +for the nets at Kinlochuna. Then it passed, by rapid transitions, +through a canvas skiff which it took good watermanship to sit, a whiff, +an ordinary dinghey, till at last it settled itself into a long rough +boat, pointed at both ends, with oar-holes in the sides instead of +row-locks. It was the devil's own business to launch it, and launch it +anew he was compelled to for every journey; for though he left it bound +in a little rock hollow below the ridge after landing, yet when he +returned, lo! there was the clumsy thing high and dry upon the beach. + +The odd point about the new venture was that Cuna had ceased to trouble +him. As soon as he had pulled his first stroke the island disappeared, +and nothing lay before him but the sea-fog. Yet, try as he might, he +could come little nearer. The shores behind him might sink and lessen, +but the impenetrable mist was still miles to the westward. Sometimes he +rowed so far that the shore was a thin line upon the horizon, but when +he turned the boat it seemed to ground in a second on the beach. The +long laboured journey out and the instantaneous return puzzled him at +first, but soon he became used to them. His one grief was the mist, +which seemed to grow denser as he neared it. The sudden glimpse of land +which he had got from the ridge of rock in the old boyish days was now +denied him, and with the denial came a keener exultation in the quest. +Somewhere in the west, he knew, must be land, and in this land a well of +sweet water--for so he had interpreted his feverish dream. Sometimes, +when the wind blew against him, he caught scents from it--generally the +scent of pines, as on the little ridge on the shore behind him. + +One day on his college barge, while he was waiting for a picnic party to +start, he seemed to get nearer than before. Out on that western sea, as +he saw it, it was fresh, blowing weather, with a clear hot sky above. It +was hard work rowing, for the wind was against him, and the sun scorched +his forehead. The air seemed full of scents--and sounds, too, sounds of +far-away surf and wind in trees. He rested for a moment on his oars and +turned his head. His heart beat quickly, for there was a rift in the +mist, and far through a line of sand ringed with snow-white foam. + +Somebody shook him roughly,--"Come on, Colin, old man. They're all +waiting for you. Do you know you've been half asleep?" + +Colin rose and followed silently, with drowsy eyes. His mind was +curiously excited. He had looked inside the veil of mist. Now he knew +what was the land he sought. + + * * * * * * * + +He made the voyage often, now that the spell was broken. It was short +work to launch the boat, and, whereas it had been a long pull formerly, +now it needed only a few strokes to bring him to the Rim of the Mist. +There was no chance of getting farther, and he scarcely tried. He was +content to rest there, in a world of curious scents and sounds, till the +mist drew down and he was driven back to shore. + +The change in his environment troubled him little. For a man who has +been an idol at the University to fall suddenly into the comparative +insignificance of Town is often a bitter experience; but Colin, whose +thoughts were not ambitious, scarcely noticed it. He found that he was +less his own master than before, but he humbled himself to his new +duties without complaint. Many of his old friends were about him; he had +plenty of acquaintances; and, being "sufficient unto himself," he was +unaccustomed to ennui. Invitations showered upon him thick and fast. +Match-making mothers, knowing his birth and his father's income, and +reflecting that he was the only child of his house, desired him as a +son-in-law. He was bidden welcome everywhere, and the young girls, for +whose sake he was thus courted, found in him an attractive mystery. The +tall good-looking athlete, with the kind eyes and the preposterously +nervous manner, wakened their maidenly sympathies. As they danced with +him or sat next to him at dinner, they talked fervently of Oxford, of +the north, of the army, of his friends. "Stupid, but nice, my dear," was +Lady Afflint's comment; and Miss Clara Etheridge, the beauty of the +year, declared to her friends that he was a "dear boy, but so awkward." +He was always forgetful, and ever apologetic; and when he forgot the +Shandwicks' theatre-party, the Herapaths' dance, and at least a dozen +minor matters, he began to acquire the reputation of a cynic and a +recluse. + +"You're a queer chap, Col," Lieutenant Bellew said in expostulation. + +Colin shrugged his shoulders; he was used to the description. + +"Do you know that Clara Etheridge was trying all she knew to please you +this afternoon, and you looked as if you weren't listening? Most men +would have given their ears to be in your place." + +"I'm awfully sorry, but I thought I was very polite to her." + +"And why weren't you at the Marshams' show?" + +"Oh, I went to polo with Collinson and another man. And, I say, old +chap, I'm not coming to the Logans to-morrow. I've got a fence on with +Adair at the school." + +Little Bellew, who was a tremendous mirror of fashion and chevalier in +general, looked up curiously at his tall friend. + +"Why don't you like the women, Col, when they're so fond of you?" + +"They aren't," said Colin hotly, "and I don't dislike 'em. But, Lord! +they bore me. I might be doing twenty things when I talk nonsense to one +of 'em for an hour. I come back as stupid as an owl, and besides there's +heaps of things better sport." + +The truth was that, while among men he was a leader and at his ease, +among women his psychic balance was so oddly upset that he grew nervous +and returned unhappy. The boat on the beach, ready in general to appear +at the slightest call, would delay long after such experiences, and its +place would be taken by some woman's face for which he cared not a +straw. For the boat, on the other hand, he cared a very great deal. In +all his frank wholesome existence there was this enchanting background, +this pleasure-garden which he cherished more than anything in life. He +had come of late to look at it with somewhat different eyes. The eager +desire to search behind the mist was ever with him, but now he had also +some curiosity about the details of the picture. As he pulled out to the +Rim of the Mist sounds seemed to shape themselves on his lips, which +by-and-by grew into actual words in his memory. He wrote them down in +scraps, and after some sorting they seemed to him a kind of Latin. He +remembered a college friend of his, one Medway, now reading for the Bar, +who had been the foremost scholar of his acquaintance; so with the scrap +of paper in his pocket he climbed one evening to Medway's rooms in the +Temple. + +The man read the words curiously, and puzzled for a bit. "What's made +you take to Latin comps so late in life, Colin? It's baddish, you know, +even for you. I thought they'd have licked more into you at Eton." + +Colin grinned with amusement. "I'll tell you about it later," he said. +"Can you make out what it means?" + +"It seems to be a kind of dog-Latin or monkish Latin or something of the +sort," said Medway. "It reads like this: '_Soles occidere solent_' +(that's cribbed from Catullus, and besides it's the regular monkish pun) +... _qua_ ... then _blandula_ something. Then there's a lot of Choctaw, +and then _illæ insulæ dilectcæ in quas festinant somnia animulæ gaudia_. +That's pretty fair rot. Hullo, by George! here's something +better--_Insula pomorum insula vitæ_. That's Geoffrey of Monmouth." + +He made a dive to a bookcase and pulled out a battered little calf-bound +duodecimo. "Here's all about your Isle of Apple-trees. Listen. 'Situate +far out in the Western ocean, beyond the Utmost Islands, beyond even the +little Isle of Sheep where the cairns of dead men are, lies the Island +of Apple-trees where the heroes and princes of the nations live their +second life.'" He closed the book and put it back. "It's the old +ancient story, the Greek Hesperides, the British Avilion, and this +Apple-tree Island is the northern equivalent." + +Colin sat entranced, his memory busy with a problem. Could he +distinguish the scents of apple-trees among the perfumes of the Rim of +the Mist. For the moment he thought he could. He was roused by Medway's +voice asking the story of the writing. + +"Oh, it's just some nonsense that was running in my head, so I wrote it +down to see what it was." + +"But you must have been reading. A new exercise for you, Colin!" + +"No, I wasn't reading. Look here. You know the sort of pictures you make +for yourself of places you like." + +"Rather! Mine is a Yorkshire moor with a little red shooting-box in the +heart of it." + +"Well, mine is different. Mine is a sort of beach with a sea and a lot +of islands somewhere far out. It is a jolly place, fresh, you know, and +blowing, and smells good. 'Pon my word, now I think of it, there's +always been a scent of apples." + +"Sort of cider-press? Well, I must be off. You'd better come round to +the club and see the telegrams about the war. _You_ should be keen +about it." + +One evening, a week later, Medway met a friend called Tillotson at the +club, and, being lonely, they dined together. Tillotson was a man of +some note in science, a dabbler in psychology, an amateur historian, a +ripe genealogist. They talked of politics and the war, of a new book, of +Mrs Runnymede, and finally of their hobbies. + +"I am writing an article," said Tillotson. "Craikes asked me to do it +for the 'Monthly.' It's on a nice point in psychics. I call it 'The +Transmission of Fallacies,' but I do not mean the logical kind. The +question is, Can a particular form of hallucination run in a family for +generations? The proof must, of course, come from my genealogical +studies. I maintain it can. I instance the Douglas-Ernotts, not one of +whom can see straight with the left eye. That is one side. In another +class of examples I take the Drapiers, who hate salt water and never go +on board ship if they can help it. Then you remember the Durwards? Old +Lady Balcrynie used to tell me that no one of the lot could ever stand +the sight of a green frock. There's a chance for the romancer. The +Manor-waters have the same madness, only their colour is red." + +A vague remembrance haunted Medway's brain. + +"I know a man who might give you points from his own case. Did you ever +meet a chap Raden--Colin Raden?" + +Tillotson nodded. "Long chap--in the Guards? 'Varsity oar, and used to +be a crack bowler? No, I don't know him. I know him well by sight, and I +should like to meet him tremendously--as a genealogist, of course." + +"Why?" asked Medway. + +"Why? Because the man's family is unique. You never hear much about them +nowadays, but away up in that north-west corner of Scotland they have +ruled since the days of Noah. Why, man, they were aristocrats when our +Howards and Nevilles were greengrocers. I wish you would get this Raden +to meet me some night." + +"I am afraid there's no chance of it just at present," said Medway, +taking up an evening paper. "I see that his regiment has gone to the +front. But remind me when he comes back, and I'll be delighted." + + +III + +And now there began for Colin a curious divided life,--without, a +constant shifting of scene, days of heat and bustle and toil,--within, a +slow, tantalising, yet exquisite adventure. The Rim of the Mist was now +no more the goal of his journeys, but the starting-point. Lying there, +amid cool, fragrant sea-winds, his fanciful ear was subtly alert for the +sounds of the dim land before him. Sleeping and waking the quest haunted +him. As he flung himself on his bed the kerosene-filled air would change +to an ocean freshness, the old boat would rock beneath him, and with +clear eye and a boyish hope he would be waiting and watching. And then +suddenly he would be back on shore, Cuna and the Acharra headland +shining grey in the morning light, and with gritty mouth and sand-filled +eyes he would awaken to the heat of the desert camp. + +He was kept busy, for his good-humour and energy made him a willing +slave, and he was ready enough for volunteer work when others were weak +with heat and despair. A thirty-mile ride left him untired; more, he +followed the campaign with a sharp intelligence and found a new +enthusiasm for his profession. Discomforts there might be, but the days +were happy; and then--the cool land, the bright land, which was his for +the thinking of it. + +Soon they gave him reconnoitring work to do, and his wits were put to +the trial. He came well out of the thing, and earned golden praise from +the silent colonel in command. He enjoyed it as he had enjoyed a hard +race on the river or a good cricket match, and when his worried +companions marvelled at his zeal he stammered and grew uncomfortable. + +"How the deuce do you keep it up, Colin?" the major asked him. "I'm an +old hand at the job, and yet I've got a temper like devilled bones. You +seem as chirpy as if you were going out to fish a chalk-stream on a June +morning." + +"Well, the fact is----" and Colin pulled himself up short, knowing that +he could never explain. He felt miserably that he had an unfair +advantage of the others. Poor Bellew, who groaned and swore in the heat +at his side, knew nothing of the Rim of the Mist. It was really rough +luck on the poor beggars, and who but himself was the fortunate man? + +As the days passed a curious thing happened. He found fragments of the +Other world straying into his common life. The barriers of the two +domains were falling, and more than once he caught himself looking at a +steel-blue sea when his eyes should have found a mustard-coloured +desert. One day, on a reconnoitring expedition, they stopped for a +little on a hillock above a jungle of scrub, and, being hot and tired, +scanned listlessly the endless yellow distances. + +"I suppose yon hill is about ten miles off," said Bellew with dry lips. + +Colin looked vaguely. "I should say five." + +"And what's that below it--the black patch? Stones or scrub?" + +Colin was in a day-dream. "Why do you call it black? It's blue, quite +blue." + +"Rot," said the other. "It's grey-black." + +"No, it's water with the sun shining on it. It's blue, but just at the +edges it's very near sea-green." + +Bellew rose excitedly. "Hullo, Col, you're seeing the mirage! And you +the fittest of the lot of us! You've got the sun in your head, old man!" + +"Mirage!" Colin cried in contempt. He was awake now, but the thought of +confusing his own bright western sea with a mirage gave him a curious +pain. For a moment he felt the gulf of separation between his two +worlds, but only for a moment. As the party remounted he gave his +fancies the rein, and ere he reached camp he had felt the oars in his +hand and sniffed the apple-tree blossom from the distant beaches. + +The major came to him after supper. + +"Bellew told me you were a bit odd to-day, Colin," he said. "I expect +your eyes are getting baddish. Better get your sand-spectacles out." + +Colin laughed. "Thanks. It's awfully good of you to bother, but I think +Bellew took me up wrong. I never was fitter in my life." + + * * * * * * * + +By-and-by the turn came for pride to be humbled. A low desert fever took +him, and though he went through the day as usual, it was with dreary +lassitude; and at night, with hot hands clasped above his damp hair, he +found sleep a hard goddess to conquer. + +It was the normal condition of the others, so he had small cause to +complain, but it worked havoc with his fancies. He had never been ill +since his childish days, and this little fever meant much to one whose +nature was poised on a needle-point. He found himself confronted with a +hard bare world, with the gilt rubbed from its corners. The Rim of the +Mist seemed a place of vague horrors; when he reached it his soul was +consumed with terror; he struggled impotently to advance; behind him +Cuna and the Acharra coast seemed a place of evil dreams. Again, as in +his old fever, he was tormented with a devouring thirst, but the sea +beside him was not fresh, but brackish as a rock-pool. He yearned for +the apple-tree beaches in front; there, he knew, were cold springs of +water; the fresh smell of it was blown towards him in his nightmare. + +But as the days passed and the misery for all grew more intense, an odd +hope began to rise in his mind. It could not last, coolness and health +were waiting near, and his reason for the hope came from the odd events +at the Rim of Mist. The haze was clearing from the foreground, the +surf-lined coast seemed nearer, and though all was obscure save the +milk-white sand and the foam, yet here was earnest enough for him. Once +more he became cheerful; weak and light-headed he rode out again; and +the major, who was recovering from sunstroke, found envy take the place +of pity in his soul. + +The hope was near fulfilment. One evening when the heat was changing +into the cooler twilight, Colin and Bellew were sent with a small picked +body to scour the foot-hills above the river in case of a flank attack +during the night-march. It was work they had done regularly for weeks, +and it is possible that precautions were relaxed. At any rate, as they +turned a corner of hill, in a sandy pass where barren rocks looked down +on more barren thorn thickets, a couple of rifle-shots rang out from the +scarp, and above them appeared a line of dark faces and white steel. A +mere handful, taken at a disadvantage, they could not hope to disperse +numbers, so Colin gave the word to wheel about and return. Again shots +rang out, and little Bellew had only time to catch at his friend's arm +to save him from falling from the saddle. + +The word of command had scarcely left Colin's mouth when a sharp pain +went through his chest, and his breath seemed to catch and stop. He felt +as in a condensed moment of time the heat, the desert smell, the dust in +his eyes and throat, while he leaned helplessly forward on his horse's +mane. Then the world vanished for him.... The boat was rocking under +him, the oars in his hand. He pulled and it moved, straight, arrow-like +towards the forbidden shore. As if under a great wind the mist furled up +and fled. Scents of pines, of apple-trees, of great fields of thyme and +heather, hung about him; the sound of wind in a forest, of cool waters +falling in showers, of old moorland music, came thin and faint with an +exquisite clearness. A second and the boat was among the surf, its +gunwale ringed with white foam, as it leaped to the still waters beyond. +Clear and deep and still the water lay, and then the white beaches +shelved downward, and the boat grated on the sand. He turned, every limb +alert with a strange new life, crying out words which had shaped +themselves on his lips and which an echo seemed to catch and answer. +There was the green forest before him, the hills of peace, the cold +white waters. With a passionate joy he leaped on the beach, his arms +outstretched to this new earth, this light of the world, this old desire +of the heart--youth, rapture, immortality. + + * * * * * * * + +Bellew brought the body back to camp, himself half-dead with fatigue and +whimpering like a child. He almost fell from his horse, and when others +took his burden from him and laid it reverently in his tent, he stood +beside it, rubbing sand and sweat from his poor purblind eyes, his teeth +chattering with fever. He was given something to drink, but he swallowed +barely a mouthful. + +"It was some d-d-damned sharpshooter," he said. "Right through the +breast, and he never spoke to me again. My poor old Col! He was the best +chap God ever created, and I do-don't care a dash what becomes of me +now. I was at school with him, you know, you men." + +"Was he killed outright?" asked the major hoarsely. + +"N-no. He lived for about five minutes. But I think the sun had got into +his head or he was mad with pain, for he d-d-didn't know where he was. +He kept crying out about the smell of pine-trees and heather and a lot +of pure nonsense about water." + +"_Et dulces reminiscitur Argos_," somebody quoted mournfully, as they +went out to the desert evening. + + + + +III + +THE WATCHER BY THE THRESHOLD + +I: THE HOUSE OF MORE + + +1 + +I have told this story to many audiences with diverse results, and once +again I take my reputation in my hands and brave the perils. To the +common circle of my friends it was a romance for a winter's fire, and I, +the most prosaic of men, was credited with a fancy. Once I repeated it +to an acquaintance, who, scenting mystery, transcribed it in a +note-book, and, with feigned names, it figured in the publications of a +Learned Society. One man only heard me with true appreciation; but he +was a wandering spirit with an ear open to marvels, and I hesitate to +advance his security. He received it simply, saying that God was great, +and I cannot improve upon his comment. + +A chill evening in the early October of the year 189- found me driving +in a dog-cart through the belts of antique woodland which form the +lowland limits of the hilly parish of More. The Highland express, which +brought me from the north, took me no farther than Perth. Thence it had +been a slow journey in a disjointed local train, till I emerged on the +platform at Morefoot, with a bleak prospect of pit-stalks, coal-heaps, +certain sour corn-lands, and far to the west a line of moor where the +sun was setting. A neat groom and a respectable trap took the edge off +my discomfort, and soon I had forgotten my sacrifice and found eyes for +the darkening landscape. We were driving through a land of thick woods, +cut at rare intervals by old long-frequented highways. The More, which +at Morefoot is an open sewer, became a sullen woodland stream, where the +brown leaves of the season drifted. At times we would pass an ancient +lodge, and through a gap in the trees would come a glimpse of a chipped +crow-step gable. The names of such houses, as told me by my companion, +were all famous. This one had been the home of a drunken Jacobite laird, +and a kind of north-country Medmenham. Unholy revels had waked the old +halls, and the Devil had been toasted at many a hell-fire dinner. The +next was the property of a great Scots law family, and there the old +Lord of Session who built the place, in his frowsy wig and carpet +slippers, had laid down the canons of Taste for his day and society. The +whole country had the air of faded and bygone gentility. The mossy +roadside walls had stood for two hundred years, the few wayside houses +were toll-bars or defunct hostelries. The names, too, were great--Scots +baronial with a smack of France--Chatelray and Reiverslaw, Black Holm +and Champertoun. The place had a cunning charm, mystery dwelt in every +cranny, and yet it did not please me. The earth smelt heavy and raw, the +roads were red underfoot, all was old, sorrowful, and uncanny. Compared +with the fresh Highland glen I had left, where wind and sun and flying +showers were never absent, all was chilly and dull and dead. Even when +the sun sent a shiver of crimson over the crests of certain firs, I felt +no delight in the prospect. I admitted shamefacedly to myself that I was +in a very bad temper. + +I had been staying at Glenaicill with the Clanroydens, and for a week +had found the proper pleasure in life. You know the house with its old +rooms and gardens, and the miles of heather which defend it from the +world. The shooting had been extraordinary for a wild place far on in +the season, for there are few partridges and the woodcock are +notoriously late. I had done respectably in my stalking, more than +respectably on the river, and creditably on the moors. Moreover, there +were pleasant people in the house--and there were the Clanroydens. I had +had a hard year's work, sustained to the last moment of term, and a +fortnight in Norway had been disastrous. It was therefore with real +comfort that I had settled myself down for another ten days in +Glenaicill, when all my plans were shattered by Sybil's letter. Sybil is +my cousin and my very good friend, and in old days when I was briefless +I had fallen in love with her many times. But she very sensibly chose +otherwise, and married a man Ladlaw--Robert John Ladlaw--who had been at +school with me. He was a cheery, good-humoured fellow, a great +sportsman, a justice of the peace and deputy-lieutenant for his county, +and something of an antiquary in a mild way. He had a box in +Leicestershire to which he went in the hunting season; but from February +till October he lived in his moorland home. The place was called the +House of More, and I had shot there once or twice in recent years. I +remembered its loneliness and its comfort, the charming diffident Sybil +and Ladlaw's genial welcome. And my recollections set me puzzling again +over the letter which that morning had broken into my comfort. "You +promised us a visit this autumn," Sybil had written, "and I wish you +would come as soon as you can." So far common politeness. But she had +gone on to reveal the fact that Ladlaw was ill, she did not know how +exactly, but something, she thought, about his heart. Then she had +signed herself my affectionate cousin, and then had come a short violent +postscript, in which, as it were, the fences of convention had been laid +low. "For Heaven's sake come and see us!" she scrawled below. "Bob is +terribly ill, and I am crazy. Come at once." And then she finished with +an afterthought, "Don't bother about bringing doctors. It is not their +business." + +She had assumed that I would come, and dutifully I set out. I could not +regret my decision, but I took leave to upbraid my luck. The thought of +Glenaicill with the woodcock beginning to arrive, and the Clanroydens +imploring me to stay, saddened my journey in the morning, and the murky, +coally midland country of the afternoon completed my depression. The +drive through the woodlands of More failed to raise my spirits. I was +anxious about Sybil and Ladlaw, and the accursed country had always +given me a certain eeriness on my first approaching it. You may call it +silly; but I have no nerves, and am little susceptible to vague +sentiment. It was sheer physical dislike of the rich deep soil, the +woody and antique smells, the melancholy roads and trees, and the +flavour of old mystery. I am aggressively healthy and wholly Philistine. +I love clear outlines and strong colours, and More, with its half-tints +and hazy distances, depressed me miserably. Even when the road crept +uphill and the trees ended, I found nothing to hearten me in the +moorland which succeeded. It was genuine moorland, close on 800 feet +above the sea, and through it ran this old grass-grown coach-road. Low +hills rose to the left, and to the right after some miles of peat flared +the chimneys of pits and oil-works. Straight in front the moor ran out +into the horizon, and there in the centre was the last dying spark of +the sun. The place was as still as the grave save for the crunch of our +wheels on the grassy road; but the flaring lights to the north seemed to +endow it with life. I have rarely felt so keenly the feeling of movement +in the inanimate world. It was an unquiet place, and I shivered +nervously. Little gleams of loch came from the hollows, the burns were +brown with peat, and every now and then there rose in the moor jags of +sickening red stone. I remembered that Ladlaw had talked about the place +as the old Manann, the holy land of the ancient races. I had paid little +attention at the time, but now it struck me that the old peoples had +been wise in their choice. There was something uncanny in this soil and +air. Framed in dank mysterious woods, and a country of coal and +ironstone, no great distance, too, from the capital city, it was a +sullen relic of a lost barbarism. Over the low hills lay a green +pastoral country with bright streams and valleys, but here in this peaty +desert there were few sheep and little cultivation. The House of More +was the only dwelling, and, save for the ragged village, the wilderness +was given over to the wild things of the hills. The shooting was good; +but the best shooting on earth would not persuade me to make my abode in +such a place. Ladlaw was ill; well, I did not wonder. You can have +uplands without air, moors that are not health-giving, and a country +life which is more arduous than a townsman's. I shivered again, for I +seemed to have passed in a few hours from the open noon to a kind of +dank twilight. + +We passed the village and entered the lodge-gates. Here there were trees +again, little innocent new-planted firs, which flourished badly. Some +large plane-trees grew near the house, and there were thickets upon +thickets of the ugly elder. Even in the half-darkness I could see that +the lawns were trim and the flower-beds respectable for the season; +doubtless Sybil looked after the gardeners. The oblong whitewashed +house, more like a barrack than ever, opened suddenly on my sight, and I +experienced my first sense of comfort since I left Glenaicill. Here I +should find warmth and company, and, sure enough, the hall-door was wide +open, and in the great flood of light which poured from it Sybil stood +to welcome me. + +She ran down the steps as I dismounted, and, with a word to the groom, +caught my arm and drew me into the shadow. "Oh, Henry, it was so good of +you to come. You mustn't let Bob think that you know he is ill. We don't +talk about it. I'll tell you afterwards. I want you to cheer him up. Now +we must go in, for he is in the hall expecting you." + +While I stood blinking in the light, Ladlaw came forward with +outstretched hand and his usual cheery greeting. I looked at him and saw +nothing unnatural in his appearance: a little drawn at the lips, +perhaps, and heavy below the eyes, but still fresh-coloured and healthy. +It was Sybil who showed change. She was very pale, her pretty eyes were +deplorably mournful, and in place of her delightful shyness there was +the self-confidence and composure of pain. I was honestly shocked, and +as I dressed my heart was full of hard thoughts about Ladlaw. What could +his illness mean? He seemed well and cheerful, while Sybil was pale, and +yet it was Sybil who had written the postscript. As I warmed myself by +the fire, I resolved that this particular family difficulty was my +proper business. + + +2 + +The Ladlaws were waiting for me in the drawing-room. I noticed something +new and strange in Sybil's demeanour. She looked to her husband with a +motherly protective air, while Ladlaw, who had been the extreme of +masculine independence, seemed to cling to his wife with a curious +appealing fidelity. In conversation he did little more than echo her +words. Till dinner was announced he spoke of the weather, the shooting, +and Mabel Clanroyden. Then he did a queer thing, for, when I was about +to offer my arm to Sybil, he forestalled me, and, clutching her right +arm with his left hand, led the way to the dining-room, leaving me to +follow in some bewilderment. + +I have rarely taken part in a more dismal meal. The House of More has a +pretty Georgian panelling through most of the rooms; but in the +dining-room the walls are level, and painted a dull stone colour. +Abraham offered up Isaac in a ghastly picture in front of me. Some +photographs of the Quorn hung over the mantelpiece, and five or six drab +ancestors filled up the remaining space. But one thing was new and +startling. A great marble bust, a genuine antique, frowned on me from a +pedestal. The head was in the late Roman style, clearly of some emperor, +and in its commonplace environment the great brows, the massive neck, +and the mysterious, solemn lips had a surprising effect. I nodded +towards the thing, and asked what it represented. + +Ladlaw grunted something which I took for "Justinian," but he never +raised his eyes from his plate. By accident I caught Sybil's glance. +She looked towards the bust, and laid a finger on her lips. + +The meal grew more doleful as it advanced. Sybil scarcely touched a +dish, but her husband ate ravenously of everything. He was a strong, +thick-set man, with a square, kindly face, burned brown by the sun. Now +he seemed to have suddenly coarsened. He gobbled with undignified haste, +and his eye was extraordinarily vacant. A question made him start, and +he would turn on me a face so strange and inert that I repented the +interruption. + +I asked him about the autumn's sport, and he collected his wits with +difficulty. He thought it had been good on the whole, but he had shot +badly. He had not been quite so fit as usual. No, he had had nobody +staying with him--Sybil had wanted to be alone. He was afraid the moor +might have been under-shot, but he would make a big day with keepers and +farmers before the winter. + +"Bob has done pretty well," Sybil said. "He hasn't been out often, for +the weather has been very bad here. You can have no idea, Henry, how +horrible this moorland place of ours can be when it tries. It is one +great sponge sometimes, with ugly red burns, and mud to the ankles." + +"I don't think it's healthy," said I. + +Ladlaw lifted his face. "Nor do I: I think it's intolerable; but I am so +busy, I can't get away." + +Once again I caught Sybil's warning eye as I was about to question him +on his business. + +Clearly the man's brain had received a shock, and he was beginning to +suffer from hallucinations. This could be the only explanation, for he +had always led a temperate life. The _distrait_ wandering manner was the +only sign of his malady, for otherwise he seemed normal and mediocre as +ever. My heart grieved for Sybil, alone with him in this wilderness. + +Then he broke the silence. He lifted his head and looked nervously +around till his eye fell on the Roman bust. + +"Do you know that this countryside is the old Manann?" he said. + +It was an odd turn to the conversation, but I was glad of a sign of +intelligence. I answered that I had heard so. + +"It's a queer name," he said oracularly; "but the thing it stood for was +queerer. Manann, Manaw," he repeated, rolling the words on his tongue. +As he spoke, he glanced sharply, and, as it seemed to me, fearfully, at +his left side. + +The movement of his body made his napkin slip from his left knee and +fall on the floor. It leaned against his leg, and he started from its +touch as if he had been stung by a snake. I have never seen a more sheer +and transparent terror on a man's face. He got to his feet, his strong +frame shaking like a rush. Sybil ran round to his side, picked up the +napkin, and flung it on a sideboard. Then she stroked his hair as one +would stroke a frightened horse. She called him by his old boy's name of +Robin, and at her touch and voice he became quiet. But the particular +course then in progress was removed untasted. + +In a few minutes he seemed to have forgotten his behaviour, for he took +up the former conversation. For a time he spoke well and briskly. + +"You lawyers," he said, "understand only the dry framework of the past. +You cannot conceive the rapture, which only the antiquary can feel, of +constructing in every detail an old culture. Take this Manann. If I +could explore the secret of these moors, I would write the world's +greatest book. I would write of that prehistoric life when man was knit +close to nature. I would describe the people who were brothers of the +red earth and the red rock and the red streams of the hills. Oh, it +would be horrible, but superb, tremendous! It would be more than a piece +of history; it would be a new gospel, a new theory of life. It would +kill materialism once and for all. Why, man, all the poets who have +deified and personified nature would not do an eighth part of my work. I +would show you the unknown, the hideous, shrieking mystery at the back +of this simple nature. Men would see the profundity of the old crude +faiths which they affect to despise. I would make a picture of our +shaggy, sombre-eyed forefather, who heard strange things in the +hill-silences. I would show him brutal and terror-stricken, but wise, +wise, God alone knows how wise! The Romans knew it, and they learned +what they could from him, but he did not tell them much. But we have +some of his blood in us, and we may go deeper. Manann! A queer land +nowadays! I sometimes love it and sometimes hate it, but I always fear +it. It is like that statue, inscrutable." + +I would have told him that he was talking mystical nonsense; but I had +looked towards the bust, and my rudeness was checked on my lips. The +moor might be a common piece of ugly waste land, but the statue was +inscrutable--of that there was no doubt. I hate your cruel, +heavy-mouthed Roman busts; to me they have none of the beauty of life, +and little of the interest of art. But my eyes were fastened on this as +they had never before looked on marble. The oppression of the heavy +woodlands, the mystery of the silent moor seemed to be caught and held +in this face. It was the intangible mystery of culture on the verge of +savagery, a cruel, lustful wisdom, and yet a kind of bitter austerity +which laughed at the game of life and stood aloof. There was no weakness +in the heavy-veined brow and slumbrous eyelids. It was the face of one +who had conquered the world and found it dust and ashes, one who had +eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and scorned human +wisdom. And at the same time it was the face of one who knew uncanny +things, a man who was the intimate of the half-world and the dim +background of life. Why on earth I should connect the Roman grandee[3] +with the moorland parish of More, I cannot say; but the fact remains, +that there was that in the face which I knew had haunted me through the +woodlands and bogs of the place, a sleepless, dismal, incoherent +melancholy. + +"I bought that at Colenzo's," Ladlaw said, "because it took my fancy. It +matches well with this place." + +I thought it matched very ill with his drab walls and Quorn photographs, +but I held my peace. + +"Do you know who it is?" he asked. "It is the head of the greatest man +the world has ever seen. You are a lawyer and know your Justinian." + +The Pandects are scarcely part of the daily work of a common-law +barrister. I had not looked into them since I left college. + +"I know that he married an actress," I said, "and was a sort of +all-round genius. He made law and fought battles and had rows with the +Church. A curious man! And wasn't there some story about his selling his +soul to the Devil and getting law in exchange? Rather a poor bargain!" + +I chattered away sillily enough, to dispel the gloom of that +dinner-table. The result of my words was unhappy. Ladlaw gasped, and +caught at his left side as if in pain. Sybil, with tragic eyes, had been +making signs to me to hold my peace. Now she ran round to her husband's +side and comforted him like a child. As she passed me she managed to +whisper in my ear to talk to her only and let her husband alone. + +For the rest of dinner I obeyed my orders to the letter. Ladlaw ate his +food in gloomy silence, while I spoke to Sybil of our relatives and +friends, of London, Glenaicill, and any random subject. The poor girl +was dismally forgetful, and her eye would wander to her husband with +wifely anxiety. I remember being suddenly overcome by the comic aspect +of it all. Here were we three fools alone in this dank upland, one of us +sick and nervous, talking out-of-the-way nonsense about Manann and +Justinian, gobbling his food and getting scared at his napkin, another +gravely anxious, and myself at my wits' end for a solution. It was a Mad +Tea-party with a vengeance, Sybil the melancholy little Dormouse, and +Ladlaw the incomprehensible Hatter. I laughed aloud, but checked myself +when I caught my cousin's eye. It was really no case for finding +humour. Ladlaw was very ill, and Sybil's face was getting deplorably +thin. + +I welcomed the end of that meal with unmannerly joy, for I wanted to +speak seriously with my host. Sybil told the butler to have the lamps +lit in the library. Then she leaned over to me and spoke low and +rapidly: "I want you to talk with Bob. I'm sure you can do him good. +You'll have to be very patient with him and very gentle. Oh please try +and find out what is wrong with him. He won't tell me, and I can only +guess." + +The butler returned with word that the library was ready to receive us, +and Sybil rose to go. Ladlaw half rose, protesting, making the most +curious, feeble clutches at his side. His wife quieted him. "Henry will +look after you, dear," she said. "You are going into the library to +smoke." Then she slipped from the room, and we were left alone. + +He caught my arm fiercely with his left hand, and his grip nearly made +me cry out. As we walked down the hall I could feel his arm twitching +from the elbow to the shoulder. Clearly he was in pain, and I set it +down to some form of cardiac affection, which might possibly issue in +paralysis. + +I settled him in the biggest arm-chair, and took one of his cigars. The +library is the pleasantest room in the house, and at night, when a +peat-fire burned on the old hearth and the great red curtains were +drawn, it used to be the place for comfort and good talk. Now I noticed +changes. Ladlaw's book-shelves had been filled with the proceedings of +antiquarian societies and many light-hearted works in _belles-lettres_. +But now the Badminton Library had been cleared out of a shelf where it +stood most convenient to the hand, and its place taken by an old Leyden +reprint of Justinian. There were books on Byzantine subjects of which I +never dreamed he had heard the names. There were volumes of history and +speculation, all of a slightly bizarre kind; and to crown everything, +there were several bulky medical works with gaudily coloured plates. The +old atmosphere of sport and travel had gone from the room, with the +medley of rods, whips, and gun-cases which used to cumber the tables. +Now the place was moderately tidy and slightly learned--and I did not +like it. + +Ladlaw refused to smoke, and sat for a little while in silence. Then of +his own accord he broke the tension,-- + +"It was devilish good of you to come, Harry. This is a lonely place for +a man who is a bit seedy." + +"I thought you might be alone," I said, "so I looked you up on my way +down from Glenaicill. I'm sorry to find you looking ill." + +"Do you notice it?" he asked sharply. + +"It's tolerably patent," I said. "Have you seen a doctor?" + +He said something uncomplimentary about doctors, and kept looking at me +with his curious dull eyes. + +I remarked the strange posture in which he sat--his head screwed round +to his right shoulder, and his whole body a protest against something at +his left hand. + +"It looks like your heart," I said. "You seem to have pains in your left +side." + +Again a spasm of fear. I went over to him and stood at the back of his +chair. + +"Now, for goodness' sake, my dear fellow, tell me what is wrong? You're +scaring Sybil to death. It's lonely work for the poor girl, and I wish +you would let me help you." + +He was lying back in his chair now, with his eyes half shut, and +shivering like a frightened colt. The extraordinary change in one who +had been the strongest of the strong kept me from realising its +gravity. I put a hand on his shoulder, but he flung it off. + +"For God's sake sit down!" he said hoarsely. "I'm going to tell you; but +I'll never make you understand." + +I sat down promptly opposite him. + +"It's the Devil," he said very solemnly. I am afraid that I was rude +enough to laugh. He took no notice, but sat with the same tense, +miserable air, staring over my head. + +"Right," said I. "Then it is the Devil. It's a new complaint, so it's as +well I did not bring a doctor. How does it affect you?" He made the old +impotent clutch at the air with his left hand. I had the sense to become +grave at once. Clearly this was some mental affection, some +hallucination born of physical pain. + +Then he began to talk in a low voice, very rapidly, with his head bent +forward like a hunted animal's. I am not going to set down what he told +me in his own words, for they were incoherent often, and there was much +repetition. But I am going to write the gist of the odd story which took +my sleep away on that autumn night, with such explanations and additions +as I think needful. The fire died down, the wind arose, the hour grew +late, and still he went on in his mumbling recitative. I forgot to +smoke, forgot my comfort,--everything but the odd figure of my friend +and his inconceivable romance. And the night before I had been in +cheerful Glenaicill! + + * * * * * * * + +He had returned to the House of More, he said, in the latter part of +May, and shortly after he fell ill. It was a trifling +sickness--influenza or something--but he had never quite recovered. The +rainy weather of June depressed him, and the extreme heat of July made +him listless and weary. A kind of insistent sleepiness hung over him, +and he suffered much from nightmare. Towards the end of July his former +health returned; but he was haunted with a curious oppression. He seemed +to himself to have lost the art of being alone. There was a perpetual +sound in his left ear, a kind of moving and rustling at his left side, +which never left him by night or day. In addition he had become the prey +of nerves and an insensate dread of the unknown. + +Ladlaw, as I have explained, was a commonplace man, with fair talents, a +mediocre culture, honest instincts, and the beliefs and incredulities of +his class. On abstract grounds I should have declared him an unlikely +man to be the victim of a hallucination. He had a kind of dull, +bourgeois rationalism, which used to find reasons for all things in +heaven and earth. At first he controlled his dread with proverbs. He +told himself it was the sequel of his illness, or the light-headedness +of summer heat on the moors. But it soon outgrew his comfort. It became +a living second presence, an _alter ego_ which dogged his footsteps. He +became acutely afraid of it. He dared not be alone for a moment, and +clung to Sybil's company despairingly. She went off for a week's visit +in the beginning of August, and be endured for seven days the tortures +of the lost. His malady advanced upon him with swift steps. The presence +became more real daily. In the early dawning, in the twilight, and in +the first hours of the morning it seemed at times to take a visible +bodily form. A kind of amorphous featureless shadow would run from his +side into the darkness, and he would sit palsied with terror. Sometimes +in lonely places his footsteps sounded double, and something would brush +elbows with him. Human society alone exorcised it. With Sybil at his +side he was happy; but as soon as she left him the thing came slinking +back from the unknown to watch by him. Company might have saved him, +but joined to his affliction was a crazy dread of his fellows. He would +not leave his moorland home, but must bear his burden alone among the +wild streams and mosses of that dismal place. + +The Twelfth came, and he shot wretchedly, for his nerve had gone to +pieces. He stood exhaustion badly, and became a dweller about the doors. +But with this bodily inertness came an extraordinary intellectual +revival. He read widely in a blundering way, and he speculated +unceasingly. It was characteristic of the man that, as soon as he left +the paths of the prosaic, he should seek his supernatural in a very +concrete form. He assumed that he was haunted by the Devil--the visible, +personal Devil in whom our fathers believed. He waited hourly for the +shape at his side to speak, but no words came. The Accuser of the +Brethren in all but tangible form was his ever-present companion. He +felt, he declared, the spirit of old evil entering subtly into his +blood. He sold his soul many times over, and yet there was no +possibility of resistance. It was a Visitation more undeserved than +Job's, and a thousandfold more awful. + +For a week or more he was tortured with a kind of religious mania. When +a man of a healthy, secular mind finds himself adrift on the terrible +ocean of religious troubles, he is peculiarly helpless, for he has not +the most rudimentary knowledge of the winds and tides. It was useless to +call up his old carelessness; he had suddenly dropped into a new world +where old proverbs did not apply. And all the while, mind you, there was +the shrieking terror of it--an intellect all alive to the torture and +the most unceasing physical fear. For a little he was on the near edge +of idiocy. + +Then by accident it took a new form. While sitting with Sybil one day in +the library, he began listlessly to turn over the leaves of an old book. +He read a few pages, and found the hint of a story like his own. It was +some French life of Justinian, one of the unscholarly productions of +last century, made up of stories from Procopius and tags of Roman law. +Here was his own case written down in black and white; and the man had +been a king of kings! This was a new comfort, and for a little--strange +though it may seem--he took a sort of pride in his affliction. He +worshipped the great emperor and read every scrap he could find on him, +not excepting the Pandects and the Digest. He sent for the bust in the +dining-room, paying a fabulous price. Then he settled himself to study +his imperial prototype, and the study became an idolatry. As I have +said, Ladlaw was a man of ordinary talents and certainly of meagre +imaginative power. And yet from the lies of the 'Secret History' and the +crudities of German legalists he had constructed a marvellous portrait +of a man. Sitting there in the half-lit room, he drew the picture,--the +quiet, cold king with his inheritance of Dacian mysticism, holding the +great world in fee, giving it law and religion, fighting its wars, +building its churches, and yet all the while intent upon his own private +work of making his peace with his soul. The churchman and warrior whom +all the world worshipped, and yet one going through life with his lip +quivering, the Watcher by the Threshold ever at his left side. Sometimes +at night in the great Brazen Palace, warders heard the emperor walking +in the dark corridors, alone and yet not alone; for once, when a servant +entered with a lamp, he saw his master with a face as of another world, +and something beside him which had no face or shape, but which he knew +to be that hoary Evil which is older than the stars. Crazy nonsense! I +had to rub my eyes to assure myself that I was not sleeping. No! There +was my friend with his suffering face, and it was the library of More. + +And then he spoke of Theodora--actress, harlot, _dévote_, empress. For +him the lady was but another part of the uttermost horror, a form of the +shapeless thing at his side. I felt myself falling under the +fascination. I have no nerves and little imagination, but in a flash I +seemed to realise something of that awful featureless face, crouching +ever at a man's hand, till darkness and loneliness comes and it rises to +its mastery. I shivered as I looked at the man in the chair before me. +Those dull eyes of his were looking upon things I could not see, and I +saw their terror. I realised that it was grim earnest for him. Nonsense +or no, some devilish fancy had usurped the place of sanity, and he was +being slowly broken upon the wheel. And then, when his left hand +twitched, I almost cried out. I had thought it comic before; now it +seemed the last proof of tragedy. + +He stopped, and I got up with loose knees and went to the window. Better +the black night than the intangible horror within. I flung up the sash +and looked out across the moor. There was no light, nothing but an inky +darkness and the uncanny rustle of elder-bushes. The sound chilled me, +and I closed the window. + +"The land is the old Manann," Ladlaw was saying. "We are beyond the pale +here. Do you hear the wind?" + +I forced myself back into sanity and looked at my watch. It was nearly +one o'clock. + +"What ghastly idiots we are!" I said. "I am off to bed." + +Ladlaw looked at me helplessly. "For God's sake don't leave me alone!" +he moaned. "Get Sybil." + +We went together back to the hall, while he kept the same feverish grip +on my arm. Some one was sleeping in a chair by the hall-fire, and to my +distress I recognised my hostess. The poor child must have been sadly +wearied. She came forward with her anxious face. + +"I'm afraid Bob has kept you very late, Henry," she said. "I hope you +will sleep well. Breakfast at nine, you know." And then I left them. + +Over my bed there was a little picture, a reproduction of some Italian +work of Christ and the Demoniac. Some impulse made me hold my candle up +to it. The madman's face was torn with passion and suffering, and his +eye had the pained furtive look which I had come to know. And by his +left side there was a dim shape crouching. + +I got into bed hastily, but not to sleep. I felt that my reason must be +going. I had been pitchforked from our clear and cheerful modern life +into the mists of old superstition. Old tragic stories of my Calvinist +upbringing returned to haunt me. The man dwelt in by a devil was no new +fancy; but I believed that Science had docketed and analysed and +explained the Devil out of the world. I remembered my dabblings in the +occult before I settled down to law--the story of Donisarius, the monk +of Padua, the unholy legend of the Face of Proserpina, the tales of +_succubi_ and _incubi_, the Leannain Sith and the Hidden Presence. But +here was something stranger still. I had stumbled upon that very +possession which fifteen hundred years ago had made the monks of New +Rome tremble and cross themselves. Some devilish occult force, lingering +through the ages, had come to life after a long sleep. God knows what +earthly connection there was between the splendid Emperor of the World +and my prosaic friend, or between the glittering shores of the Bosphorus +and this moorland parish! But the land was the old Manann! The spirit +may have lingered in the earth and air, a deadly legacy from Pict and +Roman. I had felt the uncanniness of the place; I had augured ill of it +from the first. And then in sheer disgust I rose and splashed my face +with cold water. + +I lay down again, laughing miserably at my credulity. That I, the sober +and rational, should believe in this crazy fable, was too palpably +absurd. I would steel my mind resolutely against such harebrained +theories. It was a mere bodily ailment,--liver out of order, weak heart, +bad circulation, or something of that sort. At the worst it might be +some affection of the brain to be treated by a specialist. I vowed to +myself that next morning the best doctor in Edinburgh should be brought +to More. + +The worst of it was that my duty compelled me to stand my ground. I +foresaw the few remaining weeks of my holiday blighted. I should be tied +to this moorland prison, a sort of keeper and nurse in one, tormented by +silly fancies. It was a charming prospect, and the thought of Glenaicill +and the woodcock made me bitter against Ladlaw. But there was no way out +of it. I might do Ladlaw good, and I could not have Sybil worn to death +by his vagaries. + +My ill-nature comforted me, and I forgot the horror of the thing in its +vexation. After that, I think I fell asleep and dozed uneasily till +morning. When I awoke I was in a better frame of mind. The early sun had +worked wonders with the moorland. The low hills stood out fresh-coloured +and clear against the pale October sky, the elders sparkled with frost, +the raw film of morn was rising from the little loch in tiny clouds. It +was a cold rousing day, and I dressed in good spirits and went down to +breakfast. + +I found Ladlaw looking ruddy and well, very different from the broken +man I remembered of the night before. We were alone, for Sybil was +breakfasting in bed. I remarked on his ravenous appetite, and he smiled +cheerily. He made two jokes during the meal, he laughed often, and I +began to forget the events of the previous day. It seemed to me that I +might still flee from More with a clear conscience. He had forgotten +about his illness. When I touched distantly upon the matter he showed a +blank face. + +It might be that the affection had passed: on the other hand, it might +return to him at the darkening--I had no means to decide. His manner was +still a trifle _distrait_ and peculiar, and I did not like the dulness +in his eye. At any rate, I should spend the day in his company, and the +evening would decide the question. + +I proposed shooting, which he promptly vetoed. He was no good at +walking, he said, and the birds were wild. This seriously limited the +possible occupations. Fishing there was none, and hill-climbing was out +of the question. He proposed a game at billiards, and I pointed to the +glory of the morning. It would have been sacrilege to waste such +sunshine in knocking balls about. Finally we agreed to drive somewhere +and have lunch, and he ordered the dog-cart. + +In spite of all forebodings I enjoyed the day. We drove in the opposite +direction from the woodland parts, right away across the moor to the +coal-country beyond. We lunched at the little mining town of Borrowmuir, +in a small and noisy public-house. The roads made bad going, the country +was far from pretty, and yet the drive did not bore me. Ladlaw talked +incessantly, talked as I had never heard man talk before. There was +something indescribable in all he said,--a different point of view, a +lost groove of thought, a kind of innocence and archaic shrewdness in +one. I can only give you a hint of it by saying that it was like the +mind of an early ancestor placed suddenly among modern surroundings. It +was wise with a remote wisdom, and silly (now and then) with a quite +antique and distant silliness. + +I will give you instances of both. He provided me with a theory of +certain early fortifications, which must be true, which commends itself +to the mind with overwhelming conviction, and yet which is so out of the +way of common speculation that no man could have guessed it. I do not +propose to set down the details, for I am working at it on my own +account. Again, he told me the story of an old marriage custom, which +till recently survived in this district,--told it with full +circumstantial detail and constant allusions to other customs which he +could not possibly have known of. Now for the other side. He explained +why well-water is in winter warmer than a running stream, and this was +his explanation. At the Antipodes our winter is summer; consequently the +water of a well which comes through from the other side of the earth +must be warm in winter and cold in summer, since in our summer it is +winter there. You perceive what this is. It is no mere silliness, but a +genuine effort of an early mind which had just grasped the fact of the +Antipodes, to use it in explanation. + +Gradually I was forced to the belief that it was not Ladlaw who was +talking to me, but something speaking through him, something at once +wiser and simpler. My old fear of the Devil began to depart. This +spirit, this exhalation, whatever it was, was ingenuous in its way, at +least in its daylight aspect. For a moment I had an idea that it was a +real reflex of Byzantine thought, and that by cross-examining I might +make marvellous discoveries. The ardour of the scholar began to rise in +me, and I asked a question about that much-debated point, the legal +status of the _apocrisiarii_. To my vexation he gave no response. +Clearly the intelligence of this familiar had its limits. + +It was about three in the afternoon, and we had gone half of our +homeward journey, when signs of the old terror began to appear. I was +driving, and Ladlaw sat on my left. I noticed him growing nervous and +silent shivering at the flick of the whip, and turning half-way round +towards me. Then he asked me to change places, and I had the unpleasant +work of driving from the wrong side. After that I do not think he spoke +once till we arrived at More, but sat huddled together with the +driving-rug almost up to his chin--an eccentric figure of a man. + +I foresaw another such night as the last, and I confess my heart sank. I +had no stomach for more mysteries, and somehow with the approach of +twilight the confidence of the day departed. The thing appeared in +darker colours, and I could have found it in my mind to turn coward. +Sybil alone deterred me. I could not bear to think of her alone with +this demented being. I remembered her shy timidity, her innocence. It +was monstrous that the poor thing should be called on thus to fight +alone with phantoms. So I braced myself for another evening. + +When we came to the House it was almost sunset. Ladlaw got out very +carefully on the right side, and for a second stood by the horse. The +sun was making our shadows long, and as I stood beyond him, it seemed +for a moment that his shadow was double. It may have been mere fancy, +for I had not time to look twice. He was standing, as I have said, with +his left side next the horse. Suddenly the harmless elderly cob fell +into a very panic of fright, reared upright, and all but succeeded in +killing its master. I was in time to pluck Ladlaw from under its feet, +but the beast had become perfectly unmanageable, and we left a groom +struggling to quiet it. + +In the hall the butler gave me a telegram. It was from my clerk, +summoning me back at once to an important consultation. + + +II: THE MINISTER INTERVENES + +Here was a prompt removal of my scruples! There could be no question of +my remaining, for the case was one of the first importance, which I had +feared might break up my holiday. The consultation fell in vacation-time +to meet the convenience of certain people who were going abroad, and +there was the most instant demand for my presence. I must go and at +once; and, as I hunted in the time-table, I found that in five hours' +time a night-train for the South would pass Borrowmuir, which might be +stopped by special wire. This would give me time for dinner and a +comfortable departure. + +But I had no pleasure in my freedom, for I was in despair about Sybil. I +must return to More--that was clear; and I must find some one to look +after Ladlaw. I found my cousin in the drawing-room alone and told her +my plans. + +She was very pale and fragile, and she seemed to shiver as the prospect +of solitude returned to her. I spoke with all the carelessness I could +muster. "I am coming back," I said. "Don't think you have got rid of me +so easily. It is most unpleasant to have to travel eight hundred miles +in thirty-six hours, but there is no help for it. I ought to be back +again by Friday morning. And you know Bob is much better. He was quite +like his old self driving to-day." + +My words comforted the poor child, and I went away with the novel +feeling of a good conscience. Frankly, I hate the sordid and unpleasant. +I am honestly a sun-worshipper; I have small taste for arduous duty, and +the quixotic is my abhorrence. My professional success is an accident, +for Lord knows I had no impulse to contend and little ambition. But +somewhere or other I have the rudiments of an austere conscience. It +gives me no peace, and as I love a quiet life, I do its bidding with a +grumble. Now I grumbled fiercely in spirit, but outwardly I was a model +of virtuous cheerfulness. + +But to find somebody to keep Ladlaw company--there was the rub. I racked +my brains to think of a substitute. It must be a man of some education +and not a mere servant, and it must be somebody in the parish of More; +the conjunction seemed for the moment impossible. Then a brilliant idea +struck me. There was the minister of Morebrig, the ugly village by the +roadside. I remembered him on previous visits. He was a burly young man, +with a high complexion and a drooping blonde moustache, who smoked cheap +cigarettes incessantly, and spat. He had been what they call a +"brilliant student," and he was reported to be something of an orator, +eagerly sought after by city congregations, but at present hiding his +light under the bushel of Morebrig to allow him time to prepare some +great theological work. Ladlaw had liked him in a half-amused and +tolerant way, and he used to come sometimes to dine. His name was Bruce +Oliphant, and he inhabited a dark manse at the outskirts of the village. + +I had an hour before dinner, and I set out for Mr Oliphant's dwelling. I +remember the curious dull village street, without colour or life, drab +women looking out of dingy doorways, and a solitary child playing in the +red mud. The manse stood at the back of the usual elder thicket, a +little place with small windows and a weather-stained front door. A +gaunt old servant ushered me into Mr Oliphant's study, where I found +that young man smoking and reading a weekly paper. It was a room well +stocked with books in the popular religious vein, and the Poets in gilt +editions adorned his shelves. Mr Oliphant greeted me with the nervous +ease of one who would fain cultivate a good manner. The first sight of +him sent my hopes down. He had a large calf-like face, mildly arrogant +eyes, and a chin which fell sharply away beneath the eaves of his +moustache. This was not one to do Ladlaw much good; indeed I questioned +if I could ever make him understand, for the man before me had an +impenetrable air of omniscience. + +"I have come to ask you a great favour on behalf of the Ladlaws," said +I. "You are the only other gentleman in the parish of More, and it is +your duty to help your neighbours." + +He bowed, with pleased eyes. "Anything," he said. "I'll be very glad." + +"I am staying there just now, you know, and as it happens I must go back +to town by the night-train. I'll only be gone a day, but you know that +Ladlaw is a melancholy beggar and gets low-spirited. Now I want you to +go up and stay at the House for a couple of nights while I am away." + +It was an odd request, and he stared at me. "Why, what's wrong with Mr +Ladlaw?" he asked. "I should never have called him melancholy. Now, his +lady is different. She always looks a little pale. Did she send you to +ask me?" Mr Oliphant was a stickler for the usages of polite society. + +I sat down in a chair and took one of his cigarettes. "Now, look here, +Oliphant," I said. "You are a man of education and common-sense, and I +am going to do you the honour to tell you a story which I would not tell +to a stupid man. A stupid man would laugh at me. I hope you will see the +gravity of the thing." + +I told him briefly the points in Ladlaw's case. His eyes grew very round +as I went on, and when I finished he laughed nervously. He was clearly +impressed; but he was too ignorant and unimaginative to understand +fully, and he had his credit as a representative of modern thought to +support. "Oh, come now! You don't mean all that; I never heard the like +of it. You can't expect me as a Christian man to believe in a Pagan +spirit. I might as well believe in ghosts at once. What has the familiar +of a heathen emperor to do with this parish?" + +"Justinian was a Christian," I said. + +He looked puzzled. "It's all preposterous. Meaning no disrespect to you, +I must decline to believe it. My profession compels me to discourage +such nonsense." + +"So does mine," I said wearily. "Good Lord! man, do you think I came +here to tell you a fairy tale? It's the most terrible earnest. Now I +want you to give me an answer, for I have very little time." + +He was still incredulous and inclined to argue. "Do you know if Mr +Ladlaw has been--eh--a strictly temperate man?" he asked. + +With this my patience departed. I got up to go, with rude thoughts on +the stupidity of the clergy. But Mr Oliphant was far from a refusal. He +had no objection to exchange the barren comfort of the manse for the +comparative luxury of the House, and he had no distrust of his power to +enliven. As he accompanied me to the door he explained his position. +"You see, if they really want me I will come. Tell Mrs Ladlaw that I +shall be delighted. Mrs Ladlaw is a lady for whom I have a great +respect." + +"So have I," I said crossly. "Very well. A trap shall be sent for you +after dinner. Good evening, Mr Oliphant. It is a pleasure to have met +you." + +When I reached the House, I told Sybil of my arrangement. For the first +time since my arrival she smiled. "It's very kind of him, but I am +afraid he won't do much good. Bob will frighten him away." + +"I fancy he won't. The man is strong in his self-confidence and +remarkably dense. He'll probably exasperate Bob into sanity. In any case +I'll be back by Friday morning." + +As I drove away the trap arrived at the door, bringing Mr Oliphant and +his portmanteau. + + * * * * * * * + +The events of the next twenty-four hours, during which I was travelling +in the Scotch express or transacting dreary business in my chambers, are +known only from the narrative of the minister. He wrote it out some +weeks after at my request, for I wished to have all the links in the +tale. I propose to give the gist of it, as he wrote it, stripped of +certain reflections on human life and an inscrutable Providence, with +which he had garnished it. + + +_Narrative of the Reverend Mr Oliphant_ + +I arrived at the House of More at a quarter-past eight on the Wednesday +evening. The family had dined early, as Mr Grey was leaving for London, +and when I arrived I was taken to the library, where I found Mr Ladlaw. +I had not seen him for some time, and thought him looking pale and a +little haggard. He seemed glad to see me, and made me sit down in a +chair on his left and draw it up close to him. I wondered at his manner, +for though we had always been on good terms he had never admitted me to +any close intimacy. But now he was more than amiable. He made me ring +for toddy, and though he refused to taste it himself, he pressed the +beverage on me. Then he gave me a large cigar, at which I trembled, and +finally he said that we should play at picquet. I declined resolutely, +for it is part of my conscience to refuse to join in any card games; but +he made no trouble, and indeed in a moment seemed to have forgotten his +proposition. + +The next thing he did startled my composure. For he asked abruptly, "Do +you believe in a living personal Devil, Oliphant?" + +I was taken aback, but answered that to the best of my light I did not. + +"And why not?" he asked sharply, + +I explained that it was an old, false, anthropomorphic fiction, and that +the modern belief was infinitely more impressive. I quoted the words of +Dr Rintoul, one of our Church leaders. I am sorry to say that Mr +Ladlaw's words were, "Dr Rintoul be d--d!" + +"Who the deuce are you to change the belief of centuries?" he cried. +"Our forefathers believed in him. They saw him at evening slinking about +the folds and peat-stacks, or wrapped up in a black gown standing in the +pulpits of the Kirk. Are we wiser men than they?" + +I answered that culture had undoubtedly advanced in our day. + +Mr Ladlaw replied with blasphemous words on modern culture. I had +imagined him to be a gentleman of considerable refinement, and I knew he +had taken a good degree at college. Consequently, I was disagreeably +surprised at his new manner. + +"You are nothing better than an ignorant parson,"--these were his +words,--"and you haven't even the merits of your stupid profession. The +old Scots ministers were Calvinists to the backbone, and they were +strong men--strong men, do you hear?--and they left their mark upon the +nation. But your new tea-meeting kind of parson, who has nothing but a +smattering of bad German to commend him, is a nuisance to God and man. +And they don't believe in the Devil! Well, he'll get them safe enough +some day." + +I implored him to remember my cloth, and curb his bad language. + +"I say the Devil will get you all safe enough some day," he repeated. + +I rose to retire in as dignified a manner as possible, but he was before +me and closed the door. I began to be genuinely frightened. + +"For God's sake, don't go!" he cried. "Don't leave me alone. Do sit +down, Oliphant, like a good chap, and I promise to hold my tongue. You +don't know how horrible it is to be left alone." + +I sat down again, though my composure was shaken. I remembered Mr Grey's +words about the strange sickness. + +Then Mr Ladlaw fell into an extraordinary moodiness. He sat huddled up +in his chair, his face turned away from me, and for some time neither of +us spoke a word. I thought that I had seriously offended him, and +prepared to apologise, so I touched his left shoulder to attract his +attention. Instantly he jumped to his feet, screaming, and turned on me +a face of utter terror. I could do nothing but stare at him, and in a +second he quieted down and returned to his seat. + +Then he became partially sane, and murmured a sort of excuse. I thought +that I would discover what truth lay in Mr Grey's singular hypothesis. I +did not ask him bluntly, as an ordinary man would have done, what was +his malady, but tactfully, as I thought then, I led the conversation to +demoniacal possession in the olden time, and quoted Pellinger's theory +on the Scriptural cases. He answered with extraordinary vehemence, +showing a childish credulity I little expected from an educated man. + +"I see that you hold to the old interpretation," I said pleasantly. +"Nowadays, we tend to find the solution in natural causes." + +"Heavens, man!" he cried. "What do you mean by natural? You haven't the +most rudimentary knowledge of nature. Listen to me, and I will tell you +something." + +And with this he began a long rambling account of something which I +could not understand. He talked much about a name which sounded like +Canaan, and then he wandered to another subject and talked about +Proserpina, whom I remembered from Mr Matthew Arnold's poem. I would +have thought him trying to ridicule me, if I had not seen his face, +which was white and drawn with pain; and, again, I would have thought +him drunk, but for his well-known temperate habits. By-and-by even my +nerves, which are very strong, began to suffer. I understood fragments +of his talk, and the understanding did not reassure me. It was poisonous +nonsense, but it had a terrible air of realism. He had a queer habit of +catching at his heart like a man with the heart disease, and his eyes +were like a mad dog's I once saw, the pupil drawn to a pin-point with +fear. I could not bear it, so I tried to break the spell. I offered, +against my conscience, to play a card game, but his face showed that he +did not understand me. I began to feel a sort of languor of terror. I +could hardly rise from my chair, and when at last I got up the whole +room seemed haunted. I rushed to the bell and rang it violently, and +then tried to open the door. But he was before me again, and gripped my +arm so fiercely that I cried out between the pain and my dread of him. + +"Come back!" he cried hoarsely. "Don't leave me alone. For God's sake, +Oliphant!" + +Just then the man-servant opened the door, and found the two of us +standing like lunatics. I had the sense to save the situation, and I +asked him to bring more coals for the fire. Then as soon as he turned to +go, I stepped out of the open door before Mr Ladlaw could prevent me. + +The hall seemed empty, but to my surprise I found Mrs Ladlaw sleeping +in a chair by the fire. I did not like to waken her, but I was at my +wits' end with fright. If I had known the way to the kitchen, I should +have sought the servants' company. I ran down a passage, but it seemed +to end in a blind wall, and in a great fear I turned and ran upstairs. +But the upper lobbies seemed to be unlit, and I was turning back when I +heard Ladlaw's voice behind me. It was muffled and queer, and the sound +drove me into the darkness. When I turned a corner, to my relief I saw a +lamp burning on a table and recognised my bedroom door. Here was +sanctuary at last, and I ran in and shut it behind me. + +My nerves were so shaken by the evening's performances that I found it +impossible to get to sleep. I sat up the better part of the night by the +fire, and smoked several cigarettes, which in ordinary circumstances I +should never have dared to do in a strange bedroom. About four o'clock, +I think, I dozed off in my chair, and awoke about nine, very stiff and +cold, to find Ladlaw laughing at me in the doorway. + +I was at first so confused that I did not remember what had scared me +the night before. Then, as it came back to me, I was amazed at my +host's appearance. He looked fresh and well, and in excellent spirits. +He laughed immoderately when he found I had not gone to bed. + +"You do look cheap," he said. "Breakfast's in half an hour. You will +feel better when you have had a tub." + +I bathed reluctantly, feeling ill and bitterly cold; but I was comforted +by a good breakfast. Then I had an opportunity of talking to Mrs Ladlaw. +As I remembered her, she had been full of gaiety, and even, I thought, a +little frivolous; but now she was so pale and silent that I pitied her +sincerely. I began to feel an intense dislike of her husband, partly for +the fright he had given me the night before, and partly for the effect +his silliness seemed to be having on his wife. The day was a fine one, +but after breakfast he showed no intention of going out. I expected to +be asked to shoot, a sport which I sometimes try; but he never spoke of +it, and insisted on my coming to the billiard-room. As we were leaving +the table Mrs Ladlaw touched my arm, and asked me in a low tone if I +would promise to stay all day with her husband. "I want to go down to +Morefoot," she said, "and you know he cannot be left alone." I promised +willingly, for in the daylight Mr Ladlaw had no terrors for me. I +thought that Mrs Ladlaw looked relieved. Poor thing! she badly needed a +respite. + +We hung aimlessly about the place till lunch, playing a few games of +billiards, and in the intervals looking at stables and harness-rooms and +the now barren gardens. At lunch Mrs Ladlaw appeared, but immediately +after I heard wheels on the gravel and knew that she had gone to +Morefoot. Then I began to feel nervous again. I was the only responsible +person left in the place, and Mr Ladlaw might at any moment relapse into +craziness. I watched his moods anxiously, and talked all the nonsense I +knew to keep him in good humour. I told him stories, I talked wildly of +sport, I made ridiculous jokes at which I felt myself blushing. At first +he seemed amused, but soon I felt that my words were falling on deaf +ears. He himself began to talk, violently, incessantly, and, I may say, +brilliantly. If my memory had been better and my balance less upset, I +might have made my reputation, though it would have been a reputation, +perhaps, that a minister of the Gospel might well look askance at. I +could have written a terrible romance from that man's babbling. Nay, I +could have done more: I could have composed a new philosophy which would +have cast Nietzsche in the shade for ever. I do not wish to exaggerate, +but I have never been so impressed with a sense of a crazy intellectual +acumen. This Mr Ladlaw, whom I had known as a good landlord and a +respectable country gentleman, now appeared as a kind of horrible +genius, a brilliant and malignant satyr. I was shocked and confounded, +and at the same time filled with admiration. I remember that we passed +through the dining-room, where there was a great marble bust of a Roman +emperor, an old discoloured thing, but wonderful in its way. Mr Ladlaw +stopped before it and pointed out its merits. The thing seemed simple +enough, and yet after the description I fled from it as if it had been a +devil. He followed me, still talking, and we found ourselves in the +library. + +I remember that I suggested tea, but he scarcely heeded me. The darkness +was falling, Mrs Ladlaw had not returned, and I felt horribly +uncomfortable. I tried to draw him away from the room which I feared, +but he made no sign of understanding. I perceived that the malady of the +last night was returning. I hated that library, with its low fire, its +ghastly white books, and its dreary outlook. I picked up one volume, +and it was lettered on the back 'Sancti Adelberti Certamina.' I dropped +it, only to feel Mr Ladlaw clutching my right arm and dragging me to one +of those horrible arm-chairs. + +"The night is coming on, the old Nox Atra that the monks dreaded. +Promise me that you won't go away." + +I promised feebly, and prayed for Mrs Ladlaw's return. I suggested that +the lamps should be lit. He rose and tried to light the hanging central +one, and I noticed how his hands trembled. His awkwardness upset the +thing, and it fell with a crash on the floor. He jumped back with a +curious scream like an animal. + +I was so miserably scared that I had not the heart to do the work for +him, so we sat on in the darkness. Any sound from the out-of-doors would +have comforted me, but the whole world was as silent as death. I felt +that a little more would drive me mad, and the thought roused me to make +a final effort after safety. In spite of all my promises I must get +away. A man's first duty was to himself, and the hour had come for me. I +thought with longing of my little bare manse and my solemn housekeeper. +And yet how was I to escape, for this man was the stronger, and he +would never let me go. + +I begged him to come into the hall, but he refused. Then I became very +cunning. I suggested that we should go to the door and receive Mrs +Ladlaw. He did not know that she had gone, and the news made him so +nervous that he accepted my proposal. He caught my arm as before, and, +leaning heavily upon me, went into the hall. There was no one about, and +the fire had died down; but at the far end there was a pale glimmer from +the glass door. We opened it and stood on the top step, looking over the +dark lawns. Now was the time for an effort for freedom. If I could only +get rid of his hand I might escape across the fields. I believed him to +be too weak on his legs to follow me, and in any case I was a +respectable runner. Out of doors he seemed less formidable: it was only +in that haunted room that I shuddered. + +I took the only way of escape which presented itself. There was a +flowering-shrub in a pot on the top of the parapet. I caught this with +my elbow and knocked it over, so that it broke with a clatter on the +stone. As I expected, he screamed and jumped aside, letting go my arm +for one instant. The next I was down the steps and running hard across +the lawns to the park beyond. + +For a little I heard him stumbling after me, breathing heavily and with +little short cries. I ran with the speed of fear, for till I was within +my own doors I could feel no security. Once I turned and there he was, a +field behind me, running with his head down like a blind dog. I skirted +the village, broke through the little fir plantation, and came out on +the highway. I saw the light from Jean's little window, and it was like +a beacon of hope. In a few minutes I was at the door, and my servant +stared as I rushed in, without hat or overcoat, and wet with +perspiration. I insisted on barring the doors, and bolting and +shuttering every window. Then I had the unusual luxury of a fire in my +bedroom, and there I supped, and sat till I fell asleep. + +_End of Mr Oliphant's Statement_ + + +III: EVENTS ON THE UPLANDS + +I returned from town by the night express, which landed me at Borrowmuir +about seven on the Friday morning. To my surprise there was no dog-cart +to meet me, as had been arranged, and I was compelled to hire from the +inn. The omission filled me with forebodings. Things must have gone +badly at More in my absence, or the careful Sybil would never have +forgotten. I grudged the time occupied in that weary drive. The horse +seemed intolerably slow, the roads unaccountably steep. It was a sharp +morning, with haze on the fields and promise of bright sunshine at +midday; but, tired as I was with my two days' journey, I was in the +humour to see little good in my case. I was thankful when we drew up at +the house-door, and, cold and stiff, I hobbled up the steps. + +The door was open, and I entered. The hall was empty, there was no sign +of any servant, and all the doors were wide to the wall. I tried one +room after another without success. Then I made my voice heard in that +place. I shouted for Ladlaw, and then I shouted for Sybil. There came no +answer, and in despair I rushed to the kitchen wing. There I found a +cluster of frightened maids, and by dint of much questioning learned the +truth. + +Ladlaw, it seemed, had disappeared from the house about a quarter-past +six on the previous night. The minister had decamped and found sanctuary +in the manse; but there was no trace of the other. Sybil had gone to +Morefoot in the afternoon, and, returning about half-past six, found +her husband gone. She had been distracted with anxiety, had gone to the +manse, where she found Mr Oliphant in a state of nervous collapse and +quite unable to make any coherent statement, and had then roused some of +the neighbouring shepherds and organised a search-party. They had +searched all night, but so far no word had come of the result. +Meanwhile, Sybil, utterly wearied and a little hysterical, was in bed, +sleeping, for her anxiety of the past week had culminated in a sort of +deep languor, which in the circumstances was the best thing that could +have happened. There was no question of wakening her; but, as I snatched +a hurried breakfast, it seemed to me that I must at once follow the +search. They were to meet in the morning at a farm called Mossrigging, +beneath a hill of the same name, and if I went there I might get word of +them. In the meantime I must interview Mr Oliphant. + +I found him in bed, unshaven, and very hollow about the eyes. He told me +a lame story, and indeed his fright was so palpable that I had not the +heart to blame him. But I insisted that he should get up and come with +me, for every man would be needed to search those mossy uplands. I was +dog-tired, sleepy, and irritable, and yet I must go: why should not +this man, who had had his night's rest? + +He made some feeble objection; but he had a conscience of his own and +rose obediently. We set out to the nearest part of the moor, he in his +clergyman's garb, and I in a dark suit and a bowler; and I remember +thinking how oddly unsuited was our dress for this stalking-game. I was +wretchedly anxious, for I liked Ladlaw, and God alone knew where he +might have got to in the night. There were deep bogs and ugly old +pit-shafts on the moor, and there were ravines with sheer red sides. At +any moment we might find tragedy, and I dreaded the report of the +searchers at Mossrigging. When we left the road, we followed an old +cart-track up a shallow glen, where stood some curious old stone +chimneys, which had been built by a speculator who hoped to make a +fortune from peat. The sun was beginning to break through the haze, and +miles of low moorland were disclosed to left and right. But the hills in +front were still cloudy, and we were close on the cottage before we knew +its whereabouts. It stood high in a crinkle of hill, with a wide +prospect north and east to the sea, and as I turned I saw Morebrig +smoking clear in the autumn light, and the chimneys of the House above +the fir-trees. Out on the waters three ships were sailing like +toy-boats, a reminder of the bustling modern life beyond this antique +place of horrors. + +The house was full of men, devouring their morning porridge. They were +shepherds of the neighbourhood, and two boys from the village, as well +as John Ker, the head-keeper from More. One man, Robert Tod by name, +answered my unspoken question. "We havena gotten him, but we've gotten +his whereabouts. We got a glisk o' him about six this mornin' on the +backside o' the Lowe Moss. I kent him fine by the way he ran. Lord, but +he was souple! Nane o' us could come within a hunner yairds o' him. +We'll hae to wyse him gently, sir, and some o' us'll hae to tak a lang +cast round the hill." + +I had no ambition to "tak a lang cast round the hill"; but these men had +been abroad all night, and I and the minister must undertake the duty. +Tod agreed to come with us, and the shaggy silent men of the party +expounded the plan of campaign. The Lowe Moss was impassable on one +side, on another bounded by a steep hill-shoulder, and on the others by +two narrow glens. They would watch the glens; we three should make a +circuit and come back over the hill, driving the fugitive before us. +Once enclosed between the moss and our three parties, he should be an +easy capture. I implored them to go to work gently, for I feared that he +might be driven into the bog. They shook their heads and laughed: it was +all a kind of crazy sport to them, and their one idea was to carry out +their orders. + +I confess I was desperately tired before we had forded the upper waters +of the More, crossed the Redscaurhead, and looked over the green +pasture-lands to the south. It was a most curious sight; for whereas one +side of the range was rough and mossy and hideous with red scaurs, the +other was a gentle slope with sweet hill-grass and bright shallow +waters. It was a new country where the old curse could not reign, and an +idea took possession of me that if once Ladlaw came into the place he +would be healed of his malady. The air seemed clearer, the sky softer, +the whole world simple and clean. We fetched a circuit down one of the +little streams till we came to the back of the hill which on its face is +called Mossrigging. I was abominably tired, but in better spirits. As +for the minister, he groaned occasionally, but never spoke a word. + +At the foot we separated to the distance of half a mile, and began the +ascent. So far there was no sign of our man. Tod was on the far east, I +was in the centre, and Mr Oliphant took the west. I cannot profess to +remember exactly all the incidents of that climb. I was too stupid with +sleep and exertion, and the little distant figures of my companions +danced in a kind of haze. The ascent was simple,--short grass, varied by +short heather, with at wide intervals a patch of shingle. The shepherd +walked with an easy swing, the minister stumbled and groaned, while I, +in sheer bravado and irritation at my weakness, kept up a kind of +despairing trot. The Devil and Ladlaw combined might confront me, but I +was too tired to care. Indeed, in a little I had forgotten all about the +purpose of our quest. + +Then, quite suddenly, almost at the summit, in a little hollow of the +ridge, I saw our man. He was sitting on the ground, directly in the +minister's line, and his head was sunk on his breast. I remember being +taken with a horrid thought that he was dead, and quickened my trot to a +run. Meanwhile the minister was approaching very near, but apparently +quite unconscious of his presence. His eyes were in the ends of the +earth, and he ambled along with no purpose in the world. + +What happened rests mainly on my authority; but Robert Tod, shepherd in +Nether Mossrigging, is ready to swear to the essentials. Mr Oliphant +stumbled on into the hollow till he was within ten yards of the sitting +figure. Ladlaw never moved; but the subtle influence which tells of +human presence came suddenly upon the minister's senses, for he lifted +his eyes and started. The man was still scared to death, and he +naturally turned to run away, when something happened which I cannot +well explain. Ladlaw was still sitting with his head on his breast, and +yet it was clear to my mind that Ladlaw had somehow risen and was +struggling with the minister. I could see the man's wrists strained and +twisted as if in a death-grapple, and his white face reddening with +exertion. He seemed to be held round the middle, for his feet tottered +several times, and once he lurched to the left side, so that I thought +he was thrown. And yet he was only battling with the air, for there was +Ladlaw sitting quietly some yards from him. + +And then suddenly the contest seemed to cease. Mr Oliphant ran straight +past the sitting man and over the brow of the hill. Surprise had held +Tod and myself motionless. Now the spell was broken, and from our +several places we ran towards Ladlaw. I heard the shepherd's loud voice +crying, "Look at Oliphant! Oliphant's no wise!" and I thought I heard a +note of sardonic mirth. In any case, it was the minister he was after, +for a moment later he disappeared down the further slope. + +Mr Oliphant might go where he pleased, but my business was with my +friend. I caught Ladlaw by the shoulder and shook him fiercely. Then I +pulled him to his feet, let him go, and he rolled over. The sight was so +comic that I went into a fit of nervous laughter; but the shock seemed +to have restored his wits, for he opened sleepy eyes and regarded me +solemnly. I do not propose to analyse my reasons, but I was conscious +that it was the old Ladlaw who was looking at me. I knew he was healed +of his malady, but how I knew it I do not know. He stuck both fists into +his eyes like a sleepy child. Then he yawned, and looked down ruefully +at soaked, soiled, and ragged clothing. Then he looked reproachfully at +me. + +"What's up?" he asked. "Stop that hideous row and tell me what has +happened. Have I had an accident?" + +Then I spoke cunningly. "Nothing much. A little bit of a fall, but +you'll be all right soon. Why, you look better already." And again I +went into a fit of laughter. + +He grew wholesomely cross. "Oh, don't be a confounded jackass!" he +cried. "I feel as if I hadn't slept for a week, and I'm hungry and +thirsty." + +He swallowed the contents of my flask, and wolfed my sandwiches in a +disgusting way. Then he proposed that we should go home. "I'm tired, and +I'm sick of shooting for the day. By the bye, where's my gun?" + +"Broken," I said, "broken in the fall. The keeper is going to look after +it." And with the aid of my arm he began with feeble steps his homeward +journey. + + * * * * * * * + +The minister--this is the tale of Robert Tod and his colleagues--ran +down the precipitous part of Mossrigging like a thing inspired. Tod, +labouring heavily in his wake, declared that he went down the hillside +like a loose stone, slipping, stumbling, yet never altogether losing his +feet, and clearing dangers solely by the grace of God. As he went, said +the men, he made clutches at the air, and his face was the face of one +distraught. They ran together from their different places to intercept +him on the edge of the bog, for at first they thought he was Ladlaw. +When they saw their mistake they did not stop, for Tod was making +frantic signals for pursuit. John Ker, the More keeper, was nearest, and +he declared afterwards that he never approached a business so +unwillingly. "I wad hae grippit a wild stot or a daft staig suner nor +yon man," he said. But the business was too public for sheer cowardice. +John assaulted him on the left flank while the other attacked in front, +and John was bowled over like a ninepin. It was not the minister, he +said, but something else, something with an arm two yards long, which +flew out like a steam-hammer. But the others were more fortunate. One +caught Mr Oliphant's right arm, another hung on to the flaps of his +coat, while a third tripped him up gallantly, till the whole body of +them rolled on the ground. Then ensued an indescribable fray. Tod got a +black eye from some unknown source, and one of the boys lost several +front teeth. Howls of rage filled the moorland air, and all the while, +they declared, the minister was praying with an unction which was never +heard in the kirk. "Lord, give me peace!" he cried. "Lord, take the +thing away!" and then again, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" + +The end came very suddenly, for the company rolled into the bog. The +minister, being lowest, saved the others, but he floundered in the green +slime up to his middle. The accident seemed to inspire sobriety. He +ceased his prayers, his face lost its horror, and took on a common human +fear. Then Tod and his friends laboured heroically to rescue him, and +all the while, they declared, something was pommelling them and bruising +them, and they showed four long black marks on their bodies. Slowly they +raised Mr Oliphant from the slough, and on a bridge of coats he crept +back to solid land. And then something happened which was the crowning +marvel of the business. It was a still sharp day; but suddenly there +came a wind, hot and harsh, and like nothing they had ever known. It +stung them like nettles, played for a moment in their midst, and then in +a kind of visible cloud passed away from them over the bog in the +direction of the Red Loch. And with the wind went the Thing which had so +long played havoc in the place; and the men were left with an unkempt +figure, coated with slime and shivering with fright, but once more the +sane and prosaic Mr Oliphant, the minister of the parish of More. + + * * * * * * * + +We got Ladlaw and the minister back to the house with much trouble, for +both were weak on their legs, and one was still in a pitiable fright. +The two kept eyeing each other, one with a sort of disgusted amusement, +the other with a wondering fear. The shepherds were mystified; but they +were matter-of-fact beings, who, having fulfilled their orders, gave no +more thought to the business. The wounded nursed their bruises and swore +cheerfully, and the boy with the broken teeth whistled his complaints. A +good dinner restored them to humour, and the last I saw was Ker and Tod +going over the Odyssey of their adventures to a circle of critical +spectators. + +When Ladlaw and the minister had washed and fed, and sat smoking in the +library, I went to talk to Sybil. I have often wondered how much she +understood. At any rate she took my word that the trouble had passed, +and in a fit of tears thanked me for my labours. Then she said she would +go to her husband, and I led her to the library, where the two heroes +were smoking the pipe of peace. + +Ladlaw greeted her cheerily as if nothing had happened. "I feel a bit +shaken," he said, "but I'll be all right after a night's rest. You +needn't be nervous, Sib. By the bye, Harry, where's that gun?" + +Then he wandered round the room, casting an unfriendly eye on his new +acquisitions. "Look here! Somebody has been playing the fool in this +place. I can't see a single Badminton, and where did this stuff come +from?" And he tapped a row of books in old vellum. "I never remember the +things before. St Adelbert! Who on earth was he? Why, any one who came +in suddenly and did not know me might think I was a minor poet. I wish +you'd tell Harrison to clear all this truck away." + +The minister sat by the fire and said nothing. The marvellous had +intruded upon his easy life and spoiled the balance. I was sorry for the +man as I thanked him in a low tone and asked how he felt. + +The words came from between chattering teeth. + +"I am getting b-better," he said, "but I have had a terrible +sh-shock.--I am a Christian man and I have been tempted. I thought we +lived in a progressive age, but now I know that we d-d-don't. And I am +going to write to Dr Rintoul." + +FOOTNOTE: + +[3] I have identified the bust, which, when seen under other +circumstances, had little power to affect me. It was a copy of the head +of Justinian in the Tesci Museum at Venice, and several duplicates +exist, dating apparently from the seventh century, and showing traces of +Byzantine decadence in the scrollwork on the hair. It is engraved in M. +Delacroix's 'Byzantium,' and, I think, in Windscheid's +'Pandektenlehrbuch.' + + + + +IV + +THE OUTGOING OF THE TIDE[4] + + + "Between the hours of twelve and one, even at the turning of the + tide." + + +Men come from distant parts to admire the tides of Solloway, which race +in at flood and retreat at ebb with a greater speed than a horse can +follow. But nowhere are there queerer waters than in our own parish of +Caulds at the place called the Sker Bay, where between two horns of land +a shallow estuary receives the stream of the Sker. I never daunder by +its shores, and see the waters hurrying like messengers from the great +deep, without solemn thoughts and a memory of Scripture words on the +terror of the sea. The vast Atlantic may be fearful in its wrath, but +with us it is no clean open rage, but the deceit of the creature, the +unholy ways of quicksands when the waters are gone, and their stealthy +return like a thief in the night-watches. But in the times of which I +write there were more awful fears than any from the violence of nature. +It was before the day of my ministry in Caulds, for then I was a bit +callant in short clothes in my native parish of Lesmahagow; but the +worthy Doctor Chrystal, who had charge of spiritual things, has told me +often of the power of Satan and his emissaries in that lonely place. It +was the day of warlocks and apparitions, now happily driven out by the +zeal of the General Assembly. Witches pursued their wanchancy calling, +bairns were spirited away, young lassies selled their souls to the evil +one, and the accuser of the brethren in the shape of a black tyke was +seen about cottage-doors in the gloaming. Many and earnest were the +prayers of good Doctor Chrystal, but the evil thing, in spite of his +wrestling, grew and flourished in his midst. The parish stank of +idolatry, abominable rites were practised in secret, and in all the +bounds there was no one had a more evil name for this black traffic than +one Alison Sempill, who bode at the Skerburnfoot. + +The cottage stood nigh the burn in a little garden with lilyoaks and +grosart-bushes lining the pathway. The Sker ran by in a linn among +hollins, and the noise of its waters was ever about the place. The +highroad on the other side was frequented by few, for a nearer-hand way +to the west had been made through the Lowe Moss. Sometimes a herd from +the hills would pass by with sheep, sometimes a tinkler or a wandering +merchant, and once in a long while the laird of Heriotside on his grey +horse riding to Gledsmuir. And they who passed would see Alison Hirpling +in her garden, speaking to herself like the ill wife she was, or sitting +on a cuttystool by the doorside with her eyes on other than mortal +sights. Where she came from no man could tell. There were some said she +was no woman, but a ghost haunting some mortal tenement. Others would +threep she was gentrice, come of a persecuting family in the west, that +had been ruined in the Revolution wars. She never seemed to want for +siller; the house was as bright as a new preen, the yaird better delved +than the manse garden; and there was routh of fowls and doos about the +small steading, forbye a wheen sheep and milk-kye in the fields. No man +ever saw Alison at any market in the countryside, and yet the +Skerburnfoot was plenished yearly in all proper order. One man only +worked on the place, a doited lad who had long been a charge to the +parish, and who had not the sense to fear danger or the wit to +understand it. Upon all other the sight of Alison, were it but for a +moment, cast a cold grue, not to be remembered without terror. It seems +she was not ordinarily ill-faured, as men use the word. She was maybe +sixty years in age, small and trig, with her grey hair folded neatly +under her mutch. But the sight of her eyes was not a thing to forget. +John Dodds said they were the een of a deer with the devil ahint them, +and indeed they would so appal an onlooker that a sudden unreasoning +terror came into his heart, while his feet would impel him to flight. +Once John, being overtaken in drink on the roadside by the cottage, and +dreaming that he was burning in hell, woke, and saw the old wife +hobbling towards him. Thereupon he fled soberly to the hills, and from +that day became a quiet-living humble-minded Christian. She moved about +the country like a wraith, gathering herbs in dark loanings, lingering +in kirkyairds, and casting a blight on innocent bairns. Once Robert +Smillie found her in a ruinous kirk on the Lang Muir where of old the +idolatrous rites of Rome were practised. It was a hot day, and in the +quiet place the flies buzzed in crowds, and he noted that she sat +clothed in them as with a garment, yet suffering no discomfort. Then he, +having mind of Beelzebub, the god of flies, fled without a halt +homewards; but, falling in the Coo's Loan, broke two ribs and a +collar-bone, the whilk misfortune was much blessed to his soul. And +there were darker tales in the countryside, of weans stolen, of lassies +misguided, of innocent beasts cruelly tortured, and in one and all there +came in the name of the wife of the Skerburnfoot. It was noted by them +that kenned best that her cantrips were at their worst when the tides in +the Sker Bay ebbed between the hours of twelve and one. At this season +of the night the tides of mortality run lowest, and when the outgoing of +these unco waters fell in with the setting of the current of life, then +indeed was the hour for unholy revels. While honest men slept in their +beds, the auld rudas carlines took their pleasure. That there is a +delight in sin no man denies, but to most it is but a broken glint in +the pauses of their conscience. But what must be the hellish joy of +those lost beings who have forsworn God and trysted with the Prince of +Darkness, it is not for a Christian to say. Certain it is that it must +be great, though their master waits at the end of the road to claim the +wizened things they call their souls. Serious men, notably Gidden Scott +in the Back of the Hill and Simon Wauch in the Sheiling of Chasehope, +have seen Alison wandering on the wet sands, dancing to no earthly +music, while the heavens, they said, were full of lights and sounds +which betokened the presence of the prince of the powers of the air. It +was a season of heart-searching for God's saints in Caulds, and the +dispensation was blessed to not a few. + +It will seem strange that in all this time the presbytery was idle, and +no effort was made to rid the place of so fell an influence. But there +was a reason, and the reason, as in most like cases, was a lassie. +Forbye Alison there lived at the Skerburnfoot a young maid, Ailie +Sempill, who by all accounts was as good and bonnie as the other was +evil. She passed for a daughter of Alison's, whether born in wedlock or +not I cannot tell; but there were some said she was no kin to the auld +witch-wife, but some bairn spirited away from honest parents. She was +young and blithe, with a face like an April morning and a voice in her +that put the laverocks to shame. When she sang in the kirk folk have +told me that they had a foretaste of the music of the New Jerusalem, +and when she came in by the village of Caulds old men stottered to their +doors to look at her. Moreover from her earliest days the bairn had some +glimmerings of grace. Though no minister would visit the Skerburnfoot, +or if he went, departed quicker than he came, the girl Ailie attended +regular at the catechising at the Mains of Sker. It may be that Alison +thought she would be a better offering for the devil if she were given +the chance of forswearing God, or it may be that she was so occupied in +her own dark business that she had no care of the bairn. Meanwhile the +lass grew up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I have heard +Doctor Chrystal say that he never had a communicant more full of the +things of the Spirit. From the day when she first declared her wish to +come forward to the hour when she broke bread at the table, she walked +like one in a dream. The lads of the parish might cast admiring eyes on +her bright cheeks and yellow hair as she sat in her white gown in the +kirk, but well they knew she was not for them. To be the bride of Christ +was the thought that filled her heart; and when at the fencing of the +tables Doctor Chrystal preached from Matthew nine and fifteen, "Can the +children of the bride-chamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with +them?" it was remarked by sundry that Ailie's face was liker the +countenance of an angel than of a mortal lass. + +It is with the day of her first communion that this narrative of mine +begins. As she walked home after the morning table she communed in +secret and her heart sank within her. She had mind of God's mercies in +the past, how He had kept her feet from the snares of evil-doers which +had been spread around her youth. She had been told unholy charms like +the seven south streams and the nine rowan berries, and it was noted +when she went first to the catechising that she prayed "Our Father which +wert in heaven," the prayer which the ill wife Alison had taught her, +meaning by it Lucifer who had been in heaven and had been cast out +therefrom. But when she had come to years of discretion she had freely +chosen the better part, and evil had ever been repelled from her soul +like Gled water from the stones of Gled brig. Now she was in a rapture +of holy content. The drucken bell--for the ungodly fashion lingered in +Caulds--was ringing in her ears as she left the village, but to her it +was but a kirk-bell and a goodly sound. As she went through the woods +where the primroses and the whitethorn were blossoming, the place +seemed as the land of Elam, wherein there were twelve wells and +threescore and ten palm-trees. And then, as it might be, another thought +came into her head, for it is ordained that frail mortality cannot long +continue in holy joy. In the kirk she had been only the bride of Christ; +but as she came through the wood, with the birds lilting and the winds +of the world blowing, she had mind of another lover. For this lass, +though so cold to men, had not escaped the common fate. It seemed that +the young Heriotside, riding by one day, stopped to speir something or +other, and got a glisk of Ailie's face, which caught his fancy. He +passed the road again many times, and then he would meet her in the +gloaming or of a morning in the field as she went to fetch the kye. +"Blue are the hills that are far away" is an owercome in the +countryside, and while at first on his side it may have been but a young +man's fancy, to her he was like the god Apollo descending from the +skies. He was good to look on, brawly dressed, and with a tongue in his +head that would have wiled the bird from the tree. Moreover, he was of +gentle kin, and she was a poor lass biding in a cot-house with an +ill-reputed mother. It seems that in time the young man, who had begun +the affair with no good intentions, fell honestly in love, while she +went singing about the doors as innocent as a bairn, thinking of him +when her thoughts were not on higher things. So it came about that long +ere Ailie reached home it was on young Heriotside that her mind dwelt, +and it was the love of him that made her eyes glow and her cheeks +redden. + +Now it chanced that at that very hour her master had been with Alison, +and the pair of them were preparing a deadly pit. Let no man say that +the devil is not a cruel tyrant. He may give his folk some scrapings of +unhallowed pleasure; but he will exact tithes, yea of anise and cummin, +in return, and there is aye the reckoning to pay at the hinder end. It +seems that now he was driving Alison hard. She had been remiss of late, +fewer souls sent to hell, less zeal in quenching the Spirit, and above +all the crowning offence that her bairn had communicated in Christ's +kirk. She had waited overlong, and now it was like that Ailie would +escape her toils. I have no skill of fancy to tell of that dark +collogue, but the upshot was that Alison swore by her lost soul and the +pride of sin to bring the lass into thrall to her master. The fiend had +bare departed when Ailie came over the threshold to find the auld +carline glunching by the fire. + +It was plain she was in the worst of tempers. She flyted on the lass +till the poor thing's cheek paled. "There you gang," she cried, "troking +wi' thae wearifu' Pharisees o' Caulds, whae daurna darken your mither's +door. A bonnie dutiful child, quotha! Wumman, ha ye nae pride?--no even +the mense o' a tinkler-lass?" And then she changed her voice, and would +be as soft as honey. "My puir wee Ailie! was I thrawn till ye? Never +mind, my bonnie. You and me are a' that's left, and we maunna be ill to +ither." And then the two had their dinner, and all the while the auld +wife was crooning over the lass. "We maun 'gree weel," she says, "for +we're like to be our lee-lane for the rest o' our days. They tell me +Heriotside is seeking Joan o' the Croft, and they're sune to be cried in +Gledsmuir kirk." + +It was the first the lass had heard of it, and you may fancy she was +struck dumb. And so with one thing and other the auld witch raised the +fiends of jealousy in that innocent heart. She would cry out that +Heriotside was an ill-doing wastrel, and had no business to come and +flatter honest lasses. And then she would speak of his gentle birth and +his leddy mother, and say it was indeed presumption to hope that so +great a gentleman could mean all that he said. Before long Ailie was +silent and white, while her mother rhymed on about men and their ways. +And then she could thole it no longer, but must go out and walk by the +burn to cool her hot brow and calm her thoughts, while the witch indoors +laughed to herself at her devices. + +For days Ailie had an absent eye and a sad face, and it so fell out that +in all that time young Heriotside, who had scarce missed a day, was laid +up with a broken arm and never came near her. So in a week's time she +was beginning to hearken to her mother when she spoke of incantations +and charms for restoring love. She kenned it was sin; but though not +seven days syne she had sat at the Lord's table, so strong is love in a +young heart that she was on the very brink of it. But the grace of God +was stronger than her weak will. She would have none of her mother's +runes and philters, though her soul cried out for them. Always when she +was most disposed to listen some merciful power stayed her consent. +Alison grew thrawner as the hours passed. She kenned of Heriotside's +broken arm, and she feared that any day he might recover and put her +stratagems to shame. And then it seems that she collogued with her +master and heard word of a subtler device. For it was approaching that +uncanny time of year, the festival of Beltane, when the auld pagans were +wont to sacrifice to their god Baal. In this season warlocks and +carlines have a special dispensation to do evil, and Alison waited on +its coming with graceless joy. As it happened, the tides in the Sker Bay +ebbed at this time between the hours of twelve and one, and, as I have +said, this was the hour above all others when the powers of darkness +were most potent. Would the lass but consent to go abroad in the +unhallowed place at this awful season and hour of the night, she was as +firmly handfasted to the devil as if she had signed a bond with her own +blood. For there, it seemed, the forces of good fled far away, the world +for one hour was given over to its ancient prince, and the man or woman +who willingly sought the spot was his bond-servant for ever. There are +deadly sins from which God's people may recover. A man may even +communicate unworthily, and yet, so be it he sin not against the Holy +Ghost, he may find forgiveness. But it seems that for this Beltane sin +there could be no pardon, and I can testify from my own knowledge that +they who once committed it became lost souls from that day. James +Deuchar, once a promising professor, fell thus out of sinful bravery and +died blaspheming; and of Kate Mallison, who went the same road, no man +can tell. Here, indeed, was the witch-wife's chance, and she was the +more keen, for her master had warned her that this was her last chance. +Either Ailie's soul would be his, or her auld wrinkled body and black +heart would be flung from this pleasant world to their apportioned +place. + +Some days later it happened that young Heriotside was stepping home over +the Lang Muir about ten at night--it being his first jaunt from home +since his arm had mended. He had been to the supper of the Forest Club +at the Cross Keys in Gledsmuir, a clamjamfry of wild young blades who +passed the wine and played at cartes once a-fortnight. It seems he had +drunk well, so that the world ran round about and he was in the best of +tempers. The moon came down and bowed to him, and he took off his hat to +it. For every step he travelled miles, so that in a little he was beyond +Scotland altogether and pacing the Arabian desert. He thought he was the +Pope of Rome, so he held out his foot to be kissed, and rolled twenty +yards to the bottom of a small brae. Syne he was the King of France, +and fought hard with a whinbush till he had banged it to pieces. After +that nothing would content him but he must be a bogle, for he found his +head dunting on the stars and his legs were knocking the hills together. +He thought of the mischief he was doing to the auld earth, and sat down +and cried at his wickedness. Then he went on, and maybe the steep road +to the Moss Rig helped him, for he began to get soberer and ken his +whereabouts. + +On a sudden he was aware of a man linking along at his side. He cried "A +fine night," and the man replied. Syne, being merry from his cups, he +tried to slap him on the back. The next he kenned he was rolling on the +grass, for his hand had gone clean through the body and found nothing +but air. + +His head was so thick with wine that he found nothing droll in this. +"Faith, friend," he says, "that was a nasty fall for a fellow that has +supped weel. Where might your road be gaun to?" + +"To the World's End," said the man; "but I stop at the Skerburnfoot." + +"Bide the night at Heriotside," says he. "It's a thought out of your +way, but it's a comfortable bit." + +"There's mair comfort at the Skerburnfoot," said the dark man. + +Now the mention of the Skerburnfoot brought back to him only the thought +of Ailie and not of the witch-wife, her mother. So he jaloused no ill, +for at the best he was slow in the uptake. + +The two of them went on together for a while, Heriotside's fool head +filled with the thought of the lass. Then the dark man broke silence. +"Ye're thinkin' o' the maid Ailie Sempill," says he. + +"How ken ye that?" asked Heriotside. + +"It is my business to read the herts o' men," said the other. + +"And who may ye be?" said Heriotside, growing eerie. + +"Just an auld packman," said he--"nae name ye wad ken, but kin to mony +gentle houses." + +"And what about Ailie, you that ken sae muckle?" asked the young man. + +"Naething," was the answer--"naething that concerns you, for ye'll never +get the lass." + +"By God, and I will!" says Heriotside, for he was a profane swearer. + +"That's the wrong name to seek her in, any way," said the man. + +At this the young laird struck a great blow at him with his stick, but +found nothing to resist him but the hill-wind. + +When they had gone on a bit the dark man spoke again. "The lassie is +thirled to holy things," says he. "She has nae care for flesh and blood, +only for devout contemplation." + +"She loves me," says Heriotside. + +"Not you," says the other, "but a shadow in your stead." + +At this the young man's heart began to tremble, for it seemed that there +was truth in what his companion said, and he was ower drunk to think +gravely. + +"I kenna whatna man ye are," he says, "but ye have the skill of lassies' +hearts. Tell me truly, is there no way to win her to common love?" + +"One way there is," said the man, "and for our friendship's sake I will +tell it you. If ye can ever tryst wi' her on Beltane's Eve on the Sker +sands, at the green link o' the burn where the sands begin, on the ebb +o' the tide when the midnight is bye but afore cockcrow, she'll be +yours, body and soul, for this world and for ever." + +And then it appeared to the young man that he was walking his lone up +the grass walk of Heriotside with the house close by him. He thought no +more of the stranger he had met, but the word stuck in his heart. + +It seems that about this very time Alison was telling the same tale to +poor Ailie. She cast up to her every idle gossip she could think of. +"It's Joan o' the Croft," was aye her owercome, and she would threep +that they were to be cried in kirk on the first Sabbath of May. And then +she would rhyme on about the black cruelty of it, and cry down curses on +the lover, so that her daughter's heart grew cauld with fear. It is +terrible to think of the power of the world even in a redeemed soul. +Here was a maid who had drunk of the well of grace and tasted of God's +mercies, and yet there were moments when she was ready to renounce her +hope. At those awful seasons God seemed far off and the world very nigh, +and to sell her soul for love looked a fair bargain. At other times she +would resist the devil and comfort herself with prayer; but aye when she +woke there was the sore heart, and when she went to sleep there were the +weary eyes. There was no comfort in the goodliness of spring or the +bright sunshine weather, and she who had been wont to go about the +doors lightfoot and blithe was now as dowie as a widow woman. + +And then one afternoon in the hinder end of April came young Heriotside +riding to the Skerburnfoot. His arm was healed, he had got him a fine +new suit of green, and his horse was a mettle beast that well set off +his figure. Ailie was standing by the doorstep as he came down the road, +and her heart stood still with joy. But a second thought gave her +anguish. This man, so gallant and braw, would never be for her; +doubtless the fine suit and the capering horse were for Joan o' the +Croft's pleasure. And he in turn, when he remarked her wan cheek and +dowie eyes, had mind of what the dark man said on the muir, and saw in +her a maid sworn to no mortal love. Yet the passion for her had grown +fiercer than ever, and he swore to himself that he would win her back +from her phantasies. She, one may believe, was ready enough to listen. +As she walked with him by the Sker water his words were like music to +her ears, and Alison within-doors laughed to herself and saw her devices +prosper. + +He spoke to her of love and his own heart, and the girl hearkened +gladly. Syne he rebuked her coldness and cast scorn upon her piety, and +so far was she beguiled that she had no answer. Then from one thing and +another he spoke of some true token of their love. He said he was +jealous, and craved something to ease his care. "It's but a small thing +I ask," says he; "but it will make me a happy man, and nothing ever +shall come atween us. Tryst wi' me for Beltane's Eve on the Sker sands, +at the green link o' the burn where the sands begin, on the ebb o' the +tide when midnight is bye but afore cockcrow. For," said he, "that was +our forebears' tryst for true lovers, and wherefore no for you and me?" + +The lassie had grace given her to refuse, but with a woful heart, and +Heriotside rode off in black discontent, leaving poor Ailie to sigh her +lone. He came back the next day and the next, but aye he got the same +answer. A season of great doubt fell upon her soul. She had no clearness +in her hope, nor any sense of God's promises. The Scriptures were an +idle tale to her, prayer brought her no refreshment, and she was +convicted in her conscience of the unpardonable sin. Had she been less +full of pride she would have taken her troubles to good Doctor Chrystal +and got comfort; but her grief made her silent and timorous, and she +found no help anywhere. Her mother was ever at her side, seeking with +coaxings and evil advice to drive her to the irrevocable step. And all +the while there was her love for the man riving in her bosom and giving +her no ease by night or day. She believed she had driven him away and +repented her denial. Only her pride held her back from going to +Heriotside and seeking him herself. She watched the road hourly for a +sight of his face, and when the darkness came she would sit in a corner +brooding over her sorrows. + +At last he came, speiring the old question. He sought the same tryst, +but now he had a further tale. It seemed he was eager to get her away +from the Skerburnside and auld Alison. His aunt, the Lady Balcrynie, +would receive her gladly at his request till the day of their marriage. +Let her but tryst with him at the hour and place he named, and he would +carry her straight to Balcrynie, where she would be safe and happy. He +named that hour, he said, to escape men's observation for the sake of +her own good name. He named that place, for it was near her dwelling, +and on the road between Balcrynie and Heriotside, which fords the Sker +Burn. The temptation was more than mortal heart could resist. She gave +him the promise he sought, stifling the voice of conscience; and as she +clung to his neck it seemed to her that heaven was a poor thing compared +with a man's love. + +Three days remained till Beltane's Eve, and throughout the time it was +noted that Heriotside behaved like one possessed. It may be that his +conscience pricked him, or that he had a glimpse of his sin and its +coming punishment. Certain it is that, if he had been daft before, he +now ran wild in his pranks, and an evil report of him was in every +mouth. He drank deep at the Cross Keys, and fought two battles with +young lads that had angered him. One he led off with a touch on the +shoulder, the other goes lame to this day from a wound he got in the +groin. There was word of the procurator-fiscal taking note of his +doings, and troth, if they had continued long he must have fled the +country. For a wager he rode his horse down the Dow Craig, wherefore the +name of the place is the Horseman's Craig to this day. He laid a hundred +guineas with the laird of Slipperfield that he would drive four horses +through the Slipperfield loch, and in the prank he had his bit chariot +dung to pieces and a good mare killed. And all men observed that his +eyes were wild and his face grey and thin, and that his hand would +twitch as he held the glass, like one with the palsy. + +The eve of Beltane was lown and hot in the low country, with fire +hanging in the clouds and thunder grumbling about the heavens. It seems +that up in the hills it had been an awesome deluge of rain, but on the +coast it was still dry and lowering. It is a long road from Heriotside +to the Skerburnfoot. First you go down the Heriot Water, and syne over +the Lang Muir to the edge of Mucklewhan. When you pass the steadings of +Mirehope and Cockmalane you turn to the right and ford the Mire Burn. +That brings you on to the turnpike road, which you will ride till it +bends inland, while you keep on straight over the Whinny Knowes to the +Sker Bay. There, if you are in luck, you will find the tide out and the +place fordable dryshod for a man on a horse. But if the tide runs, you +will do well to sit down on the sands and content yourself till it turn, +or it will be the solans and scarts of the Solloway that will be seeing +the next of you. On this Beltane's Eve the young man, after supping with +some wild young blades, bade his horse be saddled about ten o'clock. The +company were eager to ken his errand, but he waved them back. "Bide +here," he says, "and birl the wine till I return. This is a ploy of my +own on which no man follows me." And there was that in his face as he +spoke which chilled the wildest, and left them well content to keep to +the good claret and the soft seat and let the daft laird go his own +ways. + +Well and on, he rode down the bridle-path in the wood, along the top of +the Heriot glen, and as he rode he was aware of a great noise beneath +him. It was not wind, for there was none, and it was not the sound of +thunder, and aye as he speired at himself what it was it grew the louder +till he came to a break in the trees. And then he saw the cause, for +Heriot was coming down in a furious flood, sixty yards wide, tearing at +the roots of the aiks, and flinging red waves against the drystone +dykes. It was a sight and sound to solemnise a man's mind, deep calling +unto deep, the great waters of the hills running to meet with the great +waters of the sea. But Heriotside recked nothing of it, for his heart +had but one thought and the eye of his fancy one figure. Never had he +been so filled with love of the lass, and yet it was not happiness but a +deadly secret fear. + +As he came to the Lang Muir it was geyan dark, though there was a moon +somewhere behind the clouds. It was little he could see of the road, +and ere long he had tried many moss-pools and sloughs, as his braw new +coat bare witness. Aye in front of him was the great hill of Mucklewhan, +where the road turned down by the Mire. The noise of the Heriot had not +long fallen behind him ere another began, the same eerie sound of burns +crying to ither in the darkness. It seemed that the whole earth was +overrun with waters. Every little runnel in the bog was astir, and yet +the land around him was as dry as flax, and no drop of rain had fallen. +As he rode on the din grew louder, and as he came over the top of +Mirehope he kenned by the mighty rushing noise that something uncommon +was happening with the Mire Burn. The light from Mirehope sheiling +twinkled on his left, and had the man not been dozened with his fancies +he might have observed that the steading was deserted and men were +crying below in the fields. But he rode on, thinking of but one thing, +till he came to the cot-house of Cockmalane, which is nigh the fords of +the Mire. + +John Dodds, the herd who bode in the place, was standing at the door, +and he looked to see who was on the road so late. + +"Stop," says he, "stop, Laird Heriotside. I kenna what your errand is, +but it is to no holy purpose that ye're out on Beltane Eve. D'ye no hear +the warning o' the waters?" + +And then in the still night came the sound of Mire like the clash of +armies. + +"I must win over the ford," says the laird quietly, thinking of another +thing. + +"Ford!" cried John in scorn. "There'll be nae ford for you the nicht +unless it be the ford o' the river Jordan. The burns are up, and bigger +than man ever saw them. It'll be a Beltane's Eve that a' folk will +remember. They tell me that Gled valley is like a loch, and that there's +an awesome folk drooned in the hills. Gin ye were ower the Mire, what +about crossin' the Caulds and the Sker?" says he, for he jaloused he was +going to Gledsmuir. + +And then it seemed that that word brought the laird to his senses. He +looked the airt the rain was coming from, and he saw it was the airt the +Sker flowed. In a second, he has told me, the works of the devil were +revealed to him. He saw himself a tool in Satan's hands, he saw his +tryst a device for the destruction of the body, as it was assuredly +meant for the destruction of the soul, and there came on his mind the +picture of an innocent lass borne down by the waters with no place for +repentance. His heart grew cold in his breast. He had but one thought, a +sinful and reckless one--to get to her side, that the two might go +together to their account. He heard the roar of the Mire as in a dream, +and when John Dodds laid hands on his bridle he felled him to the earth. +And the next seen of it was the laird riding the floods like a man +possessed. + +The horse was the grey stallion he aye rode, the very beast he had +ridden for many a wager with the wild lads of the Cross Keys. No man but +himself durst back it, and it had lamed many a hostler lad and broke two +necks in its day. But it seemed it had the mettle for any flood, and +took the Mire with little spurring. The herds on the hillside looked to +see man and steed swept into eternity; but though the red waves were +breaking about his shoulders and he was swept far down, he aye held on +for the shore. The next thing the watchers saw was the laird struggling +up the far bank, and casting his coat from him, so that he rode in his +sark. And then he set off like a wildfire across the muir towards the +turnpike road. Two men saw him on the road and have recorded their +experience. One was a gangrel, by name M'Nab, who was travelling from +Gledsmuir to Allerkirk with a heavy pack on his back and a bowed head. +He heard a sound like wind afore him, and, looking up, saw coming down +the road a grey horse stretched out to a wild gallop and a man on its +back with a face like a soul in torment. He kenned not whether it was +devil or mortal, but flung himself on the roadside, and lay like a corp +for an hour or more till the rain aroused him. The other was one Sim +Doolittle, the fish-hawker from Allerfoot, jogging home in his fish-cart +from Gledsmuir fair. He had drunk more than was fit for him, and he was +singing some light song, when he saw approaching, as he said, the pale +horse mentioned in the Revelations, with Death seated as the rider. +Thoughts of his sins came on him like a thunder-clap, fear loosened his +knees, he leaped from the cart to the road, and from the road to the +back of a dyke. Thence he flew to the hills, and was found the next +morning far up among the Mire Craigs, while his horse and cart were +gotten on the Aller sands, the horse lamed and the cart without the +wheels. + +At the tollhouse the road turns inland to Gledsmuir, and he who goes to +Sker Bay must leave it and cross the wild land called the Whinny +Knowes, a place rough with bracken and foxes' holes and old stone +cairns. The tollman, John Gilzean, was opening his window to get a +breath of air in the lown night when he heard or saw the approaching +horse. He kenned the beast for Heriotside's, and, being a friend of the +laird's, he ran down in all haste to open the yett, wondering to himself +about the laird's errand on this night. A voice came down the road to +him bidding him hurry; but John's old fingers were slow with the keys, +and so it happened that the horse had to stop, and John had time to look +up at the gash and woful face. + +"Where away the nicht sae late, laird?" says John. + +"I go to save a soul from hell," was the answer. + +And then it seems that through the open door there came the chapping of +a clock. + +"Whatna hour is that?" asks Heriotside. + +"Midnicht," says John, trembling, for he did not like the look of +things. + +There was no answer but a groan, and horse and man went racing down the +dark hollows of the Whinny Knowes. + +How he escaped a broken neck in that dreadful place no human being will +ever tell. The sweat, he has told me, stood in cold drops upon his +forehead; he scarcely was aware of the saddle in which he sat; and his +eyes were stelled in his head, so that he saw nothing but the sky ayont +him. The night was growing colder, and there was a small sharp wind +stirring from the east. But, hot or cold, it was all one to him, who was +already cold as death. He heard not the sound of the sea nor the +peesweeps startled by his horse, for the sound that ran in his ears was +the roaring Sker Water and a girl's cry. The thought kept goading him, +and he spurred the grey till the creature was madder than himself. It +leaped the hole which they call the Devil's Mull as I would step over a +thistle, and the next he kenned he was on the edge of the Sker Bay. + +It lay before him white and ghastly, with mist blowing in wafts across +it and a slow swaying of the tides. It was the better part of a mile +wide, but save for some fathoms in the middle where the Sker current +ran, it was no deeper even at flood than a horse's fetlocks. It looks +eerie at bright midday when the sun is shining and whaups are crying +among the seaweeds; but think what it was on that awesome night with the +powers of darkness brooding over it like a cloud. The rider's heart +quailed for a moment in natural fear. He stepped his beast a few feet +in, still staring afore him like a daft man. And then something in the +sound or the feel of the waters made him look down, and he perceived +that the ebb had begun and the tide was flowing out to sea. + +He kenned that all was lost, and the knowledge drove him to stark +despair. His sins came in his face like birds of night, and his heart +shrank like a pea. He knew himself for a lost soul, and all that he +loved in the world was out in the tides. There, at any rate, he could go +too, and give back that gift of life he had so blackly misused. He cried +small and soft like a bairn, and drove the grey out into the waters. And +aye as he spurred it the foam should have been flying as high as his +head; but in that uncanny hour there was no foam, only the waves running +sleek like oil. It was not long ere he had come to the Sker channel, +where the red moss-waters were roaring to the sea, an ill place to ford +in midsummer heat, and certain death, as folks reputed it, at the +smallest spate. The grey was swimming, but it seemed the Lord had other +purposes for him than death, for neither man nor horse could drown. He +tried to leave the saddle, but he could not; he flung the bridle from +him, but the grey held on, as if some strong hand were guiding. He cried +out upon the devil to help his own, he renounced his Maker and his God; +but whatever his punishment, he was not to be drowned. And then he was +silent, for something was coming down the tide. + +It came down as quiet as a sleeping bairn, straight for him as he sat +with his horse breasting the waters, and as it came the moon crept out +of a cloud and he saw a glint of yellow hair. And then his madness died +away and he was himself again, a weary and stricken man. He hung down +over the tides and caught the body in his arms, and then let the grey +make for the shallows. He cared no more for the devil and all his +myrmidons, for he kenned brawly he was damned. It seemed to him that his +soul had gone from him and he was as toom as a hazel-shell. His breath +rattled in his throat, the tears were dried up in his head, his body had +lost its strength, and yet he clung to the drowned maid as to a hope of +salvation. And then he noted something at which he marvelled dumbly. Her +hair was drookit back from her clay-cold brow, her eyes were shut, but +in her face there was the peace of a child. It seemed even that her lips +were smiling. Here, certes, was no lost soul, but one who had gone +joyfully to meet her Lord. It may be in that dark hour at the burn-foot, +before the spate caught her, she had been given grace to resist her +adversary and flung herself upon God's mercy. + +And it would seem that it had been granted, for when he came to the +Skerburnfoot there in the corner sat the weird-wife Alison dead as a +stone and shrivelled like a heatherbirn. + +For days Heriotside wandered the country or sat in his own house with +vacant eye and trembling hands. Conviction of sin held him like a vice: +he saw the lassie's death laid at his door, her face haunted him by day +and night, and the word of the Lord dirled in his ears telling of wrath +and punishment. The greatness of his anguish wore him to a shadow, and +at last he was stretched on his bed and like to perish. In his extremity +worthy Doctor Chrystal went to him unasked and strove to comfort him. +Long, long the good man wrestled, but it seemed as if his ministrations +were to be of no avail. The fever left his body, and he rose to stotter +about the doors; but he was still in his torments, and the mercy-seat +was far from him. At last in the back-end of the year came Mungo +Muirhead to Caulds to the autumn communion, and nothing would serve him +but he must try his hand at this storm-tossed soul. He spoke with power +and unction, and a blessing came with his words, the black cloud lifted +and showed a glimpse of grace, and in a little the man had some +assurance of salvation. He became a pillar of Christ's Kirk, prompt to +check abominations, notably the sin of witchcraft, foremost in good +works; but with it all a humble man, who walked contritely till his +death. When I came first to Caulds I sought to prevail upon him to +accept the eldership, but he aye put me by, and when I heard his tale I +saw that he had done wisely. I mind him well as he sat in his chair or +daundered through Caulds, a kind word for every one and sage counsel in +time of distress, but withal a severe man to himself and a crucifier of +the body. It seems that this severity weakened his frame, for three +years syne come Martinmas he was taken ill with a fever, and after a +week's sickness he went to his account, where I trust he is accepted. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[4] From the unpublished remains of the Reverend John Dennistoun, +sometime minister of the Gospel in the parish of Caulds, and author of +'Satan's Artifices against the Elect.' + + + + +V + +THE RIME OF TRUE THOMAS + + + _The Tale of the Respectable Whaup and the Great Godly Man_ + + +This is a story that I heard from the King of the Numidians, who with +his tattered retinue encamps behind the peat-ricks. If you ask me where +and when it happened I fear that I am scarce ready with an answer. But I +will vouch my honour for its truth; and if any one seek further proof, +let him go east the town and west the town and over the fields of +Nomansland to the Long Muir, and if he find not the King there among the +peat-ricks, and get not a courteous answer to his question, then times +have changed in that part of the country, and he must continue the quest +to his Majesty's castle in Spain. + +Once upon a time, says the tale, there was a Great Godly Man, a shepherd +to trade, who lived in a cottage among heather. If you looked east in +the morning, you saw miles of moor running wide to the flames of +sunrise, and if you turned your eyes west in the evening, you saw a +great confusion of dim peaks with the dying eye of the sun set in a +crevice. If you looked north, too, in the afternoon, when the life of +the day is near its end and the world grows wise, you might have seen a +country of low hills and haughlands with many waters running sweet among +meadows. But if you looked south in the dusty forenoon or at hot midday, +you saw the far-off glimmer of a white road, the roofs of the ugly +little clachan of Kilmaclavers, and the rigging of the fine new kirk of +Threepdaidle. + +It was a Sabbath afternoon in the hot weather, and the man had been to +kirk all the morning. He had heard a grand sermon from the minister (or +it may have been the priest, for I am not sure of the date and the King +told the story quickly)--a fine discourse with fifteen heads and three +parentheses. He held all the parentheses and fourteen of the heads in +his memory, but he had forgotten the fifteenth; so for the purpose of +recollecting it, and also for the sake of a walk, he went forth in the +afternoon into the open heather. + +The whaups were crying everywhere, making the air hum like the twanging +of a bow. _Poo-eelie, Poo-eelie_, they cried, _Kirlew, Kirlew_, _Whaup, +Wha- -up_. Sometimes they came low, all but brushing him, till they +drove settled thoughts from his head. Often had he been on the moors, +but never had he seen such a stramash among the feathered clan. The +wailing iteration vexed him, and he _shoo'd_ the birds away with his +arms. But they seemed to mock him and whistle in his very face, and at +the flaff of their wings his heart grew sore. He waved his great stick; +he picked up bits of loose moor-rock and flung them wildly; but the +godless crew paid never a grain of heed. The morning's sermon was still +in his head, and the grave words of the minister still rattled in his +ear, but he could get no comfort for this intolerable piping. At last +his patience failed him and he swore unchristian words. "Deil rax the +birds' thrapples," he cried. + +At this all the noise was hushed and in a twinkling the moor was empty. +Only one bird was left, standing on tall legs before him with its head +bowed upon its breast, and its beak touching the heather. + +Then the man repented his words and stared at the thing in the moss. +"What bird are ye?" he asked thrawnly. + +"I am a Respectable Whaup," said the bird, "and I kenna why ye have +broken in on our family gathering. Once in a hundred years we foregather +for decent conversation, and here we are interrupted by a muckle, +sweerin' man." + +Now the shepherd was a fellow of great sagacity, yet he never thought it +a queer thing that he should be having talk in the mid-moss with a bird. + +"What for were ye making siccan a din, then?" he asked. "D'ye no ken ye +were disturbing the afternoon of the holy Sabbath?" + +The bird lifted its eyes and regarded him solemnly. "The Sabbath is a +day of rest and gladness," it said, "and is it no reasonable that we +should enjoy the like?" + +The shepherd shook his head, for the presumption staggered him. "Ye +little ken what ye speak of," he said. "The Sabbath is for them that +have the chance of salvation, and it has been decreed that salvation is +for Adam's race and no for the beasts that perish." + +The whaup gave a whistle of scorn. "I have heard all that long ago. In +my great-grandmother's time, which 'ill be a thousand years and mair +syne, there came a people from the south with bright brass things on +their heads and breasts and terrible swords at their thighs. And with +them were some lang-gowned men who kenned the stars and would come out +o' nights to talk to the deer and the corbies in their ain tongue. And +one, I mind, foregathered with my great-grandmother and told her that +the souls o' men flitted in the end to braw meadows where the gods bide +or gaed down to the black pit which they ca' Hell. But the souls o' +birds, he said, die wi' their bodies, and that's the end o' them. +Likewise in my mother's time, when there was a great abbey down yonder +by the Threepdaidle Burn which they called the House of Kilmaclavers, +the auld monks would walk out in the evening to pick herbs for their +distillings, and some were wise and kenned the ways of bird and beast. +They would crack often o'nights with my ain family, and tell them that +Christ had saved the souls o' men, but that birds and beasts were +perishable as the dew o' heaven. And now ye have a black-gowned man in +Threepdaidle who threeps on the same owercome. Ye may a' ken something +o' your ain kitchen-midden, but certes! ye ken little o' the warld +beyond it." + +Now this angered the man, and he rebuked the bird. "These are great +mysteries," he said, "which are no to be mentioned in the ears of an +unsanctified creature. What can a thing like you wi' a lang neb and twae +legs like stilts ken about the next warld?" + +"Weel, weel," said the whaup, "we'll let the matter be. Everything to +its ain trade, and I will not dispute with ye on metapheesics. But if ye +ken something about the next warld, ye ken terrible little about this." + +Now this angered the man still more, for he was a shepherd reputed to +have great skill in sheep and esteemed the nicest judge of hogg and +wether in all the countryside. "What ken ye about that?" he asked. "Ye +may gang east to Yetholm and west to Kells, and no find a better herd." + +"If sheep were a'," said the bird, "ye micht be right; but what o' the +wide warld and the folk in it? Ye are Simon Etterick o' the Lowe Moss. +Do ye ken aucht o' your forebears?" + +"My father was a God-fearing man at the Kennelhead, and my grandfather +and great-grandfather afore him. One o' our name, folk say, was shot at +a dykeback by the Black Westeraw." + +"If that's a'," said the bird, "ye ken little. Have ye never heard o' +the little man, the fourth back from yoursel', who killed the Miller o' +Bewcastle at the Lammas Fair? That was in my ain time, and from my +mother I have heard o' the Covenanter who got a bullet in his wame +hunkering behind the divot-dyke and praying to his Maker. There were +others o' your name rode in the Hermitage forays and burned Naworth and +Warkworth and Castle Gay. I have heard o' an Etterick, Sim o' the +Redcleuch, who cut the throat o' Jock Johnstone in his ain house by the +Annan side. And my grandmother had tales o' auld Ettericks who rade wi' +Douglas and the Bruce and the ancient Kings o' Scots; and she used to +tell o' others in her mother's time, terrible shock-headed men, hunting +the deer and rinnin' on the high moors, and bidin' in the broken stane +biggings on the hill-taps." + +The shepherd stared, and he, too, saw the picture. He smelled the air of +battle and lust and foray, and forgot the Sabbath. + +"And you yoursel'," said the bird, "are sair fallen off from the auld +stock. Now ye sit and spell in books, and talk about what ye little +understand, when your fathers were roaming the warld. But little cause +have I to speak, for I too am a downcome. My bill is two inches shorter +than my mother's, and my grandmother was taller on her feet. The warld +is getting weaklier things to dwell in it, even since I mind mysel'." + +"Ye have the gift o' speech, bird," said the man, "and I would hear +mair." You will perceive that he had no mind of the Sabbath day or the +fifteenth head of the forenoon's discourse. + +"What things have I to tell ye when ye dinna ken the very horn-book o' +knowledge? Besides, I am no clatter-vengeance to tell stories in the +middle o' the muir, where there are ears open high and low. There's +others than me wi' mair experience and a better skill at the telling. +Our clan was well acquaint wi' the reivers and lifters o' the muirs, and +could crack fine o' wars and the taking of cattle. But the blue hawk +that lives in the corrie o' the Dreichil can speak o' kelpies and the +dwarfs that bide in the hill. The heron, the lang solemn fellow, kens o' +the greenwood fairies and the wood elfins, and the wild geese that +squatter on the tap o' the Muneraw will croak to ye of the merrymaidens +and the girls o' the pool. The wren--him that hops in the grass below +the birks--has the story of the _Lost Ladies of the Land_, which is ower +auld and sad for any but the wisest to hear; and there is a wee bird +bides in the heather--hill-lintie men call him--who sings the _Lay of +the West Wind_, and the _Glee of the Rowan Berries_. But what am I +talking of? What are these things to you, if ye have not first heard +True Thomas's Rime, which is the beginning and end o' all things?" + +"I have heard no rime," said the man, "save the sacred psalms o' God's +Kirk." + +"Bonny rimes," said the bird. "Once I flew by the hinder end o' the Kirk +and I keekit in. A wheen auld wives wi' mutches and a wheen solemn men +wi' hoasts! Be sure the Rime is no like yon." + +"Can ye sing it, bird?" said the man, "for I am keen to hear it." + +"Me sing," cried the bird, "me that has a voice like a craw! Na, na, I +canna sing it, but maybe I can take ye where ye may hear it. When I was +young an auld bogblitter did the same to me, and sae began my education. +But are ye willing and brawly willing?--for if ye get but a sough of it +ye will never mair have an ear for other music." + +"I am willing and brawly willing," said the man. + +"Then meet me at the Gled's Cleuch Head at the sun's setting," said the +bird, and it flew away. + + +Now it seemed to the man that in a twinkling it was sunset, and he found +himself at the Gled's Cleuch Head with the bird flapping in the heather +before him. The place was a long rift in the hill, made green with +juniper and hazel, where it was said True Thomas came to drink the +water. + +"Turn ye to the west," said the whaup, "and let the sun fall on your +face; then turn ye five times round about and say after me the Rune of +the Heather and the Dew." And before he knew, the man did as he was +told, and found himself speaking strange words, while his head hummed +and danced as if in a fever. + +"Now lay ye down and put your ear to the earth," said the bird; and the +man did so. Instantly a cloud came over his brain, and he did not feel +the ground on which he lay or the keen hill-air which blew about him. He +felt himself falling deep into an abysm of space, then suddenly caught +up and set among the stars of heaven. Then slowly from the stillness +there welled forth music, drop by drop like the clear falling of rain, +and the man shuddered, for he knew that he heard the beginning of the +Rime. + +High rose the air, and trembled among the tallest pines and the summits +of great hills. And in it were the sting of rain and the blatter of +hail, the soft crush of snow and the rattle of thunder among crags. Then +it quieted to the low sultry croon which told of blazing midday when the +streams are parched and the bent crackles like dry tinder. Anon it was +evening, and the melody dwelled among the high soft notes which mean the +coming of dark and the green light of sunset. Then the whole changed to +a great pæan which rang like an organ through the earth. There were +trumpet notes in it and flute notes and the plaint of pipes. "Come +forth," it cried; "the sky is wide and it is a far cry to the world's +end. The fire crackles fine o' nights below the firs, and the smell of +roasting meat and wood smoke is dear to the heart of man. Fine, too, is +the sting of salt and the risp of the north wind in the sheets. Come +forth, one and all, to the great lands oversea, and the strange tongues +and the fremit peoples. Learn before you die to follow the Piper's Son, +and though your old bones bleach among grey rocks, what matter, if you +have had your bellyful of life and come to your heart's desire?" And the +tune fell low and witching, bringing tears to the eyes and joy to the +heart; and the man knew (though no one told him) that this was the first +part of the Rime, the _Song of the Open Road_, the _Lilt of the +Adventurer_, which shall be now and ever and to the end of days. + +Then the melody changed to a fiercer and sadder note. He saw his +forefathers, gaunt men and terrible, run stark among woody hills. He +heard the talk of the bronze-clad invader, and the jar and clangour as +stone met steel. Then rose the last coronach of his own people, hiding +in wild glens, starving in corries, or going hopelessly to the death. He +heard the cry of Border foray, the shouts of the famished Scots as they +harried Cumberland, and he himself rode in the midst of them. Then the +tune fell more mournful and slow, and Flodden lay before him. He saw the +flower of the Scots gentry around their King, gashed to the breast-bone, +still fronting the lines of the south, though the paleness of death sat +on each forehead. "The flowers of the Forest are gone," cried the lilt, +and through the long years he heard the cry of the lost, the desperate, +fighting for kings over the water and princes in the heather. "Who +cares?" cried the air. "Man must die, and how can he die better than in +the stress of fight with his heart high and alien blood on his sword? +Heigh-ho! One against twenty, a child against a host, this is the +romance of life." And the man's heart swelled, for he knew (though no +one told him) that this was the _Song of Lost Battles_ which only the +great can sing before they die. + +But the tune was changing, and at the change the man shivered, for the +air ran up to the high notes and then down to the deeps with an eldrich +cry, like a hawk's scream at night, or a witch's song in the gloaming. +It told of those who seek and never find, the quest that knows no +fulfilment. "There is a road," it cried, "which leads to the Moon and +the Great Waters. No change-house cheers it, and it has no end; but it +is a find road, a braw road--who will follow it?" And the man knew +(though no one told him) that this was the _Ballad of Grey Weather_, +which makes him who hears it sick all the days of his life for something +which he cannot name. It is the song which the birds sing on the moor in +the autumn nights, and the old crow on the treetop hears and flaps his +wing. It is the lilt which men and women hear in the darkening of their +days, and sigh for the unforgettable; and lovesick girls get catches of +it and play pranks with their lovers. It is a song so old that Adam +heard it in the Garden before Eve came to comfort him, so young that +from it still flows the whole joy and sorrow of earth. + +Then it ceased, and all of a sudden the man was rubbing his eyes on the +hillside, and watching the falling dusk. "I have heard the Rime," he +said to himself, and he walked home in a daze. The whaups were crying, +but none came near him, though he looked hard for the bird that had +spoken with him. It may be that it was there and he did not know it, or +it may be that the whole thing was only a dream; but of this I cannot +say. + + +The next morning the man rose and went to the manse. + +"I am glad to see you, Simon," said the minister, "for it will soon be +the Communion Season, and it is your duty to go round with the tokens." + +"True," said the man, "but it was another thing I came to talk about," +and he told him the whole tale. + +"There are but two ways of it, Simon," said the minister. "Either ye are +the victim of witchcraft, or ye are a self-deluded man. If the former +(whilk I am loth to believe), then it behoves ye to watch and pray lest +ye enter into temptation. If the latter, then ye maun put a strict watch +over a vagrom fancy, and ye'll be quit o' siccan whigmaleeries." + +Now Simon was not listening, but staring out of the window. "There was +another thing I had it in my mind to say," said he. "I have come to lift +my lines, for I am thinking of leaving the place." + +"And where would ye go?" asked the minister, aghast. + +"I was thinking of going to Carlisle and trying my luck as a dealer, or +maybe pushing on with droves to the South." + +"But that's a cauld country where there are no faithfu' ministrations," +said the minister. + +"Maybe so, but I am not caring very muckle about ministrations," said +the man, and the other looked after him in horror. + +When he left the manse he went to a Wise Woman, who lived on the left +side of the kirk-yard above Threepdaidle burn-foot. She was very old, +and sat by the ingle day and night, waiting upon death. To her he told +the same tale. + +She listened gravely, nodding with her head. "Ach," she said, "I have +heard a like story before. And where will you be going?" + +"I am going south to Carlisle to try the dealing and droving," said the +man, "for I have some skill of sheep." + +"And will ye bide there?" she asked. + +"Maybe aye, and maybe no," he said. "I had half a mind to push on to the +big toun or even to the abroad. A man must try his fortune." + +"That's the way of men," said the old wife. "I, too, have heard the +Rime, and many women who now sit decently spinning in Kilmaclavers have +heard it. But a woman may hear it and lay it up in her soul and bide at +hame, while a man, if he get but a glisk of it in his fool's heart, must +needs up and awa' to the warld's end on some daft-like ploy. But gang +your ways and fare-ye-weel. My cousin Francie heard it, and he went +north wi' a white cockade in his bonnet and a sword at his side, singing +'Charlie's come hame.' And Tam Crichtoun o' the Bourhopehead got a sough +o' it one simmer's morning, and the last we heard o' Tam he was fechting +like a deil among the Frenchmen. Once I heard a tinkler play a sprig of +it on the pipes, and a' the lads were wud to follow him. Gang your +ways, for I am near the end o' mine." And the old wife shook with her +coughing. + +So the man put up his belongings in a pack on his back and went +whistling down the Great South Road. + + +Whether or not this tale have a moral it is not for me to say. The King +(who told it me) said that it had, and quoted a scrap of Latin, for he +had been at Oxford in his youth before he fell heir to his kingdom. One +may hear tunes from the Rime, said he, in the thick of a storm on the +scarp of a rough hill, in the soft June weather, or in the sunset +silence of a winter's night. But let none, he added, pray to have the +full music; for it will make him who hears it a footsore traveller in +the ways o' the world and a masterless man till death. + + + + +VI + +BASILISSA + + +I + +When Vernon was a very little boy he was the sleepiest of mortals, but +in the spring he had seasons of bad dreams, and breakfast became an idle +meal. Mrs Ganthony, greatly concerned, sent for Dr Moreton from Axby, +and homely remedies were prescribed. + +"It is the spring fever," said the old man. "It gives the gout to me and +nightmares to this baby; it brings lads and lasses together, and +scatters young men about the world. An antique complaint, Mrs Ganthony. +But it will right itself, never fear. _Ver non semper viret._" Chuckling +at his ancient joke, the doctor mounted his horse, leaving the nurse +only half comforted. "What fidgets me," she told the housekeeper, "is +the way his lordship holds his tongue. For usual he'll shout as lusty as +a whelp. But now I finds him in the morning with his eyes like moons +and his skin white and shiny, and never a cheep has he given the whole +blessed night, with me laying next door, and it open, and a light +sleeper at all times, Mrs Wace, ma'am." + +Every year the dreams came, generally--for his springs were spent at +Severns--in the big new night-nursery at the top of the west wing, which +his parents had built not long before their death. It had three windows +looking over the moorish flats which run up to the Lancashire fells, and +from one window, by craning your neck, you could catch a glimpse of the +sea. It was all hung, too, with a Chinese paper whereon pink and green +parrots squatted in wonderful blue trees, and there seemed generally to +be a wood fire burning. Vernon's recollections of his childish nightmare +are hazy. He always found himself in a room different from the nursery +and bigger, but with the same smell of wood smoke. People came and went, +such as his nurse, the butler, Simon the head-keeper, Uncle Appleby his +guardian, Cousin Jennifer, the old woman who sold oranges in Axby, and a +host of others. Nobody hindered them from going away, and they seemed to +be pleading with him to come too. There was danger in the place; +something was going to happen in that big room, and if by that time he +was not gone there would be mischief. But it was quite clear to him that +he could not go. He must stop there, with the wood smoke in his +nostrils, and await the advent of a terrible Something. But he was never +quite sure of the nature of the compulsion. He had a notion that if he +made a rush for the door at Uncle Appleby's heels he would be allowed to +escape, but that somehow he would be behaving badly. Anyhow, the place +put him into a sweat of fright, and Mrs Ganthony looked darkly at him in +the morning. + + +Vernon was nine before this odd spring dream began to take definite +shape--at least he thinks he must have been about that age. The +dream-stage was emptying. There was nobody in the room now but himself, +and he saw its details a little more clearly. It was not any apartment +in the modern magnificence of Severns. Rather it looked like one of the +big old panelled chambers which the boy remembered from visits to +Midland country houses, where he had arrived after dark and had been put +to sleep in a great bed in a place lit with dancing firelight. In the +morning it had looked only an ordinary big room, but at that hour of the +evening it had seemed an enchanted citadel. The dreamroom was not +unlike these, for there was the scent of a wood fire and there were +dancing shadows, but he could not see clearly the walls or the ceiling, +and there was no bed. In one corner was a door which led to the outer +world, and through this he knew that he might on no account pass. +Another door faced him, and he knew that he had only to turn the handle +and enter it. But he did not want to, for he understood quite clearly +what was beyond. There was another room like the first one, but he knew +nothing about it, except that opposite the entrance another door led out +of it. Beyond was a third chamber, and so on interminably. There seemed +to the boy no end to this fantastic suite. He thought of it as a great +snake of masonry, winding up hill and down dale away to the fells or the +sea. Yes, but there was an end. Somewhere far away in one of the rooms +was a terror waiting on him, or, as he feared, coming towards him. Even +now it might be flitting from room to room, every minute bringing its +soft tread nearer to the chamber of the wood fire. + +About this time of life the dream was an unmitigated horror. Once it +came while he was ill with a childish fever, and it sent his +temperature up to a point which brought Dr Moreton galloping from Axby. +In his waking hours he did not, as a rule, remember it clearly; but +during the fever, asleep and awake, that sinuous building, one room +thick, with each room opening from the other, was never away from his +thoughts. It fretted him to think that outside were the cheerful moors +where he hunted for plovers' eggs, and that only a thin wall of stone +kept him from pleasant homely things. The thought used to comfort him +for a moment when he was awake, but in the dream it never came near him. +Asleep, the whole world seemed one suite of rooms, and he, a forlorn +little prisoner, doomed to wait grimly on the slow coming through the +many doors of a Fear which transcended word and thought. + +He was a silent, self-absorbed boy, and though the fact of his +nightmares was patent to the little household, the details remained +locked in his heart. Not even to Uncle Appleby would he tell them when +that gentleman, hurriedly kind, came down to visit his convalescent +ward. His illness made Vernon grow, and he shot up into a lanky, leggy +boy--weakly, too, till the hills tautened his sinews again. His Greek +blood--his grandmother had been a Karolides--had given him a face +curiously like the young Byron, with a finely-cut brow and nostrils, and +hauteur in the full lips. But Vernon had no Byronic pallor, for his +upland home kept him sunburnt and weather-beaten, and below his straight +Greek brows shone a pair of grey and steadfast and very English eyes. + +He was about fifteen--so he thinks--when he made the great discovery. +The dream had become almost a custom now. It came in April at Severns +during the Easter holidays--a night's discomfort (it was now scarcely +more) in the rush and glory of the spring fishing. There was a moment of +the old wild heart-fluttering; but a boy's fancy is quickly dulled, and +the endless corridors were now more of a prison than a witch's +ante-chamber. By this time, with the help of his diary, he had fixed the +date of the dream: it came regularly on the night of the first Monday of +April. Now the year I speak of he had been on a long expedition into the +hills, and had stridden homewards at a steady four miles an hour among +the gleams and shadows of an April twilight. He was alone at Severns, so +he had his supper in the big library, where afterwards he sat watching +the leaping flames in the open stone hearth. He was very weary, and +sleep fell upon him in his chair. He found himself in the wood-smoke +chamber, and before him the door leading to the unknown. But it was no +indefinite fear that lay beyond. He knew clearly--though how he knew he +could not tell--that each year the Something came one room nearer, and +was even now but ten rooms off. In ten years his own door would open, +and then---- + +He woke in the small hours, chilled and mazed, but with a curious new +assurance in his heart. Hitherto the nightmare had left him in gross +terror, unable to endure the prospect of its recurrence, till the kindly +forgetfulness of youth had soothed him. But now, though his nerves were +tense with fright, he perceived that there was a limit to the mystery. +Some day it must declare itself, and fight on equal terms. As he thought +over the matter in the next few days he had the sense of being +forewarned and prepared for some great test of courage. The notion +exhilarated as much as it frightened him. Late at night, or on soft +dripping days, or at any moment of lessened vitality, he would bitterly +wish that he had been born an ordinary mortal. But on a keen morning of +frost, when he rubbed himself warm after a cold tub, or at high noon of +summer, the adventure of the dream almost pleased him. Unconsciously he +braced himself to a harder discipline. His fitness, moral and physical, +became his chief interest, for reasons which would have been +unintelligible to his friends and more so to his masters. He passed +through school an aloof and splendid figure, magnificently athletic, +with a brain as well as a perfect body--a good fellow in everybody's +opinion, but a grave one. He had no intimates, and never shared the +secret of the spring dream. For some reason which he could not tell, he +would have burned his hand off rather than breathe a hint of it. Pure +terror absolves from all conventions and demands a confidant, so terror, +I think, must have largely departed from the nightmare as he grew older. +Fear, indeed, remained, and awe and disquiet, but these are human +things, whereas terror is of hell. + +Had he told any one, he would no doubt have become self-conscious and +felt acutely his difference from other people. As it was, he was an +ordinary schoolboy, much beloved, and, except at odd moments, unaware of +any brooding destiny. As he grew up and his ambition awoke, the moments +when he remembered the dream were apt to be disagreeable, for a boy's +ambitions are strictly conventional and his soul revolts at the +abnormal. By the time he was ready for the University he wanted above +all things to run the mile a second faster than any one else, and had +vague hopes of exploring wild countries. For most of the year he lived +with these hopes and was happy; then came April, and for a short season +he was groping in dark places. Before and after each dream he was in a +mood of exasperation; but when it came he plunged into a different +atmosphere, and felt the quiver of fear and the quick thrill of +expectation. One year, in the unsettled moods of nineteen, he made an +attempt to avoid it. He and three others were on a walking tour in +Brittany in gusty spring weather, and came late one evening to an inn by +an estuary where seagulls clattered about the windows. Youth-like they +ordered a great and foolish feast, and sat all night round a bowl of +punch, while school songs and "John Peel" contended with the dirling of +the gale. At daylight they took the road again, without having closed an +eye, and Vernon told himself that he was rid of his incubus. He wondered +at the time why he was not more cheerful. Next April he was at Severns, +reading hard, and on the first Monday of the month he went to bed with +scarcely a thought of what that night used to mean. The dream did not +fail him. Once more he was in the chamber with the wood fire; once again +he was peering at the door and wondering with tremulous heart what lay +beyond. For the Something had come nearer by two rooms, and was now only +five doors away. He wrote in his diary at that time some lines from +Keats' 'Indian Maid's Song':-- + + + "I would deceive her, + And so leave her, + But ah! she is so constant and so kind." + + +And there is a mark of exclamation against the "she," as if he found +some irony in it. + +From that day the boy in him died. The dream would not suffer itself to +be forgotten. It moulded his character and determined his plans like the +vow of the young Hannibal at the altar. He had forgotten now either to +fear or to hope; the thing was part of him, like his vigorous young +body, his slow kindliness, his patient courage. He left Oxford at +twenty-two with a prodigious reputation which his remarkable athletic +record by no means explained. All men liked him, but no one knew him; he +had a thousand acquaintances and a hundred friends, but no comrade. +There was a sense of brooding power about him which attracted and +repelled his little world. No one forecast any special career for him; +indeed, it seemed almost disrespectful to condescend upon such details. +It was not what Vernon would do that fired the imagination of his +fellows, but what they dimly conceived that he already was. I remember +my first sight of him about that time, a tall young man in the corner of +a club smoking-room, with a head like Apollo's and eyes which received +much but gave nothing. I guessed at once that he had foreign blood in +him, not from any oddness of colouring or feature but from his silken +reserve. We of the North are angular in our silences; we have not +learned the art of gracious reticence. + +His twenty-third April was spent in a hut on the Line, somewhere between +the sources of the Congo and the Nile, in the trans-African expedition +when Waldemar found the new variety of okapi. The following April I was +in his company in a tent far up on the shoulder of a Kashmir mountain. +On the first Monday of the month we had had a heavy day after ovis, and +that night I was asleep almost before my weary limbs were tucked into my +kaross. I knew nothing of Vernon's dream, but next morning I remember +that I remarked a certain heaviness of eye, and wondered idly if the +frame of this Greek divinity was as tough as it was shapely. + + +II + +Next year Vernon left England early in March. He had resolved to visit +again his grandmother's country and to indulge his passion for cruising +in new waters. + +His 20-ton yawl was sent as deck cargo to Patras, while he followed by +way of Venice. He brought one man with him from Wyvenhoe, a lean gipsy +lad called Martell, and for his other hand he found an Epirote at Corfu, +who bore a string of names that began with Constantine. From Patras with +a west wind they made good sailing up the Gulf of Corinth, and, passing +through the Canal, came in the last days of March to the Piræus. In that +place of polyglot speech, whistling engines, and the odour of gasworks, +they delayed only for water and supplies, and presently had rounded +Sunium, and were beating up the Euripus with the Attic hills rising +sharp and clear in the spring sunlight. Vernon had no plans. It was a +joy to him to be alone with the racing seas and the dancing winds, to +scud past little headlands, pink and white with blossom, or to lie of a +night in some hidden bay beneath the thymy crags. It was his habit on +his journeys to discard the clothes of civilisation. In a blue jersey +and old corduroy trousers, bareheaded and barefooted, he steered his +craft and waited on the passing of the hours. Like an acolyte before the +temple gate, he believed himself to be on the threshold of a new life. + +Trouble began under the snows of Pelion as they turned the north end of +Euboea. On the morning of the first Monday in April the light west winds +died away, and sirocco blew harshly from the south. By midday it was +half a gale, and in those yeasty shallow seas with an iron coast on the +port the prospect looked doubtful. The nearest harbour was twenty miles +distant, and as no one of the crew had been there before it was a +question if they could make it by nightfall. With the evening the gale +increased, and Constantine advised a retreat from the maze of rocky +islands to the safer deeps of the Ægean. It was a hard night for the +three, and there was no chance of sleep. More by luck than skill they +escaped the butt of Skiathos, and the first light found them far to the +east among the long seas of the North Ægean, well on the way to Lemnos. +By eight o'clock the gale had blown itself out, and three soaked and +chilly mortals relaxed their vigil. Soon bacon was frizzling on the +cuddy-stove, and hot coffee and dry clothes restored them to comfort. + +The sky cleared, and in bright sunlight, with the dregs of the gale +behind him, Vernon stood in for the mainland, where the white crest of +Olympus hung in the northern heavens. In the late afternoon they came +into a little bay carved from the side of a high mountain. The slopes +were gay with flowers, yellow and white and scarlet, and the young green +of crops showed in the clearings. Among the thyme a flock of goats was +browsing, shepherded by a little girl in a saffron skirt, who sang +shrilly in snatches. Midway in the bay and just above the anchorage rose +a great white building, which showed to seaward a blank white wall +pierced with a few narrow windows. At first sight Vernon took it for a +monastery, but a look through the glasses convinced him that its purpose +was not religious. Once it had been fortified, and even now a broad +causeway ran between it and the sea, which looked as if it had once held +guns. The architecture was a jumble, showing here the enriched Gothic of +Venice and there the straight lines and round arches of the East. It had +once, he conjectured, been the hold of some Venetian sea-king, then the +palace of a Turkish conqueror, and now was, perhaps, the homely +manor-house of this pleasant domain. + +A fishing-boat was putting out from the shore. He hailed its occupant +and asked who owned the castle. + +The man crossed himself and spat overboard. "Basilissa," he said, and +turned his eyes seaward. + +Vernon called Constantine from the bows and asked him what the word +might mean. The Epirote crossed himself also before he spoke. "It is the +Lady of the Land," he said, in a hushed voice. "It is the great witch +who is the Devil's bride. In old days in spring they made sacrifice to +her, but they say her power is dying now. In my country we do not speak +her name, but elsewhere they call her 'Queen.'" The man's bluff sailorly +assurance had disappeared, and as Vernon stared at him in bewilderment +he stammered and averted his eyes. + +By supper-time he had recovered himself, and the weather-beaten three +made such a meal as befits those who have faced danger together. +Afterwards Vernon, as was his custom, sat alone in the stern, smoking +and thinking his thoughts. He wrote up his diary with a ship's lantern +beside him, while overhead the starless velvet sky seemed to hang low +and soft like an awning. Little fires burned on the shore at which folk +were cooking food--he could hear their voices, and from the keep one +single lit window made an eye in the night. + +He had leisure now for the thought which had all day been at the back of +his mind. The night had passed and there had been no dream. The +adventure for which he had prepared himself had vanished into the Ægean +tides. He told himself that it was a relief, that an old folly was over, +but he knew in his heart that he was bitterly disappointed. The fates +had prepared the stage and rung up the curtain without providing the +play. He had been fooled, and somehow the zest and savour of life had +gone from him. No man can be strung high and then find his preparation +idle without suffering a cruel recoil. + +As he scribbled idly in his diary he found some trouble about dates. +Down in his bunk was a sheaf of Greek papers bought at the Piræus and +still unlooked at. He fetched them up and turned them over with a +growing mystification. There was something very odd about the business. +One gets hazy about dates at sea, but he could have sworn that he had +made no mistake. Yet here it was down in black and white, for there was +no question about the number of days since he left the Piræus. The day +was not Tuesday, as he had believed, but Monday, the first Monday of +April. + +He stood up with a beating heart and that sense of unseen hands which +comes to all men once or twice in their lives. The night was yet to +come, and with it the end of the dream. Suddenly he was glad, absurdly +glad; he could almost have wept with the joy of it. And then he was +conscious for the first time of the strangeness of the place in which he +had anchored. The night was dark over him like a shell, enclosing the +half-moon of bay and its one lit dwelling. The great hills, unseen but +felt, ran up to snows, warding it off from a profane world. His nerves +tingled with a joyful anticipation. Something, some wonderful thing, was +coming to him out of the darkness. + +Under an impulse for which he could give no reason, he called +Constantine and gave his orders. Let him be ready to sail at any +moment--a possible thing, for there was a light breeze off shore. Also +let the yacht's dinghy be ready in case he wanted it. Then Vernon sat +himself down again in the stern beside the lantern, and waited.... + + +He was dreaming, and did not hear the sound of oars or the grating of a +boat alongside. Suddenly he found a face looking at him in the ring of +lamplight--an old bearded face curiously wrinkled. The eyes, which were +grave and penetrating, scanned him for a second or two, and then a voice +spoke,-- + +"Will the Signor come with me? There is work for him to do this night." + +Vernon rose obediently. He had waited for this call these many years, +and he was there to answer it. He went below and put a loaded revolver +in his trouser-pocket, and then dropped over the yacht's side into a +cockleshell of a boat. The messenger took the oars and rowed for the +point of light on shore. + +A middle-aged woman stood on a rock above the tide, holding a small +lantern. In its thin flicker he made out a person with the air and dress +of a French maid. She cast one glance at Vernon, and then turned wearily +to the other. "Fool, Mitri!" she said. "You have brought a peasant." + +"Nay," said the old man, "he is no peasant. He is a Signor, and as I +judge, a man of his hands." + +The woman passed the light of her lantern over Vernon's form and face. +"His dress is a peasant's, but such clothes may be a nobleman's whim. I +have heard it of the English." + +"I am English," said Vernon in French. + +She turned on him with a quick movement of relief. + +"You are English and a gentleman? But I know nothing of you, only that +you have come out of the sea. Up in the House we women are alone, and my +mistress has death to face, or a worse than death. We have no claim on +you, and if you give us your service it means danger--oh, what danger! +The boat is waiting. You have time to go back and go away and forget +that you have seen this accursed place. But, O Monsieur, if you hope for +Heaven and have pity on a defenceless angel, you will not leave us." + +"I am ready," said Vernon. + +"God's mercy," she sighed, and, seizing his arm, drew him up the steep +causeway, while the old man went ahead with the lantern. Now and then +she cast anxious glances to the right where the little fires of the +fishers twinkled along the shore. Then came a point when the three +entered a narrow uphill road, where rocky steps had been cut in a +tamarisk thicket. She spoke low in French to Vernon's ear,-- + +"My mistress is the last of her line, you figure; a girl with a wild +estate and a father long dead. She is good and gracious, as I who have +tended her can witness, but she is young and cannot govern the wolves +who are the men of these parts. They have a long hatred of her house, +and now they have it rumoured that she is a witch and blights the crops +and slays the children. No one will look at her; the priest--for they +are all in the plot--signs himself and crosses the road; the little ones +run screaming to their mothers. Once, twice, they have cursed our +threshold and made the blood mark on the door. For two years we have +been prisoners in the House, and only Mitri is true. They name her +Basilissa, meaning the Queen of Hell, whom the ancients called +Proserpine. There is no babe but will faint with fright if it casts eyes +on her, and she as mild and innocent as Mother Mary...." + +The woman stopped at a little door in a high wall of masonry. "Nay, wait +and hear me out. It is better that you hear the tale from me than from +her. Mitri has the gossip of the place through his daughter's husband, +and the word has gone round to burn the witch out. The winter in the +hills has been cruel, and they blame their sorrow on her. The dark of +the moon in April is the time fixed, for they say that a witch has power +only in moonlight. This is the night, and down on the shore the fishers +are gathered. The men from the hills are in the higher woods." + +"Have they a leader?" Vernon asked. + +"A leader?" her voice echoed shrilly. "But that is the worst of our +terrors. There is one Vlastos, a lord in the mountains, who saw my +mistress a year ago as she looked from the balcony at the +Swallow-singing, and was filled with a passion for her. He has +persecuted her since with his desires. He is a king among these savages, +being himself a very wolf in man's flesh. We have denied him, but he +persists, and this night he announces that he comes for an answer. He +offers to save her if she will trust him, but what is the honour of his +kind? He is like a brute out of a cave. It were better for my lady to go +to God in the fire than to meet all Hell in his arms. But this night we +must choose, unless you prove a saviour." + +"Did you see my boat anchor in the bay?" Vernon asked, though he +already knew the answer. + +"But no," she said. "We live only on the landward side of the House. My +lady told me that God would send a man to our aid. And I bade Mitri +fetch him." + +The door was unlocked and the three climbed a staircase which seemed to +follow the wall of a round tower. Presently they came into a stone hall +with curious hangings like the old banners in a church. From the open +flame of the lantern another was kindled, and the light showed a +desolate place with crumbling mosaics on the floor and plaster dropping +from the cornices. Through another corridor they went, where the air +blew warmer and there was that indefinable scent which comes from human +habitation. Then came a door which the woman held open for Vernon to +enter. "Wait there, Monsieur," she said, "My mistress will come to you." + +It was his own room, where annually he had waited with a fluttering +heart since he was a child at Severns. A fire of wood--some resinous +thing like juniper--burned on the hearth, and spirals of blue smoke +escaped the stone chimney and filled the air with their pungent +fragrance. On a Spanish cabinet stood an antique silver lamp, and there +was a great blue Chinese vase filled with spring flowers. Soft Turcoman +rugs covered the wooden floor--Vernon noted every detail, for never +before had he been able to see his room clearly. A woman had lived here, +for an embroidery frame lay on a table and there were silken cushions on +the low divans. And facing him in the other wall there was a door. + +In the old days he had regarded it with vague terror in his soul. Now he +looked at it with the hungry gladness with which a traveller sees again +the familiar objects of home. The hour of his destiny had struck. The +thing for which he had trained himself in body and spirit was about to +reveal itself in that doorway.... + +It opened, and a girl entered. She was tall and very slim, and moved +with the free grace of a boy. She trod the floor like one walking in +spring meadows. Her little head on the flower-like neck was bent +sideways as if she were listening, and her eyes had the strange +disquieting innocence of a child's. Yet she was a grown woman, nobly +made, and lithe and supple as Artemis herself when she ranged with her +maidens through the moonlit glades. Her face had the delicate pallor of +pure health, and above it the masses of dark hair were bound with a +thin gold circlet. She wore a gown of some soft white stuff, and had +thrown over it a cloak of russet furs. + +For a second--or so it seemed to Vernon--she looked at him as he stood +tense and expectant like a runner at the start. Then the hesitation fled +from her face. She ran to him with the confidence of a child who has +waited long for the coming of a friend and has grown lonely and fearful. +She gave him both her hands and in her tall pride looked him full in the +eyes. "You have come," she sighed happily. "I did not doubt it. They +told me there was no help, but, you see, they did not know about you. +That was my own secret. The Monster had nearly gobbled me, Perseus, but +of course you could not come quicker. And now you will take me away with +you? See, I am ready. And Elise will come too, and old Mitri, for they +could not live without me. We must hurry, for the Monster is very near." + +In that high moment of romance, when young love had burst upon him like +spring, Vernon retained his odd discipline of soul. The adventure of the +dream could not be satisfied by flight, even though his companion was a +goddess. + +"We will go, Andromeda, but not yet. I have something to say to the +Monster." + +She broke into a ripple of laughter. "Yes, that is the better way. Mitri +will admit him alone, and he will think to find us women. But you will +be here and you will speak to him." Then her eyes grew solemn. "He is +very cruel, Perseus, and he is full of evil. He may devour us both. Let +us be gone before he comes." + +It was Vernon's turn to laugh. At the moment no enterprise seemed too +formidable, and a price must be paid for this far-away princess. And +even as he laughed the noise of a great bell clanged through the house. + +Mitri stole in with a scared face, and it was from Vernon that he took +his orders. "Speak them fair, but let one man enter and no more. Bring +him here, and see that the gate is barred behind him. After that make +ready for the road." Then to the girl: "Take off your cloak and wait +here as if you were expecting him. I will stand behind the screen. Have +no fear, for I will have him covered, and I will shoot him like a dog if +he lays a finger on you." + +From the shelter of the screen Vernon saw the door open and a man enter. +He was a big fellow of the common mountain type, gorgeously dressed in +a uniform of white and crimson, with boots of yellow untanned leather, +and a beltful of weapons. He was handsome in a coarse way, but his +slanting eyes and the heavy lips scarcely hidden by the curling +moustaches were ugly and sinister. He smiled, showing his white teeth, +and spoke hurriedly in the guttural Greek of the north. The girl +shivered at the sound of his voice, and to the watcher it seemed like +Pan pursuing one of Dian's nymphs. + +"You have no choice, my Queen," he was saying. "I have a hundred men at +the gate who will do my bidding, and protect you against those fools of +villagers till you are safe with me at Louko. But if you refuse me I +cannot hold the people. They will burn the place over your head, and by +to-morrow's morn these walls will be smouldering ashes with your fair +body in the midst of them." + +Then his wooing became rougher. The satyr awoke in his passionate eyes. +"Nay, you are mine, whether you will it or not. I and my folk will carry +you off when the trouble begins. Take your choice, my girl, whether you +will go with a good grace, or trussed up behind a servant. We have rough +ways in the hills with ungracious wenches." + +"I am going away," she whispered, "but not with you!" + +The man laughed. "Have you fetched down friend Michael and his angels to +help you? By Saint John the Hunter, I would I had a rival. I would carve +him prettily for the sake of your sweet flesh." + +Vernon kicked aside the screen. "You will have your chance," he said. "I +am ready." + +Vlastos stepped back with his hand at his belt. "Who in the devil's name +are you?" he asked. + +"One who would dispute the lady with you," said Vernon. + +The man had recovered his confidence. "I know nothing of you or whence +you come, but to-night I am merciful. I give you ten seconds to +disappear. If not, I will spit you, my fine cock, and you will roast in +this oven." + +"Nevertheless the lady goes with me," said Vernon, smiling. + +Vlastos plucked a whistle from his belt, but before it reached his mouth +he was looking into the barrel of Vernon's revolver. "Pitch that thing +on the floor," came the command. "Not there! Behind me! Off with that +belt and give it to the lady. Quick, my friend." + +The dancing grey eyes dominated the sombre black ones. Vlastos flung +down the whistle, and slowly removed the belt with its silver-mounted +pistols and its brace of knives. + +"Put up your weapon," he muttered, "and fight me for her, as a man +should." + +"I ask nothing better," said Vernon, and he laid his revolver in the +girl's lap. + +He had expected a fight with fists, and was not prepared for what +followed. Vlastos sprang at him like a wild beast and clasped him round +the waist. He was swung off his feet in a grip that seemed more than +human. For a second or two he swayed to and fro, recovered himself, and +by a back-heel stroke forced his assailant to relax a little. Then, +locked together in the middle of the room, the struggle began. Dimly out +of a corner of his eye he saw the girl pick up the silver lamp and stand +by the door holding it high. + +Vernon had learned the rudiments of wrestling among the dalesmen of the +North, but now he was dealing with one who followed no ordinary methods. +It was a contest of sheer physical power. Vlastos was a stone or two +heavier, and had an uncommon length of arm; but he was clumsily made, +and flabby from gross living. Vernon was spare and hard and clean, but +he lacked one advantage--he had never striven with a man save in +friendly games, and the other was bred to kill. For a minute or two they +swayed and stumbled, while Vernon strove for the old Westmorland "inside +click." Every second brought him nearer to it, while the other's face +was pressed close to his shoulder. + +Suddenly he felt a sharp pain. Teeth met in his flesh, and there was the +jar and shiver of a torn muscle. The thing sickened him, and his grip +slackened. In a moment Vlastos had swung him over in a strangle-hold, +and had his neck bent almost to breaking. + +On the sickness followed a revulsion of fierce anger. He was contending +not with a man, but with some shaggy beast from the thicket. The passion +brought out the extra power which is dormant in us all against the last +extremity. Two years before he had been mauled by a leopard on the +Congo, and had clutched its throat with his hand and torn the life out. +Such and no other was his antagonist. He was fighting with one who knew +no code, and would gouge his eyes if he got the chance. The fear which +had sickened him was driven out by fury. This wolf should go the way of +other wolves who dared to strive with man. + +By a mighty effort he got his right arm free, and though his own neck +was in torture, he forced Vlastos' chin upward. It was a struggle of +sheer endurance, till with a snarl the other slackened his pressure. +Vernon slipped from his grasp, gave back a step, and then leaped for the +under-grip. He seemed possessed with unholy strength, for the barrel of +the man gave in his embrace. A rib cracked, and as they swayed to the +breast-stroke, he felt the breath of his opponent coming in harsh gasps. +It was the end, for with a twist which unlocked his arms he swung him +high, and hurled him towards the fireplace. The head crashed on the +stone hearth, and the man lay stunned among the blue jets of wood-smoke. + +Vernon turned dizzily to the girl. She stood, statue-like, with the lamp +in her hand, and beside her huddled Mitri and Elise. + +"Bring ropes," he cried to the servants. "We will truss up this beast. +The other wolves will find him and learn a lesson." He bound his legs +and arms and laid him on a divan. + +The fire of battle was still in his eyes, but it faded when they fell +upon the pale girl. A great pity and tenderness filled him. She swayed +to his arms, and her head dropped on his shoulder. He picked her up +like a child, and followed the servants to the sea-stair. + +But first he found Vlastos' whistle, and blew it shrilly. The answer was +a furious hammering at the castle door. + + +Far out at sea, in the small hours, the yacht sped eastward with a +favouring wind. Behind in the vault of night at a great distance shone a +point of brightness, which flickered and fell as if from some mighty +fire. + +The two sat in the stern in that first rapture of comradeship which has +no words to fit it. Her head lay in the crook of his arm, and she sighed +happily, like one awakened to a summer's dawn from a night of ill +dreams. At last he spoke. + +"Do you know that I have been looking for you for twenty years?" + +She nestled closer to him. + +"And I," she said, "have been waiting on you from the beginning of the +world." + + + + +VII + +DIVUS JOHNSTON + + + "The Emperor assumed the title of _Divus_ or Divine, not of his own + desire, but because it was forced upon him by a credulous + people."--SUETONIUS, _Lives of the Cæsars_. + + +This story, which you may believe or not as you like, was told me by my +friend Mr Peter Thomson of "Jessieville," Maxwell Avenue, Strathbungo, +whom I believe to be a man incapable of mendacity, or, indeed, of +imagination. He is a prosperous and retired ship's captain, dwelling in +the suburbs of Glasgow, who plays two rounds of golf every day of the +week, and goes twice every Sunday to a pink, new U. F. Church. You may +often see his ample figure, splendidly habited in broadcloth and +finished off with one of those square felt hats which are the Scottish +emblem of respectability, moving sedately by Mrs Thomson's side down the +avenue of "Balmorals" and "Bellevues" where dwell the aristocracy of +Strathbungo. It was not there that I met him, however, but in a Clyde +steamboat going round the Mull, where I spent a comfortless night on my +way to a Highland fishing. It was blowing what he called "a wee bit o' +wind," and I could not face the odorous bunks which opened on the +dining-room. Seated abaft the funnel, in an atmosphere of ham-and-eggs, +bilge, and fresh western breezes, he revealed his heart to me, and this +I found in it. + + +"About the age of forty"--said Mr Thomson--"I was captain of the steamer +_Archibald McKelvie_, 1,700 tons burthen, belonging to Brock, Rattray, +and Linklater, of Greenock. We were principally engaged in the China +trade, but made odd trips into the Malay Archipelago and once or twice +to Australia. She was a handy bit boat, and I'll not deny that I had +many mercies vouchsafed to me when I was her skipper. I raked in a bit +of salvage now and then, and my trading commission, paid regularly into +the British Linen Bank at Maryhill, was mounting up to a fairish sum. I +had no objection to Eastern parts, for I had a good constitution and had +outgrown the daftnesses of youth. The berth suited me well, I had a +decent lot for ship's company, and I would gladly have looked forward +to spending the rest of my days by the _Archibald McKelvie_. + +"Providence, however, thought otherwise, for He was preparing a judgment +against that ship like the kind you read about in books. We were five +days out from Singapore shaping our course for the Philippines, where +the Americans were then fighting, when we ran into a queer lown sea. Not +a breath of air came out of the sky; if you kindled a match the flame +wouldna leap, but smouldered like touchwood; and every man's body ran +with sweat like a mill-lade. I kenned fine we were in for the terrors of +hell, but I hadna any kind of notion how terrible hell could be. First +came a wind that whipped away my funnel, like a potato peeling. We ran +before it, and it was like the sweegee we used to play at when we were +laddies. One moment the muckle sea would get up on its hinder end and +look at you, and the next you were looking at it as if you were on the +top of Ben Lomond looking down on Luss. Presently I saw land in a gap of +the water, a land with great blood-red mountains, and, thinks I to +myself, if we keep up the pace this boat of mine will not be hindered +from ending two or three miles inland in somebody's kail-yard. I was +just wondering how we would get the _Archibald McKelvie_ back to her +native element when she saved me the trouble; for she ran dunt on some +kind of a rock, and went straight to the bottom. + +"I was the only man saved alive, and if you ask me how it happened I +don't know. I felt myself choking in a whirlpool; then I was flung +through the air and brought down with a smack into deep waters; then I +was in the air again, and this time I landed amongst sand and +tree-trunks and got a bash on the head which dozened my senses. + +"When I came to it was morning, and the storm had abated. I was lying +about half-way up a beach of fine white sand, for the wave that had +carried me landwards in its flow had brought me some of the road back in +its ebb. All round me was a sort of free-coup--trees knocked to +matchwood, dead fish, and birds and beasts, and some boards which I +jaloused came from the _Archibald McKelvie_. I had a big bump on my +head, but otherwise I was well and clear in my wits, though empty in the +stomach and very dowie in the heart. For I knew something about the +islands, of which I supposed this to be one. They were either barren +wastes, with neither food nor water, or else they were inhabited by the +bloodiest cannibals of the archipelago. It looked as if my choice lay +between having nothing to eat and being eaten myself. + +"I got up, and, after returning thanks to my Maker, went for a walk in +the woods. They were full of queer painted birds, and it was an awful +job climbing in and out of the fallen trees. By and by I came into an +open bit with a burn where I slockened my thirst. It cheered me up, and +I was just beginning to think that this was not such a bad island, and +looking to see if I could find anything in the nature of cocoanuts, when +I heard a whistle like a steam-syren. It was some sort of signal, for +the next I knew I was in the grip of a dozen savages, my arms and feet +were lashed together, and I was being carried swiftly through the +forest. + +"It was a rough journey, and the discomfort of that heathen handling +kept me from reflecting upon my desperate position. After nearly three +hours we stopped, and I saw that we had come to a city. The streets were +not much to look at, and the houses were mud and thatch, but on a +hillock in the middle stood a muckle temple not unlike a Chinese pagoda. +There was a man blowing a horn, and a lot of folk shouting, but I paid +no attention, for I was sore troubled with the cramp in my left leg. +They took me into one of the huts and made signs that I was to have it +for my habitation. They brought me water to wash, and a very respectable +dinner, which included a hen and a vegetable not unlike greens. Then +they left me to myself, and I lay down and slept for a round of the +clock. + +"I was three days in that hut. I had plenty to eat and the folk were +very civil, but they wouldna let me outbye and there was no window to +look out of. I couldna make up my mind what they wanted with me. I was a +prisoner, but they did not behave as if they bore any malice, and I +might have thought I was an honoured guest, but for the guards at the +door. Time hung heavy on my hands, for I had nothing to read and no +light to read by. I said over all the chapters of the Bible and all the +Scots songs I could remember, and I tried to make a poem about my +adventures, but I stuck at the fifth line, for I couldna find a rhyme to +_McKelvie_. + +"On the fourth morning I was awakened by the most deafening din. I saw +through the door that the streets were full of folk in holiday clothes, +most of them with flowers in their hair and carrying palm branches in +their hands. It was like something out of a Bible picture book. After I +had my breakfast four lads in long white gowns arrived, and in spite of +all my protests they made a bonny spectacle of me. They took off my +clothes, me blushing with shame, and rubbed me with a kind of oil that +smelt of cinnamon. Then they shaved my chin, and painted on my forehead +a mark like a freemason's. Then they put on me a kind of white nightgown +with a red sash round the middle, and they wouldna be hindered from +clapping on my head a great wreath of hot-house flowers, as if I was a +funeral. + +"And then like a thunder-clap I realised my horrible position. _I was_ a +funeral. I was to be offered up as a sacrifice to some heathen god--an +awful fate for a Free-kirk elder in the prime of life. + +"I was so paralytic with terror that I never tried to resist. Indeed, it +would have done me little good, for outside there were, maybe, two +hundred savages, armed and drilled like soldiers. I was put into a sort +of palanquin, and my bearers started on a trot with me up the hill to +the temple, the whole population of the city running alongside, and +singing songs about their god. I was sick with fear, and I durstna look +up, for I did not know what awesome sight awaited me. + +"At last I got my courage back. 'Peter,' I says to myself, 'be a man. +Remember your sainted covenanting forefathers. You have been chosen to +testify for your religion, though it's no likely that yon savages will +understand what you say.' So I shut my jaw and resolved before I died to +make a declaration of my religious principles, and to loosen some of the +heathen's teeth with my fists. + +"We stopped at the temple door and I was led through a court and into a +muckle great place like a barn, with bats flying about the ceiling. Here +there were nearly three thousand heathens sitting on their hunkers. They +sang a hymn when they saw me, and I was just getting ready for action +when my bearers carried me into another place, which I took to be the +Holy of Holies. It was about half the size of the first, and at the end +of it was a great curtain of leopards' skins hanging from roof to floor. +My bearers set me in the middle of the room, and then rolled about on +their stomachs in adoration before the curtain. After a bit they +finished their prayers and crawled out backwards, and I was left alone +in that fearsome place. + +"It was the worst experience of my life. I believed that behind the +skins there was a horrible idol, and that at any moment a priest with a +knife would slip in to cut my throat. You may crack about courage, but I +tell you that a man who can wait without a quiver on his murderers in +the middle of a gloomy kirk is more than human. I am not ashamed to +confess that the sweat ran over my brow, and my teeth were knocking in +my head. + +"But nothing happened. Nothing, except that as I sat there I began to +feel a most remarkable smell. At first I thought the place was on fire. +Then I thought it was the kind of stink called incense that they make in +Popish kirks, for I once wandered into a cathedral in Santiago. But +neither guess was right, and then I put my thumb on the proper +description. It was nothing but the smell of the third-class carriages +on the Coatbridge train on a Saturday night after a football match--the +smell of plug tobacco smoked in clay pipes that were no just very clean. +My eyes were getting accustomed to the light, and I found the place no +that dark; and as I looked round to see what caused the smell, I spied +something like smoke coming from beyond the top of the curtain. + +"I noticed another thing. There was a hole in the curtain, about six +feet from the floor, and at that hole as I watched I saw an eye. My +heart stood still, for, thinks I, that'll be the priest of Baal who +presently will stick a knife into me. It was long ere I could screw up +courage to look again, but I did it. And then I saw that the eye was not +that of a savage, which would be black and blood-shot. It was a blue +eye, and, as I looked, it winked at me. + +"And then a voice spoke out from behind the curtain, and this was what +it said. It said, 'God sake, Peter, is it you? And how did ye leave them +a' at Maryhill?' + +"And from behind the curtain walked a muckle man, dressed in a pink +blanket, a great red-headed man, with a clay pipe in his mouth. It was +the god of the savages, and who do ye think it was? A man Johnston, who +used to bide in the same close as me in Glasgow...." + +Mr Thomson's emotion overcame him, and he accepted a stiff drink from my +flask. Wiping away a tear, which may have been of sentiment or of mirth, +he continued,-- + +"You may imagine that I was joyful and surprised to see him, and he, so +to speak, fell on my neck like the father of the Prodigal Son. He hadna +seen a Scotch face for four years. He raked up one or two high priests +and gave instructions, and soon I was comfortably lodged in a part of +the temple close to his own rooms. Eh, man, it was a noble sight to see +Johnston and the priests. He was a big, red-haired fellow, six feet +four, and as strong as a stot, with a voice like a north-easter, and yon +natives fair crawled like caterpillars in his presence. I never saw a +man with such a natural talent for being a god. You would have thought +he had been bred to the job all his days, and yet I minded him keeping a +grocer's shop in the Dalmarnock Road. + +"That night he told me his story. It seemed that he had got a post at +Shanghai in a trading house, and was coming out to it in one of those +God-forgotten German tramps that defile the China seas. Like me, he fell +in with a hurricane, and, like me, his ship was doomed. He was a +powerful swimmer, and managed to keep afloat until he found some +drifting wreckage, and after the wind had gone down he paddled ashore. +There he was captured by the savages, and taken, like me, to their city. +They were going to sacrifice him, but one chief, wiser than the rest, +called attention to his size and strength, and pointed out that they +were at war with their neighbours, and that a big man would be of more +use in the fighting line than on an altar in the temple. + +"So off went Johnston to the wars. He was a bonny fighter, and very soon +they made him captain of the royal bodyguard, and a fortnight later the +general commanding-in-chief over the whole army. He said he had never +enjoyed himself so much in his life, and when he got back from his +battles the whole population of the city used to meet him with songs and +flowers. Then an old priest found an ancient prophecy about a Red God +who would come out of the sea and lead the people to victory. Very soon +there was a strong party for making Johnston a god; and when, with the +help of a few sticks of trade dynamite, he had blown up the capital of +the other side and brought back his army in triumph with a prisoner +apiece, popular feeling could not be restrained. Johnston was hailed as +divine. He hadna much grip of the language, and couldna explain the +situation, so he thought it best to submit. + +"'Mind you,' he said to me, 'I've been a good god to these poor blind +ignorant folk.' He had stopped the worst of their habits and put down +human sacrifices, and got a sort of town council appointed to keep the +city clean, and he had made the army the most efficient thing ever heard +of in the islands. And now he was preparing to leave. This was what they +expected, for the prophecy had said that the Red God, after being the +saviour of his people, would depart as he had come across the sea. So, +under his directions, they had built him a kind of boat with which he +hoped to reach Singapore. He had got together a considerable fortune, +too, chiefly in rubies, for as a god he had plenty of opportunities of +acquiring wealth honestly. He said there was a sort of greengrocer's and +butcher's shop before his altar every morning, and he got one of the +priests, who had some business notions, to sell off the goods for him. + +"There was just one thing that bothered Mr Johnston. He was a good +Christian man and had been an elder in a kirk in the Cowcaddens, and he +was much in doubt whether he had not committed a mortal sin in accepting +the worship of these heathen islanders. Often I argued it out with him, +but I did not seem able to comfort him rightly. 'Ye see,' he used to say +to me, 'if I have broken anything, it's the spirit and no the letter of +the Commandment. I havena set up a graven image, for ye canna call me a +graven image.' + +"I mind that I quoted to him the conduct of Naaman, who was allowed to +bow in the house of Rimmon, but he would not have it. 'No, no,' he +cried, 'that has nothing to do with the point. It's no a question of my +bowing in the house of Rimmon. I'm auld Rimmon himself.'" + + +"That's a strange story, Mr Thomson," I said. "Is it true?" + +"True as death. But you havena heard the end of it. We got away, and +by-and-by we reached Singapore, and in course of time our native land. +Johnston, he was a very rich man now, and I didna go without my portion; +so the loss of the _Archibald McKelvie_ turned out the best piece of +luck in my life. I bought a share in Brock's Line, but nothing would +content Johnston but that he must be a gentleman. He got a big estate in +Annandale, where all the Johnstons came from long ago, and one way and +another he has spent an awful siller on it. Land will swallow up money +quicker than the sea." + +"And what about his conscience?" I asked. + +"It's keeping quieter," said Mr Thomson. "He takes a great interest in +Foreign Missions, to which he subscribes largely, and they tell me that +he has given the funds to build several new kirks. Oh yes, and he's just +been adopted as a prospective Liberal candidate. I had a letter from him +no further back than yesterday. It's about his political career, as he +calls it. He told me, what didna need telling, that I must never mention +a word about his past. 'If discretion was necessary before,' he says, +'it's far more necessary now, for how could the Party of Progress have +any confidence in a man if they heard he had once been a god?'" + + + + +VIII + +THE KING OF YPRES + + +Private Peter Galbraith, of the 3rd Lennox Highlanders, awoke with a +splitting headache and the consciousness of an intolerable din. At first +he thought it was the whistle from the forge, which a year ago had +pulled him from his bed when he was a puddler in Motherwell. He +scrambled to his feet, and nearly cracked his skull against a low roof. +That, and a sound which suggested that the heavens were made of canvas +which a giant hand was rending, cleared his wits and recalled him to the +disagreeable present. He lit the dottle in his pipe, and began to piece +out his whereabouts. + +Late the night before, the remnants of his battalion had been brought in +from the Gheluvelt trenches to billets in Ypres. That last week he had +gone clean off his sleep. He had not been dry for a fortnight, his +puttees had rotted away, his greatcoat had disappeared in a mud-hole, +and he had had no stomach for what food could be got. He had seen half +his battalion die before his eyes, and day and night the shells had +burst round him till the place looked like the ironworks at Motherwell +on a foggy night. The worst of it was that he had never come to grips +with the Boches, which he had long decided was the one pleasure left to +him in life. He had got far beyond cursing, though he had once had a +talent that way. His mind was as sodden as his body, and his thoughts +had been focussed on the penetrating power of a bayonet when directed +against a plump Teutonic chest. There had been a German barber in +Motherwell called Schultz, and he imagined the enemy as a million +Schultzes--large, round men who talked with the back of their throat. + +In billets he had scraped off the worst part of the mud, and drunk half +a bottle of wine which a woman had given him. It tasted like red ink, +but anything liquid was better than food. Sleep was what he longed for, +but he could not get it. The Boches were shelling the town, and the room +he shared with six others seemed as noisy as the Gallowgate on a +Saturday night. He wanted to get deep down into the earth where there +was no sound; so, while the others snored, he started out to look for a +cellar. In the black darkness, while the house rocked to the shell +reverberations, he had groped his way down the stairs, found a door +which led to another flight, and, slipping and stumbling, had come to a +narrow, stuffy chamber which smelt of potatoes. There he had lain down +on some sacks and fallen into a frowsty slumber. + +His head was spinning, but the hours of sleep had done him good. He felt +a slight appetite for breakfast, as well as an intolerable thirst. He +groped his way up the stairs, and came out in a dilapidated hall lit by +a dim November morning. + +There was no sign of the packs which had been stacked there the night +before. He looked for a Boche's helmet which he had brought in as a +souvenir, but that was gone. Then he found the room where he had been +billeted. It was empty, and only the stale smell of tobacco told of its +occupants. + +Lonely, disconsolate, and oppressed with thoughts of future punishment, +he moved towards the street door. Suddenly the door of a side room +opened and a man came out, a furtive figure with a large, pasty face. +His pockets bulged, and in one hand was a silver candlestick. At the +sight of Galbraith he jumped back and held up a pistol. + +"Pit it down, man, and tell's what's come ower this place?" said the +soldier. For answer, a bullet sang past his ear and shivered a plaster +Venus. + +Galbraith gave his enemy the butt of his rifle and laid him out. From +his pockets he shook out a mixed collection of loot. He took possession +of his pistol, and kicked him with some vehemence into a cupboard. + +"That yin's a thief," was his spoken reflection. "There's something +michty wrong wi' Wipers the day." + +His head was clearing, and he was getting very wroth. His battalion had +gone off and left him in a cellar, and miscreants were abroad. It was +time for a respectable man to be up and doing. Besides, he wanted his +breakfast. He fixed his bayonet, put the pistol in his pocket, and +emerged into the November drizzle. + +The streets suddenly were curiously still. The occasional shell-fire +came to his ears as if through layers of cotton-wool. He put this down +to dizziness from lack of food, and made his way to what looked like an +_estaminet_. The place was full of riotous people who were helping +themselves to drinks, while a distracted landlord wrung his hands. He +flew to Galbraith, the tears running down his cheeks, and implored him +in broken words. + +"Vere ze Engleesh?" he cried. "Ze méchants rob me. Zere is une émeute. +Vere ze officers?" + +"That's what I'm wantin' to ken mysel'," said Galbraith. + +"Zey are gone," wailed the innkeeper. "Zere is no gendarme or anyzing, +and I am rob." + +"Where's the polis? Get the Provost, man. D'ye tell me there's no polis +left?" + +"I am rob," the wail continued. "Ze méchants rob ze magasins and ve vill +be assassinés." + +Light was dawning upon Private Galbraith. The British troops had left +Ypres for some reason which he could not fathom, and there was no law or +order in the little city. At other times he had hated the law as much as +any man, and his relations with the police had often been strained. Now +he realised that he had done them an injustice. Disorder suddenly seemed +to him the one thing intolerable. Here had he been undergoing a stiff +discipline for weeks, and if that was his fate no civilian should be +allowed on the loose. He was a British soldier--marooned here by no +fault of his own--and it was his business to keep up the end of the +British Army and impose the King's peace upon the unruly. His temper was +getting hot, but he was curiously happy. He marched into the +_estaminet_. "Oot o' here, ye scum!" he bellowed. "Sortez, ye cochons!" + +The revellers were silent before the apparition. Then one, drunker than +the rest, flung a bottle which grazed his right ear. That put the +finishing touch to his temper. Roaring like a bull, he was among them, +prodding their hinder parts with his bayonet, and now and then reversing +his rifle to crack a head. He had not played centre-forward in the old +days at Celtic Park for nothing. The place emptied in a twinkling--all +but one man whose legs could not support him. Him Private Galbraith +seized by the scruff and the slack of his trousers, and tossed into the +street. + +"Now I'll hae my breakfast," he said to the trembling landlord. + +Private Galbraith, much the better for his exercise, made a hearty meal +of bread and cold ham, and quenched his thirst with two bottles of +Hazebrouck beer. He had also a little brandy, and pocketed the flask, +for which the landlord refused all payment. Then, feeling a giant +refreshed, he sallied into the street. + +"I'm off to look for your Provost," he said. "If ye have ony mair +trouble, ye'll find me at the Toun Hall." + +A shell had plumped into the middle of the causeway, and the place was +empty. Private Galbraith, despising shells, swaggered up the open, his +disreputable kilt swinging about his putteeless legs, the remnant of a +bonnet set well on the side of his shaggy red head, and the light of +battle in his eyes. For once he was arrayed on the side of the angels, +and the thought encouraged him mightily. The brandy had fired his +imagination. + +Adventure faced him at the next corner. A woman was struggling with two +men--a slim pale girl with dark hair. No sound came from her lips, but +her eyes were bright with terror. Galbraith started to run, shouting +sound British oaths. The men let the woman go, and turned to face him. +One had a pistol, and for the second time that day a bullet just missed +its mark. An instant later a clean bayonet thrust had ended the mortal +career of the marksman, and the other had taken to his heels. + +"I'll learn thae lads to be sae free wi' their popguns," said the irate +soldier. "Haud up, Mem. It's a' by wi' noo. Losh! The wumman's fentit!" + +Private Galbraith was as shy of women as of his Commanding Officer, and +he had not bargained for this duty. She was clearly a lady from her +dress and appearance, and this did not make it easier. He supported her +manfully, addressing to her the kind of encouragements which a groom +gives to a horse. "Canny now, Mem. Haud up! Ye've no cause to be +feared." + +Then he remembered the brandy in his pocket, and with much awkwardness +managed to force some drops between her lips. To his vast relief she +began to come to. Her eyes opened and stared uncomprehendingly at her +preserver. Then she found her voice. + +"Thank God, the British have come back!" she said in excellent English. + +"No, Mem; not yet. It's just me, Private Galbraith, 'C' Company, 3rd +Battalion, Lennox Highlanders. Ye keep some bad lots in this toun." + +"Alas! what can we do? The place is full of spies, and they will stir up +the dregs of the people and make Ypres a hell. Oh, why did the British +go? Our good men are all with the army, and there are only old folk and +wastrels left." + +"Rely upon me, Mem," said Galbraith stoutly. "I was just settin' off to +find your Provost." + +She puzzled at the word, and then understood. + +"He has gone!" she cried. "The Maire went to Dunkirk a week ago, and +there is no authority in Ypres." + +"Then we'll make yin. Here's the minister. We'll speir at him." + +An old priest, with a lean, grave face, had come up. + +"Ah, Mam'selle Omèrine," he cried, "the devil in our city is unchained. +Who is this soldier?" + +The two talked in French, while Galbraith whistled and looked at the +sky. A shrapnel shell was bursting behind the cathedral, making a splash +of colour in the November fog. Then the priest spoke in careful and +constrained English. + +"There is yet a chance for a strong man. But he must be very strong. +Mam'selle will summon her father, Monsieur le Procureur, and we will +meet at the Mairie. I will guide you there, _mon brave_." + +The Grande Place was deserted, and in the middle there was a new gaping +shell-hole. At the door of a great building, which Galbraith assumed to +be the Town Hall, a feeble old porter was struggling with a man. +Galbraith scragged the latter and pitched him into the shell-hole. There +was a riot going on in a café on the far side which he itched to have a +hand in, but he postponed that pleasure to a more convenient season. + +Twenty minutes later, in a noble room with frescoed and tapestried +walls, there was a strange conference. The priest was there, and +Galbraith, and Mam'selle Omèrine, and her father, M. St Marais. There +was a doctor too, and three elderly citizens, and an old warrior who had +left an arm on the Yser. Galbraith took charge, with Mam'selle as his +interpreter, and in half an hour had constituted a Committee of Public +Safety. He had nervous folk to deal with. + +"The Germans may enter at any moment, and then we will all be hanged," +said one. + +"Nae doot," said Galbraith; "but ye needna get your throats cut afore +they come." + +"The city is full of the ill-disposed," said another. "The Boches have +their spies in every alley. We who are so few cannot control them." + +"If it's spies," said Galbraith firmly, "I'll take on the job my lone. +D'ye think a terrier dowg's feared of a wheen rottens?"[5] + +In the end he had his way, with Mam'selle's help, and had put some +confidence into civic breasts. It took him the best part of the +afternoon to collect his posse. He got every wounded Belgian that had +the use of his legs, some well-grown boys, one or two ancients, and +several dozen robust women. There was no lack of weapons, and he armed +the lot with a strange collection of French and English rifles, giving +pistols to the section leaders. With the help of the Procureur, he +divided the city into beats and gave his followers instructions. They +were drastic orders, for the situation craved for violence. + +He spent the evening of his life. So far as he remembered afterwards, he +was in seventeen different scraps. Strayed revellers were leniently +dealt with--the canal was a cooling experience. Looters were rounded up, +and, if they showed fight, summarily disposed of. One band of bullies +made a stout resistance, killed two of his guards, and lost half a dozen +dead. He got a black eye, a pistol-bullet through his sleeve, a wipe on +the cheek from a carving-knife, and he lost the remnants of his bonnet. +Fifty-two prisoners spent the night in the cellars of the Mairie. + +About midnight he found himself in the tapestried chamber. "We'll hae to +get a Proclamation," he had announced; "a gude strong yin, for we maun +conduct this job according to the rules." So the Procureur had a +document drawn up bidding all inhabitants of Ypres keep indoors except +between the hours of 10 a. m. and noon, and 3 and 5 p. m.; forbidding +the sale of alcohol in all forms; and making theft and violence and the +carrying of arms punishable by death. There was a host of other +provisions which Galbraith imperfectly understood, but when the thing +was translated to him he approved its spirit. He signed the document in +his large sprawling hand--"Peter Galbraith, 1473, Pte., 3rd Lennox +Highlanders, Acting Provost of Wipers." + +"Get that prentit," he said, "and pit up copies at every street corner +and on a' the public-hooses. And see that the doors o' the publics are +boardit up. That'll do for the day. I'm feelin' verra like my bed." + +Mam'selle Omèrine watched him with a smile. She caught his eye and +dropped him a curtsey. + +"Monsieur le Roi d'Ypres," she said. + +He blushed hotly. + + +For the next few days Private Galbraith worked harder than ever before +in his existence. For the first time he knew responsibility, and that +toil which brings honour with it. He tasted the sweets of office; and +he, whose aim in life had been to scrape through with the minimum of +exertion, now found himself the inspirer of the maximum in others. + +At first he scorned advice, being shy and nervous. Gradually, as he felt +his feet, he became glad of other people's wisdom. Especially he leaned +on two, Mam'selle Omèrine and her father. Likewise the priest, whom he +called the minister. + +By the second day the order in Ypres was remarkable. By the third day it +was phenomenal; and by the fourth a tyranny. The little city for the +first time for seven hundred years fell under the sway of a despot. A +citizen had to be on his best behaviour, for the Acting Provost's eye +was on him. Never was seen so sober a place. Three permits for alcohol +and no more were issued, and then only on the plea of medical +necessity. Peter handed over to the doctor the flask of brandy he had +carried off from the _estaminet_--Provosts must set an example. + +The Draconian code promulgated the first night was not adhered to. +Looters and violent fellows went to gaol instead of the gallows. But +three spies were taken and shot after a full trial. That trial was the +master effort of Private Galbraith--based on his own regimental +experience and memories of a Sheriff Court in Lanarkshire, where he had +twice appeared for poaching. He was extraordinarily punctilious about +forms, and the three criminals--their guilt was clear, and they were the +scum of creation--had something more than justice. The Acting Provost +pronounced sentence, which the priest translated, and a file of +_mutilés_ in the yard did the rest. + +"If the Boches get in here we'll pay for this day's work," said the +judge cheerfully; "but I'll gang easier to the grave for havin' got rid +o' thae swine." + +On the fourth day he had a sudden sense of dignity. He examined his +apparel, and found it very bad. He needed a new bonnet, a new kilt, and +puttees, and he would be the better of a new shirt. Being aware that +commandeering for personal use ill suited with his office, he put the +case before the Procureur, and a _Commission de Ravitaillement_ was +appointed. Shirts and puttees were easily got, but the kilt and bonnet +were difficulties. But next morning Mam'selle Omèrine brought a gift. It +was a bonnet with such a dicing round the rim as no Jock ever wore, and +a skirt--it is the truest word--of that pattern which graces the persons +of small girls in France. It was not the Lennox tartan, it was not any +kind of tartan, but Private Galbraith did not laugh. He accepted the +garments with a stammer of thanks--"They're awfu' braw, and I'm much +obliged, Mem"--and, what is more, he put them on. The Ypriotes saw his +splendour with approval. It was a proof of his new frame of mind that he +did not even trouble to reflect what his comrades would think of his +costume, and that he kissed the bonnet affectionately before he went to +bed. + +That night he had evil dreams. He suddenly saw the upshot of it +all--himself degraded and shot as a deserter, and his brief glory +pricked like a bubble. Grim forebodings of court-martials assailed him. +What would Mam'selle think of him when he was led away in disgrace--he +who for a little had been a king? He walked about the floor in a frenzy +of disquiet, and stood long at the window peering over the Place, lit by +a sudden blink of moonlight. It could never be, he decided. Something +desperate would happen first. The crash of a shell a quarter of a mile +off reminded him that he was in the midst of war--war with all its +chances of cutting knots. + +Next morning no Procureur appeared. Then came the priest with a sad face +and a sadder tale. Mam'selle had been out late the night before on an +errand of mercy, and a shell, crashing through a gable, had sent an +avalanche of masonry into the street. She was dead, without pain, said +the priest, and in the sure hope of Heaven. + +The others wept, but Private Galbraith strode from the room, and in a +very little time was at the house of the Procureur. He saw his little +colleague laid out for death after the fashion of her Church, and his +head suddenly grew very clear and his heart hotter than fire. + +"I maun resign this job," he told the Committee of Public Safety. "I've +been forgettin' that I'm a sodger and no a Provost. It's my duty to get +a nick at thae Boches." + +They tried to dissuade him, but he was adamant. His rule was over, and +he was going back to serve. + +But he was not allowed to resign. For that afternoon, after a week's +absence, the British troops came again into Ypres. + +They found a decorous little city, and many people who spoke of "le +Roi"--which they assumed to signify the good King Albert. Also, in a +corner of the cathedral yard, sitting disconsolately on the edge of a +fallen monument, Company Sergeant-Major Macvittie of the 3rd Lennox +Highlanders found Private Peter Galbraith. + +"Ma God, Galbraith, ye've done it this time! _You'll_ catch it in the +neck! Absent for a week wi'out leave, and gettin' yoursel' up to look +like Harry Lauder! You come along wi' me!" + +"I'll come quiet," said Galbraith with strange meekness. He was +wondering how to spell Omèrine St Marais in case he wanted to write it +in his Bible. + +The events of the next week were confusing to a plain man. Galbraith was +very silent, and made no reply to the chaff with which at first he was +greeted. Soon his fellows forbore to chaff him, regarding him as a +doomed man who had come well within the pale of the ultimate penalties. + +He was examined by his Commanding Officer, and interviewed by still more +exalted personages. The story he told was so bare as to be +unintelligible. He asked for no mercy, and gave no explanations. But +there were other witnesses besides him--the priest, for example, and +Monsieur St Marais, in a sober suit of black and very dark under the +eyes. + +By-and-by the court gave its verdict. Private Peter Galbraith was found +guilty of riding roughshod over the King's Regulations; he had absented +himself from his battalion without permission; he had neglected his own +duties and usurped without authority a number of superior functions; he +had been the cause of the death or maltreatment of various persons who, +whatever their moral deficiencies, must be regarded for the purposes of +the case as civilian Allies. The Court, however, taking into +consideration the exceptional circumstances in which Private Galbraith +had been placed, inflicted no penalty and summarily discharged the +prisoner. + +Privately, his Commanding Officer and the still more exalted personages +shook hands with him, and told him that he was a devilish good fellow +and a credit to the British Army. + +But Peter Galbraith cared for none of these things. As he sat again in +the trenches at St Eloi in six inches of water and a foot of mud, he +asked his neighbour how many Germans were opposite them. + +"I was hearin' that there was maybe fifty thoosand," was the answer. + +Private Galbraith was content. He thought that the whole fifty thousand +would scarcely atone for the death of one slim, dark-eyed girl. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[5] _Anglice_--rats. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Watcher by the Threshold, by John Buchan + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 57402 *** |