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diff --git a/old/43729-0.txt b/old/43729-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ac0d8ea..0000000 --- a/old/43729-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4904 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Pibroch, by Neil Munro - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Lost Pibroch - And other Sheiling Stories - -Author: Neil Munro - -Release Date: September 15, 2013 [EBook #43729] -Last Updated: March 8, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PIBROCH *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - - -THE LOST PIBROCH - -AND OTHER SHEILING STORIES - -By Neil Munro - - - - -THE LOST PIBROCH - -TO the make of a piper go seven years of his own learning and seven -generations before. If it is in, it will out, as the Gaelic old-word -says; if not, let him take to the net or sword. At the end of his seven -years one born to it will stand at the start of knowledge, and leaning a -fond ear to the drone, he may have parley with old folks of old affairs. -Playing the tune of the “Fairy Harp,” he can hear his forefolks, plaided -in skins, towsy-headed and terrible, grunting at the oars and snoring in -the caves; he has his whittle and club in the “Desperate Battle” (my own -tune, my darling!), where the white-haired sea-rovers are on the shore, -and a stain's on the edge of the tide; or, trying his art on Laments, -he can stand by the cairn of kings, ken the colour of Fingal's hair, and -see the moon-glint on the hook of the Druids! - -To-day there are but three pipers in the wide world, from the Sound of -Sleat to the Wall of France. Who they are, and what their tartan, it is -not for one to tell who has no heed for a thousand dirks in his doublet, -but they may be known by the lucky ones who hear them. Namely players -tickle the chanter and take out but the sound; the three give a tune -the charm that I mention--a long thought and a bard's thought, and they -bring the notes from the deeps of time, and the tale from the heart of -the man who made it. - -But not of the three best in Albainn today is my story, for they have -not the Lost Pibroch. It is of the three best, who were not bad, in a -place I ken--Half Town that stands in the wood. - -You may rove for a thousand years on league-long brogues, or hurry on -fairy wings from isle to isle and deep to deep, and find no equal to -that same Half Town. It is not the splendour of it, nor the riches of -its folk; it is not any great routh of field or sheep-fank, but the -scented winds of it, and the comfort of the pine-trees round and about -it on every hand. My mother used to be saying (when I had the notion of -fairy tales), that once on a time, when the woods were young and -thin, there was a road through them, and the pick of children of a -country-side wandered among them into this place to play at sheilings. -Up grew the trees, fast and tall, and shut the little folks in so that -the way out they could not get if they had the mind for it. But never an -out they wished for. They grew with the firs and alders, a quiet clan in -the heart of the big wood, clear of the world out-by. - -But now and then wanderers would come to Half Town, through the gloomy -coves, under the tall trees. There were packmen with tales of the -out-world. There were broken men flying from rope or hatchet. And -once on a day of days came two pipers--Gilian, of Clan Lachlan of -Strathlachlan, and Rory Ban, of the Macnaghtons of Dundarave. - -They had seen Half Town from the sea--smoking to the clear air on the -hillside; and through the weary woods they came, and the dead quiet of -them, and they stood on the edge of the fir-belt. - -Before them was what might be a township in a dream, and to be seen at -the one look, for it stood on the rising hill that goes back on Lochow. - -The dogs barked, and out from the houses and in from the fields came the -quiet clan to see who could be here. Biggest of all the men, one they -named Coll, cried on the strangers to come forward; so out they went -from the wood-edge, neither coy nor crouse, but the equal of friend or -foe, and they passed the word of day. - -“Hunting,” they said, “in Easachosain, we found the roe come this way.” - -“If this way she came, she's at Duglas Water by now, so you may bide and -eat. Few, indeed, come calling on us in Half Town; but whoever they are, -here's the open door, and the horn spoon, and the stool by the fire.” - -He took them in and he fed them, nor asked their names nor calling, but -when they had eaten well he said to Rory, “You have skill of the pipes; -I know by the drum of your fingers on the horn spoon.” - -“I have tried them,” said Rory, with a laugh, “a bit--a bit. My friend -here is a player.” - -“You have the art?” asked Coll. - -“Well, not what yoo might call the whole art,” said Gilian, “but I can -play--oh yes!I can play two or three ports.” - -“You can that!” said Rory. - -“No better than yourself, Rory.” - -“Well, maybe not, but--anyway, not all tunes; I allow you do 'Mackay's -Banner' in a pretty style.” - -“Pipers,” said Coll, with a quick eye to a coming quarrel, “I will take -you to one of your own trade in this place--Paruig Dali, who is namely -for music.” - -“It's a name that's new to me,” said Rory, short and sharp, but up they -rose and followed Big Coll. - -He took them to a bothy behind the Half Town, a place with turf -walls and never a window, where a blind man sat winding pirns for the -weaver-folks. - -“This,” said Coll, showing the strangers in at the door, “is a piper -of parts, or I'm no judge, and he has as rare a stand of great pipes as -ever my eyes sat on.” - -“I have that same,” said the blind man, with his face to the door. “Your -friends, Coll?” - -“Two pipers of the neighbourhood,” Rory made answer. “It was for no -piping we came here, but by the accident of the chase. Still and on, if -pipes are here, piping there might be.” - -“So be it,” cried Coll; “but I must go back to my cattle till night -comes. Get you to the playing with Paruig Dali, and I'll find you here -when I come back.” And with that he turned about and went off. - -Parig put down the ale and cake before the two men, and “Welcome you -are,” said he. - -They ate the stranger's bite, and lipped the stranger's cup, and then, -“Whistle 'The Macraes' March,' my fair fellow,” said the blind man. - -“How ken you I'm fair?” asked Rory. - -“Your tongue tells that. A fair man has aye a soft bit in his speech, -like the lapping of milk in a cogie; and a black one, like your friend -there, has the sharp ring of a thin burn in frost running into an iron -pot. 'The Macraes' March,' _laochain_.” - -Rory put a pucker on his mouth and played a little of the fine tune. - -“So!” said the blind man, with his head to a side, “you had your lesson. -And you, my Strathlachlan boy without beard, do you ken 'Muinntir a' -Ghlinne so'?” - -“How ken ye I'm Strathlachlan and beardless?” asked Gilian. - -“Strathlachlan by the smell of herring-scale from your side of the house -(for they told me yesterday the gannets were flying down Strathlachlan -way, and that means fishing), and you have no beard I know, but in what -way I know I do not know.” Gilian had the _siubhal_ of the pibroch but -begun when the blind man stopped him. - -“You have it,” he said, “you have it in a way, the Macarthur's way, and -that's not my way. But, no matter, let us to our piping.” - -The three men sat them down on three stools on the clay floor, and the -blind man's pipes passed round between them. - -“First,” said Paruig (being the man of the house, and to get the vein -of his own pipes)--“first I'll put on them 'The Vaunting.'” He stood to -his shanks, a lean old man and straight, and the big drone came nigh on -the black rafters. He filled the bag at a breath and swung a lover's arm -round about it. To those who know not the pipes, the feel of the bag -in the oxter is a gaiety lost. The sweet round curve is like a girl's -waist; it is friendly and warm in the crook of the elbow and against a -man's side, and to press it is to bring laughing or tears. - -The bothy roared with the tuning, and then the air came melting and -sweet from the chanter. Eight steps up, four, to the turn, and eight -down went Paruig, and the _piobaireachd_ rolled to his fingers like -a man's rhyming. The two men sat on, the stools, with their elbows on -their knees, and listened. - -He played but the _urlar_, and the _crunluadh_ to save time, and he -played them well. - -“Good indeed! Splendid, my old fellow!” cried the two; and said Gilian, -“You have a way of it in the _crunluadh_ not my way, but as good as ever -I heard.” - -“It is the way of Padruig Og,” said Rory. - -“Well I know it! There are tunes and tunes, and 'The Vaunting' is not -bad in its way, but give me 'The Macraes' March.'” - -He jumped to his feet and took the pipes from the old man's hands, and -over his shoulder with the drones. - -“Stand back, lad!” he cried to Gilian, and Gilian went nearer the door. - -The march came fast to the chanter--the old tune, the fine tune that -Kintail has heard before, when the wild men in their red tartan came -over hill and moor; the tune with the river in it, the fast river and -the courageous that kens not stop nor tarry, that runs round rock and -over fall with a good humour, yet no mood for anything but the way -before it. The tune of the heroes, the tune of the pinelands and the -broad straths, the tune that the eagles of Loch Duich crack their beaks -together when they hear, and the crows of that country-side would as -soon listen to as the squeal of their babies. - -“Well! mighty well!” said Paruig Dali. “You have the tartan of the clan -in it.” - -“Not bad, I'll allow,” said Gilian. “Let me try.” - -He put his fingers on the holes, and his heart took a leap back over two -generations, and yonder was Glencoe! The grey day crawled on the white -hills and the Mack roofs smoked below. Snow choked the pass, _eas_ and -corn filled with drift and flatted to the brae-face; the wind tossed -quirky and and in the little bashes and among the smooring lintels and -joists; the Mood of old and young lappered on the hearthstone, and the -bairn, with a knifed throat, had an icy lip on a frozen teat. Out of the -place went the tramped path of the Campbell butchers--far on their -way to Glenlyon and the towns of paper and ink and liars--“Muinntir -a' ghlinne so, muinntir a' ghlinne so!--People, people, people of this -glen, this glen, this glen!” - -“Dogs! dogs! O God of grace--dogs and cowards!” cried Rory. “I could be -dirking a Diarmaid or two if by luck they were near me.” - -“It is piping that is to be here,” said Paruig, “and it is not piping -for an hour nor piping for an evening, but the piping of Dunvegan that -stops for sleep nor supper.” - -So the three stayed in the bothy and played tune about while time went -by the door. The birds flew home to the branches, the longnecked beasts -flapped off to the shore to spear their flat fish; the rutting deers -bellowed with loud throats in the deeps of the wood that stands round -Half Town, and the scents of the moist night came gusty round the -door. Over the back of Auchnabreac the sun trailed his plaid of red -and yellow, and the loch stretched salt and dark from Cairn Dubh to -Creaggans. - -In from the hill the men and the women came, weary-legged, and the -bairns nodded at their heels. Sleepiness was on the land, but the -pipers, piping in the bothy, kept the world awake. - -“We will go to bed in good time,” said the folks, eating their suppers -at their doors; “in good time when this tune is ended.” But tune came on -tane, and every tune better than its neighbour, and they waited. - -A cruisie-light was set alowe in the blind man's bothy, and the three -men played old tunes and new tunes--salute and lament and brisk dances -and marches that coax tired brogues on the long roads. - -“Here's 'Tulloch Ard' for you, and tell me who made it,” said Rory. - -“Who kens that? Here's 'Raasay's Lament,' the best port Padruig Mor ever -put together.” - -“Tunes and tunes. I'm for 'A Kiss o' the King's Hand.'” - - “Thug mi pòg 'us pòg 'us pòg, - Thug mi pòg do làmh an righ, - Cha do chuir gaoth an craicionn caorach, - Fear a fhuair an fhaoilt ach mi!” - -Then a quietness came on Half Town, for the piping stopped, and the -people at their doors heard but their blood thumping and the night-hags -in the dark of the firwood. - -“A little longer and maybe there will be more,” they said to each other, -and they waited; but no more music came from the drones, so they went in -to bed. - -There was quiet over Half Town, for the three pipers talked about the -Lost Tune. - -“A man my father knew,” said Gilian, “heard a bit of it once in -Moideart. A terrible fine tune he said it was, but sore on the mind.” - -“It would be the tripling,” said the Macnaghton, stroking a reed with a -fond hand. - -“Maybe. Tripling is ill enough, but what is tripling? There is more in -piping than brisk fingers. Am I not right, Paruig?” “Right, oh! right. -The Lost _Piobaireachd_ asks for skilly tripling, but Macruimen himself -could not get at the core of it for all his art.” - -“You have heard it then!” cried Gilian. - -The blind man stood up and filled out his breast. - -“Heard it!” he said; “I heard it, and I play it--on the _feadan_, but -not on the full set. To play the tune I mention on the full set is what -I have not done since I came to Half Town.” - -“I have ten round pieces in my sporran, and a bonnet-brooch it would -take much to part me from; but they're there for the man who'll play me -the Lost _Piobaireachd_” said Gilian, with the words tripping each other -to the tip of his tongue. - -“And here's a Macnaghton's fortune on the top of the round pieces,” - cried Rory, emptying his purse on the table. - -The old man's face got hot and angry. “I am not,” he said, “a tinker's -minstrel, to give my tuning for bawbees and a quaich of ale. The king -himself could not buy the tune I ken if he had but a whim for it. But -when pipers ask it they can have it, and it's yours without a fee. Still -if you think to learn the tune by my piping once, poor's the delusion. -It is not a port to be picked up like a cockle on the sand, for it takes -the schooling of years and blindness forbye.” - -“Blindness?” - -“Blindness indeed. The thought of it is only for the dark eye.” - -“If we could hear it on the full set!” - -“Come out, then, on the grass, and you'll hear it, if Half Town should -sleep no sleep this night.” - -They went out of the bothy to the wet short grass. Ragged mists shook -o'er Cowal, and on Ben Ime sat a horned moon like a galley of Lorn. - -“I heard this tune from the Moideart man--the last in Albainn who knew -it then, and he's in the clods,” said the blind fellow. - -He had the mouthpiece at his lip, and his hand was coaxing the bag, when -a bairn's cry came from a house in the Half Town--a suckling's whimper, -that, heard in the night, sets a man's mind busy on the sorrows that -folks are born to. The drones clattered together on the piper's elbow -and he stayed. - -“I have a notion,” he said to the two men. “I did not tell you that the -Lost _Piobaireachd_ is the _piobaireachd_ of good-byes. It is the -tune of broken clans, that sets the men on the foray and makes cold -hearth-stones. It was played in Glenshira when Gilleasbuig Gruamach -could stretch stout swordsmen from Boshang to Ben Bhuidhe, and where are -the folks of Glenshira this day? I saw a cheery night in Carnus that's -over Lochow, and song and story busy about the fire, and the Moideart -man played it for a wager. In the morning the weans were without -fathers, and Carnus men were scattered about the wide world.” - -“It must be the magic tune, sure enough,” said Gilian. - -“Magic indeed, _laochain!_ It is the tune that puts men on the open -road, that makes restless lads and seeking women. Here's a Half Town of -dreamers and men fattening for want of men's work. They forget the world -is wide and round about their fir-trees, and I can make them crave for -something they cannot name.” - -“Good or bad, out with it,” said Rory, “if you know it at all.” - -“Maybe no', maybe no'. I am old and done. Perhaps I have lost the right -skill of the tune, for it's long since I put it on the great pipe. -There's in me the strong notion to try it whatever may come of it, and -here's for it.” - -He put his pipe up again, filled the bag at a breath, brought the -booming to the drones, and then the chanter-reed cried sharp and high. - -“He's on it,” said Rory in Gilian's ear. - -The groundwork of the tune was a drumming on the deep notes where the -sorrows lie--“Come, come, come, my children, rain on the brae and the -wind blowing.” - -“It is a salute.” said Rory. - -“It's the strange tune anyway,” said Gilian; “listen to the time of -yon!” - -The tune searched through Half Town and into the gloomy pine-wood; it -put an end to the whoop of the night-hag and rang to Ben Bhreac. Boatmen -deep and far on the loch could hear it, and Half Town folks sat up to -listen. - -It's story was the story that's ill to tell--something of the heart's -longing and the curious chances of life. It bound up all the tales of -all the clans, and made one tale of the Gaels' past. Dirk nor sword -against the tartan, but the tartan against all else, and the Gaels' -target fending the hill-land and the juicy straths from the pock-pitted -little black men. The winters and the summers passing fast and furious, -day and night roaring in the ears, and then again the clans at variance, -and warders on every pass and on every parish. - -Then the tune changed. - -“Folks,” said the reeds, coaxing. “Wide's the world and merry the road. -Here's but the old story and the women we kissed before. Come, come to -the flat-lands rich and full, where the wonderful new things happen and -the women's lips are still to try!” - -“To-morrow,” said Gilian in his friend's ear--“to-morrow I will go -jaunting to the North. It has been in my mind since Beltane.” - -“One might be doing worse,” said Rory, “and I have the notion to try a -trip with my cousin to the foreign wars.” - -The blind piper put up his shoulder higher and rolled the air into -the _crunluadh breabach_ that comes prancing with variations. Pride -stiffened him from heel to hip, and hip to head, and set his sinews like -steel. - -He was telling of the gold to get for the searching and the bucks that -may be had for the hunting. “What,” said the reeds, “are your poor -crops, slashed by the constant rain and rotting, all for a scart in -the bottom of a pot? What are your stots and heifers--black, dun, and -yellow--to milch-cows and horses? Here's but the same for ever--toil -and sleep, sleep and toil even on, no feud nor foray nor castles to -harry--only the starved field and the sleeping moss. Let us to a -brisker place! Over yonder are the long straths and the deep rivers and -townships strewn thick as your corn-rigs; over yonder's the place of the -packmen's tales and the packmen's wares: steep we the withies and go!” - -The two men stood with heads full of bravery and dreaming--men in a -carouse. “This,” said they, “is the notion we had, but had no words for. -It's a poor trade piping and eating and making amusement when one might -be wandering up and down the world. We must be packing the haversacks.” - -Then the _crunluadh mach_ came fast and furious on the chanter, and Half -Town shook with it. It buzzed in the ear like the flowers in the Honey -Croft, and made commotion among the birds rocking on their eggs in the -wood. - -“So! so!” barked the _iolair_ on Craig-an-eas. - -“I have heard before it was an ill thing to be satisfied; in the morning -I'll try the kids on Maam-side, for the hares here are wersh and tough.” - -“Hearken, dear,” said the _londubh_, “I know now why my beak is gold; it -is because I once ate richer berries than the whortle, and in season -I'll look for them on the braes of Glenfinne.” - -“Honk-unk,” said the fox, the cunning red fellow, “am not I the fool to -be staying on this little brae when I know so many roads elsewhere?” - -And the people sitting up in their beds in Half Town moaned for -something new. “Paruig Dall is putting the strange tune on her there,” - said they. “What the meaning of it is we must ask in the morning, but, -_ochanoch!_ it leaves one hungry at the heart.” And then gusty winds -came snell from the north, and where the dark crept first, the day made -his first showing, so that Ben Ime rose black against a grey sky. - -“That's the Lost _Piobaireachd_,” said Paruig Dali when the bag sunk on -his arm. - -And the two men looked at him in a daze. - -Sometimes in the spring of the year the winds from Lorn have it their -own way with the Highlands. They will come tearing furious over -the hundred hills, spurred the faster by the prongs of Cruachan and -Dunchuach, and the large woods of home toss before them like corn before -the hook. Up come the poor roots and over on their broken arms go the -tall trees, and in the morning the deer will trot through new lanes cut -in the forest. - -A wind of that sort came on the full of the day when the two pipers were -leaving Half Town. - -“Stay till the storm is over,” said the kind folks; and “Your bed and -board are here for the pipers forty days,” said Paruig Dali. But “No” - said the two; “we have business that your _piobaireachd_ put us in mind -of.” - -“I'm hoping that I did not play yon with too much skill,” said the old -man. - -“Skill or no skill,” said Gilian, “the like of yon I never heard. You -played a port that makes poor enough all ports ever one listened to, and -piping's no more for us wanderers.” - -“Blessings with thee!” said the folks all, and the two men went down -into the black wood among the cracking trees. - -Six lads looked after them, and one said, “It is an ill day for a body -to take the world for his pillow, but what say you to following the -pipers?” - -“It might,” said one, “be the beginning of fortune. I am weary enough -of this poor place, with nothing about it but wood and water and tufty -grass. If we went now, there might be gold and girls at the other end.” - -They took crooks and bonnets and went after the two pipers. And when -they were gone half a day, six women said to their men, “Where can the -lads be?” - -“We do not know that,” said the men, with hot faces, “but we might be -looking.” They kissed their children and went, with _cromags_ in their -hands, and the road they took was the road the King of Errin rides, and -that is the road to the end of days. - -A weary season fell on Half Town, and the very bairns dwined at the -breast for a change of fortune. The women lost their strength, and said, -“To-day my back is weak, tomorrow I will put things to right,” and they -looked slack-mouthed and heedless-eyed at the sun wheeling round the -trees. Every week a man or two would go to seek something--a lost heifer -or a wounded roe that was never brought back--and a new trade came to -the place, the selling of herds. Far away in the low country, where the -winds are warm and the poorest have money, black-cattle were wanted, so -the men of Half Town made up long droves and took them round Glen Beag -and the Rest. - -Wherever they went they stayed, or the clans on the roadside put them to -steel, for Half Town saw them no more. And a day came when all that was -left in that fine place were but women and children and a blind piper. - -“Am I the only man here?” asked Paruig Dali when it came to the bit, and -they told him he was. - -“Then here's another for fortune!” said he, and he went down through the -woods with his pipes in his oxter. - - - - -RED HAND - - -THE smell of wet larch was in the air, and Glenaora was aburst to -the coaxing of Spring. Paruig Dali the piper--son of the son of Iain -Mor--filled his broad chest with two men's wind, and flung the drones -over his shoulder. They dangled a little till the bag swelled out, and -the first blast rang in the ear of the morning. Rough and noisy, the -reeds cried each other down till a master's hand held them in check, and -the long soft singing of the _piobaireachd_ floated out among the tartan -ribbons. The grey peak of Drimfern heard the music; the rock that wards -the mouth of Carnus let it pass through the gap and over the hill and -down to the isles below; Dun Corr-bhile and Dunchuach, proud Kilmune, -the Paps of Salachary, and a hundred other braes around, leaned over to -listen to the vaunting notes that filled the valley. “The Glen, the -Glen is mine!” sang the blithe chanter; and, by Finne's sword, Macruimen -himself could not have fingered it better! - -It was before Paruig Dali left for Halt Town; before the wars that -scorched the glens; and Clan Campbell could cock its bonnet in the face -of all Albainn. Paruig was old, and Paruig was blind, as the name of him -tells, but he swung with a king's port up and down on the short grass, -his foot firm to every beat of the tune, his kilt tossing from side to -side like a bard's song, his sporran leaping gaily on his brown -knees. Two score of lilting steps to the bumside, a slow wheel on a -brogue-heel, and then back with the sun-glint on the buckles of his -belt. - -The men, tossing the caber and hurling the _clachncart_ against the -sun beyond the peat-bog, paused in their stride at the chanter's boast, -jerked the tartan tight on their loins, and came over to listen; the -women, posting blankets for the coming sheiling, stopped their splashing -in the little linn, and hummed in a dream; and men and women had mind -of the days that were, when the Glen was soft with the blood of men, for -the Stewarts were over the way from Appin. - -“God's splendour! but he can play too,” said the piper's son, with his -head areel to the fine tripling. - -Then Paruig pushed the bag further into his oxter, and the tune changed. -He laid the ground of “Bodaich nam Briogais,” and such as knew the story -saw the “carles with the breeks” broken and flying before Glenurchy's -thirsty swords, far north of Morven, long days of weary march through -spoiled glens. - -“It's fine playing, I'll allow,” said the blind man's son, standing -below a saugh-tree with the bag of his bannered pipes in the crook of -his arm. He wore the dull tartan of the Diarmaids, and he had a sprig -of gall in his bonnet, for he was in Black Duncan's tail. “Son of Paruig -Dali,” said the Chief seven years ago come Martinmas, “if you're to play -like your father, there's but Dunvegan for you, and the schooling of -Patrick Macruimen.” So Tearlach went to Skye--cold isle of knives and -caves--and in the college of Macruimen he learned the _piob-mhor_. -Morning and evening, and all day between, he fingered the _feadan_ or -the full set--gathering and march, massacre and moaning, and the stately -salute. Where the lusty breeze comes in salt from Vatemish across Loch -Vegan, and the purple loom of Uist breaks the sunset's golden bars, -he stood on the braes over against Borearaig and charmed the grumbling -tide. And there came a day that he played “The Lament of the Harp-Tree,” - with the old years of sturdy fight and strong men all in the strain of -it, and Patrick Macruimen said, “No more, lad; go home: Lochow never -heard another like you.” As a cock with its comb uncut, came the -stripling from Skye. - -“Father,” he had said, “you play not ill for a blind man, but you miss -the look on the men's faces, and that's half the music. Forbye, you are -old, and your fingers are slow on the grace-notes. Here's your own flesh -and blood can show you fingering there was never the like of anywhere -east the Isles.” - -The stepmother heard the brag. “_A pheasain!_” she snapped, with hate in -her peat-smoked face. “Your father's a man, and you are but a boy with -no heart for a long day. A place in Black Duncan's tail, with a gillie -to carry your pipes and knapsack, is not, mind ye, all that's to the -making of a piper.” - -Tearlach laughed in her face. “Boy or man,” said he, “look at me! north, -east, south, and west, where is the one to beat me? Macruimen has the -name, but there were pipers before Macruimen, and pipers will come after -him.” - -“It's maybe as you say,” said Paruig. “The stuff's in you, and what -is in must out; but give me _cothrom na Feinne_, and old as I am, with -Finne's chance, and that's fair play, I can maybe make you crow less -crouse. Are ye for trying?” - -“I am at the training of a new chanter-reed,” said Tearlach; “but let it -be when you will.” - -They fixed a day, and went out to play against each other for glory, and -so it befell that on this day Paruig Dali was playing “The Glen is Mine” - and “Bodaich nam Briogais” in a way to make stounding hearts. - -Giorsal snapped her fingers in her stepson's face when her husband -closed the _crunluadh_ of his _piobaireachd._ - -“Can you better it, bastard?” snarled she. - -“Here goes for it, whatever!” said Tear-lach, and over his back went the -banner with its boar's head sewn on gold. A pretty lad, by the cross! -clean-cut of limb and light of foot, supple of loin, with the toss of -the shoulder that never a decent piper lacked. The women who had been -at the linn leaned on each other all in the soft larch-scented day, and -looked at him out of deep eyes; the men on the heather arose and stood -nigher. - -A little tuning, and then - - “Is comadh leam's comadh leam, cogadh na sithe, - Marbhar 'sa chogadh na crochar's an t-sith mi.” - -“Peace or war!” cried Giorsal, choking in anger, to her man--“peace or -war! the black braggart! it's an asp ye have for a son, goodman!” - -The lad's fingers danced merry on the chanter, and the shiver of -something to come fell on all the folk around. The old hills sported -with the prancing tune; Dun Corrbhile tossed it to Drimfem, and -Drimfern sent it leaping across the flats of Kilmune to the green -corries of Lecknamban. “Love, love, the old tune; come and get flesh!” - rasped a crow to his mate far off on misty Ben Bhreac, and the heavy -black wings flapped east. The friendly wind forgot to dally with the -pine-tuft and the twanging bog-myrtle, the plash of Aora in its brown -linn was the tinkle of wine in a goblet. “Peace or war, peace or war; -come which will, we care not,” sang the pipe-reeds, and there was the -muster and the march, hot-foot rush over the rotting rain-wet moor, the -jingle of iron, the dunt of pike and targe, the choked roar of hate and -hunger, batter and slash and fall, and behind, the old, old feud with -Appin! - -Leaning forward, lost in a dream, stood the swank lads of Aora. They -felt at their hips, where were only empty belts, and one said to his -child, “White love, get me yon long knife with the nicks on it, and the -basket-hand, for I am sick of shepherding.” The bairn took a look at his -face and went home crying. - -And the music still poured on. 'Twas “I got a Kiss o' the King's Hand” - and “The Pretty Dirk,” and every air better than another. The fairy pipe -of the Wee Folk's Knowe never made a sweeter fever of sound, yet it hurt -the ears of the women, who had reason to know the payment of pipers' -springs. - -“Stop, stop, O Tearlach og!” they cried; “enough of war: have ye not a -reel in your budget?” - -“There was never a reel in Boreraig,” said the lad, and he into -“Duniveg's Warning,” the tune Coll Ciotach heard his piper play in the -west on a day when a black bitch from Dunstaffnage lay panting for him, -and his barge put nose about in time to save his skin. - -“There's the very word itself in it,” said Paruig, forgetting the -taunting of Giorsal and all but a father's pride. - -'Twas in the middle of the “Warning” Black Duncan, his toe on the -stirrup, came up from Castle Inneraora, with a gillie-wet-foot behind, -on his way to Lochow. - -“It's down yonder you should be, Sir Piper, and not blasting here for -drink,” said he, switching his trews with his whip and scowling under -black brows at the people. “My wife is sick of the _clarsach_ and wants -the pipes.” - -“I'm no woman's piper, Lochow; your wife can listen to the hum of her -spinning-wheel if she's weary of her harp,” said the lad; and away -rode the Chief, and back to the linn went the women, and the men to -the _cabar_ and the stone, and Tearlach, with an extra feather in his -bonnet, home to Inneraora, leafing a gibe as he went, for his father. - -Paruig Dali cursed till the evening at the son he never saw, and his -wife poisoned his mind. - -“The Glen laughs at you, man, from Carnus to Croit-bhile. It's a black, -burning day of shame for you, Paruig Dall!” - -“Lord, it's a black enough day for me at the best!” said the blind man. - -“It's disgraced by your own ill-got son you are, by a boy with no blood -on his _biodag_, and the pride to crow over you.” - -And Paruig cursed anew, by the Cross and the Dogs of Lorn, and the White -Glaive of Light the giants wear, and the Seven Witches of Cothmar. He -was bad though he was blind, and he went back to the start of time for -his language. “But _Dhé!_ the boy can play!” he said at the last. - -“Oh, _amadain dhoill_” cried the woman; “if it was I, a claw was off the -cub before the mouth of day.” - -“Witless woman, men have played the pipes before now, lacking a finger: -look at Alasdair Corrag!” - -“Allowing; but a hand's as easy to cut as a finger for a man who has -gralloched deer with a keen _sgian-dubh_. Will ye do't or no'?” - -Parig would hearken no more, and took to his pillow. - -Rain came with the gloaming. Aora, the splendid river, roared up the -dark glen from the Salmon Leap; the hills gathered thick and heavy round -about the scattered townships, the green new tips of fir and the copper -leaves of the young oaks moaned in the wind. Then salt airs came tearing -up from the sea, grinding branch on branch, and the whole land smoked -with the drumming of rain that slanted on it hot and fast. - -Giorsal arose, her clothes still on her, put a plaid on her black head, -and the thick door banged back on the bed as she dived into the storm. -Her heavy feet sogged through the boggy grass, the heather clutched at -her draggled coat-tails to make her stay, but she filled her heart with -one thought, and that was hate, and behold! she was on the slope of -the Black Bull before her blind husband guessed her meaning. Castle -Inneraora lay at the foot of the woody dun, dozing to the music of the -salt loch that made tumult and spume north and south in the hollow of -the mountains. Now and then the moon took a look at things, now and then -a night-hag in the dripping wood hooted as the rain whipped her breast -feathers; a roe leaped out of the gloom and into it with a feared -hoof-plunge above Carlonan; a thunderbolt struck in the dark against the -brow of Ben Ime and rocked the world. - -In the cold hour before the mouth of day the woman was in the piper's -room at the gate of Inneraora, where never a door was barred against the -night while Strong Colin the warder could see from the Fort of Dunchuach -to Cladich. Tearlach the piper lay on his back, with the glow of a -half-dead peat on his face and hands. “Paruig, Paruig!” said the woman -to herself, as she softly tramped out the peat-fire and turned to the -bed. And lo! it was over. Her husband's little black knife made a fast -sweep on the sleeper's wrist, and her hand was drenched with the hot -blood of her husband's son. - -Tearlach leaped up with a roar in the dark and felt for his foe; but the -house was empty, for Giorsal was running like a hind across the soaked -stretch of Caimban. The lightning struck at Glenaora in jagged fury and -confusion; the thunder drummed hollow on Creag - -Dubh: in a turn of the pass at the Three Bridges the woman met her -husband. - -“Daughter of hell!” said he, “is't done? and was't death?” - -“Darling,” said she, with a fond laugh, “'twas only a brat's hand. You -can give us 'The Glen is Mine!' in the morning.” - - - - -THE SECRET OF THE HEATHER-ALE - - -DOWN Glenaora threescore and ten of Diarmaid's stout fellows took the -road on a fine day. They were men from Carnus, with more of Clan Artair -than Campbell in them; but they wore Gilleasbuig Gruamach's tartan,. -and if they were not on Gilleasbuig Gruamach's errand, it makes little -difference on our story. It was about the time Antrim and his dirty -Irishers came scouring through our glens with flambeaux, dirk and sword -and other arms invasive, and the country was back at its old trade of -fighting, with not a sheiling from end to end, except on the slopes of -Shira Glen, where a clan kept free of battle and drank the finest of -heather-ale that the world envied the secret of. - -“Lift we and go, for the Cattle's before!” said Alasdair Piobaire on the -chanter of a Dunvegan great-pipe--a neat tune that roared gallant and -far from Carnus to Bara-caldine; so there they were, the pick of swank -fellows on the road! - -At the head of them was Niall Mor a' Chamais--the same gentleman namely -in story for many an art and the slaughter of the strongest man in the -world, as you'll find in the writings of my Lord Archie. “God! look at -us!” said he, when his lads came over the hill in the grey mouth of day. -“Are not we the splendid men? Fleas will there be this day in the hose -of the Glenshira folk.” And he sent his targe in the air in a bravado, -catching it by the prong in its navel, smart and clean, when it whirled -back. - -Hawks yelped as they passed; far up on Tullich there was barking of -eagles; the brogues met the road as light as the stagslot; laughing, -singing, roaring; sword-heads and pikes dunting on wooden targets--and -only once they looked back at their women high on the brae-face. - -The nuts were thick on the roadside, hanging heavy from swinging -branches, and some of the men pulled them off as they passed, stayed for -more, straggled, and sang bits of rough songs they ken over many of on -Lochowside to this day. So Niall Mor glunched at his corps from under -his bonnet and showed his teeth. - -“Gather in, gather in,” said he; “ye march like a drove of low-country -cattle. Alasdair, put 'Baile Inneraora' on her!” - -Alasdair changed his tune, and the good march of Clan Diarmaid went -swinging down the glen. - -The time passed; the sun stood high and hot; clucking from the -fir-plantings came woodcock and cailzie; the two rivers were crossed, -and the Diarmaids slockened their thirst at the water of Altan Aluinn, -whose birth is somewhere in the bogs beside tall Bhuidhe Ben. - -Where the clans met was at the Foal's Gap, past Maam. A score of the -MacKellars ran out in a line from the bushes, and stotted back from the -solid weight of Diarmaid moving in a lump and close-shouldered in the -style Niall Mor got from the Italian soldier. Some fell, hacked on the -head by the heavy slash of the dry sword; some gripped too late at the -pikes that kittled them cruelly; and one--Iver-of-the-Oars--tripped on -a root of heather, and fell with his breast on the point of a Diarmaid's -dirk. - -To the hills went a fast summons, and soon at the mouth of the gap came -twoscore of the MacKellars. They took a new plan, and close together -faced the green tartan, keeping it back at the point of steel, though -the pick of Glenaora wore it, and the brogues slipped on the brae-face. -It was fast cut and drive, quick flash of the dirk, with the palm up and -the hand low to find the groin, and a long reach with the short black -knife. The choked breath hissed at teeth and nose, the salt smell of new -blood brought a shiver to birch-leaf and gall. But ever the green tartan -had the best of it. - -“_Bas, bas, Dhiarmaid!_” cried Calum Dubh, coming up on the back of his -breaking two-score with fresh lads from Elerigmor, bed-naked to the -hide, and a new fury fell on the two clans tearing at it in the narrow -hollow in between the rocky hills. So close they were, there was small -room for the whirl of the basket-hilt, and “Mind Tom-a-Phubaill and the -shortened steel!” cried Niall Mor, smashing a pretty man's face with a -blow from the iron guard of his Ferrara sword. The halberts, snapped at -the haft to make whittles, hammered on the target-hides like stones on -a coffin, or rang on the bosses; the tartan ripped when the stuck one -rolled on his side before the steel could be twisted out; below the foot -the grass felt warm and greasy, and the reason was not ill to seek. - -Once it looked like the last of Calum Dubh. He was facing Niall Mor, -sword and targe, and Niall Mor changed the sword to the other hand, -pulled the _sgian-dubh_ from his garter, and with snapping teeth pushed -like a lightning fork below MacKellar's target. An Elerigmor man ran in -between; the little black knife sunk into his belly with a moist plunge, -and the blood spouted on the deer-horn haft. - -“_Mallachd ort!_ I meant yon for a better man,” cried Niall Mor; “but -it's well as it is, for the secret's to the fore,” and he stood up dour -and tall against a new front of Mac-Kellar's men. - -Then the sky changed, and a thin smirr of warm rains fell on the glen -like smoke; some black-cattle bellowed at the ford in a wonder at where -their herds could be, and the herds--stuck, slashed, and cudgelled--lay -stiffening on the torn grass between the gap and Mac-Kellar's house. -From end to end of the glen there was no man left but was at the -fighting. The hook was tossed among the corn; the man hot-foot behind -the roe, turned when he had his knife at its throat, to go to war; a -lover left his lass among the heather; and all, with tightened belts, -were at the old game with Clan Diarmaid, while their women, far up on -the sappy levels between the hill-tops and beside the moor-lochs, -span at the wheel or carded wool, singing songs with light hearts and -thinking no danger. - -Back went MacKellar's men before Niall - -Mor and his sturdy lads from Camus, the breeder of soldiers--back -through the gap and down on the brae to the walls of Calum Dubh. - -“'Illean, 'illean!” cried Calum; “lads, lads! they have us, sure enough. -Oh! pigs and thieves! squint mouths and sons of liars!” - -The cry gathered up the strength of all that was left of his clan, Art -and Uileam, the Maam lads, the brothers from Drimlea and two from over -Stron hill, and they stood up together against the Carnus men--a gallant -madness! They died fast and hard, and soon but Calum and his two sons -were left fencing, till a rush of Diarmaids sent them through the door -of the house and tossed among the peats. - -“Give in and your lives are your own,” said Niall Mor, wiping his sword -on his shirtsleeve, and with all that were left of his Diarmaids behind -his back. - -To their feet stood the three MacKellars. - -Calum looked at the folk in front of him, and had mind of other ends to -battles. “To die in a house like a rat were no great credit,” said he, -and he threw his sword on the floor, where the blades of Art and Uileam -soon joined it. - -With tied arms the father and his sons were taken outside, where the air -was full of the scents of birch and gall new-washed. The glen, clearing -fast of mist, lay green and sweet for mile and mile, and far at its -mouth the fat Blaranbuie woods chuckled in the sun. - -“I have you now,” said Niall Mor. “Ye ken what we seek. It's the old -ploy--the secret of the ale.” - -Calum laughed in his face, and the two sons said things that cut like -knives. - -“Man! I'm feared ye'll rue this,” said Niall Mor, calm enough. “Ye may -laugh, but--what would ye call a gentleman's death?” - -“With the sword or the dagger in the hand, and a Diarmaid or two before -me,” cried Calum. - -“Well, there might be worse ways of travelling yont--indeed there could -ill be better; but if the secret of the ale is not to be ours for the -asking, ye'll die a less well-bred death.” - -“Name it, man, name it,” said Calum. “Might it be tow at the throat and -a fir-branch.” - -“Troth,” said Niall Mor, “and that were too gentle a travelling. The -Scaurnoch's on our way, and the crows at the foot of it might relish a -Glen Shira carcass.” - -Uileam whitened at the notion of so ugly an end, but Calum only said, -“Die we must any way,” and Art whistled a bit of a pipe-tune, grinding -his heel on the moss. - -Niall Mor made to strike the father on the face, but stayed his hand and -ordered the three in-by, with a few of his corps to guard them. Up and -down Glen Shira went the Diarmaids, seeking the brewing-cave, giving hut -and home to the flame, and making black hearths and low lintels for the -women away in the sheilings. They buried their dead at Kilblaan, and, -with no secret the better, set out for Scaurnoch with Calum and his -sons. - -The MacKellars were before, like a _spreidh_ of stolen cattle, and the -lot of the driven herd was theirs. They were laughed at and spat on, -and dirk-hilts and _cromags_ hammered on their shoulders, and through -Blaranbuie wood they went to the bosky elbow of Dun Corr-bhile and round -to the Dun beyond. - -Calum, for all his weariness, stepped like a man with a lifetime's plans -before his mind; Art looked about him in the fashion of one with an eye -to woodcraft; Uileam slouched with a heavy foot, white at the jaw and -wild of eye. - -The wood opened, the hunting-road bent about the hill-face to give a -level that the eye might catch the country spread below. Loch Finne -stretched far, from Ardno to French Foreland, a glassy field, specked -with one sail off Creaggans. When the company came to a stand, Calum -Dubh tossed his head to send the hair from his eyes, and looked at what -lay below. The Scaurnoch broke at his feet, the grey rock-face falling -to a depth so deep that weary mists still hung upon the sides, jagged -here and there by the top of a fir-tree. The sun, behind the Dun, -gave the last of her glory to the Cowal Hills; Hell's Glen filled with -wheeling mists; Ben Ime, Ben Vane, and Ben Arthur crept together and -held princely converse on the other side of the sea. - -All in a daze of weariness and thinking the Diarmaids stood, and looked -and listened, and the curlews were crying bitter on the shore. - -“Oh, haste ye, lads, or it's not Carnus for us to-night,” cried Niall -Mor. “We have business before us, and long's the march to follow. The -secret, black fellow!” - -Calum Dubh laughed, and spat in a bravado over the edge of the rock. - -“Come, fool; if we have not the word from you before the sun's off -Sithean Sluaidhe, your sleep this night is yonder,” and he pointed at -the pit below. - -Calum laughed the more. “If it was hell itself,” said he, “I would not -save my soul from it.” - -“Look, man, look! the Sithean Sluaidhe's getting black, and any one of -ye can save the three yet. I swear it on the cross of my knife.” - -Behind the brothers, one, John-Without-Asking, stood, with a gash on his -face, eager to give them to the crows below. - -A shiver came to Uileam's lips; he looked at his father with a -questioning face, and then stepped back a bit from the edge, making to -speak to the tall man of Chamis. - -Calum saw the meaning, and spoke fast and thick. - -“Stop, stop,” said he; “it's a trifle of a secret, after all, and to -save life ye can have it.” - -Art took but a little look at his father's face, then turned round on -Shira Glen and looked on the hills where the hunting had many a time -been sweet. “Maam no more,” said he to himself; “but here's death in the -hero's style!” - -“I thought you would tell it,” laughed Niall Mor. “There was never one -of your clan but had a tight grip of his little life.” - -“Ay!” said Calum Dubh; “but it's _my_ secret. I had it from one who made -me swear on the holy steel to keep it; but take me to Carnus, and I'll -make you the heather-ale.” - -“So be't, and----” - -“But there's this in it, I can look no clansmen nor kin in the face -after telling it, so Art and Uileam must be out of the way first.” - -“Death, MacKellar?” - -“That same.” - -Uileam shook like a leaf, and Art laughed, with his face still to Shira, -for he had guessed his father's mind. - -“Faith!” said Niall Mor, “and that's an easy thing enough,” and he -nodded to John-Without-Asking. - -The man made stay nor tarry. He put a hand on each son's back and -pushed them over the edge to their death below. One cry came up to the -listening Diarmaids, one cry and no more--the last gasp of a craven. - -“Now we'll take you to Camus, and you'll make us the ale, the fine ale, -the cream of rich heather-ale,” said Niall Mor, putting a knife to the -thongs that tied MacKellar's arms to his side. - -With a laugh and a fast leap Calum Dubh stood back on the edge of the -rock again. - -“Crook-mouths, fools, pigs' sons! did ye think it?” he cried. “Come with -me and my sons and ye'll get ale, ay, and death's black wine, at the -foot of Scaurnoch.” He caught fast and firm at John-Without-Asking, and -threw himself over the rock-face. They fell as the scart dives, straight -to the dim sea of mist and pine-tip, and the Diarmaids threw themselves -on their breasts to look over. There was nothing to see of life but -the crows swinging on black feathers; there was nothing to hear but the -crows scolding. - -Niall Mor put the bonnet on his head and said his first and last -friendly thing of a foe. - -“Yon,” said he, “had the heart of a man!” - - - - -BOBOON'S CHILDREN - - -FROM Knapdale to Lorn three wandering clans share the country between -them, and of the three the oldest and the greatest are the swart -Macdonalds, children of the Old Boboon. - -You will come on them on Wade's roads,--jaunty fellows, a bit dour in -the look, and braggart; or girls with sloe-eyes, tall and supple, not -with a flat slouching foot on the soil, but high in the instep, -bounding and stag-sure. At their head will be a long lean old man on -crutches--John Fine Macdonald-- - -Old Boboon, the father and head of the noblest of wandering tribes. - -“Sir,” will Boboon say to you, “I am the fellow you read of in books as -the teller of Fingalian tales; wilt hear one of them for a poor Saxon -shilling, or wilt buy my lures for the fish? Or perhaps a display of -scholarly piping by my daughter's son--the gallant scamp!--who has -carried arms for his king?” - -If one must have the truth, the piping is bad piping, but the fish-lures -and the tales are the best in the world. You will find some of the tales -in the writings of Iain Og of Isla--such as “The Brown Bear of the Green -Glen”; but the best are to hear as Boboon minds them when he sits with -you on the roadside or on the heather beside the evening fire, when -the brown fluffy eagles bark at the mist on Braevallach. Listen well to -them, for this person has the gift. He had it from his father, who had -it from _his_ father, who had it from a mother, who, in deep trouble -and disease, lay awake through long nights gathering thoughts as healthy -folks gather nuts--a sweet thing enough from a sour husk. - -And if time were your property (as it should be the portion of every -wiselike man), you might hear many tales from Old Boboon, but never the -tale of his own three chances. - -It happened once upon a time that the captain in the town took a notion -to make Boboon into a tame house-man instead of a creature of the woods -and highways. He took him first by himself and clapped him into a kilt -of his own tartan eight yards round the buttocks, full pleated, with -hose of fine worsted, and a coat with silver buttons. He put a pickle -money in his sporran, and gave him a place a little way down his table. -The feeding was high and the work was to a wanderer's fancy; for it -was but whistling to a dog now and then, chanting a stave, or telling a -story, or roaming through the garden behind the house. - -“Ho, ho!” said Boboon, “am not I the sturdy fellow come to his own?” and -about the place he would go with a piper's swagger, switching the -grass and shrubs with a withie as he went, in the way gentlemen use -riding-sticks. - -But when Inneraora town lay in the dark of the winter night, and the -captain's household slept, Boboon would hear his clan calling on him -outside the wall. - -“Boboon! oh, Boboon! old hero! come and collogue with your children.” - -He would go to the wall, which was lower on the inside than the out -(and is, indeed, the wall of old Quinten, where a corps of Campbells, -slaughtered by Inverlochy dogs, lie under a Latin stone), and he would -look down at his friends running about like pole-cats in the darkness, -in their ragged kilts and trews, their stringy hair tossing in the wind. -The women themselves would be there, with the bairns whining on their -backs. - -“Ay! ay! this is you, my hearty folk!” he would say; “glad am I to see -you and smell the wood-fire reek off you. How is it on the road?” - -“From here we have not moved since you left us, John Fine. We are camped -in the Blue Quarry, and you never came near your children and friends.” - -“God! and here's the one that's sorry for that same. But over the walls -they will not let me. 'If gentleman you would be,' says the captain, -'you must keep out of woods and off the highway.'” - -“And you like it, Boboon?” - -“Like it, heroes! But for the honour and ease of it, give me a fir-root -fire in Glen Croe and a dinner of _fuarag_. It is not the day so much -as the night. Lying in-by there on a posted-bed, I choke for the want of -air, though the windows and doors are open wide.” - -“Come away with us, Boboon; we have little lack with the fish, and few -are our stories since you took to the town.” - -“No, no, dears. Conan's curse, and I tell you no! In this place there is -comfort, and every day its own bellyful.” - -“But the freedom outbye, John, old hero! Last night we had the bravest -of fires; the sparks flew like birds among the Duke's birches, the -ground was snug and dry, and-” - -“Begone! I tell ye no!” - -“Listen! To-day we were among the white hares beyond the Beannan, -thwacking the big fat fellows with our clubs. Such sport was not in all -Albainn!” - -“White hares!” - -“White hares, old John! And Alasdair Beag has some new tunes since you -left us--a _piobaireachd_ he picked up from a Mull man.” - -“Would it be 'Failte an Roich '?” - -“Better than that by far; a masterly tune! Come out and hear him.” - -But Old Boboon leaned with his arms on the wall and made no move to be -off with his children. - -“Come and stravaig,” said the girls, and his daughter Betty put a foot -in a cranny and pulled herself up beside him to put coaxing arms round -his neck. - -“Calf of my heart!” said Boboon, stroking her hair, soft handed. - -“We have the fine feeding,” said the girl in his ear. “Yesterday it was -plotted trout in the morning and tunnag's eggs; dinner was a collop off -a fat hind.” - -“A grailoched hind?” - -“No, nor grailoched! That is a fool's fashion and the spoiling of good -meat. But come with us, father. Think of the burns bubbling, and the -stars through the branches, and the fresh airs of the morning!” - -“Down, down, you bitch! Would ye tempt me?” cried Boboon, pushing the -girl from the wall and hurrying back with shaking knees to the Latin -stone. The night was deep black, and for all he could tell by eyesight, -he might have been in the middle of breezy Moor Rannoch, but the town -gables crowded 'thick and solid round his heart. He missed the free -flowing winds; there was a smell of peat and coal from dead house-fires, -and he spat the dust of lime from his throat. - -Over the wall the clan scraped and skurried as weasels do. They dared -make no noise for fear the town should waken, but in hoarse voices they -called all together-- - -“Boboon, Boboon, oh! come home to the wood, Boboon!” - -“Am not I the poor caged one?” said Boboon to himself, and he ran in -that he might hear no more. - -It was the same the next night and the next, and it looked like going on -without end. Ever the wanderers coming at night to the wall and -craving their head to come out. And one night they threw over a winged -black-cock, that fell with beating feathers at Boboon's feet as he stood -in the dark listening to the swart Macdonalds whining outbye. - -He picked up the bird and ran kind fingers through its feathers. The -heat coursed in its breast and burned to a fever in its wounded oxter. -Its little heart beat on Boboon's thumb like a drumstick. - -“Poor bird!” said he; “well I ken where ye came from, and the merry -times ye had. Ye hatched in the braes of Ben Bhuidhe, and clucked on the -reedy places round about the side of that tall hill. Before your keen -eyes in the morning was the Dubh Loch, and the Shira--winding like a -silver belt. Sure am I ye took wing for it with the day, and over Stuc -Scardan to Aora Glen to make merry among your mates in the heather and -the fern. Oh! _choillich-dhuibh, choillich-dhuibh_, hard's our fate with -broken wings and the heart still strong!” - -He thrawed the bird's neck, and then went over the wall to join his -clan. - -His second chance ended no better. He was back in a new kilt and jacket -a twelvemonth later, and this time the captain tried the trick of a -dog's freedom--oat on the road as he liked by day, but kennel at night. - -One day Boboon was on his master's errand round Stron. It was the spring -of the year. The shore, at the half-ebb, was clean and sweet, and the -tide lapped at the edge as soft as a cat at milk. - -Going round Stron on the hard yellow road, he got to think of the sea's -good fortune,--of the many bays it wandered into by night or day; of its -friendship with far-out forelands, and its brisk quarrels with the black -rocks. Here was no dyke at any time, but all freedom, the restlessness -and the roaming, sleep or song as the mood had it, and the ploys with -galleys and gabberts; the cheery halloo of the winds and the waving of -branches on foreign isles to welcome one. - -The road opened before him in short swatches--the sort of road a -wanderer likes, with not too much of it to be seen at one look. In the -hazel-wood by the way the bark of the young trees glistened like brass; -thin new switches shot out straight as shelisters. - -John Fine, with the sun heating his back, started at the singing of -Donnacha Ban's “Coire Cheathaich”:-- - - “O 'twas gladsome to go a-hunting - Out in the dew of the sunny mom! - For the great red stag was never wanting, - Nor the fawn, nor the doe with never a horn. - My beauteous corri, my misty corri! - What light feet trod thee in joy and pride! - What strong hand gathered thy precious treasures, - What great hearts leaped on thy craggy side!” - -Rounding Dundarave, the road lay straight before him till it thinned in -the distance to a needle-point pricking the trees, and at the end of it -was a cloud of dust. - -“What have I here?” said Boboon to himself, stretching out with long -steps, the kilt flapping against the back of his knees. - -The cloud came close, and lo! here was his own clan on the march, -draggled and stoury, rambling, scattered like crows, along the road. - -“Boboon! Boboon!” they cried, and they hung about him, fingering his -fine clothes. - -He looked at their brown flesh, he saw the yellow soil in the crannies -of their brogues, the men loose and blackguardly, the women red-cheeked, -ripe, and big-breasted, with bold eyes, and all had enchantment for him! -A stir set up in his heart that he could not put down. - -“Where were you yesterday?” he asked. - -“On the side of the Rest in Glen Croe, with dry beds of white hay and no -hurry.” - -“Where are you for?” - -“Have you forgotten the wanderer's ways, Boboon? Where does this road go -to?” - -“Well ye ken, my heroes! It goes to the end of a man's will. If the man' -says, 'I bide here,' it's the end of the road; but if he has the notion, -it will take him to the end of days. That, by my soul! is the charm of -all roads that are not in towns; and now that I think of it, let the -captain whistle on his errand, for I'm Boboon and sick of the causey -stones.” - -So night found Boboon and his clan far in at the back of Auchnabreac, -town-muir and bonny place, where some we ken would sooner be than -wandering o'er the world. - -And the days passed, and at Martinmas the captain was at Kilmichael -Market, and he came on Boboon with his people on the edge of the -market-place. Boboon in those days was as straight as a young -saugh-wand, sharp and thin, all thong at the joints, and as supple as a -wild cat. He was giving a display with the _sgian-dubh_, stabbing it on -the ground at the back of his left heel and twisting his right arm round -the leg to get the blade out of the ground without bending the knee. It -was a trick to take the eye, but neither bardic nor soldierly, yet -there was a throng of drovers about him. Along with him was his daughter -Betty, who took after him for looks, but had her dead mother's dainty -tongue, and from her mother a little book-schooling John Fine had never -the need of. - -The eye of the captain fell on the two of them as they stood there, with -their forty clan-folk going about the market, and he was gripped by a -new notion to give Boboon the third and the last chance. - -“Boboon!” he said, “come back to the town this once, and I'll put you -and your daughter up together in a house of your own.” - -Before a week was out the thing was as he wanted. Boboon and Betty got a -room in Macvicar's Land, with a wooden floor, and a fire on the side -of the wall with a built-in chimney, and other gentilities beside. They -stayed for months, and they stayed for years, and the clan craved them -in vain to come home. Betty was put to the books and the arts of ladydom -by the captain's mother and sister, and she took to them like a Ridir's -daughter. She lost the twang of the road-folk; she put her errant hair -in leash; she grew to the habit of snodding and redding, until for grace -and good looks she was the match of them that taught her. - -One day the captain, walking in his garden in deep cogitation, fell in -the way of the girl as she roamed among the bushes. He got for the first -time the true glance of her (for one may look at a person for years and -not see the reality till a scale falls from the eyes), and behold! here -was a woman who set his heart drumming. - -It was that very night Boboon put an end to his last chance. - -The strong sun of the day left the night hot and clammy, and a haze -hung on the country such as one sees in these parts in keenest frost. -Macvicar's Land was full of smells--of sweating flesh and dirty water, -of fish and the rotting airs of sunless holes--and the dainty nose of -Macdonald took a disgust. He flung open door and window, and leaned out -at the window with his neck bared and his mouth stretched wide gasping -to the air. The bairns in the back-land looked up and laughed. - -“Look at Boboon, Boboon, Boboon, the father of Lady Betty!” they cried, -and John Fine shook his fist and cursed their families. - -But there was no ease from the trouble in this fashion, so he got up and -went behind the town, and threw himself under the large trees with an -ear to the ground. Beside him the cattle crunched the sappy grass in so -sweet and hearty mouthfuls that he could well wish he had the taste of -nature himself, and they breathed great breaths of content. His keen -ears could catch the hopping of beasts on the grass and the scratching -of claws in the wood, he could hear the patter of little feet, and the -birds above him scraping on the bark when they turned in their sleep. -A townman would think the world slept, so great was the booming of -quietness; but Boboon heard the song of the night, the bustle of the -half world that thrives in shade and starshine. - -Leaning now on an elbow, he let his eyes rove among the beeches, into -the bossy tops, solemn and sedate, and the deep recesses that might -be full of the little folk of fairy-land at their cantrips. And then -farther back and above all was Dunchuach the stately, lifting its face, -wood-bearded, to the stars! - -“If a wind was here it was all I wanted,” said Boboon, and when he -said it the wind came--a salty air from the sea. The whole country-side -cooled and gave out fresh scents of grass and earth. - -“O God! O God!” cried the wanderer, “here we are out-by, the beasts and -the birds and the best of Boboon together! Here is the place for ease -and the full heart.” - -He up and ran into the town, and up to the captain's gate and in. - -“Master,” he cried, 'it's the old story,--I must be taking the road for -it; here's no rest for John Fine Macdonald!” - -“But you'll leave the girl,” said the captain, who saw the old fever in -the man's eyes; “I have taken a notion of her, and--” - -“So be it! let her bide.” - -“I'll marry her before the morn's out.” - -“Marry!” cried Boboon, putting back his hair from his face with a -nervous hand. “You would marry a wanderer's child?” - -“Well, they'll talk, no doubt; but she has gifts to make them forget, -and she's good enough to make a king's woman.” - -“Sir,” said Boboon, “I have but one thing to say, and that's our -own Gaelic old-word, 'There are few lapdogs in a fox's litter.'” The -captain's face got as red as his vest, and he had a ready hand up for an -answer to Boboon, but he had mind the man was the girl's father. - -“I'll risk it,” he said, “and you can go your wandering ways, for Betty -is willing.” - -“No doubt, no doubt,” said Boboon, and he went. In the hollow of the -night he was hooting back like a boy at the hoolets on the slopes of -Coillevraid, and at the mouth of day, in a silver wet light, he was -standing on the edge of the hills that look on two lochs, his head high -like a scenting deer's. He turned him round about to all airts with his -eyes from Cruachan to Cowal, and as far between Knapdale and Lorn as -a wanderer has vision, and yonder, down at Kames, was the camp of his -clan! - -Betty his daughter left Macvicar's Land in the morning and went to be -captain's wife, with a seat in the kirk and callers from the castle -itself. - -“Wait, wait,” said old Craignure, when the tale reached him, “you'll see -the fox come out on her ere long.” - -But the fox was not there; it was skipping a day, as the fox will do -sometimes when the day before has been good hunting. All went well with -the woman till the worst that might have been the best happened, and -she died with her first child. It was the year of the stunted oats, that -brought poverty to Inneraora and black bread to the captain's board; but -black bread and brochan would have been the blithest of meat for him if -Betty was left to share it. He took to the bottle, and left the boy to -women who had no skill of wild youth. - -And the child grew like a fir-tree, straight and tall, full of hot -blood, swung about by whim and the moment's fancy. For him it was ever -the horse and gun, a snatched dinner and hearty, and off to the wood -or hill. He got to know the inner ways of the beasts that hide in the -coarse grasses and the whin; at a whistle he could coax flapping birds -to come to heel. A loose vest and a naked neck for ever were marring his -gentility, and his closest friends were countrymen with hard hands and -the loud ready laugh. - -One day it came to the captain's mind that something must be made of -this young blade, and he sent for him. - -“Boy,” said he, “are you at your books?” - -“No, but--but I ken a short way with the badgers,” the lad made answer. - -“Did you have a lesson this morning?” - -“Never a lesson,” said the lad; “I was too busy living.” - -“Living, said ye?” - -“Living. I was at the swimming at the Creags, and beaking in the sun -on the braes above the Garron beside the march wall where the hedgehogs -creep, and I am new from the shinty,” and he shook the shinty-stick in -his hand. - -The captain took to pondering, his chin on his hand and his elbows on -the table, where a bottle and glass lay beside him. - -After a bit he said, “Look ye, my son, what are ye meaning to be?” - -“I'm for the sword-work,” the lad said, in a flash, his face twitching. - -“I would sooner see you in hell first!” cried the captain, thumping the -board till the glass rang. He had seen foreign wars himself and had a -hack on the groin. - -That was the first of the feud between them. They fought it dour and -they fought it hard, the father for the crafts of peace and the lad for -his own way, and at last one day the captain said-- - -“To the door, brat, and your lair with the Boboons you belong to! Faith, -and your grandfather was right when he said there was never a lapdog in -a fox's litter.” - -Who he came of, the lad had no notion, for the swart Macdonalds never -came near the town after Boboon left it for the last time; but he put on -his bonnet, and went out of the house and on to the highroad. - -It was well on to winter, a brawling day, with the leaves of the Duke's -trees swishing thick and high over the thatch and through the streets -of the Duke's town. Snug stood the gables, friendly and warm, and the -window-lozens winked with the light of big peat-fires within. Over the -breast the seabirds yelped and crows craked without a stop, stirring -about in the branches behind Macvicar's Land. And the salt wind! It blew -in from the low bay at one end of the town and through it to the other, -and before it went a lad into the wide world that starts at the factor's -corner. - -“By the shore-side to the low country, or by the woods to the hills?” - the lad asked himself. He had the _caman_ still in his hand, and he -tossed it in the air. “Bas for the highway, _cas_ for the low,” said he. -The shinty fell _bos_, and our hero took to it for the highway to the -north. He swithered at the Arches, and looked back on the front of the -town and the quay with the oil-lights on it. He was half in the humour -to bide, but he put the notion behind him and stretched to the brae, -whistling a piper's march. At the head of the brae the town houses were -lost to him, and this so soon he could not put up with, so he went down -on a way to the right a little and stood on the grass of the Winterton -field. - -Fast and dark the night was falling, a heavy smirr of rain was drooking -the grass, and the trees on every hand shook the water in blobs from the -branches. Through them the lights of the finest town in the world shone -damp and woe-begone. - -“There are good folk in't, and bad folk in't,” said the lad to himself; -“but somehow 'twas never the place for me!” - -He turned and went into the road through the wood, savage at heart, -without a thought of where his sleep would be. When he came to -Kennachregan, there was the scad of a fire above the trees beside the -roaring river, and he went down and looked over a march dyke at a band -of wanderers under the trees. Young and old, men and women, they lay -steaming on soft beds of springy spruce-branches with their toes to the -crackling logs, snoring as snore sound sleepers, sheltered from the rain -by the thick branches, the side of the hill, and here and there a canvas -covering. There was but one of them up--a long old man with lank jaws -and black eyes--John Fine Macdonald. He was stirring up the logs with -the shod of a crutch and humming a Perth song, and before the hottest of -the fire a plucked bird was roasting. - -The smell of the meat and the wood-fire rose to the dykeside where the -lad stood shivering in his wet clothes, and the comfort of the camp was -something he could not pass by. - -He took a jump over the dyke and went out in the light of the fire, -wondering what would be his welcome. Old Boboon looked up with his hand -over his eyes, then rose on his crutches and put a hand on the young -fellow's shoulder. - -“You're from Inneraora town?” said he. - -“I am,” said the lad; “but it's Inneraora no more for me.” - -“Ho! ho!” laughed the old wanderer. “Sit ye down, ye scamp, and take -your fingers to a pick of your grandfather's hen. Boboon's children may -be slow and far, but home's aye home to them!” - - - - -THE FELL SERGEANT. - - -IT is ill enough to have to die in Glenaora at any season, but to get -the word for travelling from it on yon trip in the spring of the year is -hard indeed. The gug-gug will halloo in your ears to bid you bide a -wee and see the red of the heather creep on Tom-an-dearc; the soft and -sap-scented winds will come in at the open door, and you will mind, -maybe, of a day long-off and lost when you pulled the copper leaves of -the bursting oak and tossed them among a girl's hair. Oh! the long days -and the strong days! They will come back to you like the curious bit in -a tune that is vexatious and sweet, and not for words or a set thought. -You will think of the lambs on the slopes, of the birds tearing through -the thousand ways in the woods, of the magic hollows in below the -thick-sown pines, of the burns, deep at the bottom of _eas_ and corri, -spilling like gold on a stair. And then, it may be, Solomon Carrier's -cart goes by to the town, the first time since the drifts went off the -high road; you hear the clatter of the iron shoes, and your mind will go -with him to the throng street where the folks are so kind and so free. - -But to turn your back for the last at that time on Lecknamban must come -sorest of all. For Lecknamban has seven sheilings hidden in its hills, -where the grass is long and juicy, and five burns that are aye on the -giggle like girls at a wedding, and the Aora daunders down in front of -the knowe, full of fish for the Duke alone, but bonny for earl or caird. - -It was in this same glen, in this same Lecknamban, in the spring of a -year, a woman was at her end. She was a woman up in years but not old, -a black Bana-Mhuileach who had seen pleasant things and trials like all -who come to this queer market-place; but now when the time was come -to take the long road with no convoy, only the good times were in her -recollection. And though Glenaora was not her calf-country (for she came -but a year ago to bide with a friend), she was swear't to turn heel on a -place so cosy. - -She sat propped up in a box-bed, on pillows, with her face to the open -door, and the friendly airs of the country-side came in to stir her -hair. With them came scents of the red earth and the grass, birch-tree -and myrtle, from the moor. But more than all they brought her who was at -her end a keen craving for one more summer of the grand world. Strong -in her make and dour at the giving-in, she kept talking of the world's -affairs and foolishness to the folk about her who were waiting the -Almighty's will and the coming of the stretching-board. Her fingers -picked without a stop at the woolly bits of the blankets, and her eyes -were on as much of the knowe below the house as she could see out at the -open door. It was yellow at the foot with flowers, and here and there -was a spot of blue from the cuckoo-brogue. - -“Women, women,” she said with short breaths, “I'm thinking aye, when I -see the flowers, of a man that came from these parts to Duart. He sang -'Mo Nighean Dubh' in a style was never heard before in our place, and he -once brought me the scented cuckoo-brogues from Aora.” - -Said the goodwife, “Aoirig, poor woman, it is not the hour for ancient -old _sgeuls_; be thinking of a canny going.” - -“Going! it was aye going with me,” said the woman in the bed. “And it -was aye going when things were at their best and I was the keener for -them.” - -“It's the way of God, my dear, _ochanie!_” said one of the two Tullich -sisters, putting a little salt in a plate for-the coming business. - -“O God! it's the hard way, indeed. And I'm not so old as you by two or -three clippings.” - -“Peace, Aoirig, heart; you had your own merry times, and that's as much -as most of us have claim to.” - -“Merry times! merry times!” said Aoirig, humped among the bedding, her -mind wandering. - -Curls of the peat-reek coiled from the floor among the _cabars_ or -through the hole in the roof; a lamb ran by the door bleating for its -mother, and the whistling of an _uiseag_ high over the grass where his -nest lay ran out to a thin thread of song. The sound of it troubled the -dying woman, and she asked her friends to shut the door. Now and again -Maisie would put a wet cloth to her lips and dry the death-sweat from -her face. The goodwife was throng among chests and presses looking for -sheets, shrouds, and dead-caps. - -“It's a pity,” said she, “you brought no grave-clothes with you from -Mull, my dear.” - -“Are you grudging me yours?” asked Aoirig, coming round from wandering. - -“No, nor grudging; fine ye ken it, cousin. But I know ye have them, and -it's a pity you should be dressed in another's spinning than your own.” - -“Ay, they're yonder sure enough: clean and ready. And there's more than -that beside them. The linen I should have brought to a man's home.” - -“You and your man's home! Is it Duart, my dear, among your own folk, or -down to Inishail, you would have us take you?” Aoirig coughed till the -red froth was at her lips. - -“Duart is homely and Inishail is holy, sure enough, but I would have it -Kilmalieu. They tell me it's a fine kirkyard; but I never had the luck -to see it.” - -“It's well enough, I'll not deny, and it would not be so far to take -you. Our folk have a space of their own among the MacVicars, below the -parson.” - -The woman in the bed signed for a sip of water, and they had it fast at -her lips. - -“Could you be putting me near the Macnicols?” she asked in a weakening -voice. “The one I speak of was a Macnicol.” - -“Ay, ay,” said the goodwife; “they were aye gallant among the girls.” - -“Gallant he was,” said the one among the blankets. “I see him now. The -best man ever I saw. It was at a wedding----” - -The woman's breast racked and the spume spattered over the home-spun -blankets. - -Maisie was heating a death-shift at the peat-fire, turning it over in -her hands, letting the dry airs into every seam and corner. - -Looking at her preparation, the dying woman caught back her breath to -ask why such trouble with a dead-shift. - -“Ye would not have it on damp and cold,” said Maisie, settling the -business. “I doubt it'll be long in the sleeves, woman, for the goodwife -has a lengthy reach.” - -“It was at a marriage in Glenurchy,” said Aoirig in a haver, the pillows -slipping down behind her back. “Yonder he is. A slim straight lad. -Ronnal, O Ronnal my hero! What a dancer! not his match in Mull. Aye -so----” - -A foot could be heard on the road, and one of the two sisters ran out, -for she knew whom it would be. They had sent word to the town by -Solomon in the morning for Macnicol the wright to come up with -the stretching-board, thinking there was but an hour more for -poor Macnicol's were the footsteps, and there he was with the -stretching-board under his arm--a good piece of larch rubbed smooth -by sheet and shroud, and a little hollow worn at the head. He was a fat -man, rolling a bit to one side on a short leg, gross and flabby at the -jowl, and thick-lipped; but he might have been a swanky lad in his day, -and there was a bit of good-humour in the corner of his eye, where you -will never see it when one has been born with the uneasy mind. He was -humming to himself as he came up the brae a Badenoch ditty they have in -these parts on the winter nights, gossiping round the fire. Whom he -was going to stretch he had no notion, except that it was a woman and a -stranger to the glen. - -The sister took him round to the corner of the house and in at the byre -door, and told him to wait. “It'll not be long now,” she said. - -“Then she's still to the fore,” said the wright. “I might have waited -on the paymaster's dram at Three Bridges if I had ken't. Women are aye -thrawn about dying. They'll put it off to the last, when a man would be -glad to be taking the road. Who is she, poor woman?” - -“A cousin-german of Nanny's,” said the sister, putting a bottle before -him, and whipping out for some bannock and cheese. He sat down on a -shearing-stool, facing the door, half open, between the byre he was -in and the kitchen where Aoirig was at the dying. The stretching-board -leaned against the wall outside. - -“Aye so gentle, so kind,” the woman in the bed was saying in her last -dover. “He kissed me first on a day like this. And the blue flowers from -Aora?” - -In the byre the wright was preeing the drink and paying little heed to -food. It was the good warm stuff they brew on the side of Lochow, the -heart of the very heart of the barley-fields, with the taste of gall and -peat, and he mellowed with every quaich, and took to the soft lilting of -Niall Ban's song:-- - - “'I am the Sergeant fell but kind - (Ho! ho! heroes, agus ho-e-ro! ); - I only lift but the deaf and blind, - The wearied-out and the rest-inclined. - Many a booty I drive before, - Through the glens, through the glens.' - said the Sergeant Mor.” - -Ben the house the goodwife was saying the prayers for the dying woman -the woman should have said for herself while she had the wind for it, -but Aoirig harped on her love-tale. She was going fast, and the sisters, -putting their hands to her feet, could feel that they were cold as the -rocks. Maisie's arms were round her, and she seemed to have the notion -that here was the grip of death, for she pushed her back. - -“I am not so old--so old. There is Seana, my neighbour at Duart--long -past the fourscore and still spinning--I am not so old--God of grace--so -old--and the flowers----” - -A grey shiver went over her face; her breast heaved and fell in; her -voice stopped with a gluck in the throat. - -The women stirred round fast in the kitchen. Out on the clay floor the -two sisters pushed the table and laid a sheet on it, the goodwife put -aside the pillows and let Aoirig's head fall back on the bed. Maisie put -her hand to the clock and stopped it. - -“Open the door, open the door!” cried the goodwife, turning round in a -hurry and seeing the door still shut. - -One of the sisters put a finger below the sneck and did as she was told, -to let out the dead one's ghost. - -Outside, taking the air, to get the stir of the strong waters out of his -head, was the wright. - -He knew what the opening of the door meant, and he lifted his board and -went in with it under his arm. A wafting of the spring smells came in at -his back, and he stood with his bonnet in his hand. - -“So this is the end o't?” he said in a soft way, stamping out the fire -on the floor. - -He had but said it when Eurig sat up with a start in the bed, and the -women cried out. She opened her eyes and looked at the man, with his fat -face, his round back, and ill-made clothes, and the death-deal under his -oxter, and then she fell back on the bed with her face stiffening. - -“Here's the board for ye,” said the wright, his face spotted white and -his eyes staring. “I'll go out a bit and take a look about me. I once -knew a woman who was terribly like you, and she came from Mull.” - - - - -BLACK MURDO - - - “Mas breug uam e is breug thugam e.” - - --Gaelic Proverb. - - -I. - -BLACK MURDO'S wife was heavy, and 'twas the time the little brown nats -were pattering in Stronbuie wood. Stronbuie spreads out its greenness -to the sun from the slope of Cladich. It is, in its season, full of the -piping of birds and the hurry of wings, and the winds of it have the -smell of a fat soil. The Diarmaids were the cunning folk to steal it; -for if Stronshira is good, Stronbuie is better; and though the loops -of Aora tangle themselves in the gardens of the Red Duke, Lochow has -enchantment for the galley of a king. Fraoch Eilean, Innis Chonell, and -Innis Chonain--they cluster on the bend of it like the gems on a brooch, -Inishail of the Monks makes it holy, and Cruachan-ben, who lords it -over Lorn, keeps the cold north wind from the shore. They may talk of -Glenaora, but Stronbuie comes close, close to the heart! - -For all that, 'twas on a time a poor enough place for a woman in yon -plight; for the rest of the clan crowded down on Innistiynich, -all fighters and coarse men of the sword, and a skilly woman or a -stretching-board was no nearer than a day's tramp over the hill and -down Aora glen to the walls of Inneraora. If one died on Cladich-side -then--and 'twas a dying time, for the Athol dogs were for ever at -the harrying--it was but a rough burying, with no corranach and no -mort-cloth; if a child came, it found but cold water and a cold world, -whatever hearts might be. But for seven years no child came for Black -Murdo. - -They say, in the Gaelic old-word, that a stolen bitch will never throw -clean pups nor a home-sick woman giants. Murdo recked nothing of that -when he went wooing in a time of truce to Croit-bhile, the honey-croft -that makes a red patch on the edge of Creag Dubh. He brought Silis home -to the dull place at Stronbuie, and she baked his bannocks and ploughed -his bit of soil, but her heart never left salt Finne-side. In the -morning she would go to the hill to look through the blurred glen, and -she would have made bargains with the ugliest crow that could flap on -feathers for a day's use of his wings. She could have walked it right -often and gaily to her people's place, but Black Murdo was of Clan -Artair, and Artairich had not yet come under the _bratach_ of Diarmaid, -and bloody knives made a march-dyke between the two tartans. - -Seven years and seven days went by, and Black Murdo, coming in on an -evening after a hard day at the deer, found Silis making the curious -wee clothes. He looked at her keen, questioning, and she bleached to the -lips. - -“So!” said he. - -“Just so,” said she, breaking a thread with her teeth, and bending till -the peat-flame dyed her neck like wine. - -“God, and I'm the stout fellow!” said he, and out he went, down all the -way to Portinsherrich, and lusty he was with the ale among the pretty -men there. - -Weeks chased each other like sheep in a fank, and Silis grew sick at the -heart. There's a time for a woman when the word of a woman is sweeter -than a harp; but there were only foolish girls at Innistrynich, and -coarse men of the sword. So Murdo stayed in from the roes when the time -crept close. To see him do the heavy work of the house and carrying in -the peats was a sorry sight. - -Silis kept dreaming of Finne-side, where she had heard the long wave in -the spring of the year when she had gone home on a password to a woman's -wedding with Long Coll. The same Long Coll had brothers, and one had -put a man's foolish sayings in her ears before ever she met Murdo, she -a thin girl like a saugh-wand and not eighteen till Beltane. They called -him--no matter--and he had the way with the women. Faith, it's the -strange art! It is not looks, nor dancing, nor the good heart, nor wit, -but some soft fire of the eye and maybe a song to the bargain. Whatever -it was, it had Silis, for all that her goodman Murdo had a man's -qualities and honesty extra. - -They say, “_Cnuic is sluic is Alpeinich, ach cuin a thàinig -Artharaich?_“(1) in the by-word; but Artharaich had age enough for a -_taibhsear_ whatever, for Black Murdo had the Sight. - - 1 The hills and hollows and Clan Alpine came together, but - when arose Clan Artair? - -It's the curious thing to say of a man with all his parts that he should -be _taibhsear_ and see visions; for a _taibhsear_, by all the laws, -should be an old fellow with little use for swords or shinny-sticks. -But Murdo missed being a full taibhsear by an ell, so the fit had him -seldom. He was the seventh son of a mother who died with the brand of a -cross on her brow, and she was kin to the Glenurchy Woman. And something -crept over him with the days, that put a mist in his eyes when he looked -at Silis; but “I'm no real _taibhsear_,” he said to himself, “and I -swear by the black stones it is no cloth. A man with all the Gift might -call it a shroud high on her breast, but----” - -“Silis, _a bhean!_ shall it be the Skilly Dame of Inneraora?” - -A light leaped to the woman's eyes, for the very thing was in her mind. - -“If it could be,” she said, slowly; “but it's not easy to get her, for -black's your name on Aoraside.” - -“Black or white, Murdo stands in his own shoes. He has been at the gate -of Inneraora when Strong Colin the warder had little thought of it.” - -“Then, oh heart! it must be soon--tomorrow--but----” - -The mouth of day found Silis worse, and Murdo on his way to Inneraora. - -He stepped it down Glenaora like Coll Mor in the story, or the man with -the fairy shoes. A cloud was over Tullich and a wet wind whistled on -Kennachregan. The man's target played dunt on his back, so hasty was he, -for all that the outposts of Big Colin had hawk's eyes on the pass. He -had got the length of Alt Shelechan when a Diarmaid came out on him -from the bracken with a curse on his mouth. He was a big Diarmaid, -high-breasted and stark, for there's no denying there was breed in the -pigs. - -“Ho, ho, lad!” said he, crousely, “it's risking it you are this day!” - -Black Murdo's hands went to his sides, where a ready man's should ready -be; but he had sight of Silis. He could see her in Stronbuie in the -bothy, on the wee creepy-stool beside the peats, and he knew she was -saying the Wise Woman's Wish that Diarmaid mothers have so often need -of. Length is length, and it's a far cry to Lochow sure enough; but even -half a _taibhsear_ takes no count of miles and time. - -He spoke softly. “I go to Inneraora for the Skilly Woman. My wife is a -daughter of your folks, and she'll have none but the dame who brought -herself home.” - -“Death or life?” asked the Diarmaid, a freckled hand still on the -basket-hilt. He put the question roughly, for nobody likes to lose a -ploy. - -“Life it is, my lad. It's not to dress corpses but to wash weans she's -wanted.” - -“Ho-chutt!” went the blade back against the brass of the scabbard (for -he was _duin-uasal_ who carried it), and the man's face changed. - -“Pass!” he said. “I would not stand in a bairn's way to life. Had it -been shrouds instead of sweelers, we could have had it out, for a corpse -is in no great hurry. But troth it's yourself is the tight one, and I -would have liked a bit of the old game.” - -“No more than Murdo, red fellow!” - -“Murdo! So be't; yet Murdo will give me his dirk for gate-pay, or -they'll be saying farther down that Calum, as good a man, kept out of -his way.” - -The _biodag_ went flying into the grass at Calum's feet, and Murdo went -leaping down the glen. It was like stalking deer for the Diarmaids. Here -and there he had to go into the river or among the hazel-switches, or -crawl on his stomach among the gall. - -From Kilmune to Uchdan-barracaldine the red fellows were passing, or -playing with the _clachneart_ or the _cabar,_ or watching their women -toiling in the little fields. - -“Thorns in their sides!” he said to himself, furious at last, when -another keen-eyed Diarmaid caught sight of his tartan and his black -beard among some whins. It was a stripling with only a dirk, but he -could gather fifty men on the crook of his finger. - -“Stand!” cried the Diarmaid, flashing the dirk out. “What want ye so far -over this way?” - -Murdo, even in the rage, saw Silis, a limp creature, sweating in her -pains, her black eyes (like the sloe) keen on the door. So close, -so sure, so sorrowful! He could have touched her on the shoulder and -whispered in her ear. - -“I am Black Murdo,” he told the lad. “I am for Inneraora for the Skilly -Woman for my wife, child of your own clan.” - -“Death or life?” - -“Life.” - -“'Tis a bonny targe ye have, man; it might be doing for toll.” - -The lad got it, and Murdo went on his way. He found the Skilly Woman, -who put before him sour milk and brose. But he would not have drink or -sup, so back through the Diarmaids they went without question (for the -woman's trade was as good as the chief's convoy), till they came to -Tom-an-dearc. Out upon them there a fellow red and pretty. - -“Hold!” he said, as if it had been dogs. “What's the name of ye, black -fellow?” Murdo cursed in his beard. “My name's honest man, but I have -not time to prove it.” - -“Troth that's a pity. But seeing there's the _caüleach_ with you, -you must e'en go your way. There's aye some of you folk on the -stretching-board. Ye want heart, and ye die with a flaff of wind. Lend -me your sword, _'ille!_'' - -“Squint-mouth!” cried Murdo, “your greedy clan took too much off me this -day already for me to part with the sweetest blade Gow-an-aora ever beat -on iron. I took it from one of your cowards at Carnus, and if it's back -it goes, it's not with my will.” - -“Then it's the better man must have it,” said the red fellow, and, Lord, -he was the neat-built one! They took off their coats, and for lack of -bucklers rolled them round their arms, both calm and canny. The Diarmaid -was first ready with his brand out, and Murdo put to his point. For a -little the two men stood, spread out, hard-drawn behind the knees, with -the cords of the neck like thongs, then at it with a clatter of steel. - -The Skilly Woman, with the plaid pulled tight over her grey hair, sat -with sunk eyes on a stone and waited without wonder. She had sons who -had died in brawls at Kilmichael market, or in the long foray far -in Kintail; and her man, foster-brother to a chief, got death in the -strange foreign wars, where the pay was not hide and horn but round -gold. - -A smoky soft smirr of rain filled all the gap between the hills, though -Sithean Sluaidhe and Dunchuach had tips of brass from a sun dropping -behind the Salachary hills. The grass and the gall lost their glitter -and became grey and dull; the hill of Lecknamban, where five burns are -born, coaxed the mist down on its breast like a lover. It was wet, wet, -but never a drop made a rush bend or a leaf fall. Below the foot the -ground was greasy, as it is in a fold at the dippingtime; but the two -men pulled themselves up with a leap on it as if it might be dry sand, -and the brogues made no error on the soil. - -First the Diarmaid pressed, for he had it over the other man in youth, -and youth is but tame when it's slow or slack. Murdo waited, all eyes -that never blinked, with the basket well up, and kept on his toes. -“Splank, sp-ll-ank, sp-ll-ank--_siod e_!” said the blades, and the -Diarmaid's for a time made the most of the music, but he never got -inside the black fellow's guard. Then Murdo took up the story with a -snap of the teeth, skelping hard at the red one till the hands dirled in -the basket like a bag of pins. The smirr gathered thicker, and went -to rain that fell solid, the brogues grew like steeped bladders on the -feet, a scatter of crows made a noisy homing to the trees at Tullich, -and Aora gobbled like swine in a baron's trough. - -“Haste ye, heroes,” said the old woman, cowering on the wet stone; -“haste ye, dears; it's mighty long ye are about it.” - -The Diarmaid turned the edge twice on the coated arm, and Murdo wasted -his wind to curse. Then he gave the stroke that's worth fifty head of -kyloes (fine they know that same all below Cladichl), and a red seam -jumped to the Diarmaid's face. All his heart went to stiffen his -slacking heavy arm, and he poured on Murdo till Murdo felt it like a -rain of spears. One hot wandering stroke he got on the bonnet, and for -want of the bowl of brose at Inneraora, the wind that should go to help -him went inside, and turned his stomach. Sweat, hot and salt, stung his -eyes, his ears filled with a great booming, he fell in a weary dream of -a far-off fight on a witched shore, with the waves rolling, and some one -else at the fencing, and caring nought, but holding guard with the -best blade Gow-an-aora ever took from flame. Back stepped the Diarmaid, -sudden, and sweep went his steel at the shaking knees. - -A bairn's cry struck Murdo's ear through the booming and sent him full -awake. He drew back the stretched foot fast, and round the red one's -sword hissed through air. “Foil! foil!” said Murdo, and he slashed him -on the groin. - -“That'll do, man; no more,” said the Skilly Woman, quickly, - -“I may as well finish him; it's lame he'll be all his days any way, and -little use is a man with a halt in a healthy clan.” - -“Halt or no halt, let him be; he's my second cousin's son.” - -Murdo looked for a bit at the bloody thing before him, but the woman -craved again with bony fingers on his wrist; so he spat on the dirty -green tartan and went. The smoke rose from him and hung about with a -smell of wearied flesh, the grey of the mist was black at Carnus. When -the pair came over against Lochow, where one can see the holy isle when -it is day, the night was deep and cold; but the woman bent at the cross -with a “_Mhoire Mhathair_,” and so did the man, picking the clotted -blood from his ear. They dropped down the brae on the house at last. - -For a little Black Murdo's finger hung on the sneck, and when he heard a -sound he pushed in the door. - -All about the house the peat-reek swung like mist on the mountain. Wind -and rain fought it out on Cladich brae, and when it was not the wind -that came bold through the smoke-hole in the roof, 'twas the rain, a -beady slant that hissed on the peats like roasting herrings. The woman -lay slack on the bed, her eyes glossed over with the glass that folks -see the great sights through, and her fingers making love over the face -and breast of a new-born boy that cried thinly at her knees. A lighted -cruisie spluttered with heavy smell at the end of a string on a rafter. - -“O Skilly Woman, Skilly Woman, it's late we are,” said Black Murdo. - -“Late enough, as ye say, just man. Had ye bartered an old sword for -twenty minutes on the Tom-an-dearc, I was here before danger.” - -Then the Skilly Woman set him on the wet windy side of the door, and -went about with busy hands. - -The man, with the ragged edge of his kilt scraping his knees and the -rain bubbling in his brogues, leaned against the wattled door and -smeared the blood from his brow. A cold wind gulped down from Glenurchy -and ghosts were over Inishail. The blast whirled about and whirled -about, and swung the rowan like a fern, and whistled in the gall, and -tore the thatch, all to drown a child's cry. The blackness crowded close -round like a wall, and flapped above like a plaid--Stronbuie was in a -tent and out of the world. Murdo strained to hear a voice, but the wind -had the better of him. He went round to the gable, thinking to listen at -the window, but the board on the inside shut the wind and him out. The -strange emptiness of grief was in his belly. - -Inside, the Skilly One went like a witch, beak-nosed and half-blind. -There was clatter of pans and the dash of water, the greeting of the -child and the moan of the mother. What else is no man's business. For -all she was skilly the old dame had no thought of the woman sinking. - -“You'll have blithe-meat in the morning,” she said, cheerily, from the -fireside. - -Silis made worse moan than before. - -“Such a boy, white love! And hair like the copper! His hide is mottled -like a trout's back; calf of my heart!” - -Silis, on her side, put out white craving arms. “Give it to me, wife; -give it to me.” - -“Wheesht! rest ye, dear, rest ye,” said the Skilly Dame. - -But she put the bairn in its mother's arms. Silis, when she had it on -her breast, sobbed till the bed shook. - -“Is not he the hero, darling?” said the Skilly Woman. “It's easy seen -he's off Clan Diarmaid on one side, for all that yoar hair is black as -the sloe. Look at the colour of him!” - -Fright was in the mother's face. “Come close, come close till I tell -you,” she said, her long hair damp on her milky shoulders. - -The Skilly Woman put down her head and listened with wonder. - -“Me-the-day! Was I not the blind one to miss it? His name, white love? -No one shall ken it from me, not even Murdo.” - -A man's name took up the last breath of Silis; she gave a little shiver, -and choked with a sound that the old crone had heard too often not to -know. - -She looked, helpless, for a little at the bed, then felt the mother's -feet. They were as cold as stone. - -A cry caught Murdo's ear against the wattles, and he drove in the door -with his shoulder, heeding no sneck nor bar. - -“Am not I the blind fool?” said the crone. - -“There's your wife gone, cheap enough at the price of a yard of steel.” - -They stood and looked at the bed together, the bairn crying without -notice. - -“I knew it,” said the man, heaving; “_taibhsear_ half or whole, I could -see the shroud on her neck!” - -The grey light was drifting in from Cladich. The fir-trees put stretched -fingers up against the day, and Murdo was placing a platter of salt on a -bosom as cold and as white as the snow. - -“You're feeding him on the wrong cloth,” said he, seeing the crone give -suck to the child from a rag of Diarmaid tartan dipped in goat's milk. - - -II. - -The boy grew like a tree in a dream, that is seed, sapling, and giant in -one turn on the side. Stronbuie's wattled bothy, old and ugly, quivered -with his laughing, and the young heather crept closer round the door. -The Spotted Death filled Inishail with the well-fed and the warm-happed; -but the little one, wild on the brae, forgotten, sucking the whey from -rags and robbing the bush of its berries, gathered sap and sinew like -the child of kings. It is the shrewd way of God! There was bloody -enough work forby, for never a sheiling passed but the brosey folks came -pouring down Glenstrae, scythe, sword, and spear, and went back with the -cattle before them, and redness and smoke behind. But no raider put hand -on Black Murdo, for now he was _taibhsear_ indeed, and the _taibhsear_ -has magic against dub or steel. How he became _taibhsear_ who can be -telling? When he buried Silis out on the isle, his heart grew heavy, -gloom seized him, the cut of the Diarmaid's sword gave a quirk to his -brain that spoiled him for the world's use. He took to the hills no more -in sport, he carried Gow-an-aora's sword no more in battle, for all that -it cost him so dear. A poor man's rig was his at the harvest because of -his Gift, and the cailzie cock or the salmon never refused his lure. - -Skill of the daymore, the seven cuts, and yon ready slash worth fifty -head of kyloes, he gave to the boy, and then the quick cunning parry, -and the use of the foot and knee that makes half a swordsman. - -But never a spot of crimson would he have on Rory's steel. - -“First dip in the blood of the man with the halt, and then farewell -to ye!” he said, wearying for the day when the boy should avenge his -mother. - -Folks--far-wandered ones--brought him news of the man with the halt that -was his giving, the Diarmaid whose bargain for a sword on Tom-an-dearc -cost Silis her life. He passed it on to the boy, and he filled him with -old men's tales. He weaved the cunning stories of the pigs of Inneraora, -for all that the boy's mother came from their loins, and he made -them--what there may well be doubts of--cowards and weak. - -“They killed your mother, Rory: her with the eyes like the sloe and the -neck like snow. Swear by the Holy Iron that the man with the halt we ken -of gets his pay for it.” - -Rory swore on the iron. It is an easy thing for one when the blood is -strong and the _biodag_ still untried. He lay awake at night, thinking -of his mother's murderer till the sweat poured. He would have been on -the track of him before ever he had won his man's bonnet by lifting the -_clach-cuid-fear_, but Murdo said, “Let us be sure. You are young yet, -and I have one other trick of fencing worth while biding for.” - -At last, upon a time, Murdo found the boy could match himself, and he -said, “Now let us to this affair.” - -He took the boy, as it were, by the hand, and they ran up the hills and -down the hills, and through the wet glens, to wherever a Diarmaid might -be; and where were they not where strokes were going? The hoodie-crow -was no surer on the scent of war. Blar-na-leine took them over the six -valleys and the six mountains; Cowal saw them on the day the Lamonts got -their bellyful; a knock came on them on the night when the Stewarts took -their best from Appin and flung themselves on Inneraora, and they went -out without a word and marched with that high race. - -But luck was with the man with the halt they sought for. At muster -for raid, or at market, he was there, swank man and pretty but for the -lameness he had found on an ill day on Tom-an-dearc. He sang songs -round the ale with the sweetness of the bird, and his stories came ready -enough off the tongue. Black Murdo and the boy were often close enough -on his heel, but he was off and away like the corp-candle before they -were any nigher. If he had magic, it could have happened no stranger. - -Once, a caird who went round the world with the jingle of cans on his -back and a sheaf of withies in his oxter, told them that a lame Diarmaid -was bragging at Kilmichael fair that he would play single-stick for -three days against the country-side. They sped down to Ford, and over -the way; but nothing came of it, for the second day had found no one to -come to the challenge, and the man with the halt was home again. - -Black Murdo grew sick of the chase, and the cub too tired of it. For his -father's fancy he was losing the good times--many a fine exploit among -the Atholmen and the brosey folks of Glenstrae; and when he went down to -Innistrynich to see the lads go out with belt and plaid, he would give -gold to be with them. - -One day, “I have dreamed a dream,” said Murdo, “Our time is come: what -we want will be on the edge of the sea, and it will be the third man -after dawn. Come, son, let us make for Inneraora.” - -Inneraora lies now between the bays, sleeping day and night, for the -old times are forgot and the nettle's on Dunchuach. Before the plaid of -MacCailein Mor was spread from Cowal to Cruachan, it was the stirring -place; high and dry on the bank of Slochd-a-chubair, and the dogs -themselves fed on buck-flesh from the mountains, so rowth the times! One -we ken of has a right to this place or that place yonder that shall not -be named, and should hold his head as high on Aora as any chief of the -boar's snout; but _mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!_ the black bed of Macartair -is in the Castle itself, and Macartair is without soil or shield. How -Diarmaid got the old place is a sennachie's tale. “As much of the land -as a heifer's hide will cover,” said the foolish writing, and -MacCailein had the guile to make the place his own. He cut the hide of -a long-backed heifer into thin thongs, and stretched it round Stronbuie. -There is day about to be seen with his race for that! Over to Inneraora -then went Murdo, and Rory clad for fighting, bearing with him the keen -old sword. 'Twas a different time going down the glen then from what it -was on the misty day Murdo fetched the Skilly Dame; for the Diarmaids he -met by the way said, “'Tis the Lochow _taibhsear_ and his tail,” and let -them by without a word, or maybe with a salute. They went to the Skilly -Dame's house, and she gave them the Gael's welcome, with bannocks and -crowdie, _marag-dkubh_ and ale. But she asked them not their business, -for that is the way of the churl. She made them soft-scented beds of -white hay in a dirty black corner, where they slept till cockcrow with -sweet weariness in their bones. - -The morning was a grey day with frost and snow. Jumping John's bay below -the house was asleep with a soft smoke like a blanket over it. Lean deer -from behind the wood came down trotting along the shore, sniffing -the saltness, and wondering where the meat was. With luck and a good -_sgian-dubh_ a quick lad could do some gralloching. The tide was far -out from Ard Rannoch to the Gallows-tree, and first there was the brown -wrack, and then there was the dun sand, and on the edge of the sand a -bird went stalking. The old man and the young one stood at the gable and -looked at it all. - -It was a short cut from below the castle to the point of Ard Rannoch, -if the tide was out, to go over the sand. “What we wait on,” said Murdo, -softly, “goes across there. There will be two men, and them ye shall -not heed, but the third is him ye ken of. Ye'll trap him between the -whin-bush and the sea, and there can be no escaping unless he takes to -the swimming for it.” - -Rory plucked his belts tight, took out the good blade wondrous quiet, -breathing fast and heavy. The rich blood raced up his back, and tingled -hot against his ruddy neck. - -“What seest thou, my son?” said Murdo at last. - -“A man with a quick step and no limp,” quoth the lad. - -“Let him pass.” - -Then again said the old man, “What seest thou?” - -“A _bodach_ frail and bent, with a net on his shoulder,” said Rory. - -“Let him pass.” - -The sun went high over Ben Ime, and struck the snow till the eyes were -blinded. Rory rubbed the sweat from his drenched palm on the pleat of -his kilt, and caught the basket-hand tighter. Over Aora mouth reek went -up from a fishing-skiff, and a black spot stood out against the snow. - -“What seest thou now, lad?” asked Murdo. - -“The man with the halt,” answered the lad. - -“Then your time has come, child. The stroke worth the fifty head, and -pith on your arm!” - -Rory left the old man's side, and went down through a patch of -shelisters, his mouth dry as a peat and his heart leaping. He was across -the wrack and below the pools before the coming man had noticed him. But -the coming man thought nothing wrong, and if he did, it was but one man -at any rate, and one man could use but one sword, if swords were going. -Rory stepped on the edge of the sand, and tagged the bonnet down on his -brow, while the man limped on between him and the sea. Then he stepped -out briskly and said, “Stop, pig!” He said it strangely soft, and -with, as it were, no heart in the business; for though the lame man was -strong, deepbreasted, supple, and all sound above the belt, there was a -look about him that made the young fellow have little keenness for the -work. - -“Pig?” said the Diarmaid, putting back his shoulders and looking under -his heavy brows. “You are the Lochow lad who has been seeking for -me?” - -“Ho, ho! red fellow; ye kent of it, then?” - -“Red fellow! It's red enough you are yourself, I'm thinking. I have no -great heed to draw steel on a lad of your colour, so I'll just go my -way.” And the man looked with queer wistful eyes over his shoulder at -the lad, who, with blade-point on the sand, would have let him pass. - -But up-by at the house the _taibhsear_ watched the meeting. The quiet -turn it took was beyond his reading, for he had thought it would be but -the rush, and the fast fall-to, and no waste of time, for the tide was -coming in. - -“White love, give him it!” he cried out, making for the shore. “He looks -lame, but the pig's worth a man's first fencing.” - -Up went the boy's steel against the grey cloud, and he was at the throat -of the Diarmaid like a beast. “Malison on your black heart, murderer!” - he roared, still gripping his broadsword. The Diarmaid flung him off -like a child, and put up his guard against the whisking of his blade. - -“Oh, foolish boy!” he panted wofully as the lad pressed, and the grey -light spread over sea and over shore. The quiet tide crawled in about -their feet; birds wheeled on white feathers with mocking screams; the -old man leaned on his staff and cheered the boy. The Diarmaid had all -the coolness and more of art, and he could have ended the play as he -wanted. But he only fended, and at last the slash worth fifty head found -his neck. He fell on his side, with a queer twisted laugh on his face, -saying, “Little hero, ye fence--ye fence----” - -“Haste ye, son! finish the thing!” said the _taibhsear,_ all shaking, -and the lad did as he was told, hocking at the spurt the blood made. He -was pushing his dirk in the sand to clean it, when his eye fell on the -Skilly Woman hirpling nimbly down to the shore. She was making a loud -cry. - -“God I God! it's the great pity about this,” said she, looking at Murdo -cutting the silver buttons off the corpse's jacket. “Ken ye the man -that's there dripping?” - -“The man's no more,” said Rory, cool enough. “He has gone travelling, -and we forgot to ask his name.” - -“Then if happy you would be, go home to Lochow, and ask it not, nor -aught about him, if you wouldn't rue long. You sucked your first from a -Diarmaid rag, and it was not for nothing.” - -Murdo drew back with a clumsy start from the dead man's side and looked -down on his face, then at the boy's, queerly. “I am for off,” said he at -last with a sudden hurry. “You can follow if you like, red young one.” - And he tossed the dead man's buttons in Rory's face! - - - - -THE SEA-FAIRY OF FRENCH FORELAND. - - -ONCE I saw a fairy King, and it was in the Castle up-by. The Castle took -fire, and a fine blaze it made at the foot of Dunchaach. A boy, I ran -with the rest to carry out the MacCailein's rich gear, and behold! I -wandered and lost my way in that large place where is a window for every -day in the year. Up the long stairs and through the far passages, and -over the shining sounding floors went I, barefoot, with a feared eye on -every hole and corner. At every door it was, “Surely now I'm with the -folks at the fire”; but every door was a way into a quieter quietness, -and the Castle was my own. I sat at last on a black chair that had a -curious twisted back, and the tears went raining on the lap of my kilt. - -Long, long I sat, and sore I grat, my mind full, not so much of my way -lost, but of the bigness of things, and the notion of what it would -be to have to live in a castle at night, with doors on every hand for -ghosts to rap at, and crooked passages without end for gowsty winds to -moan in. Thinks I, “The smallest hut in the town for me, with all plain -before me, with the one door shut and my face to it, and the candlelight -seeking into every crack and cranny!” - -It was then that the fairy King came on me out of the sewed cloth -hanging on the wall. - -He was a dainty wee man, in our own tartan, with a steel plate on his -breast baronly-style, and strange long curly hair. I ran my wet eyes -down seven silver buttons the shape of salmon on the front of his vest -before I let myself go, but go I must, so I put fast heels on my fright. -I galloped with a frozen tongue through miles of the Duke's castle till -a door brought me out on the grass of Cairnban, in front of the friendly -bleeze that my own folks were pouring the stoups of water on. - -That was the only time the quiet folk and I came to a meeting, though -our family was always gleg at seeing things. A cousin-german once saw -the fairy bull that puts up in Loch Steallaire-bhan behind the town. -It came on a jaunt to the glen in the guise of a rich maiden, and my -cousin, the son of the house, made love to her. One night--in a way that -I need not mention--he found himself in her room combing down her yellow -hair, and what was among her hair but fine sand that told the whole -story? “You are a _gruagach_ of the lake!” cried the lad, letting the -comb drop on the floor, with his face white, and the thing tarned to its -own shape and went bellowing to the shore. - -And there was a man--blessings with him! for he's here no more--who -would always be going up on Sithean Sluaidhe to have troke with the wee -people on that fine knowe. He would bring them tastings of honey and -butter to put them in a good key, and there they would dance by the hour -for his diversion to the piping of a piper who played on drones of grass -with reeds made of the midge's thrapple. - -Still, in all my time I know but one body who could find the way to the -den of the Sea-Fairies, and she was a lass whose folks were in Ceannmor -at the time the French traffickers were coming here to swap casks of -claret wine for the finest herrings in the wide world. - -It was her custom to go down on the hot days to the shore at the -Water-foot when the tide was far out, and the sand was crusting with -salt in the sun, and the wrack-balls burst with the heat, and the water -lay flat like oil, and lazy, for want of a breath of wind. Sometimes it -would be the French Foreland she would seek, and sometimes Dalchenna; -but when the Frenchmen were at the Foreland she kept clear of it by the -counsel of a cautious father. - -Up the loch they would sail, the Frenchmen, in their gabberts, and -hove-to with their casks to change for the cured herrings. A curious -people they were, not much like our own good Gaels in many a way, but -black-avised and slim; still with some of the Gael's notions about -them too, such as the humour of fighting and drinking and scouring the -countryside for girls. - -But it happened that one year they left behind them only a wine of -six-waters, and did some other dirty tricks forbye, and there was for -long a feud, so that the Frenchmen behooved to keep to their boats and -bargain with the curers over the gun'le. - -On a day at that time, Marseli that I speak of had been bathing at -the Ceannmor rocks--having a crave for salt water the Ceannmor folks -nowadays are not very namely for. When she had her gown on again, she -went round to Dalchenna sands and out far to the edge of the tide, where -she sat on a stone and took to the redding of her hair, that rolled in -copper waves before the comb--rich, thick, and splendid. - -Before her, the tide was on the turn so slow and soft that the edge -of it lifted the dry sand like meal. All about on the weedy stones the -tailor-tartans leaped like grasshoppers, the spout-fish stuck far out of -the sand and took a fresh gloss on their shells from the sun. - -You might seek from shire to shire for a handsomer maid. She was at -the age that's a father's heartbreak, rounding out at the bosom and -mellowing at the eyes; her skin was like milk, and the sigh was at her -lips as often as the song. But though she sighed, it was not for the -Ceannmor fishermen, coarse-bearded, and rough in their courting; for -she had vanity, from her mother's side, and queer notions. The mother's -family had been rich in their day, with bards and thoughtful people -among them. - -“If a sea-fairy could see me now,” said Marseli, “it might put him -in the notion to come this way again,” and she started to sing the -child-song-- - - “Little folk, little folk, come to me, - From the lobbies that lie below the sea.” - -“_So agad el_” cried a gull at her back, so plainly that she tamed fast -to look, and there was the fairy before her! - -Up got Marseli, all shaking and ready to fly, but the fairy-man looked -harmless enough as he bowed low to her, and she stayed to put her hair -behind her ears and draw her gown closer. - -He was a little delicate man the smallest of Marseli's brothers could -have put in his oxter, with close curled hair, and eyes as black as -Ridir Lochiel's waistcoat. His clothes were the finest of the fine, -knee-breeches with silk hose, buckled brogues, a laced jacket, and a -dagger at his belt--no more like a fairy of the knowe than the green -tree's like the gall. - -“You're quick enough to take a girl at her word,” said Marseli, cunning -one, thinking to hide from him the times and times she had cried over -the sands for the little sea-folks to come in with the tide. - -The fairy-man said something in his own tongue that had no sense for the -girl, and he bowed low again, with his bonnet waving in his hand, in the -style of Charlie Munn the dancer. - -“You must speak in the Gaelic,” said Marseli, still a bit put about; “or -if you have not the Gaelic, I might be doing with the English, though -little I care for it.” - -“Faith,” said the fairy-man, “I have not the Gaelic, more's the pity, -but I know enough English to say you're the prettiest girl ever I set -eyes on since I left my own place.” - -(Ho! hoi was he not the cunning one? The fairies for me for gallantry!) - -“One of such judgment can hardly be uncanny,” thought Marseli, so she -stayed and cracked with him in the English tongue. - -The two of them walked up over the sand to the birch-trees, and under -the birches the little fellow asked Marseli to sit down. - -“You are bigger than I looked for in a sea-fairy,” said she when the -crack was a little bit on. - -“A fairy?” said the little fellow, looking at her in the flash of an -eye. - -“Yes! Though I said just now that you took one fast at her word, the -truth to tell is, that always when the tide went out I sang at your -back-doors the song you heard to-day for the first time. I learned it -from Beann Francie in the Horse Park.” - -The stranger had a merry laugh--not the roar of a Finne fisherman--and -a curions way of hitching the shoulders, and the laugh and the -shoulder-hitch were his answer for Marseli. - -“You'll be a king in the sea--in your own place--or a prince maybe,” - said the girl, twisting rushes in her hand. - -The man gave a little start and got red at the face. - -“Who in God's name said so?” asked he, looking over her shoulder deep -into the little birch-wood, and then uneasy round about him. - -“I guessed it,” said Marseli. “The kings of the land-fairies are -by-ordinar big, and the dagger is ever on their hips.” - -“Well, indeed,” said the little fellow, “to say I was king were a -bravado, but I would not be just denying that I might be Prince.” - -And that way their friendship began. - -At the mouth of many nights when the fishing-boats were off at the -fishing, or sometimes even by day when her father and her two brothers -were chasing the signs of sea-pig and scart far down on Tarbert, Marseli -would meet her fairy friend in a cunning place at the Black-water-foot, -where the sea puts its arms well around a dainty waist of lost land. -Here one can see Loch Finne from Ardno to Strathlachlan: in front lift -the long lazy Cowal hills, and behind is Auchnabreac wood full of deer -and birds. Nowadays the Duke has his road round about this cunning fine -place, but then it lay forgotten among whins that never wanted bloom, -and thick, soft, salty grass. Two plantings of tall trees kept the wind -off, and the centre of it beaked in warm suns. It was like a garden -standing out upon the sea, cut off from the throng road at all tides by -a cluster of salt pools and an elbow of the Duglas Water. - -Here the Sea-Fairy was always waiting for the girl, walking up and down -in one or other of the tree clumps. He had doffed his fine clothes after -their first meeting for plain ones, and came douce and soberly, but aye -with a small sword on his thigh. - -The girl knew the folly of it; but tomorrow was always to be the last of -it, and every day brought new wonders to her. He fetched her rings once, -of cunning make, studded with, stones that tickled the eye in a way the -cairngorm and the Cromalt pearl could never come up to. - -She would finger them as if they were the first blaeberries of a season -and she was feared to spoil their bloom, and in a rapture the Sea-Fairy -would watch the sparkle of eyes that were far before the jewels. - -“Do your folk wear these?” she asked. - -“Now and then,” he would say, “now and then. Ours is a strange family: -to-day we may have the best and the richest that is going, to-morrow who -so poor, without a dud to our backs and a mob crying for our heads?” - -“_Ochanorie!_ They are the lovely rings any way.” - -“They might be better; they would need to be much better, my dear, to be -good enough for you.” - -“For me!” - -“They're yours--for a kiss or two,” and he put out an arm to wind round -the girl's waist. - -Marseli drew back and put up her chin and down her brows. - -“'_Stad!_” she cried. “We ken the worth of fairy gifts in these parts. -Your rings are, likely enough, but chuckie-stones if I could but see -them. Take them back, I must be going home.” - -The little man took the jewels with a hot face and a laugh. - -“Troth,” he said, “and the same fal-fals have done a lover's business -with more credit to them before this. There are dames in France who -would give their souls for them--and the one they belong to.” - -“You have travelled?” said Marseli. “Of course a sea-fairy-” - -“Can travel as he likes. You are not far wrong, my dear. Well, well, I -ken France! O France, France! round and about the cold world, where's -your equal?” - -His eyes filled with tears, and the broad-cloth on his breast heaved -stormily, and Marseli saw that here was some sad thinking. - -“Tell me of Fairydom,” said she, to change him off so dull a key. - -“'Tis the same, the same. France and fairyland, 'tis the same, -self-same, madame,” said the sea-prince, with a hand on his heart and a -bow. - -He started to tell her of rich and rolling fields, flat and juicy, -waving to the wind; of country houses lost and drowned among flowers. -“And all the roads lead one way,” said he, “to a great and sparkling -town. Rain or shine, there is comfort, and there is the happy heart! -The windows open on the laughing lanes, and the girls lean out and -look after us, who prance by on our horses. There is the hollow hearty -hoof-beat on the causey stones; in the halls the tables gleam with -silver and gold; the round red apples roll over the platter among the -slim-stemmed wine-beakers. It is the time of soft talk and the head full -of gallant thoughts. Then there are the nights warm and soft, when the -open doors let out the laughing and the gliding of silk-shooned feet, -and the airs come in heavy with the scent of breckan and tree!” - -“On my word,” said Marseli, “but it's like a girl's dream!” - -“You may say it, black-eyes, _mo chridhe!_ The wonder is that folk can -be found to live so far astray from it. Let me tell you of the castles.” - And he told Marseli of women sighing at the harp for far-wandered ones, -or sewing banners of gold. Trumpets and drums and the tall chevaliers -going briskly by with the jingle of sword on heel on the highway to -wars, every chevalier his love and a girl's hands warm upon his heart. - -That night Marseli went early abed to wander in fairydom. - -Next day the sea-gentleman had with him a curious harp that was not -altogether a harp, and was hung over the neck by a ribbon. - -“What hast here?” asked Marseli. - -“A salve for a sore heart, lass! I can play on it some old tunes, and by -the magic of it I'm back in my father's home and unafeared.” - -He drew his white fingers over the strings and made a thin twittering -of music sweeter than comes from the _clarsach_-strings, but foreign and -uncanny. To Marseli it brought notions of far-off affairs, half sweet, -half sad, like the edges of dreams and the moods that come on one in -loneliness and strange places, and one tune he played was a tune she had -heard the French traffickers sing in the bay in the slack seasons. - -“Let me sing you a song,” said he, “all for yourself.” - -“You are bard?” she said, with a pleased face. - -He said nothing, but touched on the curious harp, and sang to the girl's -eyes, to the spark of them and the dance of them and the deep thought -lurking in their corners, to her lips crimson like the rowan and curled -with pride, to the set of breast and shoulder, and the voice melting on -the tongue. - -It was all in the tune and the player's looks, for the words were fairy -to the girl, but so plain the story, her face burned, and her eyes -filled with a rare confusion. - -“'Tis the enchantment of fairydom,” said she. “Am not I the _oinseach_ -to listen? I'll warrant yon have sung the same to many a poor girl in -all airts of the world?” - -The little one laughed and up with the shoulders. “On my sword,” quo' -he, “I could be content to sing to you and France for all my time. Wilt -come with a poor Prince on a Prince's honour?” - -He kissed her with hot lips; his breath was in her hair; enchantment -fell on her like a plaid, but she tore herself away and ran home, his -craving following at her heels. - -That night Marseli's brothers came to knives with the French -traffickers, and the morning saw the black-avised ones sailing out -over-sea for home. Back to French Foreland they came no more, and -Finne-side took to its own brewing for lack of the red wine of France. - -That, too, was the last of the Sea-Fairy. - -Marseli went to the Water-foot and waited, high tide and low; she cried -the old child tune and she redded her hair, but never again the little -man with the dainty clothes, and the sword upon his thigh. - - - - -SHUDDERMAN SOLDIER - - -BEYOND the Beannan is the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, and a stone-put -farther is the knowe where Shudderman Soldier died in the snow. He was -a half-wit who was wise enough in one thing, for he knew the heart of a -maid, and the proof of it came in the poor year, when the glen gathered -its com in boats, and the potato-shaws were black when they burst the -ground, and the catechist's horse came home by Dhuloch-side to a widow -that reckoned on no empty saddle. And this is the story. - -“_Ho, ho, suas e!_” said the nor' wind, and the snow, and the black -frost, as they galloped down Glenaora like a leash of strong dogs. It -was there was the pretty business! The Salachary hills lost their sink -and swell in the great drifts that swirled on them in the night; the -dumb white swathes made a cold harvest on the flats of Kilmune; -the frost gripped tight at the throats of the burns, and turned the -Salmon-Leap to a stack of silver lances. A cold world it was, sure -enough, at the mouth of day! The bloodshot sun looked over Ben Ime for -a little, and that was the last of him. The sheep lay in the shoulder -of the hill with the drift many a crook's-length above them, and the -cock-of-the-mountain and the white grouse, driven on the blast, met -death with a blind shock against the edge of the larch-wood. - -Up from Lochow, where Kames looks over to Cruachan, and Cruachan cocks -his grey cap against Lorn, a foolish lad came that day for a tryst that -was made by a wanton maid unthinking. Half-way over the hill he slipped -on the edge of a drift, and a sore wound in the side he got against a -splinter of the blue stone of the Quey's Rock; but he pushed on, with -the blood oozing through his cut vest. Yet, in spite of himself, he -slept beyond the Bog of the Fairy-Maid. _Mo-thruaigh! mo-thruaigh!_ - -The Fairy-Maid came and covered him up close and warm with a white -blanket that needs no posting, and sang the soft tune a man hears but -once, and kissed him on the beard as he slept in the drift--and his name -had been Ellar Ban. - -Round by the king's good highroad came Solomon the carrier with his -cart, and many a time he thought of turning between Carnus and Kilmune. -But he was of the stuff of Clan Coll, and his mare was Proud Maisie. He -had a boll of meal from Portinsherrich, from the son of a widow woman -who was hungry in Inneraora and waiting for that same. - -“No Ellar here yet!” he said at Kilmune when he asked, and they told -him. “Then there's a story to tell, for if he's not here, he's not at -Karnes, and his grave's on the grey mountain.” - -Later came Luath, the collie of Ellar, slinking through the snow wet and -weary, and without wind enough for barking. 'Twas as good as the man's -ghost. - -The shepherds came in from the fanks, and over from the curling at -Carlonan, to go on a search. - -Long Duncan of Drimfem, the slim swarthy champion, was there before -them. He was a pretty man--the like never tied a shoe in Glenaora--and -he was the real one who had Mairi's eye, which the dead fellow thought -had the laugh only for him. But, lord! a young man with a good name with -the shinty and the _clachneart_ has other things to think of than the -whims of women, and Donacha never noticed. - -“We'll go up and see about it--about him at once, Main,” he said, -sick-sorry for the girl. All the rest stood round pitying, because her -kists were said to be full of her own spinning for the day that was not -to be. - -Mairi took him to the other side of the peat-stack, and spoke with a red -face. - -“Is it any use your going till the snow's off the hill, Drimfem?” she -said, biting at the corner of her brattie, and not looking the man in -the face. - -“_Dhia gleiih sinn!_ it's who knows when the white'll be off the snouts -of these hills, and we can't wait till---- I thought it would ease your -mind.” And Donacha looked at the maid stupid enough. For a woman with -her heart on the hill, cold, she was mighty queer on it. - -“Yes, yes; but it's dangerous for you to go up, and the showers so heavy -yet. It's not twenty finger-lengths you can see in front of you, and you -might go into the bog.” - -“Is't the bog I would be thinking of, Main? It's little fear there is of -that, for here is the man that has been on Salachary when the mist was -like smoke, as well as when the spittle froze in my mouth. Oh, I'm not -the one to talk; but where's the other like me?” - -Mairi choked. “But, Dona---- but, Drimfem, it's dead Ellar must be; -and--and--you have a widow mother to mind.” Donacha looked blank at the -maid. She had the sweet face, yon curve of the lip, and the soft turn of -the neck of all Arthur's children, ripe of the cheek, with tossed hair -like a fairy of the lake, and the quirk of the eye that never left a -plain man at ease if he was under the threescore. There were knives out -in the glen for many a worse one. - -It was the lee of the peat-stack they stood in, and the falling flakes -left for a while without a shroud a drop of crimson at the girl's feet. -She was gripping tight at her left wrist under the cover of her apron -till the nails cut the flesh. There was the stress of a dumb bard's -sorrow in her face; her heart was in her eyes, if there had been a woman -to see it; but Drimfern missed it, for he had no mind of the dance at -the last Old New Year, or the ploy at the sheep-dipping, or the nuts -they cracked on the hot peats at Hallowe'en. - -The girl saw he was bound to go. He was as restless as if the snow was a -swarm of _seangans_. She had not two drops of blood in her lips, but she -tried to laugh as she took something out from a pocket and half held it -out to him. He did not understand at first, for if he was smart on the -_caman_ ball, 'twas slow in the ways of women he was. - -“It's daft I am. I don't know what it is, Donacha, but I had a dream -that wasn't canny last night, and I'm afraid, I'm afraid,” said the poor -girl. “I was going to give you----” - -Drimfern could not get the meaning of the laugh, strained as it was. He -thought the maid's reason was wandering. - -She had, whatever it was--a square piece of cloth of a woman's -sewing--into the man's hand before he knew what she would be after; and -when his fingers closed on it, she would have given a king's gold to -get it back. But the Tullich lads, and the Paymaster's shepherd from -Lecknamban, with Dol' Splendid and Francie Ro, in their plaids, and with -their crooks, came round the gable-end. Luath, who knew Glenaora as well -as he knew Creag Cranda, was with them, and away they went for the hill. -All that Donacha the blind one said, as he put the sewing in his pocket -to look at again, was, “Blessing with thee!” for all the world like a -man for the fair. - -Still the nor' wind, and the snow, and the dark frost said “_Suas e!_” - running down the glen like the strong dogs on the peching deer; and the -men were not a hundred yards away from the potato-pit when they were -ghosts that went out altogether, without a sound, like Drimendorran's -Grey Dame in the Red Forester's story. - -A white face on a plump neck stood the sting of the storm dourly, though -the goodwife said it would kill her out there, and the father cried -“Shame!” on her sorrow, and her a maiden. “Where's the decency of you?” - says he, fierce-like; “if it was a widow you were this day you couldn't -show your heart more.” And into the house he went and supped two cogies -of brose, and swore at the _sgalag_ for noticing that his cheeks were -wet. - -When the searchers would be high on the hill Shudderman came on the -maid. He was a wizened, daft old one, always in a tinker Fencible's -tartan trews and scarlet doublet. He would pucker his bare brown face -like a foreign Italian, and whistle continually. The whistle was on his -face when he came on the girl standing behind the byre, looking up with -a corpse's whiteness where the Beannan should be. - -“Te-he! Lord! but we're cunning,” said the soldier. “It's a pity about -Ellar, is it not, white darling?” - -Mairi saw nothing, but swallowed a sob. Was this thing to know her -secret, when the wise old women of the glen never guessed it? There was -something that troubled her in his look. - -The wee creature put his shoulder against the peats, and shoved each -hand up the other sleeve of his doublet, while he whistled soft, and -cunningly looked at the maid. The cords of her neck were working, and -her breast heaved sore, but she kept her teeth tight together. - -“Ay, ay, it's an awful thing, and him so fond, too,” he went on; and -his face was nothing but a handful of wrinkles and peat-smoke. It was a -bigger ploy for the fool than a good dinner. - -“What--who--who are you talking about, you poor _amadan?_” cried Mairi, -desperately. - -“Och, it's yourself that'll know. They're saying over at Tullich and -upbye at Miss Jean's, Accurach, that it's a bonny pair you would make, -you and Ellar. Yonnat Yalla says he was the first Lochow man ever she -saw that would go a mile out of his way for a lass, and I saw him once -come the roundabout road by Cladich because it was too easy to meet you -coming the short cut over the hill. Oh! there's no doubt he was fond, -fond, and-” - -“_Amadan!_” cried the maid, with no canny light in her eyes. - -“Hoots! You're not angry with me, darling. I ken, I ken. Of course -Drimfern's the swanky lad too, but it's not very safe this night on yon -same hill. There's the Bog of the Fairy-Maid that never was frozen yet, -and there's the Quey's Rock, and--te-he! I wouldn't give much for some -of them not coming back any more than poor Ellar. It's namely that -Drimfem got the bad eye from the Glenurchy woman come Martinmas next -because of his taking up with her cousin-german's girl, Morag Callum.” - -“Yon _spàgachd_ doll, indeed!” - -“God, I do not know about that! but they're telling me he had her up at -all the reels at Baldy Geepie's wedding, whatever, and it's a Maclean -tartan frock she got for the same--I saw it with my own eyes.” - -“Lies, lies, lies,” said the girl to herself her lips dry, her hands and -feet restless to do some crazy thing to kill the pain in her heart. - -She was a little helpless bird in the hands of the silly one. - -He was bursting himself inside with laughing, that couldn't be seen for -the snow and the cracks on his face. - -“But it's not marriages nor tartan you'll be thinking on, Mairi, with -your own lad up there stiff. Let Morag have Drimfem----” - -“You and your Morag! Shudderman, if it was not the crazy one you were, -you would see that a man like Donacha Drimfern would have no dealings -with the breed of MacCallum, tinker children of the sixty fools.” - -“Fools here or fools there, look at them in the castle at Duntroon! And -Drimfern is----” - -“Drimfern again! Who's thinking of Drimfern, the mother's big pet, the -soft, soft creature, the poor thing that's daft about the shinty and the -games--and--and---- Go inbye, haverer, and----oh, my heart, my heart!” - -“Cripple Callum,” whistled the daft wee one; and faith it was the great -sport he was having! The flame sparkled in the lass's eyes; she stamped -furiously in the snow. She could have gone into the house, but the -Shudderman would follow, and the devil was in him, and she might just as -well tell her story at the cross-roads as risk. So she stayed. - -“Come in this minute, O foolish one!” her mother came to the door and -craved; but no. - -The wee _bodach_ took a wee pipe from his big poke and started at the -smoking. When his match went out the dark was almost flat on the glen, -and a night-hag complained with a wean's cry in the planting beyond the -burn. At each draw of the pipe the eyes of the soldier glinted like a -ferret's, and like any ferret's they were watching. He put in a word -between-while that stabbed the poor thing's heart, about the shame of -love in maids uncourted, and the cruelty of maids that cast love-looks -for mischief. There were some old havers about himself here and there -among the words: of a woman who changed her mind and went to another -man's bed and board; of sport up the glen, and burials beyond; and -Ellar Ban's widow mother, and the carry-on of Drimfem and the Glenurchy -woman's cousin-german's girl. And it was all ravelled, like the old -story Loch Finne comes up on the shore to tell when the moon's on -Sithean Sluaidhe. - -The girl was sobbing sore. “Man!” she said at last, “give me the peace -of a night till we know what is.” The _amadan_ laughed at her, and went -shauchling down to the cotter's, and Mairi went in out of the darkness. - -The hours passed and passed, and the same leash of strong dogs were -scouring like fury down Glenaora, and the moon looked a little through -a hole, and was sickly at the sight, and went by in a hurry. A collie's -bark in the night came to the house where the people waited round the -peats, and “Oh, my heart!” said poor Mairi. - -The father took the tin lantern with the holes in it, and they all went -out to the house-end. The lantern-light stuck long needles in the night -as it swung on the goodman's finger, and the byre and the shed and the -peat-stack danced into the world and out of it, and the clouds were only -an arm's-length overhead. - -The men were coming down the brae in the smother of snow, carrying -something in a plaid. The dog was done with its barking, and there was -no more sound from the coming ones than if they were ghosts. Like enough -to ghosts they looked. No one said a word till the goodman spoke. - -“You have him there?” he said. - -“Ay, _beatmachi leis!_ all that there is of him,” said the Paymaster's -man; and they took it but an' ben, where Mairi's mother had the white -dambrod cloth she had meant for herself, when her own time came, on the -table. - -“It's poor Ellar, indeed,” said the goodman, noticing the fair beard. - -“Where's Donacha? where's Drimfern?” cried Mairi, who had pulled herself -together and come in from the byre-end, where she had waited to see if -there was none of the watchers behind. - -The Paymaster's man was leaning against the press-door, with a face like -the clay; Dol' Splendid was putting a story in the _sgalag's_ ear; -the Tullich men were very busy on it taking the snow off their boots. -Outside the wind had the sorry song of the curlew. - -“Me-the-day! it's the story of this there is to tell,” at last said -Francie Ro, with a shake of the head. “Poor Drimfern----” - -“Drimfem--ay, where's Drimfem in all the world?” said the goodman, with -a start. He was standing before his girl to keep her from seeing the -thing on the table till the wife had the boots covered. It was the face -of a _cailleach_ of threescore Mairi had. - -“It's God knows! We were taking Ellar there down, turn about resting. It -was a cruel business, for the drifts. There's blood on his side where he -fell somewhere, and Drimfern had to put a clout on it to keep the blood -off his plaid. That's Drimfern's plaid. When Donacha's second turn was -over up at the bog, we couldn't get a bit of him. He's as lost as the -deer the Duke shot, and we looked and whistled for hours.” The maid gave -a wee turn to the door, shivered, and fell like a clod at her mother's -feet. - -“Look at yon, now! Am not I the poor father altogether?” said the -old man with a soft lip to his friends. “Who would think, and her so -healthy, and not married to Ellar, that she would be so much put about? -You'll excuse it in her, lads, I know, for she's not twenty till the -dipping-time, and the mother maybe spoiled her.” - -“Och, well,” said the Splendid one, twisting his bonnet uneasy in his -hands, “I've seen them daft enough over a living lad, and it's no great -wonder when this one's dead.” They took the maid beyond to the big room -by the kitchen, and a good mother's morning for Drimfern was set by the -men. They had a glass before going home, and when they were gone the -_bochdans_ came in the deep hollow of the night and rattled the windows -and shook the door-sneck; but what cared yon long white thing on the -goodwife's dambrod tablecloth? - -At the mouth of day there was one woman with a gnawing breast looking -about the glen-foot among the snow for the Shudder-man soldier. She -found him snedding the shaft of a shinny-stick at the Stronmagachan -Gate, and whistling as if it was six weeks south of Whitsunday and the -woods piping in the heat. - -“I ken all about it, my white little lamb,” he said with a soft speech. -“All about them finding Ellar, and losing a better man, redding put her -to rights. A search in the maybe, but any way one that some will miss -more.” - -“God's heavy, heavy on a woman!” said the poor child. “I gave Donacha a -sampler with something sewn on it yesterday, and the men, when they -go up the hill to look for him to-day, will get it on him--and--it -would----” - -“Ay, ay, ay! I ken, my dear. We'll put that right, or I'm no soldier.” - And the little man cocked his bonnet on his head like a piper. Then he -was sorry for the pride of it, and he pulled it down on his face, and -whistled to stop his nose from jagging. - -“My heart! my bruised heart! they're saying sorry things of Ellar, and -Donacha dead. The cotter's wife was talking this morning, and it'll send -me daft!” - -“Blind, blind,” quo' the soldier; “but you'll not be shamed, if the -_amadan_ can help it.” - -“But what can you do, my poor Shudderman? And yet--and yet--there's no -one between Carnus and Croit-bhile I can speak to of it.” - -“Go home, white love, and I'll make it right,” said the daft one, and -faith he looked like meaning it. - -“Who knows?” thought the girl. Shudderman was chief enough with the -Glenurchy woman, and the Glenurchy woman sometimes gave her spells to -her friends. So Mairi went home half comforted. - -A cogie of brose and a bit braxy in his belly, and a farl of cake in his -poke, and out stepped the Shudderman with never a word to any one about -the end of his journey. Dol' Splendid had told him the story of the -night before, and whereabout Drimfern was lost, close beyond the -Beannan. He would find the body and the sampler, he promised himself as -he plunged up the brae at Taravh-dubh. The dogs were nearly as furious -as the night before, and the day's eye was blear. Hours passed, and the -flats of Kilmune were far below. - -There was nothing in all the world but whiteness, and a silly old -_bodach_ with a red coat trailing across it. Shudderman Soldier sank his -head between his shoulders as he pushed himself up with his hazel crook, -his tartan trews in rags about his ankles, his doublet letting in the -teeth of the wind here and there, and at the best grudging sore its too -tight shelter for his shrunk body. He had not the wind to whistle, but -he gasped bits of “Faill-il-o,” and between he swore terribly at the -white hares that jerked across in front of him with the ill-luck of a -lifetime on their backs. - -If it was the earth that was white, the sky was not far behind it; if -they were paper, it would take schooling to write on them straight, for -there wasn't a line between them. The long sweep of Balantyre itself -was lost, and the Beannan stone was buried. The creature's brogues were -clods of snow, ugly, big, without a shape: his feet were lumps of ice; -his knees shook under his frail skinful of bones; but, by the black -stones, 'twas the man's heart he had! - -When the snow made a paste on his win'ard cheek, he had it off with a -jerk of the head, and one of the jerks put off his bonnet. Its frozen -ribbons had been whipping his eyes, and he left it where it fell, with -never a glance over his shoulder. His hair clogged with flakes that kept -the frost even after they fell. It was a peching effort for the foot of -the Beannan brae. - -“Poor lamb, poor Mairi, calf of my heart!” gasped the soldier to -himself. He was staggering half blind through the smother of snow, now -and then with a leg failing below him, and plunging him right or left. -Once his knees shut like a gardener's gully, and he made a crazy heap in -the drift. His tired wrists could hardly bring him up, and the corpse of -the world swung in his eyes when he was on his feet again and trying to -steady himself. - -There's a green knoll beside the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, where the -wee folks dance reels when the moon's on it, and there the old fellow -struggled to. He thought if he was up there he would see some sign of -what he wanted. Up he pushed, with the hazel _cromag_ bending behind -him, and his brogues slipping on the round snow-soles. Up he went, with -the pluck of a whole man, let alone a poor silly object; up he went -till he got his foot on the top, and then his heart failed, for he saw -nothing of what he sought. - -“I'll look again when I'm out of this foolish sleep,--I'll see better -when I waken,” said the poor _amadan;_ and behold the dogs were on him! -and he was a man who was. - -***** - -For all that, the story tells, Drimfern was no ghost. When he was lost -he found Kames, where the Callum girl was that came to his fire-end -later and suckled his clan. And Ellar's mother, dressing her son's -corpse in the house at Kilmune, found on his wound a sampler that went -with him to his long home in green Inishail. Its letters, sewn in the -folly of a woman, told her story:-- - -“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better -than wine.” - - - - -WAR. - - -I. - -IT was the pause of the morning, when time stands, and night and day -breathe hard ere they get to grips. A cock with a foggy throat started -at the crowing, down at Slochd-a-Chubair. Over from Stron a shrewd thin -wind came to make stir among the trees in the Duke's big garden, and the -crows rasped their beaks on the beech-branches, for they knew that here -was the day's forerunner. Still and on the town slept, stretched full -out, dour set on the business. Its quirky lanes and closes were as black -as the pit. There was only one light in all the place, and a big town -and a bonny it is, house and house with high outside stairs and glass -windows, so that the wonder is the King himself does not take thought to -stay in it, even if it were only for the comfort of it and the company -of the MacCailein Mor. Only one light, and that was splashing, yellow, -and mixed with a thick peat-reek, out of Jean Rob's open door, facing -the bay, on the left, on the Lowlands road. Now and then Jean would come -to the door and stand, a blob of darkness in the yellow light, to see -if the day was afoot on Ben Ime, or to throw a look at the front of the -town for signs of folk stirring. - -“Not a peep, not a peep! Sleep! sleep! Few of them part with a man -to-day with so sore a heart as Jean Rob.” - -Then back to her Culross girdle, for she was at the baking of bannocks -to go in her husband's _dorlach_ for the wars. - -She had not shut an eye all night. Rob snored at her side slow and heavy -while she lay on her back on a bed of white hay, staring up at the black -larch joists glinting with the red scad of the peats. She was a Crarae -woman, and that same people were given to be throng with the head, -and she kept thinking, thinking even on. At last she could bide it no -longer, so she up with a leap on the floor to face a new day and all the -luck of it. - -About the luck being good or ill there might be little doubt. It was the -year after they started at the building of the Castle, a laggard spring -at the hind-end of a cruel winter, with not a fin in all the seas for -the poor fishermen, and black mutton at six Saxon shillings the side. -And what the wars were about Jean Rob or her like little knew or cared. -Very little, like enough, as is the way with wars, but any way wars -there were: the Duke and his House would have it that their people must -up and on with belt and target, and away on the weary road like their -fathers before them. Some said it was the old game with the Inverlochy -dogs (rive them and seize them!); others, that some bastard was at -variance with the Duke about the Papist Stewarts--a silly lad called -Tearlach with a pack of wild Irishers and daddy Macleans and Macdonalds -and Camerons from the Isles and the North at his back. - -“Bundle and Go” it was any way in Campbell country from Cruachan to -Cowal, from Cantyre to the march of Keppochan, and that's the fine -rolling land of sappy grasses and thick woods. In the heart and midst -of it Duke Archie played dirl on the boss of his shield on a cold March -day, and before night swords were at the sharping from shore to shore. -That's war for ye-- - -quicker than flame, surer than word of mouth, and poor's the man who -says “What for?” to his chief. - -Rob Donn, for all that, was vassal to no man; for he was come of the -swordsmiths of the glen, and they had paper to show that their rigs were -held for no service other than beating out good fighting steel on the -anvil. Poor, as he was, he could wear one feather in his bonnet if his -fancy was on feathers, and no one bragged more of his forefolk. But -Elrigmor--a thin old man with little stomach for quarrels--offered -twenty pounds English for a man to take his place with the Campbells; -and Rob took the money and the loan of Elrigmor's sword, half for the -sake of the money and half for the sake of a bit play with Sir Claymore. - -Said he to his wife, jingling the Geordies in his hand on the day he got -them, “Here's the price of a hero; and troth it's little enough for a -good armsmith's blood!” - -“Don't say it, Rob,” said Jean. - -“Och! I am but laughing at thee, good-wife. Brave dogs would they be -that would face the tusks of the Diarmaid boars. Like the wind on the -chaff--troosh!--we'll scatter them! In a week I'll be home.” - -“In a week?” - -“To be sure, Jean. I'll buy with the money a stot or two on the road -to bring back with me, for there's little lifting in the Duke's corps, -more's the pity! My grandfather seldom came back from the wars without a -few head of cattle before him.” - -So the money went in Rob Donn's sporran, and Jean would have bit her -tongue out before she would crave for part o't from a man going among -strangers and swords. - -The bairn had but one word for her father from then till he started, and -that was “Cockade.” What it was the little one never knew, but that it -was something braw and costly, a plaything for a father to go far off -for. - -“Two or three of them, my white love!” would Rob Donn say, fond and -hearty. “They'll be as thick as nuts on the ground when we're done of -the gentry that wear them on their bonnets.” And he had a soft wet eye -for the child, a weakling, white and thin, never quite the better of -the snell winds of winter. If cockades, indeed, were to be had for the -fighting of a fortnight without sleep, Rob Donn would have them for her. - -So now was the morning to put on fighting gear and go on the foray for -white cockades. - -By-and-by a cruisie-light crept out at the gables of the town, and the -darkness filled with the smell of new peat burning. Aora, spluttering -past Jean Rob's door with a gulp into the Cooper's Pool, made, within -the house, the only sound of the morning. - -Jean scraped the meal off her hands and went again to the door to look -about and listen. - -“Ay, ay! up at last,” she said to herself. - -“There's the Major's light, and Kate Mhor up for the making of his -breakfast, and a lowe in the weaver's shed. The Provost's is dark--poor -man!--it's little his lady is caring!” - -She was going to turn about and in, when the squeal of a bagpipe came -from the town-head, and the player started to put his drones in order. -“Ochan! ochan!” said poor Jean, for here, indeed, was the end of her -hopes; there was no putting back from the Duke's errand. She listened a -little to the tuning as if it was the finest of _piobaireachds_, and it -brought a curious notion to her mind of the first reel she danced with -her man to the squeezing of that same sheepskin. Then the reeds roared -into the air of “Baile Inneraora.” - -“_Och a Dhé! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob!”_ she cried in to the man -among the blankets, but there was no need for the summons. The gathering -rang far ben in the chambers of sleep, and Rob was stark awake, with a -grasp at his hip for the claymore. - -“Troth! I thought it was the camp! and them on us,” he laughed foolishly -in his beard. - -Up and down the street went Dol' Dubh, the Duke's second piper, the same -who learned the art of music right well from the Macruimens of Boreraig, -and he had as sweet a finger on the chanter as Padruig himself, with the -nerve to go round the world. Fine, fine it was for him, be sure, to -be the summoner to battle! Lights jumped to the little lozens of the -windows and made streaks on the cracks of the doors, and the Major's man -came from his loft ganting with a mouth like the glee'd gun, a lantern -swinging on a finger, making for the stable to saddle his master's -horse. A garret window went up with a bang, and Peter MacIntyre, wright, -pat out a towsy head and snuffed the air. It was low tide in the two -bays, and the town was smelling less of peat-reek than of sea-wrack and -saltness. One star hung in the north over Dunchuach. - -“They have the good day for starting the jaunt, whatever,” said the -wright. “If I was a stone or two lighter, and had one to look after the -shop, it's off on this ploy I would be too.” He took in his head, the -top nodding briskly on his Kilmarnock bonnet, and wakened the wife to -help him on with his clothes. - - “Aora, Aora, Baile Inneraora, - I got a bidding to Baile Inneraora; - I got the bidding, but little they gave me, - Aora, Aora, Baile Chailein Mhoir!” - -Dol' Dubh was up at the Cross, swelled out like a net-bow, blasting -furiously, his heart athump with the piper's zest. Doors drummed, -windows screeched in their cases, women's voices went from land to land, -and the laugh and cry of bairns new roused from the hot toss of dreams. -Far up the highroad a horse's hoofs were dunting hollow and hearty on -the stones, and by-and-by through the Arches trotted the Cornal, his -tall body straight and black against the dun of the gables. He had -a voice like a rutting deer. “Master Piper,” he roared to Dol' Dubh, -tugging his beast back on its haunches, “stop that braggart air and give -us 'Bundle and Go,' and God help the Campbell that's not on the Cadger's -Quay before the sun's over Stron Point!” - -“Where is the air like it?” said Dol' to himself, slacking a reed with a -thumb-nail. “Well they ken it where little they love it with its -vaunting!” But he up with his drones on his shoulder and into the tune -that had the Cornal's fancy. Beside him the Cornal stood at his horse's -stirrup in the grey-brown of the morning, his head still light with the -bottle of claret wine his lady in Lecknamban had put before him ere he -had boot over saddle. - -Then the town stirred to its affairs. The Major's horse went clattering -over the cobblestones to his door-end, the arm-room door opened, and old -Nanny Bheag, who kept the key, was lifted off her feet and in, on the -rush of young lads making for the new guns Lome Clerk had up from the -Low Country. On the belts of the older men, loth to leave the fire-end, -mothers and wives were hanging bags with thick farls of cake, and -cheese, and the old Aora salve for swordcuts. - -If they had their way of it, these _caille-achan_, the fighting gear -would be all kebbucks of cheese and dry hose, and no powder and ball. -The men blustered, high-breasted, with big words in their beards, and -no name too dirty for the crew they were off to scatter--praising -themselves and making the fine prophecies, as their folks did before -them with better rights when the town was more in the way of going to -wars. Or they roundly scolded the weans for making noise, though their -eyes were learning every twist of the copper hair and every trick of the -last moment, to think on when long and dreary would be the road before -them. - -There was a break in Dol' Dubh's music, and high over the big town rang -the Cornal's voice, starting the bairns in their sleep and setting them -up and screaming. - -“Laggards! laggards! O lazy ones! Out! out! Campbells before were never -so swear't to be marching. It is time to be steeping the withies!” - -Hard back went the stout doors on the walls, and out ran the folk. The -brogues skliffed and hammered; men with muskets, swords, dirks, and -targes ran down the street, and women and children behind them. A tumult -filled the town from side to side and end to end, and the lanes and -closes were streaming with the light from gaping doors. - -Old and young, the boy and the snooded girl, women with bairn at breast, -_bodach_ and _cailleach_, took to the Cross muster, leaving the houses -open to the wind and to the world. The cats thrummed by the fires, and -the smell of the sea-wrack came in beside them. - -“I have you here at last,” said the Cornal, dour and dark, throwing his -keen eyes along the row of men. “Little credit are ye to my clan and -chief, and here's to the Lowlands low, and would to God I was there now -among the true soldados with stomachs for slaughter and the right skill -of fence and musketoon! A short tulzie, and a tow at the thrapple of -bastard Chevalier would there be in that case. Here's but a wheen herds, -weavers, and gillies holding Brown Betty like a kail-runt!” - -He was one of the Craignish Campbells, the Cornal--Dugald, brother -of Lachan who got death at a place called Fontenoy in the summer -before--very sib to the Duke, and it behoved the town-men to say -nothing. But they cursed his eyes to each other on the corners of their -mouths, and if he knew it he had sense enough to say nothing. - -The women and bairns and the old folks stood in a great crowd behind -the Cornal's horse. The Major's mare with him in the sell was dancing an -uncanny spring near the Arches, full of freshness and fine feeding as -a battle-horse should be, but overly much that way for a man sixteen -finger-lengths round the belly and full of fish and ale. From Glen -Beag came the slow morning, gusty and stinging; Stob-an-Eas stood -black against the grey of it; the tide stretched from shore to shore -unfriendly and forlorn. - -Jean Rob, with the bairn at her brattie-string, was with the other women -seeing her man away, stupid with two sorrows--one because he was going, -and the other because he had twenty pounds in his sporran that he might -well be doing without; for he was leaving the woman without a groat, and -only a boll of meal in the girnel and a wee firkin of salted fish. - -The steady breeze came yet from Stron, and sat snug in the sails of the -six boats that carried the Duke's men over to Cowal. Brog-and-Turk's -skiff put out first, himself at the helm in his tarry jacket; the -others, deep down, followed close on her heels. One by one they fell -off from the quay. The men waved their bonnets and cried cheerily and -vaunting, as was aye the good grace of Clan Diarmaid at the first and -the last of forays. - -“Blessings with ye!” cried the folk left behind, wet-eyed; and even the -Provost's wife took a grief at her inside to see her man with a shaking -lip look round the sail of the hin'most boat. Cheering and weeping, -singing and _ochain!_ there they were on the quay and on the sea, our -own folk, our dear folk; and who were ever like them when it came to the -bit, and stout hearts or kind hearts were wanted? - -“Stand back, kindred!” cried the Cornal, putting spurs to his horse, and -he pranced up the town-head, a pretty man, to join the Major and gallop -round the loch-head to join the corps at Cairn-dubh. - -Dol' Dubh stopped his playing at the bow of Brog-an-Turk's skiff when -she gulped the first quaich of brine, and the men in all the boats -started to sing the old boat-song of “Aora Mo Chridhe tha mi seoladh”-- - - “Aora, my heart, I am sailing, sailing, - Far to the South on the slope of the sea; - Aora _mo chridhe_, it is cold is the far land, - Bitter the stranger with wands on his doorway. - Aora Mochree!” - -It came back on the wind with a sorrow to break hearts, sinking and -swelling as the wind took the fancy, and the long-necked herons stood -on the fringe of the tide with their heads high to listen. The sails got -scattered and shrunk, and the tune got thin and low, and lost at last in -the swish of the waves on the shore, and the ears of those who listened -heard the curlew piping cursedly loud over the Cooper's Pool. A grey -cold day with rain on the tail of it. High Creag Dubh with its firs and -alders and rowans stark and careless over the hollow town. Broad day and -brightness, and the cruisies and candles burning the ghosts of flame in -the empty houses, with doors wide to the empty street and the lanes and -closes! - - -II. - -The wanderer has ever the best of it, and wae wae are the hearts behind -I Is it for war or sport, or for the red gold, that a man turns heel on -his home and takes the world for his pillow? In his pack is the salve -for care as well as for sword-cuts, for ever and always are new things -happening. The road crooks through the curious glens; the beasts trot -among the grass and fern and into the woods; the girls (the dear ones, -the red-lipped ones!) come from the milking of the white-shouldered -cattle and look with soft black eyes as he passes, and there is a new -tale at the corner of every change-house fire. All that may befall a -packman; but better's the lot of the fighter with steel at his haunch, -fire at his heart, and every halt a day closer to them he would be -seeking. - -But the folks behind in the old place! _Mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!_ -Daybreak, and hot sun, and the creeping in of the night, when the door -must be snecked on the rover; the same place, and still with a want in -it, and only guessing at where and how is the loved one out on strange -ways on the broad world. - -Far up the long Highlands the Campbells were on their way. Loch Sloy and -Glen Falloch, Rannoch's bleakness and Ben Alder's steepness, and each -morning its own wet grass and misty brae, and each night its dreams on -the springy heather. - -A woman was weeping on Achadunan because that her man was gone and her -chimney stone was cold, and Rob Donn's sporran was emptied at her feet, -though he knew not so much as the name of her. But he took a thought -and said, “I'll keep the half, for long's the way before us, and ill is -travelling among strangers without a round-piece in the purse.” That was -but a day's march from Jean Rob, and she was making a supper of crowdie -that was the first meal of the day. - -On Spey-side was the camp of the Argylls, and card-play round the fires, -with the muskets shining, and the pipes playing sweeter for slumber than -for rouse. - -“I will put my watch on this turn,” said a black Lowlander in the heat -of the game. - -“Rob Donn's watch is the sun on Toman-uardar,” said our hero, “but here -are ten yellow Geordies,” and out went his fortune among the roots of -the gall. - -“_Troosh! beannachd leat!_” and the coin was a jingle in the other one's -pouch. - -“I have plenty more where it came from, and cattle enough forbye,” said -our braggart, and he turned on his elbow whistling “Crodh Chailein.” - -But let them follow the drum who will, for us the story's beside the -hearth. It is not a clatter of steel and the tulzies of Chevaliers, but -the death of an only bairn. - -In her house on the Lowlands road Jean Rob starved with the true -Highland pride, that sets a face content against the world at kirk or -market. Between her and a craving stomach lay but shell-fish and herbs, -for she had not a plack to spend, and the little one got all the milk -that came from Mally, the dappled one, drying up for calving. Break of -day would see the woman, white, thin, keen-eyed, out on the ebb before -the fishing-boats were in, splashing in the pools in the sand for -partans and clabbie-doos, or with two ready fingers piercing the sand to -pull the long spout-fish from his hiding. Or she would put little stakes -in the sand, and between them a taut line with baited hooks to coax the -fish at high tide. But ill was her luck, indeed, for few were the fish -that came to the lure to be lifted again at ebb. - -Above Kilmalieu on the sea side of Dunchu-ach, in the tangle and dark of -the trees, among the soft splashing soil, the wild leeks gave a scent to -the air. These would Jean gather, and the nettle too, and turn them to -thin broth; but that same was no fare for a Crarae stomach. - -At night when the wee one slept, the mother would have her plaid on her -head, and through the town, barefoot, in the darkness, passing the folk -at the close-mouths quickly for fear they would speak to her, and her -heart would crave for share of the noble supper that made steam from the -door of her cousin the rich merchant. - -Like a ghost sometimes, wandering about the Cadger's Quay or the -gutting-stools, where she would be looking for a dropped giley or a bake -from the nets, she would come on a young woman. - -“_Dhe!_ Jean Rob! is it thyself that is here?” - -“Just Jean, my darling, for a little turn, because of the stir in the -town, and the smell of the barking nets. Well I like the smell of the -bark, and the wind takes little of it up the Lowlands road.” - -“Thou art not coming out much since the men went to the North. Art well -at the house--the little one, now, bless her?” - -“Splendid, splendid, _m' eudail_. Faith, it is too fat we will be -getting on the fortune Rob got from Elrigmor.” - -“Indeed, yes, Jean, it was the great luck! When a poor person comes----” - -“Hut tut! Poor nor rich, my people had their own place on Lochowside, -and little did my Rob need MacNicol's dirty money; but he was aye fond -of a 'horo-yally,' and that's the way of his being among them.” - -“Well, well, if that's the way, our own people were good enough on a -time; but a pedigree, thou wilt allow, is a poor plaster for a pain in -the stomach. For me, I would have a good shaking of herring and money -in the town. It was but black brochan for our one meal to-day, and my -mother poorly.” - -“My dear! _och_, my dear! and I to brag of plenty! Little enough, in -truth, is on my own board; but I have a boiling of meal if you come for -it in the morning.” - -“Kindly, kindly, thou good dame. It would be but a loan.” - -“Yes, indeed, one will be running out of the wherewithal now and again, -and 'twas aye 'Mine is yours and yours is mine' in Gaeldom. But I must -be stepping.” - -And while Jean Rob starved, there was never a word from the best and -bravest off at the wars, or how they fared, only now and then a half -tale from a travelling caird or a Low-Country carrier about gatherings -and skirling pipes and hard knocks. His Grace himself kept a horse or -two and a good rider on the other side of the Rest, to gallop hot-hoof -into the Castle with the first news of how his clan won; but weary was -the waiting. - -The town took to its old appearance, the aged men clack-clacking with -the shuttle, the boys scattering seed over the rig-and-fur of the -ploughed fields, the women minding their houses. And that, too, is war -for ye! The dirk is out, the brogues trail over the hills and through -the glens, the clans meet and clash, the full heart belches blood, the -grass soaks, the world and the chance of it is put on the luck of a -swinging stroke at yon one's neck. War! war! red and lusty--the jar of -it fills the land! But oh, _mo chridhe!_ home in Glen Shie are women and -bairns living their own day's life, and the crack will be blithe in the -sheilings to come, for all your quarrels. Where is Hector, and where is -Gilean-of-the-Axe, and where is Diarmaid of the boar's snout? They are -all gone but for an old song at the sheiling-fire, and life, love, and -the Fell Sergeant still come and go in the place the warriors made such -stir in! A stranger would think there was little amiss in the Duke's -town. The women sang their long songs of love and yore as they span -about the wheel and carded the wool; the bairns guddled in Jumping -John's burn, and tore their kilts among the whins, and came home with -the crows, redfaced and hungry-warned. At the ale-house there was traffic -by day, and heavy drovers and gaugers stamped their feet to the choruses -at night. The day lengthened, and comforting winds came from the two -bonny black glens; the bracken put on new growths, like the crook of St -Molach that's up-by in the Castle; Easachosain reeled to the piping of -birds. - -There might be an eye many times a-day on the Stron Point to see if a -horseman was rounding it, and the cruisies were kept burning a little -longer at night in case the news would come in the darkness like the -Athol thieves. But patience was ever the gift of the Gael, and few lost -heart. - -And at last the news came of Culloden Moor. - -It was on a Sunday--a dry clear day--and all the folk were at the -church, with old Colin the minister sweating at it for the good of the -Ceannloch fishermen in the loft. He was in the middle of his prayer -when a noise came over the town, a dunting of hoofs on the causey of the -Provost's house-front. - -“Amen!” said the cunning Colin, quick as could be, and then, “Friends, -here is news for us,” and down the pulpit steps he ran briskly like a -lad of twenty. - -Peter MacIntyre set back the bolt from the door with a bang, and past -him the people made rush. The Duke's rider from over the Rest was there -in the saddle of a grey garron foaming at the mouth and its hurdies in a -tremble. - -“Your tidings, your tidings, good man!” cried the people. - -The lad sat stark in the saddle, with his eyes wet and his nose pricking -with the Gaelic pride. - -“I have been at the Castle, and-” - -“Your news, just man.” - -“I have been at the Castle, and Mac-Cailein Mor, who said I rode well -from the Rest, said I might come in-by and carry my budget to you.” - -“Out with it, Paruig, little hero. Is't good or ill?” - -“What would it be, my heroes, with our own lads, but good? Where's the -beat of them? It's 'The Glen is Mine' Dol' Dubh will be playing this day -on Culloden, for ours is the battle. They scattered the dirty Northmen -and the Irishers like chaff, and Cailein Mor himself gave me a horn of -ale from his own hands on the head o't.” - -A roar went up that stirred the crows on Scaurnoch, and there was -a Sunday spoiled for you; for the ale went free and merry in the -change-house at the Duke's charge till the moon was over Ben Ime. - -But there were five houses with the clocks stopped (for the ghosts take -no heed of time); five houses with the glasses turned face to the -wall (for who dare look in glass to see a wraith at the back of the -shoulder?); there were four widows and five mothers wet faced, keening -for five fine men who had been, and whose names were now writ on paper -on the church door. - - -III. - -Day followed day, and still home came no Campbells. They were far to the -dreary North, plying sword and fire among the bad clans, harrying for -the glory of Mac-Cailein Mor. - -And at last on a day the sea-pigs rolled and blew off Stron Point, -and the scarts dived like arrows from the sun's eye, deep into a loch -boiling with fish. Night found the brown sails bellying out on the -scudding smacks, and the snouts of skiff and galley tearing the waves to -get among the spoil. Bow-to-back, the nets spotted Finne mile on mile; -the kind herrings crowded thick into them; the old luck was back, and -the quays in the morning heard the fine tune of the cadger's clinking -silver. In a hurry of hurries the fleet came up to the mouth of -Shira--Tarbert men, Strathlachlan men, Minard men, black fellows from -MacCallum country, and the wine-traffickers from French Foreland to swap -sour claret for the sweet fat fish. - -It was ho-rol and spill the bicker in yon town, for all that the best of -its men were away and afar at the killing. The smoke was black from -the fires in the Cooper's Pool, the good healthy smell of the gut-pots -sought up to the Castle door. Little doubt his Grace (_beannachd leis!_) -would come out to the door-step and curse because it made him bock his -breakfast, dainty man! - -Throng though the town was, round about the little house on the left of -the Lowlands Road crept a queer quietness. The cow had dried, and the -dull weather kept the spout fish too deep down in the sand for the ready -fingers to reach them. So the household of Rob Donn starved to the bone. - -“To-morrow--they will be home tomorrow,” said Jean to herself every day -to keep up her heart; but the days went by, and though it was something -to know that Rob was not among the killed at Culloden, it was not -something to stay the stomach. A stone-throw off were the best and -kindest hearts in the world: the woman's cousin, the rich merchant, -would give all he had on his board if he knew her trouble, and friends -without number would share the last bite with her. But to ask it would -be to say she was at the lowest, and to tell that Rob had left her -nothing, and she would sooner die in her pride. - -Such people as passed her way--and some of them old gossips--would have -gone in, but the withie was aye across the door, and that's the sign -that business is doing within no one dare disturb. The withie was -ever there except at night, when Jean was scouring the countryside for -something to eat. - -The bairn dwined so fast that even the mother (and blind indeed's -the mother at that bit) saw a little of it. There was no longer the -creepie-stool at the back of the house, in the sun, and the bairn on it, -watching the birds; her shanks grew thin like spirtles; her eyes sank -far ben in her face, and she would not go the length of the door. She -sat at the fireside and laughed her poor cold laugh less every day, till -one long thought came to her that kept her busy at the thinking from -morning till night with a face like a _cailleach_ of eighty. - -“White love, white love,” Jean would be saying, “your father is on the -road with stots and a pouch of cockades.” - -At that the bairn would come back from her roaming; but soon she was off -again into the deeps of mind, her wide eyes like the windows of an empty -house for all that could be seen through them. - -“Oh! but it will be the fine cockade,” poor Jean would press--“what am -I saying?--the pack of your father will be full of them. Not the white -ones of silk only, but the red and the grassy green, my little calf. -You'll be wearing them when you will.” - -No heeding in the bairn's face. - -Then Jean would go out and pull the tansy at the door, and give it to -the little one to get the fine scent. The curious shells from the shore, -too, would she gather, and lay in rings about the chair, and call her -the Queen in her castle. For ever would there be a song at her lips, -even if the drops would be in her eyes--old daft songs from fairs and -weddings, and fairy rhyming and cheery stories about the Good People up -on Sithean Sluaidhe. Her fingers were for ever soft about the bairn, her -flesh and blood, stroking in the hair, softening the cushion, petting -her in every hand's-turn. She made a treat to herself by asking her, now -and then, something that had to be answered “Yes” or “No,” and “Mother” - was so sweet in her ears that she would be content to hear no more in -all her lifetime. - -All the day the bairn crouched up in a hoop-chair with her neck slack -and her chin on her breast. Jean was loth to leave her in her bed in the -mornings, for she had a notion that to get her out of the blankets and -to put her in the clothes of the busy world would be to keep her in the -trim for living on. - -Still there was no sign of the men returning. Often was Jean's foot at -the door and her hand over her eyes to see if there was no stir at Stron -or Kilachatrine, and but for good stuff, her heart failed five-score -times a-day. - -At last, on a day of days, the bairn could not be stirred to notice -anything. The tansy fell out of her fingers, and she picked at the wool -of the plaid that wrapped her; the shells had no charm for her eye. - -Jean made the pack of the coming father as routh as a magic cave. “That -father of yours, darling, what a many wonderful things he will bring! I -see him on the road. Stots, and cows with milk brimming from the udders, -and a pet sheep for his _caileag bheag_; pretty gold and silver things, -and brooches and shining stuff. That father of yours! Hurry, father, -hurry! Jingling things, and wee fairy-men, and bells to ring for you, -m' eudail; pretty glasses and dishes to play with, and--O my darling! my -darling!” - -The bairn's face lost the deep red spots; her little mouth slacked and -fell; her eyes shut on the sight of the fine things her poor mother made -for her out of a rich and willing mind. - -Jean lifted her and put her on the bed, and ran with a gutting-knife to -where Mally the dappled one lay at the back. - -“I must be doing it!” said the woman, and she bled the brute as they do -in the poor years in Lorn, and took the cogie of blood into the house to -make a pudding of. The last handful of meal in the girael went into the -pot with the warm blood, and she was stirring it with a spoon over the -fire when the child cluttered at the throat. - -Jean turned about with a cry, and at the minute a bagpipe's lilting came -over the glassy bay from Stron Point. - -It was Clan Campbell back from the wars, the heroes! clouted about the -heads and with stains on their red waistcoats that were thicker than -wine makes. Dol' Dubh played the old port, sweet and jaunty, at the head -of them; the Cornal and the Major snuffed the herrings and said, “Here's -our own place, sure enough! See the smoke from our own peats! And the -fine cock of the cap on Dunchuach!” - -On the Lowlands road the town emptied itself, and the folks ran fast and -furious--the boys first, the young women next, and the old folks peching -behind. But if the town was up on the warriors soon, the Duke himself -was before it. He saw the first of the Company from the Castle, and he -was in the saddle for all his threescore, like a boy, and down like the -wind to Boshang Gate. - -“Halt!” cried the Cornal to his men, and Dol' Dubh's bag emptied itself -with a grant. - -“_Tha sibh an sol!_ You are here, cousin,” said the Duke. “Proud am I -to see you and our good lads. They did the old trick well!” - -“They did that, MacCailein. The stuff's aye to the fore.” - -“It's in the blood, man. We have't in us, high or low. I have but one -thing to vex me.” - -“Name it, cousin.” - -“Well ye ken, Cornai. It's that I had not been with you to see the last -crushing Clan Campbell may need to give to an asp's head.” - -“It was a good ploy missed, I'll not deny.” - -“What about the Tearlach one? Well plucked, they are telling me?” - -“As foolish a lad as ever put tartan on hip, my lord! Frenchy, Frenchy, -MacCailein! all outside and no cognisance. Yourself or any of your -forebears at the head of his clans could have scoured all Albainn of -Geordie's Low-Country red-coats, and yet there were only six thousand -true Gaels in all the fellow's corps.” - -“To read my letters, you would think the whole North was on fire!” - -“A bantam's crow, cousin. Clan Campbell itself could have thrawed the -neck of it at any time up to Dunedin.” - -“They made a fair stand, did they not? - -“Uch! Poor eno'--indeed it was not what you would call a coward's tulzie -either.” - -“Well, well, that's over, lads I I am proud of my clan and town. _Slochd -a Chubair gu bragh!_ Stack your guns in the arm-room, see your wives and -bairns, and come up-by to the Castle for the heroes' bite and sup. Who's -that with the white cockade in his bonnet? Is't Rob Donn?” - -“It is Rob Donn, cousin, with a bit of the ribbon contrivance for the -diversion of his bairn. He tore it from the bonnet of the seventh man he -put an end to.” - -“There's luck in the number, any way, though it was a dear plaything. -March!” Down the road, with their friends hanging about them, and the -boys carrying guns and knapsacks, went the men for the town, and Rob -Donn left the company as it passed near his own door. - -“Faith! 'tis a poor enough home-coming, without wife or bairn to meet -one,” said he, as he pushed in the door. - -“Wife! wife!” he cried ben among the peat-reek, “there's never a stot, -but here's the cockade for the little one!” - - - - -A FINE PAIR OF SHOES - - -THE beginnings of things are to be well considered--we have all a little -of that art; but to end well and wisely is the gift of few. Hunters and -herds on the corri and the hill--they are at the simple end of life, and -ken the need for the task complete. The stag must be gralloched ere ye -brag of him, the drove must be at the market ere ye say anything of the -honesty of the glens ye pass through. - -And what I like best about our own Gaels is their habit of bringing the -work of a day or the work of a lifetime to what (in their own notions) -is an end round and polished. - -When our women die, they do it with something of a daintiness. Their -dead-clothes are in the awmrie; I have seen them with the cakes toasted -and the board set for their funerals. Travelling wide on unfriendly -foreign roads, living by sword or wit, you know that our men, the -poorest among them, with an empty sporran, kept the buttons of their -duds of good silver, to pay, if need be, for something more than a -gangrel's burial. I like to think of him in story who, at his end in -bed, made the folk trick him out in gallant style with tartan, targe, -brogue, and bonnet, and the sword in his hand. - -“A Gaelic gentleman,” said he, “should come to his journey's end -somewhat snod and well-put-on.” And his son played “Cha till mi tuilidh” - (“I return no more”) on the bag-pipe by his firm command. - -It is not even in this unco undertaking of Death that the polish must -be put on the task (though poor's the creature who dies clumsily); it -should be the same with every task of a day. - -And so Baldi Crom, making a fine pair of shoes on a day in Carnus, put -the best skill of his fingers to every stitch. He had been working at -them since the command came in the morning, and now it was the mouth of -night, and on one of them the finest of the fine sewing was still to do. -About the place there was nobody but the old man, for he was the last, -in a way, of the old stock of Carnus (now a _larach_ of low lintels, and -the nettle over all); and he was without woman to put _caschrom_ to -his soil or hip to a creel of peats. And so he lived on the brae of -Camus--that same far up and lonely in the long glen. - -“They'll be the best I ever put brog in,” said he, looking fondly at the -fine work, the yellow thread standing out on the toes, patterned like -a leaf of the whortleberry, set about with the serpent-work of the old -crosses. Bite nor sap, kail nor crowdie, did he taste all day. Working -in the light of his open door, he could see, if he had the notion, the -whole glen rolled out before him, brimming with sun, crossed in the heat -of the day by deer from Dalavich seeking for the woods of Loch Finne; -the blue reek of the townships at the far end might have cheered him -with the thought that life was in sight though his house was lonely. But -crouped over the lap-stone, he made love to his work, heeding nothing -else but the sewing of the fine pair of shoes. - -It was the night before the town market. Droves of bellowing -cattle--heifers, stots, and stirks--were going down the glen from Port -Sonachan, cropping hurried mouthfuls by the way as they went and as the -dogs would let them. And three Benderloch drovers came off the road and -into Baldi Crom's house, after the night was down on the glen and he had -the cruisie lighted. They sat them down round the fire in the middle of -the floor and ate bannocks and cheese. - -“How's thy family, 'Illeasbuig?” said a drover, stirring up the peat as -if he were at his own door-end. Down on the roadside the cattle, black -and yellow, crushed the sappy grass and mourned in bellows for their -lost fields. - -“Splendid! splendid!” said the old man, double over his shoes, fondling -them with the fingers of a mother on a first baby. The light was low -in the cruisie, for the oil was well down, and the fire and the cruisie -made a ring of light that could scarcely slip over the backs of the men -sitting round the peats. A goat scratched his head but-and-ben against -the wattles; in corners the darkness was brown and thick. - -“I hear Cailen's in the Low-country, but what has come of Tormaid?” said -one, with knee-breeches, and hose of coarse worsted. - -The old man gave a quick start, and the lapstone fell from his knees, -the shoe he was at with it. He bent over and felt like a blind man for -them on the floor before he made answer. - -“Tormaid, my gallant son! Ye have not heard of him lately, then?” - -“Never a word, 'Illeasbuig. People on the going foot, like drovers, hear -all the world's gossip but the _sgeuls_ of their own _sgireachd_. We -have been far North since Martinmas: for us there must be many a story -to tell 'twixt here and Inneraora. A stout lad and pretty, Tormaid too, -as ever went to the beginning of fortune! Where might he be enow?” - -“Here and there, friend, here and there! A restless scamp, a wanderer, -but with parts. Had he not the smart style at the game of _camanachi?_ -He was namely for it in many places.” - -“As neat a player as ever took shinty in hand, master! I have the name -of a fair player myself, but that much I'll allow your lad. Is he to the -West side, or farther off?” - -“Farther off, friend. The pipes now--have you heard him as a player on -the chanter?” - -“As a piper, 'Illeasbuig! His like was not in three shires. I have -heard him at reel and march, but these were not his fancy: for him the -_piobaireachds_ that scholarly ones play!” - -“My gallant boy!” said Baldi Crom, rubbing soft on the shoe with the -palm of a hand. - -“Once upon a time,” said the drover, “we were on our way to a Lowland -Tryst. Down Glen Falloch a Soccach man and I heard him fill the -nightfall with the 'Bhoilich' of Morar, with the brag of a whole clan in -his warbling. He knew piping, the fellow with me, and the tear came to -his cheek, thinking of the old days and the old ploys among the dirks -and _sgians_.” - -“There was never the beat of him,” said the shoemaker. - -“Throughither a bit--” - -“But good, good at heart, man! With a better chance of fortune he might -be holding his head to-day as high as the best of them.” The drovers -looked at each other with a meaning that was not for the eyes of the old -man; but he had small chance of seeing it, for he was throng at his fine -pair of shoes. - -“He had a name for many arts,” said the man with coarse hose, “but -they were not the arts that give a lad settlement and put money in his -purse.” - -“The hot young head, man! He would have cured,” said the old man, sewing -hard. “Think of it,” said he: “was ever a more humoursome fellow to walk -a glen with? His songs, his stories, his fast jump at one's meaning, -and his trick of leaving all about him in a good key with themselves and -him. Did ever one ask a Saxon shilling from his purse that it was not a -cheery gift if the purse held it?” - -“True, indeed!” said the drovers, eating bannocks and cheese. - -“'Twixt heaven and hell,” said the fellow with the coarse hose, “is but -a spang. It's so easy for some folk to deserve the one gate--so many -their gifts--that the cock-sureness leaves them careless, and they -wander into the wrong place.” - -“You were speaking?” said Baldi, a little angry, though he heard but -half. - -“I said thy son was a fellow of many gifts,” answered the drover, in a -confusion. - -“He had no unfriends that I ken of,” said the old man, busy at the -shoes; “young or old, man or woman.” - -“Especially woman,” put in another drover, wrinkling at the eyes. - -“I've had five sons: three in the King's service, and one in the -Low-country; here's my young wanderer, and he was--he is--the jewel of -them all!” - -“You hear of him sometimes?” - -“I heard of him and from him this very day,” said Baldi, busy at the -brogues, white and drawn at the face and shaking at the lips. “I have -worked at these shoes since morning, and little time is there to put bye -on them, for at Inneraora town must they be before breakfast. Solomon -Carrier, passing at three, gives me a cry and takes them.” - -“They're a fine pair of shoes.” - -“Fine indeed; the finest of the fine! They're for a particular one.” - -“Duke John himself, perhaps?” - -“No, man; a particular one, and were they not his in time a sorry man -was I. They're the best Baldi Crom ever put leather on.” - -Till the turn of the night the drovers slept in their plaids, their -cattle steaming out-by in the dark, munching the coarse grass selvedge, -breathing heavy. And when the men and their beasts went in the darkness -of the morning, Baldi Crom was still throng at his fine pair of shoes. - -“I'm late, I'm surely late,” said he, toiling hard, but with no -sloven-work, at his task. - -The rain had come with the morning, and was threshing out-by on peat and -thatch. Inside, the fire died, and the cruisie gave warnings that its -oil was low, but Baldi Crom was too throng on the end of his task to -notice. And at last his house dropped into darkness. - -“Tormaid! Tormaid! my little hero--I'm sore feared you'll die without -shoes after all,” cried the old man, staggering to the door for -daylight. He had the door but opened when he fell, a helpless lump, on -the clay floor. The rain slanted on his grey hairs and spat on a fine -shoe. - -Far down the good long glen the drovers were tramping after their -cattle, and the dun morning was just before them when they got to the -gate of Inneraora. Here there was a great to-do, for the kind gallows -stood stark before the Arches. Round about it were the townspeople -waiting for a hanging. - -“Who is't, and what is't for?” asked the drover with the knee-breeches -and the coarse hose, pushing into the crowd. - -“Tormaid, the son of the Carnus cobbler,” said a woman with a plaid over -her head. “He killed a man in a brawl at Braleckan and raped his purse. -Little enough to put tow to a pretty lad's neck for, sure enough!” - “Stand clear there!” cried a sharp voice, and the hangman and his friend -came to the scaffold's foot with a lad in front of them, his hands -shackled behind his back. He was a strong straight lad, if anything -overly dour in the look, and he wore a good coat and tiews, but neither -boot nor bonnet. Under the beam he put back his shoulders with a jerk -and looked at the folk below, then over at Dunchuach with the mist above -the fort like smoke. - -“They might have given him a pair of old baucbels, if no better, to die -in,” said the drover in the woman's ear. - -“_Ochanoch!_ and they might!” she said. “The darling! He lost his shoes -in swimming Duglas Water to get clear, and they say he sent yesterday to -his father for a pair, but they're not come. Queer, indeed, is that, for -'twas the brag of the folks he came of that they aye died with a good -pair of shoon on their feet!” - - - - -CASTLE DARK. - - -YOU know Castle Dark, women? - -“Well, we know the same, just man and blind!” - -And you, my lads? - -“None better, Paruig Dali; morning and night, in the moon and in the -full white day!” - -Then of Castle Dark is my story. Is the cruisie alight on the rafter? -More peats, little one, on the fire. - -Once upon a time Castle Dark was a place of gentility and stirring days. -You have heard it,--you know it; now it is like a deer's skull in Wood -Mamore, empty, eyeless, sounding to the whistling wind, but blackened -instead of bleached in the threshing rains. When the day shines and the -sun coaxes the drowsy mists from the levels by the river, that noble -house that was brisks up and grey-whitens, minding maybe of merry times; -the softest smirr of rain--and the scowl comes to corbie-stone and -gable; black, black grow the stones of old ancient Castle Dark! Little -one, _m' eudail_, put the door to, and the sneck down. - -“True for you, Paruig Dali; you know the place as if you had seen it.” - -With eyes Paruig Dali has never seen it. But my friends tell me what -they know, and beyond I have learned of myself. Up the river-side, many -a time I pass to the place and over its low dykes, dry-stone, broken and -crumbling to the heel. The moss is soft on the little roads, so narrow -and so without end, winding round the land; the nettle cocks him right -braggardly over the old home of bush and flower, poisoning the air. -Where the lady dozed in her shady seat below the alder-tree, looking -out between half-shut eyes at the proud Highlands--loch, glen, and -mountain--is but a root rotten, and hacked by the woodman's whittle. -A tangle of wild wood, bracken, and weed smothers the rich gardens of -Castle Dark. - -“It is so, it is so, Paruig Dali, blind man, prince among splendid -pipers and storied men!” - -And to stand on the broad clanging steps that lifted from the -hunting-road to the great door--that is a thinking man's trial. To me, -then, will be coming graveyard airs, yellow and vexatious, searching -eager through my bones for this old man's last weakness. “Thou sturdy -dog!” will they be saying, “some day, some day! Look at this strong -tower!” With an ear to the gap on the side of the empty ditch, I can -hear the hollowness of the house rumbling with pains, racked at _cabar_ -and corner-stone, the thought and the song gone clean away. There is -no window, then, that has not a complaint of its own; no loop-hole, no -vent, no grassy chimney that the blind fellow cannot hear the pipe of. -Straight into the heart's core of Castle Dark looks the sun; the deep -tolbooth of the old reivers and the bed-chamber of the maid are open -wide to the night and to the star! - -“_Ochan! ochan!_” - -You that only ken the castle in common day or night and plain man's -weather have but little notion of its wonders. It was there, and black -and hollow, ere ever you were born, or Paruig Dali. To see Castle Dark -one must take the Blue Barge and venture on two trips. - -“The Blue Barge, just man?” - -That same. The _birlinn ghorm_, the galley of fairy Lorn. It lies in the -sunlight on the bay, or the moonlight in certain weathers, and twelve -of the handsomest sit on the seats with the oars in their hands, the red -shirt bulging over the kilt-belt. At the stem of the barge is the chair -of the visitor. Gentle or semple, 'tis the same boat and crew, and the -same cushioned chair, for all that make the jaunt to Castle Dark. My -story is of two trips a man made by Barge Blue up the river to the white -stairs. - -He roved round the Lowlands road on a fine summer day, and out on the -sands among the running salt threads of ebb tide. Among the shells, his -eyes (as it might be) fell on the castle, and he had a notion to make -the trip to it by a new road. Loudly he piped to sea. If loudly he -piped, keen was the hearing, for yonder came the galley of fairy Lorn, -the twelve red-shirts swinging merry at the oars and chanting a Skye -_iorram_. - -“Here's an exploit!” said the man of my story. “There's dignity in yon -craft, or less than red-shirts was the wearing of the scamps who row -her.” - -The loch curled like a feather before her and frothed far behind, and -soon her nose ran high on the sand. No word was said, but the first pair -of rowers let out a carved plank, and the fellow of my story went over -it and behind to the chair with the cushioned seat. - -“To the castle?” asked the captain (as it might be), in the way of one -who speaks a master, and Adventurer said, “Castle be it.” The barge was -pushed off the sand, the oars fell on the water, and she curved into the -river-mouth. - -When Adventurer reached the bridge, it was before the time of war, and -the country from end to end sat quiet, free, and honest. Our folks lived -the clean out-by life of shepherds and early risers. Round these hills, -the woods--the big green woods--were trembling with bird and beast, -and the two glens were crowded with warm homes--every door open, and -the cattle untethered on the hill. Summer found the folks like ourselves -here, far up on sappy levels among the hills, but their sheilings more -their own than ours are, with never a reiver nor a broken clan in all -the land. Good stout roads and dry went down the passes to Castle Dark -from all airts of Albainn--roads for knight and horse, but free and -safe for the gentlest girl ever so lonely. By sea came gabberts of far -France with wine and drink; by land the carriers brought rich cloths, -spices, and Italian swords such as never were before or since. I made a -small _piobaireachd_ once on such a blade; if you put me over my pipes, -I-- - -“Later the pipes, Paruig Dali, the best player in the world! to thy -story this time.” Is the cup to my right or left? Blessings! The Castle -and Barge were my story. - -Up and on, then, under the bridge, went Adventurer and his company of -twelve, and he trailed white fingers over the low side of the boat, the -tide warm like new milk. Under the long arch he held up his head and -whooped gaily, like the boy he was in another dream, and Mactallamh -laughed back from behind the smell of lime-drop and _crotal_ hanging to -the stones. Then into the sun again, on the wide flat river, with the -fields sloping down on each hand, nodding to the lip with rush and -flower. - -“Faith and here's fortune!” said Adventurer. “Such a day for sailing and -sights was never before.” - -And the Blue Barge met nor stone nor stay, but ever the twelve fine lads -swinging cheerily at the oars, till they came to the white stairs. - -Off the boat and up the clanging steps went Adventurer as bold as -Eachan, and the bushes waving soft on every side. The gravel crunched -to his foot--the white round gravel of Cantyre; kennelled hounds cried -warning from the ditch-side; round him were the scenting flowers and the -feeling of the little roads winding so without end all about the garden. - -“Queer is this!” said he, feeling the grass-edge with his feet and -fingering the leaves. “Here, surely, is weed nor nettle, but the trim -bush and the swinging rose. The gardeners have been busy in the gardens -of old ancient Castle Dark!” - -When he came to the ditch, the drawbrig was down. To the warm airs of -the day the windows, high and low, were open; a look of throng life was -over the house, and in-by some one plucked angrily at the strings of a -harp. Reek rose lazy and blue over the chimneys, the smell of roasting -meats and rich broths hung on the air. - -Under a tree got Adventurer and deep in thought. And soon the harping -came to an end. A girl stepped to the bridge and over into the garden. -She took to the left by the butter-house and into My Lady's Canter, -lined with foreign trees. Along the wide far road came a man to meet -her, good-shaped, in fine clothes, tartan trews fitting close on leg and -haunch, and a leather jacket held at the middle by a _crioslach_. - -Under his tree stood Adventurer as they passed back, and close beside -him the courtier pushed the hilt of a small-sword to his back and took -the woman in his arms. - -“Then if ye must ken,” said he, shamefacedly, “I am for the road -to-morrow.” - -The girl--ripe and full, not over-tall, well balanced, her hair waved -back from over brown eyes, gathered in a knot and breaking to a curl on -the nape of the neck like a wave on the shell-white shore--got hot at -the skin, and a foot drummed the gravel in an ill temper. - -“For yon silly cause again?” she asked, her lips thinning over her -teeth. - -“For the old cause,” said he; “my father's, my dead brothers', my -clan's, ours for a hundred years. Do not lightly the cause, my dear; it -may be your children's yet.” - -“You never go with my will,” quo' the girl again. “Here am I, far from a -household of cheery sisters, so lonely, so lonely! Oh! Morag and Aoirig, -and the young ones! were I back among them from this brave tomb!” - -“Tomb, sweet!” - -“Tomb said I, and tomb is it!” cried the woman, in a storm. “Who is here -to sing with me and comfort me in the misty mornings, to hearten me -when you are at wood or hill? The dreary woods, the dreary, dreary -shore--they give me the gloom! My God, what a grey day!” - -(And yet, by my troth, 'twas a sunny day by the feel of it, and the -birds were chirming on every tree!) - -The gentleman put his hands on the girl's shoulder and looked deep -in her eyes, thinking hard for a wee, and biting at his low lip in a -nervous way. - -“At night,” said he, “I speak to you of chase and the country-side's -gossip. We have sometimes neighbours in our house as now,--old Askaig's -goodwife and the Nun from Inishail--a good woman and pious.” - -Up went the lady's head, and she laughed bitter and long. - -“My good husband,” she said, in a weary way, “you are like all that wear -trews; you have never trained your tracking but to woodcraft, or else -you had found the wild-kit in a woman's heart.” - -“There's my love, girl, and I think you love--” - -“Tuts, man! I talked not of that. Love is--love, while it lasts, and ye -brag of Askaig's wife and the Nun (good Lord!), and the old harridans -your cousins from Lochow!” - -“'Tis but a tirrivie of yours, my dear,” said the man, kindly, kissing -her on the teeth, and she with her hands behind her back. “Tomorrow the -saddle, Sir Claymore, and the south country! Hark ye, sweet, I'll fetch -back the most darling thing woman ever dreamt of.” - -“What might his name be?” asked the girl, laughing, but still with a -bitterness, and the two went round to the ditch-brig and in-by. - -Adventurer heard the little fine airs coming from the west, coiling, -full of sap-smell, crooning in turret and among the grassy gable-tops, -and piping into the empty windows. - -'Twas a summer's end when he went on the next jaunt, a hot night and -hung with dripping stars. The loch crawled in from a black waste of -sorrow and strange hills, and swished on the shore, trailing among the -wreck with the hiss of fingers through ribbons of silk. My dears, my -dears! the gloom of hidden seas in night and lonely places! 'Tis that -dauntens me. I will be standing sometimes at the night's down-fall over -above the bay, and hearkening to the grinding of the salt wash on rock -and gravel, and never a sound of hope or merriment in all that weary -song. You that have seeing may ken the meaning of it; never for Paruig -Dali but wonder and the heavy heart! - -“'Tis our thought a thousand times, just man; we are the stour that wind -and water make the clod of! You spoke of a second jaunt?” - -As ye say. It was in winter; and the morning-- - -“Winter, said ye, Paruig Dali? 'Twas summer and night before.” - -Winter I said, and winter it was, before _faoilteach_, and the edge of -the morning. The fellow of my _sgeul_, more than a twelvemonth older, -went to the breast wall and cried on Barge Blue that's ever waiting for -the sailor who's for sailing on fairy seas. - -In she came, with her twelve red-shirts tugging bravely at the oars, and -the nose of her ripping the salt bree. Out, too, the carved plank, made, -I'll warrant, by the Norwegian fellow who fashioned the Black Bed of -MacArtair, and over it to the cushioned seat Adventurer! - -The little waves blobbed and bubbled at the boat's shoulders; she put -under the arch and up the cold river to the white stairs. - -It was the middle and bloodiest time of all our wars. The glens behind -were harried, and their cattle were bellowing in strange fields. Widows -grat on the brae-sides and starved with their bairns for the bere and -oat that were burned. But Adventurer found a castle full of company, the -rich scum of water-side lairds and Lowland gentry, dicing and drinking -in the best hall of Castle Dark. Their lands were black, their homes -levelled, or their way out of the country--if they were Lowland--was -barred by jealous clans. So there they were, drinking the reddest and -eating the fattest--a wanton crew, among them George Mor, namely for -women and wine and gentlemanly sword-play. - -They had been at the cartes after supper. Wine lay on the table in -rings and rivers. The curtains were across the window, and the candles -guttered in the sconces. Debauched airs flaffed abroad in the room. At -the head of the board, with her hair falling out of the knot, the -lady of the house dovered in her chair, her head against George Mor's -shoulder, and him sleeping fast with his chin on his vest. Two company -girls from the house in the forest slept forward on the table, their -heads on the thick of their arms, and on either hand of them the -lairds and foreigners. Of the company but two were awake, playing at -_bord-dubh_, small eyed, oozing with drink. But they slept by-and-by -like the lave, and sleep had a hold of Castle Dark through and through. - -Adventurer heard the cock crow away at the gean-tree park. - -One of the girls, stirring in her sleep, touched a glass with her -elbow, and it fell on its side, the dark wine splashing over the -table, crawling to the edge, thudding in heavy drops on the shoe of the -mistress of the house, who drew back her foot without waking. But her -moving started up the man at her ear. He looked at her face, kissed her -on the hair, and got to his feet with no noise. A sour smile curdled -his face when he looked about the room, drunken and yellow-sick in the -guttering candlelight. - -Stretching himself, he made for the window and pulled back the curtain. - -The mountain looked in on the wastrel company, with a black and blaming -scowl--the mountain set in blackness at the foot, but its brow touching -the first of a cold day. - -Tree and bush stood like wraiths all about the garden, the river -cried high and snell. George Mor turned and looked at the room and its -sleeping company like corpses propped in chairs, in the light of candle -and daybreak. - -The smell of the drunken chamber fogged at the back of his throat. -He laughed in a kind of bitter way, the lace shaking at his neck and -wrist-bands: then his humour changed, and he rued the night and his -merry life. - -“I wish I was yont this cursed country,” said he to himself, shivering -with cold. “'Tis these folk lead me a pretty spring, and had George Mor -better luck of his company he was a decent man. And yet--and yet--who's -George Mor to be better than his neighbours? As grow the fir-trees, some -of them crooked and some of them straight, and we are the way the winds -would have us!” - -He was standing in the window yet, deep in the morning's grief, running -his fingers among his curls. - -Without warning the door of the room opened, and a man took one step in, -soft, without noise, white-faced, and expecting no less than he found, -by the look in his eyes. It was the goodwife's husband, still with the -mud on his shoes and the sword on his belt. He beckoned on the fellow -at the window, and went before him (the company still in their sleep), -making for the big door, and George Mor as he followed lifted a sword -from a pin. - -Close by Adventurer the two men stopped. It was on a level round of old -moss, damp but springy, hid from the house by some saugh-trees. - -The master of the house spoke first. Said he, “It's no great surprise; -they told me at the ferry over-by that strange carry-on and George Mor -were keeping up the wife's heart in Castle Dark.” - -“She's as honest a wife as ever--” - -“Fairly, fairly, I'll allow--when the wind's in that airt. It's been a -dull place this for her, and I have small skill of entertainment; but, -man, I thought of her often, away in the camp!” - -He was taking off his jacket as he spoke, and looking past George Mor's -shoulder and in between the trees at the loch. And now the day was -fairly on the country. - -“A bit foolish is your wife--just a girl, I'm not denying; but true at -the core.” - -“Young, young, as ye say, man! She'll make, maybe, all the more taking -a widow woman. She'll need looks and gaiety indeed, for my poor cause is -lost for good and all.” - -“We saved the castle for you, at any rate. But for my friends in-by and -myself the flambeau was at the root o't.” - -“So, my hero? In another key I might be having a glass with you over -such friendship, but the day spreads and here's our business before us.” - -“I've small stomach for this. It's a fool's quarrel.” - -“_Thoir an aire!_--Guard, George Mor!” - -They fought warmly on the mossy grass, and the tinkle of the thin blades -set the birds chirping in the bushes, but it could not be that that -wakened my lady dovering in her chair in the room of guttering candles. - -She started up in a dream, and found George Mor gone, and the mark of -muddy brogues near the door fitted in with her dream. She wakened none -of her drugged company, but hurried to the garden and in between the -foreign trees to the summons of the playing swords. - -“Stop, stop, husband!” she cried before she saw who was at the fighting; -but only George Mor heard, and he half turned his head. - -She was a little late. Her man, with a forefinger, was feeling the way -to the scabbard, and a gout of blood was gathering at the point of his -sword, when she got through the trees. - -“Madame,” said he, cool enough but short in the breath, and bloody -a little at the mouth, “here's your gallant. He had maybe skill -at diversion, but I've seen better at the small-sword. To-night my -un-friends are coming back to harry Castle Dark, and I'm in little -humour to stop them. Fare ye weel!” - -A blash of rain threshed in Adventurer's face; the tide crept at his -feet, the fall of the oars on Barge Blue sank low and travelled far off. -It was the broad day. Over above the river, Castle Dark grew black, but -the fellow of my story could not see it. - -“And the woman, Paruig Dali? What came of the woman?” - -Another peat on the fire, little one. So! _That_ the fellow of my story -would need another trip to see. But Barge Blue is the ferry for all, -high tide or low, in the calm and in the storm. - - - - -A GAELIC GLOSSARY. - - -A bhean! O wife! - -A pheasain! O brat! - -Amadant fool. Amadaitt dhoill! O blind fool! - -Bas, the haft of a shinty in this case. - -Bàs, death. Bàs Dhiarmaid, death to Diarmaid! Beannachd, blessing. -Beannachdlets! blessing with him! - -Beannachd leat! blessing with thee, farewell! Biodag, a dirk. - -Btrlinn ghorm, blue barge. - -Bochdan, a ghost. - -Bodach, an old man. - -Bord-dubh, black-board, the game of draughts. - -Bratach, a banner. - -Cabar, a rafter, a log of wood for throwing in Highland sports. - -Caileag bkeag, a little girl. - -Cailleach, old woman. Cailleachan, old women. - -Camatty, club used in the game of shinty. Camanachd, the game of shinty. - -Cas, foot. Cas-chrom, a primitive hand-plough. Choillich-dhuibh, O -black-cock! - -Clach-cuid-fear, a lifting-stone for testing a man's strength. - -Clackneart, putting-stone. - -Clarsack, harp. - -Cothrom na Feinne, the fair-play of Finne; man to man. Crioslach, belt, -girdle. - -Cromag, a shepherd's crook. - -Crotal, lichen. - -Crunluadh, a movement in piping. Crunluadh breabach, a smarter movement -Crunluadh mack, the quickest part of a piobaireachd. - -Dhé! O God! Dia, God. Dhia gleidh sinn! God keep us! - -Dorlach, a knapsack. - -Duitn'-nasal, gentleman. - -Eas, waterfall or cataract. - -Faoiltcach, the short season of stormy days at the end of January. - -Feadan, the chanter or pipe on which pipers practise tunes before -playing them on the bagpipes. Fuarag, hasty-pudding, a mixture of -oatmeal and cold water, or oatmeal and milk or cream. - -Gruagach, a sea-maiden in this case. - -'Ille! lad! 'Illean! lads! - -Iolair, eagle lorram, a boat-song. - -Laochain! hero! comrade! - -Larach, site of a ruined building. - -Londubh, blackbird. - -Mallachd ort! malediction on thee! - -Marag-dkubh, a black pudding, made with blood and suet. - -M' eudail, my darling, my treasure. - -Mhoire Mkathair, an ave, “Mary Mother.” - -Mo chridhe! my heart! - -Mo thruaigh! alas, my trouble! - -Och! ochan! ochanoch! ochanie! ochanorie! exclamations of sorrow, alas! -Och a Dhé! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob--O God! yonder it is now! -Rise, rise, Rob! - -Oinseach, a female fool. - -Piobaireachd, the symphony of bagpipe music, usually a lament, salute, -or gathering Piob-mhor, the great Highland bagpipe. - -Seangan, an ant. - -Sgalag, a male farm-servant. - -Sgeul, a tale, narrative. - -Sgiati-dubh, black knife, worn in the Highlander's stocking. - -Sgireachd, parish. - -Siod e! there it is! - -Siubhal, allegro of the piobaireachd music. - -Slochd-a-chubair gu bragh! the rallying cry of the old Inneraora -burghers, “Slochd-a-chubair for ever!” - -So! here! So agad e! here he is! - -Spàgachd, club-footed, awkward at walking. - -Spreidh, cattle of all sorts, a drove. - -Stad! stop! - -Suas e! up with it! A term of encouragement. - -Taibhsear, a visionary; one with second-sight. - -Tha sibk an so! you are here! - -Thoir an aire! beware! look out! - -Uiseag, the skylark. - -Urlar, the ground-work, adagio, or simple melody of a piobaireachd. - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Pibroch, by Neil Munro - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PIBROCH *** - -***** This file should be named 43729-0.txt or 43729-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/7/2/43729/ - -Produced by David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Lost Pibroch - And other Sheiling Stories - -Author: Neil Munro - -Release Date: September 15, 2013 [EBook #43729] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PIBROCH *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - - -THE LOST PIBROCH - -AND OTHER SHEILING STORIES - -By Neil Munro - - - - -THE LOST PIBROCH - -TO the make of a piper go seven years of his own learning and seven -generations before. If it is in, it will out, as the Gaelic old-word -says; if not, let him take to the net or sword. At the end of his seven -years one born to it will stand at the start of knowledge, and leaning a -fond ear to the drone, he may have parley with old folks of old affairs. -Playing the tune of the "Fairy Harp," he can hear his forefolks, plaided -in skins, towsy-headed and terrible, grunting at the oars and snoring in -the caves; he has his whittle and club in the "Desperate Battle" (my own -tune, my darling!), where the white-haired sea-rovers are on the shore, -and a stain's on the edge of the tide; or, trying his art on Laments, -he can stand by the cairn of kings, ken the colour of Fingal's hair, and -see the moon-glint on the hook of the Druids! - -To-day there are but three pipers in the wide world, from the Sound of -Sleat to the Wall of France. Who they are, and what their tartan, it is -not for one to tell who has no heed for a thousand dirks in his doublet, -but they may be known by the lucky ones who hear them. Namely players -tickle the chanter and take out but the sound; the three give a tune -the charm that I mention--a long thought and a bard's thought, and they -bring the notes from the deeps of time, and the tale from the heart of -the man who made it. - -But not of the three best in Albainn today is my story, for they have -not the Lost Pibroch. It is of the three best, who were not bad, in a -place I ken--Half Town that stands in the wood. - -You may rove for a thousand years on league-long brogues, or hurry on -fairy wings from isle to isle and deep to deep, and find no equal to -that same Half Town. It is not the splendour of it, nor the riches of -its folk; it is not any great routh of field or sheep-fank, but the -scented winds of it, and the comfort of the pine-trees round and about -it on every hand. My mother used to be saying (when I had the notion of -fairy tales), that once on a time, when the woods were young and -thin, there was a road through them, and the pick of children of a -country-side wandered among them into this place to play at sheilings. -Up grew the trees, fast and tall, and shut the little folks in so that -the way out they could not get if they had the mind for it. But never an -out they wished for. They grew with the firs and alders, a quiet clan in -the heart of the big wood, clear of the world out-by. - -But now and then wanderers would come to Half Town, through the gloomy -coves, under the tall trees. There were packmen with tales of the -out-world. There were broken men flying from rope or hatchet. And -once on a day of days came two pipers--Gilian, of Clan Lachlan of -Strathlachlan, and Rory Ban, of the Macnaghtons of Dundarave. - -They had seen Half Town from the sea--smoking to the clear air on the -hillside; and through the weary woods they came, and the dead quiet of -them, and they stood on the edge of the fir-belt. - -Before them was what might be a township in a dream, and to be seen at -the one look, for it stood on the rising hill that goes back on Lochow. - -The dogs barked, and out from the houses and in from the fields came the -quiet clan to see who could be here. Biggest of all the men, one they -named Coll, cried on the strangers to come forward; so out they went -from the wood-edge, neither coy nor crouse, but the equal of friend or -foe, and they passed the word of day. - -"Hunting," they said, "in Easachosain, we found the roe come this way." - -"If this way she came, she's at Duglas Water by now, so you may bide and -eat. Few, indeed, come calling on us in Half Town; but whoever they are, -here's the open door, and the horn spoon, and the stool by the fire." - -He took them in and he fed them, nor asked their names nor calling, but -when they had eaten well he said to Rory, "You have skill of the pipes; -I know by the drum of your fingers on the horn spoon." - -"I have tried them," said Rory, with a laugh, "a bit--a bit. My friend -here is a player." - -"You have the art?" asked Coll. - -"Well, not what yoo might call the whole art," said Gilian, "but I can -play--oh yes!I can play two or three ports." - -"You can that!" said Rory. - -"No better than yourself, Rory." - -"Well, maybe not, but--anyway, not all tunes; I allow you do 'Mackay's -Banner' in a pretty style." - -"Pipers," said Coll, with a quick eye to a coming quarrel, "I will take -you to one of your own trade in this place--Paruig Dali, who is namely -for music." - -"It's a name that's new to me," said Rory, short and sharp, but up they -rose and followed Big Coll. - -He took them to a bothy behind the Half Town, a place with turf -walls and never a window, where a blind man sat winding pirns for the -weaver-folks. - -"This," said Coll, showing the strangers in at the door, "is a piper -of parts, or I'm no judge, and he has as rare a stand of great pipes as -ever my eyes sat on." - -"I have that same," said the blind man, with his face to the door. "Your -friends, Coll?" - -"Two pipers of the neighbourhood," Rory made answer. "It was for no -piping we came here, but by the accident of the chase. Still and on, if -pipes are here, piping there might be." - -"So be it," cried Coll; "but I must go back to my cattle till night -comes. Get you to the playing with Paruig Dali, and I'll find you here -when I come back." And with that he turned about and went off. - -Parig put down the ale and cake before the two men, and "Welcome you -are," said he. - -They ate the stranger's bite, and lipped the stranger's cup, and then, -"Whistle 'The Macraes' March,' my fair fellow," said the blind man. - -"How ken you I'm fair?" asked Rory. - -"Your tongue tells that. A fair man has aye a soft bit in his speech, -like the lapping of milk in a cogie; and a black one, like your friend -there, has the sharp ring of a thin burn in frost running into an iron -pot. 'The Macraes' March,' _laochain_." - -Rory put a pucker on his mouth and played a little of the fine tune. - -"So!" said the blind man, with his head to a side, "you had your lesson. -And you, my Strathlachlan boy without beard, do you ken 'Muinntir a' -Ghlinne so'?" - -"How ken ye I'm Strathlachlan and beardless?" asked Gilian. - -"Strathlachlan by the smell of herring-scale from your side of the house -(for they told me yesterday the gannets were flying down Strathlachlan -way, and that means fishing), and you have no beard I know, but in what -way I know I do not know." Gilian had the _siubhal_ of the pibroch but -begun when the blind man stopped him. - -"You have it," he said, "you have it in a way, the Macarthur's way, and -that's not my way. But, no matter, let us to our piping." - -The three men sat them down on three stools on the clay floor, and the -blind man's pipes passed round between them. - -"First," said Paruig (being the man of the house, and to get the vein -of his own pipes)--"first I'll put on them 'The Vaunting.'" He stood to -his shanks, a lean old man and straight, and the big drone came nigh on -the black rafters. He filled the bag at a breath and swung a lover's arm -round about it. To those who know not the pipes, the feel of the bag -in the oxter is a gaiety lost. The sweet round curve is like a girl's -waist; it is friendly and warm in the crook of the elbow and against a -man's side, and to press it is to bring laughing or tears. - -The bothy roared with the tuning, and then the air came melting and -sweet from the chanter. Eight steps up, four, to the turn, and eight -down went Paruig, and the _piobaireachd_ rolled to his fingers like -a man's rhyming. The two men sat on, the stools, with their elbows on -their knees, and listened. - -He played but the _urlar_, and the _crunluadh_ to save time, and he -played them well. - -"Good indeed! Splendid, my old fellow!" cried the two; and said Gilian, -"You have a way of it in the _crunluadh_ not my way, but as good as ever -I heard." - -"It is the way of Padruig Og," said Rory. - -"Well I know it! There are tunes and tunes, and 'The Vaunting' is not -bad in its way, but give me 'The Macraes' March.'" - -He jumped to his feet and took the pipes from the old man's hands, and -over his shoulder with the drones. - -"Stand back, lad!" he cried to Gilian, and Gilian went nearer the door. - -The march came fast to the chanter--the old tune, the fine tune that -Kintail has heard before, when the wild men in their red tartan came -over hill and moor; the tune with the river in it, the fast river and -the courageous that kens not stop nor tarry, that runs round rock and -over fall with a good humour, yet no mood for anything but the way -before it. The tune of the heroes, the tune of the pinelands and the -broad straths, the tune that the eagles of Loch Duich crack their beaks -together when they hear, and the crows of that country-side would as -soon listen to as the squeal of their babies. - -"Well! mighty well!" said Paruig Dali. "You have the tartan of the clan -in it." - -"Not bad, I'll allow," said Gilian. "Let me try." - -He put his fingers on the holes, and his heart took a leap back over two -generations, and yonder was Glencoe! The grey day crawled on the white -hills and the Mack roofs smoked below. Snow choked the pass, _eas_ and -corn filled with drift and flatted to the brae-face; the wind tossed -quirky and and in the little bashes and among the smooring lintels and -joists; the Mood of old and young lappered on the hearthstone, and the -bairn, with a knifed throat, had an icy lip on a frozen teat. Out of the -place went the tramped path of the Campbell butchers--far on their -way to Glenlyon and the towns of paper and ink and liars--"Muinntir -a' ghlinne so, muinntir a' ghlinne so!--People, people, people of this -glen, this glen, this glen!" - -"Dogs! dogs! O God of grace--dogs and cowards!" cried Rory. "I could be -dirking a Diarmaid or two if by luck they were near me." - -"It is piping that is to be here," said Paruig, "and it is not piping -for an hour nor piping for an evening, but the piping of Dunvegan that -stops for sleep nor supper." - -So the three stayed in the bothy and played tune about while time went -by the door. The birds flew home to the branches, the longnecked beasts -flapped off to the shore to spear their flat fish; the rutting deers -bellowed with loud throats in the deeps of the wood that stands round -Half Town, and the scents of the moist night came gusty round the -door. Over the back of Auchnabreac the sun trailed his plaid of red -and yellow, and the loch stretched salt and dark from Cairn Dubh to -Creaggans. - -In from the hill the men and the women came, weary-legged, and the -bairns nodded at their heels. Sleepiness was on the land, but the -pipers, piping in the bothy, kept the world awake. - -"We will go to bed in good time," said the folks, eating their suppers -at their doors; "in good time when this tune is ended." But tune came on -tane, and every tune better than its neighbour, and they waited. - -A cruisie-light was set alowe in the blind man's bothy, and the three -men played old tunes and new tunes--salute and lament and brisk dances -and marches that coax tired brogues on the long roads. - -"Here's 'Tulloch Ard' for you, and tell me who made it," said Rory. - -"Who kens that? Here's 'Raasay's Lament,' the best port Padruig Mor ever -put together." - -"Tunes and tunes. I'm for 'A Kiss o' the King's Hand.'" - - "Thug mi pg 'us pg 'us pg, - Thug mi pg do lmh an righ, - Cha do chuir gaoth an craicionn caorach, - Fear a fhuair an fhaoilt ach mi!" - -Then a quietness came on Half Town, for the piping stopped, and the -people at their doors heard but their blood thumping and the night-hags -in the dark of the firwood. - -"A little longer and maybe there will be more," they said to each other, -and they waited; but no more music came from the drones, so they went in -to bed. - -There was quiet over Half Town, for the three pipers talked about the -Lost Tune. - -"A man my father knew," said Gilian, "heard a bit of it once in -Moideart. A terrible fine tune he said it was, but sore on the mind." - -"It would be the tripling," said the Macnaghton, stroking a reed with a -fond hand. - -"Maybe. Tripling is ill enough, but what is tripling? There is more in -piping than brisk fingers. Am I not right, Paruig?" "Right, oh! right. -The Lost _Piobaireachd_ asks for skilly tripling, but Macruimen himself -could not get at the core of it for all his art." - -"You have heard it then!" cried Gilian. - -The blind man stood up and filled out his breast. - -"Heard it!" he said; "I heard it, and I play it--on the _feadan_, but -not on the full set. To play the tune I mention on the full set is what -I have not done since I came to Half Town." - -"I have ten round pieces in my sporran, and a bonnet-brooch it would -take much to part me from; but they're there for the man who'll play me -the Lost _Piobaireachd_" said Gilian, with the words tripping each other -to the tip of his tongue. - -"And here's a Macnaghton's fortune on the top of the round pieces," -cried Rory, emptying his purse on the table. - -The old man's face got hot and angry. "I am not," he said, "a tinker's -minstrel, to give my tuning for bawbees and a quaich of ale. The king -himself could not buy the tune I ken if he had but a whim for it. But -when pipers ask it they can have it, and it's yours without a fee. Still -if you think to learn the tune by my piping once, poor's the delusion. -It is not a port to be picked up like a cockle on the sand, for it takes -the schooling of years and blindness forbye." - -"Blindness?" - -"Blindness indeed. The thought of it is only for the dark eye." - -"If we could hear it on the full set!" - -"Come out, then, on the grass, and you'll hear it, if Half Town should -sleep no sleep this night." - -They went out of the bothy to the wet short grass. Ragged mists shook -o'er Cowal, and on Ben Ime sat a horned moon like a galley of Lorn. - -"I heard this tune from the Moideart man--the last in Albainn who knew -it then, and he's in the clods," said the blind fellow. - -He had the mouthpiece at his lip, and his hand was coaxing the bag, when -a bairn's cry came from a house in the Half Town--a suckling's whimper, -that, heard in the night, sets a man's mind busy on the sorrows that -folks are born to. The drones clattered together on the piper's elbow -and he stayed. - -"I have a notion," he said to the two men. "I did not tell you that the -Lost _Piobaireachd_ is the _piobaireachd_ of good-byes. It is the -tune of broken clans, that sets the men on the foray and makes cold -hearth-stones. It was played in Glenshira when Gilleasbuig Gruamach -could stretch stout swordsmen from Boshang to Ben Bhuidhe, and where are -the folks of Glenshira this day? I saw a cheery night in Carnus that's -over Lochow, and song and story busy about the fire, and the Moideart -man played it for a wager. In the morning the weans were without -fathers, and Carnus men were scattered about the wide world." - -"It must be the magic tune, sure enough," said Gilian. - -"Magic indeed, _laochain!_ It is the tune that puts men on the open -road, that makes restless lads and seeking women. Here's a Half Town of -dreamers and men fattening for want of men's work. They forget the world -is wide and round about their fir-trees, and I can make them crave for -something they cannot name." - -"Good or bad, out with it," said Rory, "if you know it at all." - -"Maybe no', maybe no'. I am old and done. Perhaps I have lost the right -skill of the tune, for it's long since I put it on the great pipe. -There's in me the strong notion to try it whatever may come of it, and -here's for it." - -He put his pipe up again, filled the bag at a breath, brought the -booming to the drones, and then the chanter-reed cried sharp and high. - -"He's on it," said Rory in Gilian's ear. - -The groundwork of the tune was a drumming on the deep notes where the -sorrows lie--"Come, come, come, my children, rain on the brae and the -wind blowing." - -"It is a salute." said Rory. - -"It's the strange tune anyway," said Gilian; "listen to the time of -yon!" - -The tune searched through Half Town and into the gloomy pine-wood; it -put an end to the whoop of the night-hag and rang to Ben Bhreac. Boatmen -deep and far on the loch could hear it, and Half Town folks sat up to -listen. - -It's story was the story that's ill to tell--something of the heart's -longing and the curious chances of life. It bound up all the tales of -all the clans, and made one tale of the Gaels' past. Dirk nor sword -against the tartan, but the tartan against all else, and the Gaels' -target fending the hill-land and the juicy straths from the pock-pitted -little black men. The winters and the summers passing fast and furious, -day and night roaring in the ears, and then again the clans at variance, -and warders on every pass and on every parish. - -Then the tune changed. - -"Folks," said the reeds, coaxing. "Wide's the world and merry the road. -Here's but the old story and the women we kissed before. Come, come to -the flat-lands rich and full, where the wonderful new things happen and -the women's lips are still to try!" - -"To-morrow," said Gilian in his friend's ear--"to-morrow I will go -jaunting to the North. It has been in my mind since Beltane." - -"One might be doing worse," said Rory, "and I have the notion to try a -trip with my cousin to the foreign wars." - -The blind piper put up his shoulder higher and rolled the air into -the _crunluadh breabach_ that comes prancing with variations. Pride -stiffened him from heel to hip, and hip to head, and set his sinews like -steel. - -He was telling of the gold to get for the searching and the bucks that -may be had for the hunting. "What," said the reeds, "are your poor -crops, slashed by the constant rain and rotting, all for a scart in -the bottom of a pot? What are your stots and heifers--black, dun, and -yellow--to milch-cows and horses? Here's but the same for ever--toil -and sleep, sleep and toil even on, no feud nor foray nor castles to -harry--only the starved field and the sleeping moss. Let us to a -brisker place! Over yonder are the long straths and the deep rivers and -townships strewn thick as your corn-rigs; over yonder's the place of the -packmen's tales and the packmen's wares: steep we the withies and go!" - -The two men stood with heads full of bravery and dreaming--men in a -carouse. "This," said they, "is the notion we had, but had no words for. -It's a poor trade piping and eating and making amusement when one might -be wandering up and down the world. We must be packing the haversacks." - -Then the _crunluadh mach_ came fast and furious on the chanter, and Half -Town shook with it. It buzzed in the ear like the flowers in the Honey -Croft, and made commotion among the birds rocking on their eggs in the -wood. - -"So! so!" barked the _iolair_ on Craig-an-eas. - -"I have heard before it was an ill thing to be satisfied; in the morning -I'll try the kids on Maam-side, for the hares here are wersh and tough." - -"Hearken, dear," said the _londubh_, "I know now why my beak is gold; it -is because I once ate richer berries than the whortle, and in season -I'll look for them on the braes of Glenfinne." - -"Honk-unk," said the fox, the cunning red fellow, "am not I the fool to -be staying on this little brae when I know so many roads elsewhere?" - -And the people sitting up in their beds in Half Town moaned for -something new. "Paruig Dall is putting the strange tune on her there," -said they. "What the meaning of it is we must ask in the morning, but, -_ochanoch!_ it leaves one hungry at the heart." And then gusty winds -came snell from the north, and where the dark crept first, the day made -his first showing, so that Ben Ime rose black against a grey sky. - -"That's the Lost _Piobaireachd_," said Paruig Dali when the bag sunk on -his arm. - -And the two men looked at him in a daze. - -Sometimes in the spring of the year the winds from Lorn have it their -own way with the Highlands. They will come tearing furious over -the hundred hills, spurred the faster by the prongs of Cruachan and -Dunchuach, and the large woods of home toss before them like corn before -the hook. Up come the poor roots and over on their broken arms go the -tall trees, and in the morning the deer will trot through new lanes cut -in the forest. - -A wind of that sort came on the full of the day when the two pipers were -leaving Half Town. - -"Stay till the storm is over," said the kind folks; and "Your bed and -board are here for the pipers forty days," said Paruig Dali. But "No" -said the two; "we have business that your _piobaireachd_ put us in mind -of." - -"I'm hoping that I did not play yon with too much skill," said the old -man. - -"Skill or no skill," said Gilian, "the like of yon I never heard. You -played a port that makes poor enough all ports ever one listened to, and -piping's no more for us wanderers." - -"Blessings with thee!" said the folks all, and the two men went down -into the black wood among the cracking trees. - -Six lads looked after them, and one said, "It is an ill day for a body -to take the world for his pillow, but what say you to following the -pipers?" - -"It might," said one, "be the beginning of fortune. I am weary enough -of this poor place, with nothing about it but wood and water and tufty -grass. If we went now, there might be gold and girls at the other end." - -They took crooks and bonnets and went after the two pipers. And when -they were gone half a day, six women said to their men, "Where can the -lads be?" - -"We do not know that," said the men, with hot faces, "but we might be -looking." They kissed their children and went, with _cromags_ in their -hands, and the road they took was the road the King of Errin rides, and -that is the road to the end of days. - -A weary season fell on Half Town, and the very bairns dwined at the -breast for a change of fortune. The women lost their strength, and said, -"To-day my back is weak, tomorrow I will put things to right," and they -looked slack-mouthed and heedless-eyed at the sun wheeling round the -trees. Every week a man or two would go to seek something--a lost heifer -or a wounded roe that was never brought back--and a new trade came to -the place, the selling of herds. Far away in the low country, where the -winds are warm and the poorest have money, black-cattle were wanted, so -the men of Half Town made up long droves and took them round Glen Beag -and the Rest. - -Wherever they went they stayed, or the clans on the roadside put them to -steel, for Half Town saw them no more. And a day came when all that was -left in that fine place were but women and children and a blind piper. - -"Am I the only man here?" asked Paruig Dali when it came to the bit, and -they told him he was. - -"Then here's another for fortune!" said he, and he went down through the -woods with his pipes in his oxter. - - - - -RED HAND - - -THE smell of wet larch was in the air, and Glenaora was aburst to -the coaxing of Spring. Paruig Dali the piper--son of the son of Iain -Mor--filled his broad chest with two men's wind, and flung the drones -over his shoulder. They dangled a little till the bag swelled out, and -the first blast rang in the ear of the morning. Rough and noisy, the -reeds cried each other down till a master's hand held them in check, and -the long soft singing of the _piobaireachd_ floated out among the tartan -ribbons. The grey peak of Drimfern heard the music; the rock that wards -the mouth of Carnus let it pass through the gap and over the hill and -down to the isles below; Dun Corr-bhile and Dunchuach, proud Kilmune, -the Paps of Salachary, and a hundred other braes around, leaned over to -listen to the vaunting notes that filled the valley. "The Glen, the -Glen is mine!" sang the blithe chanter; and, by Finne's sword, Macruimen -himself could not have fingered it better! - -It was before Paruig Dali left for Halt Town; before the wars that -scorched the glens; and Clan Campbell could cock its bonnet in the face -of all Albainn. Paruig was old, and Paruig was blind, as the name of him -tells, but he swung with a king's port up and down on the short grass, -his foot firm to every beat of the tune, his kilt tossing from side to -side like a bard's song, his sporran leaping gaily on his brown -knees. Two score of lilting steps to the bumside, a slow wheel on a -brogue-heel, and then back with the sun-glint on the buckles of his -belt. - -The men, tossing the caber and hurling the _clachncart_ against the -sun beyond the peat-bog, paused in their stride at the chanter's boast, -jerked the tartan tight on their loins, and came over to listen; the -women, posting blankets for the coming sheiling, stopped their splashing -in the little linn, and hummed in a dream; and men and women had mind -of the days that were, when the Glen was soft with the blood of men, for -the Stewarts were over the way from Appin. - -"God's splendour! but he can play too," said the piper's son, with his -head areel to the fine tripling. - -Then Paruig pushed the bag further into his oxter, and the tune changed. -He laid the ground of "Bodaich nam Briogais," and such as knew the story -saw the "carles with the breeks" broken and flying before Glenurchy's -thirsty swords, far north of Morven, long days of weary march through -spoiled glens. - -"It's fine playing, I'll allow," said the blind man's son, standing -below a saugh-tree with the bag of his bannered pipes in the crook of -his arm. He wore the dull tartan of the Diarmaids, and he had a sprig -of gall in his bonnet, for he was in Black Duncan's tail. "Son of Paruig -Dali," said the Chief seven years ago come Martinmas, "if you're to play -like your father, there's but Dunvegan for you, and the schooling of -Patrick Macruimen." So Tearlach went to Skye--cold isle of knives and -caves--and in the college of Macruimen he learned the _piob-mhor_. -Morning and evening, and all day between, he fingered the _feadan_ or -the full set--gathering and march, massacre and moaning, and the stately -salute. Where the lusty breeze comes in salt from Vatemish across Loch -Vegan, and the purple loom of Uist breaks the sunset's golden bars, -he stood on the braes over against Borearaig and charmed the grumbling -tide. And there came a day that he played "The Lament of the Harp-Tree," -with the old years of sturdy fight and strong men all in the strain of -it, and Patrick Macruimen said, "No more, lad; go home: Lochow never -heard another like you." As a cock with its comb uncut, came the -stripling from Skye. - -"Father," he had said, "you play not ill for a blind man, but you miss -the look on the men's faces, and that's half the music. Forbye, you are -old, and your fingers are slow on the grace-notes. Here's your own flesh -and blood can show you fingering there was never the like of anywhere -east the Isles." - -The stepmother heard the brag. "_A pheasain!_" she snapped, with hate in -her peat-smoked face. "Your father's a man, and you are but a boy with -no heart for a long day. A place in Black Duncan's tail, with a gillie -to carry your pipes and knapsack, is not, mind ye, all that's to the -making of a piper." - -Tearlach laughed in her face. "Boy or man," said he, "look at me! north, -east, south, and west, where is the one to beat me? Macruimen has the -name, but there were pipers before Macruimen, and pipers will come after -him." - -"It's maybe as you say," said Paruig. "The stuff's in you, and what -is in must out; but give me _cothrom na Feinne_, and old as I am, with -Finne's chance, and that's fair play, I can maybe make you crow less -crouse. Are ye for trying?" - -"I am at the training of a new chanter-reed," said Tearlach; "but let it -be when you will." - -They fixed a day, and went out to play against each other for glory, and -so it befell that on this day Paruig Dali was playing "The Glen is Mine" -and "Bodaich nam Briogais" in a way to make stounding hearts. - -Giorsal snapped her fingers in her stepson's face when her husband -closed the _crunluadh_ of his _piobaireachd._ - -"Can you better it, bastard?" snarled she. - -"Here goes for it, whatever!" said Tear-lach, and over his back went the -banner with its boar's head sewn on gold. A pretty lad, by the cross! -clean-cut of limb and light of foot, supple of loin, with the toss of -the shoulder that never a decent piper lacked. The women who had been -at the linn leaned on each other all in the soft larch-scented day, and -looked at him out of deep eyes; the men on the heather arose and stood -nigher. - -A little tuning, and then - - "Is comadh leam's comadh leam, cogadh na sithe, - Marbhar 'sa chogadh na crochar's an t-sith mi." - -"Peace or war!" cried Giorsal, choking in anger, to her man--"peace or -war! the black braggart! it's an asp ye have for a son, goodman!" - -The lad's fingers danced merry on the chanter, and the shiver of -something to come fell on all the folk around. The old hills sported -with the prancing tune; Dun Corrbhile tossed it to Drimfem, and -Drimfern sent it leaping across the flats of Kilmune to the green -corries of Lecknamban. "Love, love, the old tune; come and get flesh!" -rasped a crow to his mate far off on misty Ben Bhreac, and the heavy -black wings flapped east. The friendly wind forgot to dally with the -pine-tuft and the twanging bog-myrtle, the plash of Aora in its brown -linn was the tinkle of wine in a goblet. "Peace or war, peace or war; -come which will, we care not," sang the pipe-reeds, and there was the -muster and the march, hot-foot rush over the rotting rain-wet moor, the -jingle of iron, the dunt of pike and targe, the choked roar of hate and -hunger, batter and slash and fall, and behind, the old, old feud with -Appin! - -Leaning forward, lost in a dream, stood the swank lads of Aora. They -felt at their hips, where were only empty belts, and one said to his -child, "White love, get me yon long knife with the nicks on it, and the -basket-hand, for I am sick of shepherding." The bairn took a look at his -face and went home crying. - -And the music still poured on. 'Twas "I got a Kiss o' the King's Hand" -and "The Pretty Dirk," and every air better than another. The fairy pipe -of the Wee Folk's Knowe never made a sweeter fever of sound, yet it hurt -the ears of the women, who had reason to know the payment of pipers' -springs. - -"Stop, stop, O Tearlach og!" they cried; "enough of war: have ye not a -reel in your budget?" - -"There was never a reel in Boreraig," said the lad, and he into -"Duniveg's Warning," the tune Coll Ciotach heard his piper play in the -west on a day when a black bitch from Dunstaffnage lay panting for him, -and his barge put nose about in time to save his skin. - -"There's the very word itself in it," said Paruig, forgetting the -taunting of Giorsal and all but a father's pride. - -'Twas in the middle of the "Warning" Black Duncan, his toe on the -stirrup, came up from Castle Inneraora, with a gillie-wet-foot behind, -on his way to Lochow. - -"It's down yonder you should be, Sir Piper, and not blasting here for -drink," said he, switching his trews with his whip and scowling under -black brows at the people. "My wife is sick of the _clarsach_ and wants -the pipes." - -"I'm no woman's piper, Lochow; your wife can listen to the hum of her -spinning-wheel if she's weary of her harp," said the lad; and away -rode the Chief, and back to the linn went the women, and the men to -the _cabar_ and the stone, and Tearlach, with an extra feather in his -bonnet, home to Inneraora, leafing a gibe as he went, for his father. - -Paruig Dali cursed till the evening at the son he never saw, and his -wife poisoned his mind. - -"The Glen laughs at you, man, from Carnus to Croit-bhile. It's a black, -burning day of shame for you, Paruig Dall!" - -"Lord, it's a black enough day for me at the best!" said the blind man. - -"It's disgraced by your own ill-got son you are, by a boy with no blood -on his _biodag_, and the pride to crow over you." - -And Paruig cursed anew, by the Cross and the Dogs of Lorn, and the White -Glaive of Light the giants wear, and the Seven Witches of Cothmar. He -was bad though he was blind, and he went back to the start of time for -his language. "But _Dh!_ the boy can play!" he said at the last. - -"Oh, _amadain dhoill_" cried the woman; "if it was I, a claw was off the -cub before the mouth of day." - -"Witless woman, men have played the pipes before now, lacking a finger: -look at Alasdair Corrag!" - -"Allowing; but a hand's as easy to cut as a finger for a man who has -gralloched deer with a keen _sgian-dubh_. Will ye do't or no'?" - -Parig would hearken no more, and took to his pillow. - -Rain came with the gloaming. Aora, the splendid river, roared up the -dark glen from the Salmon Leap; the hills gathered thick and heavy round -about the scattered townships, the green new tips of fir and the copper -leaves of the young oaks moaned in the wind. Then salt airs came tearing -up from the sea, grinding branch on branch, and the whole land smoked -with the drumming of rain that slanted on it hot and fast. - -Giorsal arose, her clothes still on her, put a plaid on her black head, -and the thick door banged back on the bed as she dived into the storm. -Her heavy feet sogged through the boggy grass, the heather clutched at -her draggled coat-tails to make her stay, but she filled her heart with -one thought, and that was hate, and behold! she was on the slope of -the Black Bull before her blind husband guessed her meaning. Castle -Inneraora lay at the foot of the woody dun, dozing to the music of the -salt loch that made tumult and spume north and south in the hollow of -the mountains. Now and then the moon took a look at things, now and then -a night-hag in the dripping wood hooted as the rain whipped her breast -feathers; a roe leaped out of the gloom and into it with a feared -hoof-plunge above Carlonan; a thunderbolt struck in the dark against the -brow of Ben Ime and rocked the world. - -In the cold hour before the mouth of day the woman was in the piper's -room at the gate of Inneraora, where never a door was barred against the -night while Strong Colin the warder could see from the Fort of Dunchuach -to Cladich. Tearlach the piper lay on his back, with the glow of a -half-dead peat on his face and hands. "Paruig, Paruig!" said the woman -to herself, as she softly tramped out the peat-fire and turned to the -bed. And lo! it was over. Her husband's little black knife made a fast -sweep on the sleeper's wrist, and her hand was drenched with the hot -blood of her husband's son. - -Tearlach leaped up with a roar in the dark and felt for his foe; but the -house was empty, for Giorsal was running like a hind across the soaked -stretch of Caimban. The lightning struck at Glenaora in jagged fury and -confusion; the thunder drummed hollow on Creag - -Dubh: in a turn of the pass at the Three Bridges the woman met her -husband. - -"Daughter of hell!" said he, "is't done? and was't death?" - -"Darling," said she, with a fond laugh, "'twas only a brat's hand. You -can give us 'The Glen is Mine!' in the morning." - - - - -THE SECRET OF THE HEATHER-ALE - - -DOWN Glenaora threescore and ten of Diarmaid's stout fellows took the -road on a fine day. They were men from Carnus, with more of Clan Artair -than Campbell in them; but they wore Gilleasbuig Gruamach's tartan,. -and if they were not on Gilleasbuig Gruamach's errand, it makes little -difference on our story. It was about the time Antrim and his dirty -Irishers came scouring through our glens with flambeaux, dirk and sword -and other arms invasive, and the country was back at its old trade of -fighting, with not a sheiling from end to end, except on the slopes of -Shira Glen, where a clan kept free of battle and drank the finest of -heather-ale that the world envied the secret of. - -"Lift we and go, for the Cattle's before!" said Alasdair Piobaire on the -chanter of a Dunvegan great-pipe--a neat tune that roared gallant and -far from Carnus to Bara-caldine; so there they were, the pick of swank -fellows on the road! - -At the head of them was Niall Mor a' Chamais--the same gentleman namely -in story for many an art and the slaughter of the strongest man in the -world, as you'll find in the writings of my Lord Archie. "God! look at -us!" said he, when his lads came over the hill in the grey mouth of day. -"Are not we the splendid men? Fleas will there be this day in the hose -of the Glenshira folk." And he sent his targe in the air in a bravado, -catching it by the prong in its navel, smart and clean, when it whirled -back. - -Hawks yelped as they passed; far up on Tullich there was barking of -eagles; the brogues met the road as light as the stagslot; laughing, -singing, roaring; sword-heads and pikes dunting on wooden targets--and -only once they looked back at their women high on the brae-face. - -The nuts were thick on the roadside, hanging heavy from swinging -branches, and some of the men pulled them off as they passed, stayed for -more, straggled, and sang bits of rough songs they ken over many of on -Lochowside to this day. So Niall Mor glunched at his corps from under -his bonnet and showed his teeth. - -"Gather in, gather in," said he; "ye march like a drove of low-country -cattle. Alasdair, put 'Baile Inneraora' on her!" - -Alasdair changed his tune, and the good march of Clan Diarmaid went -swinging down the glen. - -The time passed; the sun stood high and hot; clucking from the -fir-plantings came woodcock and cailzie; the two rivers were crossed, -and the Diarmaids slockened their thirst at the water of Altan Aluinn, -whose birth is somewhere in the bogs beside tall Bhuidhe Ben. - -Where the clans met was at the Foal's Gap, past Maam. A score of the -MacKellars ran out in a line from the bushes, and stotted back from the -solid weight of Diarmaid moving in a lump and close-shouldered in the -style Niall Mor got from the Italian soldier. Some fell, hacked on the -head by the heavy slash of the dry sword; some gripped too late at the -pikes that kittled them cruelly; and one--Iver-of-the-Oars--tripped on -a root of heather, and fell with his breast on the point of a Diarmaid's -dirk. - -To the hills went a fast summons, and soon at the mouth of the gap came -twoscore of the MacKellars. They took a new plan, and close together -faced the green tartan, keeping it back at the point of steel, though -the pick of Glenaora wore it, and the brogues slipped on the brae-face. -It was fast cut and drive, quick flash of the dirk, with the palm up and -the hand low to find the groin, and a long reach with the short black -knife. The choked breath hissed at teeth and nose, the salt smell of new -blood brought a shiver to birch-leaf and gall. But ever the green tartan -had the best of it. - -"_Bas, bas, Dhiarmaid!_" cried Calum Dubh, coming up on the back of his -breaking two-score with fresh lads from Elerigmor, bed-naked to the -hide, and a new fury fell on the two clans tearing at it in the narrow -hollow in between the rocky hills. So close they were, there was small -room for the whirl of the basket-hilt, and "Mind Tom-a-Phubaill and the -shortened steel!" cried Niall Mor, smashing a pretty man's face with a -blow from the iron guard of his Ferrara sword. The halberts, snapped at -the haft to make whittles, hammered on the target-hides like stones on -a coffin, or rang on the bosses; the tartan ripped when the stuck one -rolled on his side before the steel could be twisted out; below the foot -the grass felt warm and greasy, and the reason was not ill to seek. - -Once it looked like the last of Calum Dubh. He was facing Niall Mor, -sword and targe, and Niall Mor changed the sword to the other hand, -pulled the _sgian-dubh_ from his garter, and with snapping teeth pushed -like a lightning fork below MacKellar's target. An Elerigmor man ran in -between; the little black knife sunk into his belly with a moist plunge, -and the blood spouted on the deer-horn haft. - -"_Mallachd ort!_ I meant yon for a better man," cried Niall Mor; "but -it's well as it is, for the secret's to the fore," and he stood up dour -and tall against a new front of Mac-Kellar's men. - -Then the sky changed, and a thin smirr of warm rains fell on the glen -like smoke; some black-cattle bellowed at the ford in a wonder at where -their herds could be, and the herds--stuck, slashed, and cudgelled--lay -stiffening on the torn grass between the gap and Mac-Kellar's house. -From end to end of the glen there was no man left but was at the -fighting. The hook was tossed among the corn; the man hot-foot behind -the roe, turned when he had his knife at its throat, to go to war; a -lover left his lass among the heather; and all, with tightened belts, -were at the old game with Clan Diarmaid, while their women, far up on -the sappy levels between the hill-tops and beside the moor-lochs, -span at the wheel or carded wool, singing songs with light hearts and -thinking no danger. - -Back went MacKellar's men before Niall - -Mor and his sturdy lads from Camus, the breeder of soldiers--back -through the gap and down on the brae to the walls of Calum Dubh. - -"'Illean, 'illean!" cried Calum; "lads, lads! they have us, sure enough. -Oh! pigs and thieves! squint mouths and sons of liars!" - -The cry gathered up the strength of all that was left of his clan, Art -and Uileam, the Maam lads, the brothers from Drimlea and two from over -Stron hill, and they stood up together against the Carnus men--a gallant -madness! They died fast and hard, and soon but Calum and his two sons -were left fencing, till a rush of Diarmaids sent them through the door -of the house and tossed among the peats. - -"Give in and your lives are your own," said Niall Mor, wiping his sword -on his shirtsleeve, and with all that were left of his Diarmaids behind -his back. - -To their feet stood the three MacKellars. - -Calum looked at the folk in front of him, and had mind of other ends to -battles. "To die in a house like a rat were no great credit," said he, -and he threw his sword on the floor, where the blades of Art and Uileam -soon joined it. - -With tied arms the father and his sons were taken outside, where the air -was full of the scents of birch and gall new-washed. The glen, clearing -fast of mist, lay green and sweet for mile and mile, and far at its -mouth the fat Blaranbuie woods chuckled in the sun. - -"I have you now," said Niall Mor. "Ye ken what we seek. It's the old -ploy--the secret of the ale." - -Calum laughed in his face, and the two sons said things that cut like -knives. - -"Man! I'm feared ye'll rue this," said Niall Mor, calm enough. "Ye may -laugh, but--what would ye call a gentleman's death?" - -"With the sword or the dagger in the hand, and a Diarmaid or two before -me," cried Calum. - -"Well, there might be worse ways of travelling yont--indeed there could -ill be better; but if the secret of the ale is not to be ours for the -asking, ye'll die a less well-bred death." - -"Name it, man, name it," said Calum. "Might it be tow at the throat and -a fir-branch." - -"Troth," said Niall Mor, "and that were too gentle a travelling. The -Scaurnoch's on our way, and the crows at the foot of it might relish a -Glen Shira carcass." - -Uileam whitened at the notion of so ugly an end, but Calum only said, -"Die we must any way," and Art whistled a bit of a pipe-tune, grinding -his heel on the moss. - -Niall Mor made to strike the father on the face, but stayed his hand and -ordered the three in-by, with a few of his corps to guard them. Up and -down Glen Shira went the Diarmaids, seeking the brewing-cave, giving hut -and home to the flame, and making black hearths and low lintels for the -women away in the sheilings. They buried their dead at Kilblaan, and, -with no secret the better, set out for Scaurnoch with Calum and his -sons. - -The MacKellars were before, like a _spreidh_ of stolen cattle, and the -lot of the driven herd was theirs. They were laughed at and spat on, -and dirk-hilts and _cromags_ hammered on their shoulders, and through -Blaranbuie wood they went to the bosky elbow of Dun Corr-bhile and round -to the Dun beyond. - -Calum, for all his weariness, stepped like a man with a lifetime's plans -before his mind; Art looked about him in the fashion of one with an eye -to woodcraft; Uileam slouched with a heavy foot, white at the jaw and -wild of eye. - -The wood opened, the hunting-road bent about the hill-face to give a -level that the eye might catch the country spread below. Loch Finne -stretched far, from Ardno to French Foreland, a glassy field, specked -with one sail off Creaggans. When the company came to a stand, Calum -Dubh tossed his head to send the hair from his eyes, and looked at what -lay below. The Scaurnoch broke at his feet, the grey rock-face falling -to a depth so deep that weary mists still hung upon the sides, jagged -here and there by the top of a fir-tree. The sun, behind the Dun, -gave the last of her glory to the Cowal Hills; Hell's Glen filled with -wheeling mists; Ben Ime, Ben Vane, and Ben Arthur crept together and -held princely converse on the other side of the sea. - -All in a daze of weariness and thinking the Diarmaids stood, and looked -and listened, and the curlews were crying bitter on the shore. - -"Oh, haste ye, lads, or it's not Carnus for us to-night," cried Niall -Mor. "We have business before us, and long's the march to follow. The -secret, black fellow!" - -Calum Dubh laughed, and spat in a bravado over the edge of the rock. - -"Come, fool; if we have not the word from you before the sun's off -Sithean Sluaidhe, your sleep this night is yonder," and he pointed at -the pit below. - -Calum laughed the more. "If it was hell itself," said he, "I would not -save my soul from it." - -"Look, man, look! the Sithean Sluaidhe's getting black, and any one of -ye can save the three yet. I swear it on the cross of my knife." - -Behind the brothers, one, John-Without-Asking, stood, with a gash on his -face, eager to give them to the crows below. - -A shiver came to Uileam's lips; he looked at his father with a -questioning face, and then stepped back a bit from the edge, making to -speak to the tall man of Chamis. - -Calum saw the meaning, and spoke fast and thick. - -"Stop, stop," said he; "it's a trifle of a secret, after all, and to -save life ye can have it." - -Art took but a little look at his father's face, then turned round on -Shira Glen and looked on the hills where the hunting had many a time -been sweet. "Maam no more," said he to himself; "but here's death in the -hero's style!" - -"I thought you would tell it," laughed Niall Mor. "There was never one -of your clan but had a tight grip of his little life." - -"Ay!" said Calum Dubh; "but it's _my_ secret. I had it from one who made -me swear on the holy steel to keep it; but take me to Carnus, and I'll -make you the heather-ale." - -"So be't, and----" - -"But there's this in it, I can look no clansmen nor kin in the face -after telling it, so Art and Uileam must be out of the way first." - -"Death, MacKellar?" - -"That same." - -Uileam shook like a leaf, and Art laughed, with his face still to Shira, -for he had guessed his father's mind. - -"Faith!" said Niall Mor, "and that's an easy thing enough," and he -nodded to John-Without-Asking. - -The man made stay nor tarry. He put a hand on each son's back and -pushed them over the edge to their death below. One cry came up to the -listening Diarmaids, one cry and no more--the last gasp of a craven. - -"Now we'll take you to Camus, and you'll make us the ale, the fine ale, -the cream of rich heather-ale," said Niall Mor, putting a knife to the -thongs that tied MacKellar's arms to his side. - -With a laugh and a fast leap Calum Dubh stood back on the edge of the -rock again. - -"Crook-mouths, fools, pigs' sons! did ye think it?" he cried. "Come with -me and my sons and ye'll get ale, ay, and death's black wine, at the -foot of Scaurnoch." He caught fast and firm at John-Without-Asking, and -threw himself over the rock-face. They fell as the scart dives, straight -to the dim sea of mist and pine-tip, and the Diarmaids threw themselves -on their breasts to look over. There was nothing to see of life but -the crows swinging on black feathers; there was nothing to hear but the -crows scolding. - -Niall Mor put the bonnet on his head and said his first and last -friendly thing of a foe. - -"Yon," said he, "had the heart of a man!" - - - - -BOBOON'S CHILDREN - - -FROM Knapdale to Lorn three wandering clans share the country between -them, and of the three the oldest and the greatest are the swart -Macdonalds, children of the Old Boboon. - -You will come on them on Wade's roads,--jaunty fellows, a bit dour in -the look, and braggart; or girls with sloe-eyes, tall and supple, not -with a flat slouching foot on the soil, but high in the instep, -bounding and stag-sure. At their head will be a long lean old man on -crutches--John Fine Macdonald-- - -Old Boboon, the father and head of the noblest of wandering tribes. - -"Sir," will Boboon say to you, "I am the fellow you read of in books as -the teller of Fingalian tales; wilt hear one of them for a poor Saxon -shilling, or wilt buy my lures for the fish? Or perhaps a display of -scholarly piping by my daughter's son--the gallant scamp!--who has -carried arms for his king?" - -If one must have the truth, the piping is bad piping, but the fish-lures -and the tales are the best in the world. You will find some of the tales -in the writings of Iain Og of Isla--such as "The Brown Bear of the Green -Glen"; but the best are to hear as Boboon minds them when he sits with -you on the roadside or on the heather beside the evening fire, when -the brown fluffy eagles bark at the mist on Braevallach. Listen well to -them, for this person has the gift. He had it from his father, who had -it from _his_ father, who had it from a mother, who, in deep trouble -and disease, lay awake through long nights gathering thoughts as healthy -folks gather nuts--a sweet thing enough from a sour husk. - -And if time were your property (as it should be the portion of every -wiselike man), you might hear many tales from Old Boboon, but never the -tale of his own three chances. - -It happened once upon a time that the captain in the town took a notion -to make Boboon into a tame house-man instead of a creature of the woods -and highways. He took him first by himself and clapped him into a kilt -of his own tartan eight yards round the buttocks, full pleated, with -hose of fine worsted, and a coat with silver buttons. He put a pickle -money in his sporran, and gave him a place a little way down his table. -The feeding was high and the work was to a wanderer's fancy; for it -was but whistling to a dog now and then, chanting a stave, or telling a -story, or roaming through the garden behind the house. - -"Ho, ho!" said Boboon, "am not I the sturdy fellow come to his own?" and -about the place he would go with a piper's swagger, switching the -grass and shrubs with a withie as he went, in the way gentlemen use -riding-sticks. - -But when Inneraora town lay in the dark of the winter night, and the -captain's household slept, Boboon would hear his clan calling on him -outside the wall. - -"Boboon! oh, Boboon! old hero! come and collogue with your children." - -He would go to the wall, which was lower on the inside than the out -(and is, indeed, the wall of old Quinten, where a corps of Campbells, -slaughtered by Inverlochy dogs, lie under a Latin stone), and he would -look down at his friends running about like pole-cats in the darkness, -in their ragged kilts and trews, their stringy hair tossing in the wind. -The women themselves would be there, with the bairns whining on their -backs. - -"Ay! ay! this is you, my hearty folk!" he would say; "glad am I to see -you and smell the wood-fire reek off you. How is it on the road?" - -"From here we have not moved since you left us, John Fine. We are camped -in the Blue Quarry, and you never came near your children and friends." - -"God! and here's the one that's sorry for that same. But over the walls -they will not let me. 'If gentleman you would be,' says the captain, -'you must keep out of woods and off the highway.'" - -"And you like it, Boboon?" - -"Like it, heroes! But for the honour and ease of it, give me a fir-root -fire in Glen Croe and a dinner of _fuarag_. It is not the day so much -as the night. Lying in-by there on a posted-bed, I choke for the want of -air, though the windows and doors are open wide." - -"Come away with us, Boboon; we have little lack with the fish, and few -are our stories since you took to the town." - -"No, no, dears. Conan's curse, and I tell you no! In this place there is -comfort, and every day its own bellyful." - -"But the freedom outbye, John, old hero! Last night we had the bravest -of fires; the sparks flew like birds among the Duke's birches, the -ground was snug and dry, and-" - -"Begone! I tell ye no!" - -"Listen! To-day we were among the white hares beyond the Beannan, -thwacking the big fat fellows with our clubs. Such sport was not in all -Albainn!" - -"White hares!" - -"White hares, old John! And Alasdair Beag has some new tunes since you -left us--a _piobaireachd_ he picked up from a Mull man." - -"Would it be 'Failte an Roich '?" - -"Better than that by far; a masterly tune! Come out and hear him." - -But Old Boboon leaned with his arms on the wall and made no move to be -off with his children. - -"Come and stravaig," said the girls, and his daughter Betty put a foot -in a cranny and pulled herself up beside him to put coaxing arms round -his neck. - -"Calf of my heart!" said Boboon, stroking her hair, soft handed. - -"We have the fine feeding," said the girl in his ear. "Yesterday it was -plotted trout in the morning and tunnag's eggs; dinner was a collop off -a fat hind." - -"A grailoched hind?" - -"No, nor grailoched! That is a fool's fashion and the spoiling of good -meat. But come with us, father. Think of the burns bubbling, and the -stars through the branches, and the fresh airs of the morning!" - -"Down, down, you bitch! Would ye tempt me?" cried Boboon, pushing the -girl from the wall and hurrying back with shaking knees to the Latin -stone. The night was deep black, and for all he could tell by eyesight, -he might have been in the middle of breezy Moor Rannoch, but the town -gables crowded 'thick and solid round his heart. He missed the free -flowing winds; there was a smell of peat and coal from dead house-fires, -and he spat the dust of lime from his throat. - -Over the wall the clan scraped and skurried as weasels do. They dared -make no noise for fear the town should waken, but in hoarse voices they -called all together-- - -"Boboon, Boboon, oh! come home to the wood, Boboon!" - -"Am not I the poor caged one?" said Boboon to himself, and he ran in -that he might hear no more. - -It was the same the next night and the next, and it looked like going on -without end. Ever the wanderers coming at night to the wall and -craving their head to come out. And one night they threw over a winged -black-cock, that fell with beating feathers at Boboon's feet as he stood -in the dark listening to the swart Macdonalds whining outbye. - -He picked up the bird and ran kind fingers through its feathers. The -heat coursed in its breast and burned to a fever in its wounded oxter. -Its little heart beat on Boboon's thumb like a drumstick. - -"Poor bird!" said he; "well I ken where ye came from, and the merry -times ye had. Ye hatched in the braes of Ben Bhuidhe, and clucked on the -reedy places round about the side of that tall hill. Before your keen -eyes in the morning was the Dubh Loch, and the Shira--winding like a -silver belt. Sure am I ye took wing for it with the day, and over Stuc -Scardan to Aora Glen to make merry among your mates in the heather and -the fern. Oh! _choillich-dhuibh, choillich-dhuibh_, hard's our fate with -broken wings and the heart still strong!" - -He thrawed the bird's neck, and then went over the wall to join his -clan. - -His second chance ended no better. He was back in a new kilt and jacket -a twelvemonth later, and this time the captain tried the trick of a -dog's freedom--oat on the road as he liked by day, but kennel at night. - -One day Boboon was on his master's errand round Stron. It was the spring -of the year. The shore, at the half-ebb, was clean and sweet, and the -tide lapped at the edge as soft as a cat at milk. - -Going round Stron on the hard yellow road, he got to think of the sea's -good fortune,--of the many bays it wandered into by night or day; of its -friendship with far-out forelands, and its brisk quarrels with the black -rocks. Here was no dyke at any time, but all freedom, the restlessness -and the roaming, sleep or song as the mood had it, and the ploys with -galleys and gabberts; the cheery halloo of the winds and the waving of -branches on foreign isles to welcome one. - -The road opened before him in short swatches--the sort of road a -wanderer likes, with not too much of it to be seen at one look. In the -hazel-wood by the way the bark of the young trees glistened like brass; -thin new switches shot out straight as shelisters. - -John Fine, with the sun heating his back, started at the singing of -Donnacha Ban's "Coire Cheathaich":-- - - "O 'twas gladsome to go a-hunting - Out in the dew of the sunny mom! - For the great red stag was never wanting, - Nor the fawn, nor the doe with never a horn. - My beauteous corri, my misty corri! - What light feet trod thee in joy and pride! - What strong hand gathered thy precious treasures, - What great hearts leaped on thy craggy side!" - -Rounding Dundarave, the road lay straight before him till it thinned in -the distance to a needle-point pricking the trees, and at the end of it -was a cloud of dust. - -"What have I here?" said Boboon to himself, stretching out with long -steps, the kilt flapping against the back of his knees. - -The cloud came close, and lo! here was his own clan on the march, -draggled and stoury, rambling, scattered like crows, along the road. - -"Boboon! Boboon!" they cried, and they hung about him, fingering his -fine clothes. - -He looked at their brown flesh, he saw the yellow soil in the crannies -of their brogues, the men loose and blackguardly, the women red-cheeked, -ripe, and big-breasted, with bold eyes, and all had enchantment for him! -A stir set up in his heart that he could not put down. - -"Where were you yesterday?" he asked. - -"On the side of the Rest in Glen Croe, with dry beds of white hay and no -hurry." - -"Where are you for?" - -"Have you forgotten the wanderer's ways, Boboon? Where does this road go -to?" - -"Well ye ken, my heroes! It goes to the end of a man's will. If the man' -says, 'I bide here,' it's the end of the road; but if he has the notion, -it will take him to the end of days. That, by my soul! is the charm of -all roads that are not in towns; and now that I think of it, let the -captain whistle on his errand, for I'm Boboon and sick of the causey -stones." - -So night found Boboon and his clan far in at the back of Auchnabreac, -town-muir and bonny place, where some we ken would sooner be than -wandering o'er the world. - -And the days passed, and at Martinmas the captain was at Kilmichael -Market, and he came on Boboon with his people on the edge of the -market-place. Boboon in those days was as straight as a young -saugh-wand, sharp and thin, all thong at the joints, and as supple as a -wild cat. He was giving a display with the _sgian-dubh_, stabbing it on -the ground at the back of his left heel and twisting his right arm round -the leg to get the blade out of the ground without bending the knee. It -was a trick to take the eye, but neither bardic nor soldierly, yet -there was a throng of drovers about him. Along with him was his daughter -Betty, who took after him for looks, but had her dead mother's dainty -tongue, and from her mother a little book-schooling John Fine had never -the need of. - -The eye of the captain fell on the two of them as they stood there, with -their forty clan-folk going about the market, and he was gripped by a -new notion to give Boboon the third and the last chance. - -"Boboon!" he said, "come back to the town this once, and I'll put you -and your daughter up together in a house of your own." - -Before a week was out the thing was as he wanted. Boboon and Betty got a -room in Macvicar's Land, with a wooden floor, and a fire on the side -of the wall with a built-in chimney, and other gentilities beside. They -stayed for months, and they stayed for years, and the clan craved them -in vain to come home. Betty was put to the books and the arts of ladydom -by the captain's mother and sister, and she took to them like a Ridir's -daughter. She lost the twang of the road-folk; she put her errant hair -in leash; she grew to the habit of snodding and redding, until for grace -and good looks she was the match of them that taught her. - -One day the captain, walking in his garden in deep cogitation, fell in -the way of the girl as she roamed among the bushes. He got for the first -time the true glance of her (for one may look at a person for years and -not see the reality till a scale falls from the eyes), and behold! here -was a woman who set his heart drumming. - -It was that very night Boboon put an end to his last chance. - -The strong sun of the day left the night hot and clammy, and a haze -hung on the country such as one sees in these parts in keenest frost. -Macvicar's Land was full of smells--of sweating flesh and dirty water, -of fish and the rotting airs of sunless holes--and the dainty nose of -Macdonald took a disgust. He flung open door and window, and leaned out -at the window with his neck bared and his mouth stretched wide gasping -to the air. The bairns in the back-land looked up and laughed. - -"Look at Boboon, Boboon, Boboon, the father of Lady Betty!" they cried, -and John Fine shook his fist and cursed their families. - -But there was no ease from the trouble in this fashion, so he got up and -went behind the town, and threw himself under the large trees with an -ear to the ground. Beside him the cattle crunched the sappy grass in so -sweet and hearty mouthfuls that he could well wish he had the taste of -nature himself, and they breathed great breaths of content. His keen -ears could catch the hopping of beasts on the grass and the scratching -of claws in the wood, he could hear the patter of little feet, and the -birds above him scraping on the bark when they turned in their sleep. -A townman would think the world slept, so great was the booming of -quietness; but Boboon heard the song of the night, the bustle of the -half world that thrives in shade and starshine. - -Leaning now on an elbow, he let his eyes rove among the beeches, into -the bossy tops, solemn and sedate, and the deep recesses that might -be full of the little folk of fairy-land at their cantrips. And then -farther back and above all was Dunchuach the stately, lifting its face, -wood-bearded, to the stars! - -"If a wind was here it was all I wanted," said Boboon, and when he -said it the wind came--a salty air from the sea. The whole country-side -cooled and gave out fresh scents of grass and earth. - -"O God! O God!" cried the wanderer, "here we are out-by, the beasts and -the birds and the best of Boboon together! Here is the place for ease -and the full heart." - -He up and ran into the town, and up to the captain's gate and in. - -"Master," he cried, 'it's the old story,--I must be taking the road for -it; here's no rest for John Fine Macdonald!" - -"But you'll leave the girl," said the captain, who saw the old fever in -the man's eyes; "I have taken a notion of her, and--" - -"So be it! let her bide." - -"I'll marry her before the morn's out." - -"Marry!" cried Boboon, putting back his hair from his face with a -nervous hand. "You would marry a wanderer's child?" - -"Well, they'll talk, no doubt; but she has gifts to make them forget, -and she's good enough to make a king's woman." - -"Sir," said Boboon, "I have but one thing to say, and that's our -own Gaelic old-word, 'There are few lapdogs in a fox's litter.'" The -captain's face got as red as his vest, and he had a ready hand up for an -answer to Boboon, but he had mind the man was the girl's father. - -"I'll risk it," he said, "and you can go your wandering ways, for Betty -is willing." - -"No doubt, no doubt," said Boboon, and he went. In the hollow of the -night he was hooting back like a boy at the hoolets on the slopes of -Coillevraid, and at the mouth of day, in a silver wet light, he was -standing on the edge of the hills that look on two lochs, his head high -like a scenting deer's. He turned him round about to all airts with his -eyes from Cruachan to Cowal, and as far between Knapdale and Lorn as -a wanderer has vision, and yonder, down at Kames, was the camp of his -clan! - -Betty his daughter left Macvicar's Land in the morning and went to be -captain's wife, with a seat in the kirk and callers from the castle -itself. - -"Wait, wait," said old Craignure, when the tale reached him, "you'll see -the fox come out on her ere long." - -But the fox was not there; it was skipping a day, as the fox will do -sometimes when the day before has been good hunting. All went well with -the woman till the worst that might have been the best happened, and -she died with her first child. It was the year of the stunted oats, that -brought poverty to Inneraora and black bread to the captain's board; but -black bread and brochan would have been the blithest of meat for him if -Betty was left to share it. He took to the bottle, and left the boy to -women who had no skill of wild youth. - -And the child grew like a fir-tree, straight and tall, full of hot -blood, swung about by whim and the moment's fancy. For him it was ever -the horse and gun, a snatched dinner and hearty, and off to the wood -or hill. He got to know the inner ways of the beasts that hide in the -coarse grasses and the whin; at a whistle he could coax flapping birds -to come to heel. A loose vest and a naked neck for ever were marring his -gentility, and his closest friends were countrymen with hard hands and -the loud ready laugh. - -One day it came to the captain's mind that something must be made of -this young blade, and he sent for him. - -"Boy," said he, "are you at your books?" - -"No, but--but I ken a short way with the badgers," the lad made answer. - -"Did you have a lesson this morning?" - -"Never a lesson," said the lad; "I was too busy living." - -"Living, said ye?" - -"Living. I was at the swimming at the Creags, and beaking in the sun -on the braes above the Garron beside the march wall where the hedgehogs -creep, and I am new from the shinty," and he shook the shinty-stick in -his hand. - -The captain took to pondering, his chin on his hand and his elbows on -the table, where a bottle and glass lay beside him. - -After a bit he said, "Look ye, my son, what are ye meaning to be?" - -"I'm for the sword-work," the lad said, in a flash, his face twitching. - -"I would sooner see you in hell first!" cried the captain, thumping the -board till the glass rang. He had seen foreign wars himself and had a -hack on the groin. - -That was the first of the feud between them. They fought it dour and -they fought it hard, the father for the crafts of peace and the lad for -his own way, and at last one day the captain said-- - -"To the door, brat, and your lair with the Boboons you belong to! Faith, -and your grandfather was right when he said there was never a lapdog in -a fox's litter." - -Who he came of, the lad had no notion, for the swart Macdonalds never -came near the town after Boboon left it for the last time; but he put on -his bonnet, and went out of the house and on to the highroad. - -It was well on to winter, a brawling day, with the leaves of the Duke's -trees swishing thick and high over the thatch and through the streets -of the Duke's town. Snug stood the gables, friendly and warm, and the -window-lozens winked with the light of big peat-fires within. Over the -breast the seabirds yelped and crows craked without a stop, stirring -about in the branches behind Macvicar's Land. And the salt wind! It blew -in from the low bay at one end of the town and through it to the other, -and before it went a lad into the wide world that starts at the factor's -corner. - -"By the shore-side to the low country, or by the woods to the hills?" -the lad asked himself. He had the _caman_ still in his hand, and he -tossed it in the air. "Bas for the highway, _cas_ for the low," said he. -The shinty fell _bos_, and our hero took to it for the highway to the -north. He swithered at the Arches, and looked back on the front of the -town and the quay with the oil-lights on it. He was half in the humour -to bide, but he put the notion behind him and stretched to the brae, -whistling a piper's march. At the head of the brae the town houses were -lost to him, and this so soon he could not put up with, so he went down -on a way to the right a little and stood on the grass of the Winterton -field. - -Fast and dark the night was falling, a heavy smirr of rain was drooking -the grass, and the trees on every hand shook the water in blobs from the -branches. Through them the lights of the finest town in the world shone -damp and woe-begone. - -"There are good folk in't, and bad folk in't," said the lad to himself; -"but somehow 'twas never the place for me!" - -He turned and went into the road through the wood, savage at heart, -without a thought of where his sleep would be. When he came to -Kennachregan, there was the scad of a fire above the trees beside the -roaring river, and he went down and looked over a march dyke at a band -of wanderers under the trees. Young and old, men and women, they lay -steaming on soft beds of springy spruce-branches with their toes to the -crackling logs, snoring as snore sound sleepers, sheltered from the rain -by the thick branches, the side of the hill, and here and there a canvas -covering. There was but one of them up--a long old man with lank jaws -and black eyes--John Fine Macdonald. He was stirring up the logs with -the shod of a crutch and humming a Perth song, and before the hottest of -the fire a plucked bird was roasting. - -The smell of the meat and the wood-fire rose to the dykeside where the -lad stood shivering in his wet clothes, and the comfort of the camp was -something he could not pass by. - -He took a jump over the dyke and went out in the light of the fire, -wondering what would be his welcome. Old Boboon looked up with his hand -over his eyes, then rose on his crutches and put a hand on the young -fellow's shoulder. - -"You're from Inneraora town?" said he. - -"I am," said the lad; "but it's Inneraora no more for me." - -"Ho! ho!" laughed the old wanderer. "Sit ye down, ye scamp, and take -your fingers to a pick of your grandfather's hen. Boboon's children may -be slow and far, but home's aye home to them!" - - - - -THE FELL SERGEANT. - - -IT is ill enough to have to die in Glenaora at any season, but to get -the word for travelling from it on yon trip in the spring of the year is -hard indeed. The gug-gug will halloo in your ears to bid you bide a -wee and see the red of the heather creep on Tom-an-dearc; the soft and -sap-scented winds will come in at the open door, and you will mind, -maybe, of a day long-off and lost when you pulled the copper leaves of -the bursting oak and tossed them among a girl's hair. Oh! the long days -and the strong days! They will come back to you like the curious bit in -a tune that is vexatious and sweet, and not for words or a set thought. -You will think of the lambs on the slopes, of the birds tearing through -the thousand ways in the woods, of the magic hollows in below the -thick-sown pines, of the burns, deep at the bottom of _eas_ and corri, -spilling like gold on a stair. And then, it may be, Solomon Carrier's -cart goes by to the town, the first time since the drifts went off the -high road; you hear the clatter of the iron shoes, and your mind will go -with him to the throng street where the folks are so kind and so free. - -But to turn your back for the last at that time on Lecknamban must come -sorest of all. For Lecknamban has seven sheilings hidden in its hills, -where the grass is long and juicy, and five burns that are aye on the -giggle like girls at a wedding, and the Aora daunders down in front of -the knowe, full of fish for the Duke alone, but bonny for earl or caird. - -It was in this same glen, in this same Lecknamban, in the spring of a -year, a woman was at her end. She was a woman up in years but not old, -a black Bana-Mhuileach who had seen pleasant things and trials like all -who come to this queer market-place; but now when the time was come -to take the long road with no convoy, only the good times were in her -recollection. And though Glenaora was not her calf-country (for she came -but a year ago to bide with a friend), she was swear't to turn heel on a -place so cosy. - -She sat propped up in a box-bed, on pillows, with her face to the open -door, and the friendly airs of the country-side came in to stir her -hair. With them came scents of the red earth and the grass, birch-tree -and myrtle, from the moor. But more than all they brought her who was at -her end a keen craving for one more summer of the grand world. Strong -in her make and dour at the giving-in, she kept talking of the world's -affairs and foolishness to the folk about her who were waiting the -Almighty's will and the coming of the stretching-board. Her fingers -picked without a stop at the woolly bits of the blankets, and her eyes -were on as much of the knowe below the house as she could see out at the -open door. It was yellow at the foot with flowers, and here and there -was a spot of blue from the cuckoo-brogue. - -"Women, women," she said with short breaths, "I'm thinking aye, when I -see the flowers, of a man that came from these parts to Duart. He sang -'Mo Nighean Dubh' in a style was never heard before in our place, and he -once brought me the scented cuckoo-brogues from Aora." - -Said the goodwife, "Aoirig, poor woman, it is not the hour for ancient -old _sgeuls_; be thinking of a canny going." - -"Going! it was aye going with me," said the woman in the bed. "And it -was aye going when things were at their best and I was the keener for -them." - -"It's the way of God, my dear, _ochanie!_" said one of the two Tullich -sisters, putting a little salt in a plate for-the coming business. - -"O God! it's the hard way, indeed. And I'm not so old as you by two or -three clippings." - -"Peace, Aoirig, heart; you had your own merry times, and that's as much -as most of us have claim to." - -"Merry times! merry times!" said Aoirig, humped among the bedding, her -mind wandering. - -Curls of the peat-reek coiled from the floor among the _cabars_ or -through the hole in the roof; a lamb ran by the door bleating for its -mother, and the whistling of an _uiseag_ high over the grass where his -nest lay ran out to a thin thread of song. The sound of it troubled the -dying woman, and she asked her friends to shut the door. Now and again -Maisie would put a wet cloth to her lips and dry the death-sweat from -her face. The goodwife was throng among chests and presses looking for -sheets, shrouds, and dead-caps. - -"It's a pity," said she, "you brought no grave-clothes with you from -Mull, my dear." - -"Are you grudging me yours?" asked Aoirig, coming round from wandering. - -"No, nor grudging; fine ye ken it, cousin. But I know ye have them, and -it's a pity you should be dressed in another's spinning than your own." - -"Ay, they're yonder sure enough: clean and ready. And there's more than -that beside them. The linen I should have brought to a man's home." - -"You and your man's home! Is it Duart, my dear, among your own folk, or -down to Inishail, you would have us take you?" Aoirig coughed till the -red froth was at her lips. - -"Duart is homely and Inishail is holy, sure enough, but I would have it -Kilmalieu. They tell me it's a fine kirkyard; but I never had the luck -to see it." - -"It's well enough, I'll not deny, and it would not be so far to take -you. Our folk have a space of their own among the MacVicars, below the -parson." - -The woman in the bed signed for a sip of water, and they had it fast at -her lips. - -"Could you be putting me near the Macnicols?" she asked in a weakening -voice. "The one I speak of was a Macnicol." - -"Ay, ay," said the goodwife; "they were aye gallant among the girls." - -"Gallant he was," said the one among the blankets. "I see him now. The -best man ever I saw. It was at a wedding----" - -The woman's breast racked and the spume spattered over the home-spun -blankets. - -Maisie was heating a death-shift at the peat-fire, turning it over in -her hands, letting the dry airs into every seam and corner. - -Looking at her preparation, the dying woman caught back her breath to -ask why such trouble with a dead-shift. - -"Ye would not have it on damp and cold," said Maisie, settling the -business. "I doubt it'll be long in the sleeves, woman, for the goodwife -has a lengthy reach." - -"It was at a marriage in Glenurchy," said Aoirig in a haver, the pillows -slipping down behind her back. "Yonder he is. A slim straight lad. -Ronnal, O Ronnal my hero! What a dancer! not his match in Mull. Aye -so----" - -A foot could be heard on the road, and one of the two sisters ran out, -for she knew whom it would be. They had sent word to the town by -Solomon in the morning for Macnicol the wright to come up with -the stretching-board, thinking there was but an hour more for -poor Macnicol's were the footsteps, and there he was with the -stretching-board under his arm--a good piece of larch rubbed smooth -by sheet and shroud, and a little hollow worn at the head. He was a fat -man, rolling a bit to one side on a short leg, gross and flabby at the -jowl, and thick-lipped; but he might have been a swanky lad in his day, -and there was a bit of good-humour in the corner of his eye, where you -will never see it when one has been born with the uneasy mind. He was -humming to himself as he came up the brae a Badenoch ditty they have in -these parts on the winter nights, gossiping round the fire. Whom he -was going to stretch he had no notion, except that it was a woman and a -stranger to the glen. - -The sister took him round to the corner of the house and in at the byre -door, and told him to wait. "It'll not be long now," she said. - -"Then she's still to the fore," said the wright. "I might have waited -on the paymaster's dram at Three Bridges if I had ken't. Women are aye -thrawn about dying. They'll put it off to the last, when a man would be -glad to be taking the road. Who is she, poor woman?" - -"A cousin-german of Nanny's," said the sister, putting a bottle before -him, and whipping out for some bannock and cheese. He sat down on a -shearing-stool, facing the door, half open, between the byre he was -in and the kitchen where Aoirig was at the dying. The stretching-board -leaned against the wall outside. - -"Aye so gentle, so kind," the woman in the bed was saying in her last -dover. "He kissed me first on a day like this. And the blue flowers from -Aora?" - -In the byre the wright was preeing the drink and paying little heed to -food. It was the good warm stuff they brew on the side of Lochow, the -heart of the very heart of the barley-fields, with the taste of gall and -peat, and he mellowed with every quaich, and took to the soft lilting of -Niall Ban's song:-- - - "'I am the Sergeant fell but kind - (Ho! ho! heroes, agus ho-e-ro! ); - I only lift but the deaf and blind, - The wearied-out and the rest-inclined. - Many a booty I drive before, - Through the glens, through the glens.' - said the Sergeant Mor." - -Ben the house the goodwife was saying the prayers for the dying woman -the woman should have said for herself while she had the wind for it, -but Aoirig harped on her love-tale. She was going fast, and the sisters, -putting their hands to her feet, could feel that they were cold as the -rocks. Maisie's arms were round her, and she seemed to have the notion -that here was the grip of death, for she pushed her back. - -"I am not so old--so old. There is Seana, my neighbour at Duart--long -past the fourscore and still spinning--I am not so old--God of grace--so -old--and the flowers----" - -A grey shiver went over her face; her breast heaved and fell in; her -voice stopped with a gluck in the throat. - -The women stirred round fast in the kitchen. Out on the clay floor the -two sisters pushed the table and laid a sheet on it, the goodwife put -aside the pillows and let Aoirig's head fall back on the bed. Maisie put -her hand to the clock and stopped it. - -"Open the door, open the door!" cried the goodwife, turning round in a -hurry and seeing the door still shut. - -One of the sisters put a finger below the sneck and did as she was told, -to let out the dead one's ghost. - -Outside, taking the air, to get the stir of the strong waters out of his -head, was the wright. - -He knew what the opening of the door meant, and he lifted his board and -went in with it under his arm. A wafting of the spring smells came in at -his back, and he stood with his bonnet in his hand. - -"So this is the end o't?" he said in a soft way, stamping out the fire -on the floor. - -He had but said it when Eurig sat up with a start in the bed, and the -women cried out. She opened her eyes and looked at the man, with his fat -face, his round back, and ill-made clothes, and the death-deal under his -oxter, and then she fell back on the bed with her face stiffening. - -"Here's the board for ye," said the wright, his face spotted white and -his eyes staring. "I'll go out a bit and take a look about me. I once -knew a woman who was terribly like you, and she came from Mull." - - - - -BLACK MURDO - - - "Mas breug uam e is breug thugam e." - - --Gaelic Proverb. - - -I. - -BLACK MURDO'S wife was heavy, and 'twas the time the little brown nats -were pattering in Stronbuie wood. Stronbuie spreads out its greenness -to the sun from the slope of Cladich. It is, in its season, full of the -piping of birds and the hurry of wings, and the winds of it have the -smell of a fat soil. The Diarmaids were the cunning folk to steal it; -for if Stronshira is good, Stronbuie is better; and though the loops -of Aora tangle themselves in the gardens of the Red Duke, Lochow has -enchantment for the galley of a king. Fraoch Eilean, Innis Chonell, and -Innis Chonain--they cluster on the bend of it like the gems on a brooch, -Inishail of the Monks makes it holy, and Cruachan-ben, who lords it -over Lorn, keeps the cold north wind from the shore. They may talk of -Glenaora, but Stronbuie comes close, close to the heart! - -For all that, 'twas on a time a poor enough place for a woman in yon -plight; for the rest of the clan crowded down on Innistiynich, -all fighters and coarse men of the sword, and a skilly woman or a -stretching-board was no nearer than a day's tramp over the hill and -down Aora glen to the walls of Inneraora. If one died on Cladich-side -then--and 'twas a dying time, for the Athol dogs were for ever at -the harrying--it was but a rough burying, with no corranach and no -mort-cloth; if a child came, it found but cold water and a cold world, -whatever hearts might be. But for seven years no child came for Black -Murdo. - -They say, in the Gaelic old-word, that a stolen bitch will never throw -clean pups nor a home-sick woman giants. Murdo recked nothing of that -when he went wooing in a time of truce to Croit-bhile, the honey-croft -that makes a red patch on the edge of Creag Dubh. He brought Silis home -to the dull place at Stronbuie, and she baked his bannocks and ploughed -his bit of soil, but her heart never left salt Finne-side. In the -morning she would go to the hill to look through the blurred glen, and -she would have made bargains with the ugliest crow that could flap on -feathers for a day's use of his wings. She could have walked it right -often and gaily to her people's place, but Black Murdo was of Clan -Artair, and Artairich had not yet come under the _bratach_ of Diarmaid, -and bloody knives made a march-dyke between the two tartans. - -Seven years and seven days went by, and Black Murdo, coming in on an -evening after a hard day at the deer, found Silis making the curious -wee clothes. He looked at her keen, questioning, and she bleached to the -lips. - -"So!" said he. - -"Just so," said she, breaking a thread with her teeth, and bending till -the peat-flame dyed her neck like wine. - -"God, and I'm the stout fellow!" said he, and out he went, down all the -way to Portinsherrich, and lusty he was with the ale among the pretty -men there. - -Weeks chased each other like sheep in a fank, and Silis grew sick at the -heart. There's a time for a woman when the word of a woman is sweeter -than a harp; but there were only foolish girls at Innistrynich, and -coarse men of the sword. So Murdo stayed in from the roes when the time -crept close. To see him do the heavy work of the house and carrying in -the peats was a sorry sight. - -Silis kept dreaming of Finne-side, where she had heard the long wave in -the spring of the year when she had gone home on a password to a woman's -wedding with Long Coll. The same Long Coll had brothers, and one had -put a man's foolish sayings in her ears before ever she met Murdo, she -a thin girl like a saugh-wand and not eighteen till Beltane. They called -him--no matter--and he had the way with the women. Faith, it's the -strange art! It is not looks, nor dancing, nor the good heart, nor wit, -but some soft fire of the eye and maybe a song to the bargain. Whatever -it was, it had Silis, for all that her goodman Murdo had a man's -qualities and honesty extra. - -They say, "_Cnuic is sluic is Alpeinich, ach cuin a thinig -Artharaich?_"(1) in the by-word; but Artharaich had age enough for a -_taibhsear_ whatever, for Black Murdo had the Sight. - - 1 The hills and hollows and Clan Alpine came together, but - when arose Clan Artair? - -It's the curious thing to say of a man with all his parts that he should -be _taibhsear_ and see visions; for a _taibhsear_, by all the laws, -should be an old fellow with little use for swords or shinny-sticks. -But Murdo missed being a full taibhsear by an ell, so the fit had him -seldom. He was the seventh son of a mother who died with the brand of a -cross on her brow, and she was kin to the Glenurchy Woman. And something -crept over him with the days, that put a mist in his eyes when he looked -at Silis; but "I'm no real _taibhsear_," he said to himself, "and I -swear by the black stones it is no cloth. A man with all the Gift might -call it a shroud high on her breast, but----" - -"Silis, _a bhean!_ shall it be the Skilly Dame of Inneraora?" - -A light leaped to the woman's eyes, for the very thing was in her mind. - -"If it could be," she said, slowly; "but it's not easy to get her, for -black's your name on Aoraside." - -"Black or white, Murdo stands in his own shoes. He has been at the gate -of Inneraora when Strong Colin the warder had little thought of it." - -"Then, oh heart! it must be soon--tomorrow--but----" - -The mouth of day found Silis worse, and Murdo on his way to Inneraora. - -He stepped it down Glenaora like Coll Mor in the story, or the man with -the fairy shoes. A cloud was over Tullich and a wet wind whistled on -Kennachregan. The man's target played dunt on his back, so hasty was he, -for all that the outposts of Big Colin had hawk's eyes on the pass. He -had got the length of Alt Shelechan when a Diarmaid came out on him -from the bracken with a curse on his mouth. He was a big Diarmaid, -high-breasted and stark, for there's no denying there was breed in the -pigs. - -"Ho, ho, lad!" said he, crousely, "it's risking it you are this day!" - -Black Murdo's hands went to his sides, where a ready man's should ready -be; but he had sight of Silis. He could see her in Stronbuie in the -bothy, on the wee creepy-stool beside the peats, and he knew she was -saying the Wise Woman's Wish that Diarmaid mothers have so often need -of. Length is length, and it's a far cry to Lochow sure enough; but even -half a _taibhsear_ takes no count of miles and time. - -He spoke softly. "I go to Inneraora for the Skilly Woman. My wife is a -daughter of your folks, and she'll have none but the dame who brought -herself home." - -"Death or life?" asked the Diarmaid, a freckled hand still on the -basket-hilt. He put the question roughly, for nobody likes to lose a -ploy. - -"Life it is, my lad. It's not to dress corpses but to wash weans she's -wanted." - -"Ho-chutt!" went the blade back against the brass of the scabbard (for -he was _duin-uasal_ who carried it), and the man's face changed. - -"Pass!" he said. "I would not stand in a bairn's way to life. Had it -been shrouds instead of sweelers, we could have had it out, for a corpse -is in no great hurry. But troth it's yourself is the tight one, and I -would have liked a bit of the old game." - -"No more than Murdo, red fellow!" - -"Murdo! So be't; yet Murdo will give me his dirk for gate-pay, or -they'll be saying farther down that Calum, as good a man, kept out of -his way." - -The _biodag_ went flying into the grass at Calum's feet, and Murdo went -leaping down the glen. It was like stalking deer for the Diarmaids. Here -and there he had to go into the river or among the hazel-switches, or -crawl on his stomach among the gall. - -From Kilmune to Uchdan-barracaldine the red fellows were passing, or -playing with the _clachneart_ or the _cabar,_ or watching their women -toiling in the little fields. - -"Thorns in their sides!" he said to himself, furious at last, when -another keen-eyed Diarmaid caught sight of his tartan and his black -beard among some whins. It was a stripling with only a dirk, but he -could gather fifty men on the crook of his finger. - -"Stand!" cried the Diarmaid, flashing the dirk out. "What want ye so far -over this way?" - -Murdo, even in the rage, saw Silis, a limp creature, sweating in her -pains, her black eyes (like the sloe) keen on the door. So close, -so sure, so sorrowful! He could have touched her on the shoulder and -whispered in her ear. - -"I am Black Murdo," he told the lad. "I am for Inneraora for the Skilly -Woman for my wife, child of your own clan." - -"Death or life?" - -"Life." - -"'Tis a bonny targe ye have, man; it might be doing for toll." - -The lad got it, and Murdo went on his way. He found the Skilly Woman, -who put before him sour milk and brose. But he would not have drink or -sup, so back through the Diarmaids they went without question (for the -woman's trade was as good as the chief's convoy), till they came to -Tom-an-dearc. Out upon them there a fellow red and pretty. - -"Hold!" he said, as if it had been dogs. "What's the name of ye, black -fellow?" Murdo cursed in his beard. "My name's honest man, but I have -not time to prove it." - -"Troth that's a pity. But seeing there's the _caleach_ with you, -you must e'en go your way. There's aye some of you folk on the -stretching-board. Ye want heart, and ye die with a flaff of wind. Lend -me your sword, _'ille!_'' - -"Squint-mouth!" cried Murdo, "your greedy clan took too much off me this -day already for me to part with the sweetest blade Gow-an-aora ever beat -on iron. I took it from one of your cowards at Carnus, and if it's back -it goes, it's not with my will." - -"Then it's the better man must have it," said the red fellow, and, Lord, -he was the neat-built one! They took off their coats, and for lack of -bucklers rolled them round their arms, both calm and canny. The Diarmaid -was first ready with his brand out, and Murdo put to his point. For a -little the two men stood, spread out, hard-drawn behind the knees, with -the cords of the neck like thongs, then at it with a clatter of steel. - -The Skilly Woman, with the plaid pulled tight over her grey hair, sat -with sunk eyes on a stone and waited without wonder. She had sons who -had died in brawls at Kilmichael market, or in the long foray far -in Kintail; and her man, foster-brother to a chief, got death in the -strange foreign wars, where the pay was not hide and horn but round -gold. - -A smoky soft smirr of rain filled all the gap between the hills, though -Sithean Sluaidhe and Dunchuach had tips of brass from a sun dropping -behind the Salachary hills. The grass and the gall lost their glitter -and became grey and dull; the hill of Lecknamban, where five burns are -born, coaxed the mist down on its breast like a lover. It was wet, wet, -but never a drop made a rush bend or a leaf fall. Below the foot the -ground was greasy, as it is in a fold at the dippingtime; but the two -men pulled themselves up with a leap on it as if it might be dry sand, -and the brogues made no error on the soil. - -First the Diarmaid pressed, for he had it over the other man in youth, -and youth is but tame when it's slow or slack. Murdo waited, all eyes -that never blinked, with the basket well up, and kept on his toes. -"Splank, sp-ll-ank, sp-ll-ank--_siod e_!" said the blades, and the -Diarmaid's for a time made the most of the music, but he never got -inside the black fellow's guard. Then Murdo took up the story with a -snap of the teeth, skelping hard at the red one till the hands dirled in -the basket like a bag of pins. The smirr gathered thicker, and went -to rain that fell solid, the brogues grew like steeped bladders on the -feet, a scatter of crows made a noisy homing to the trees at Tullich, -and Aora gobbled like swine in a baron's trough. - -"Haste ye, heroes," said the old woman, cowering on the wet stone; -"haste ye, dears; it's mighty long ye are about it." - -The Diarmaid turned the edge twice on the coated arm, and Murdo wasted -his wind to curse. Then he gave the stroke that's worth fifty head of -kyloes (fine they know that same all below Cladichl), and a red seam -jumped to the Diarmaid's face. All his heart went to stiffen his -slacking heavy arm, and he poured on Murdo till Murdo felt it like a -rain of spears. One hot wandering stroke he got on the bonnet, and for -want of the bowl of brose at Inneraora, the wind that should go to help -him went inside, and turned his stomach. Sweat, hot and salt, stung his -eyes, his ears filled with a great booming, he fell in a weary dream of -a far-off fight on a witched shore, with the waves rolling, and some one -else at the fencing, and caring nought, but holding guard with the -best blade Gow-an-aora ever took from flame. Back stepped the Diarmaid, -sudden, and sweep went his steel at the shaking knees. - -A bairn's cry struck Murdo's ear through the booming and sent him full -awake. He drew back the stretched foot fast, and round the red one's -sword hissed through air. "Foil! foil!" said Murdo, and he slashed him -on the groin. - -"That'll do, man; no more," said the Skilly Woman, quickly, - -"I may as well finish him; it's lame he'll be all his days any way, and -little use is a man with a halt in a healthy clan." - -"Halt or no halt, let him be; he's my second cousin's son." - -Murdo looked for a bit at the bloody thing before him, but the woman -craved again with bony fingers on his wrist; so he spat on the dirty -green tartan and went. The smoke rose from him and hung about with a -smell of wearied flesh, the grey of the mist was black at Carnus. When -the pair came over against Lochow, where one can see the holy isle when -it is day, the night was deep and cold; but the woman bent at the cross -with a "_Mhoire Mhathair_," and so did the man, picking the clotted -blood from his ear. They dropped down the brae on the house at last. - -For a little Black Murdo's finger hung on the sneck, and when he heard a -sound he pushed in the door. - -All about the house the peat-reek swung like mist on the mountain. Wind -and rain fought it out on Cladich brae, and when it was not the wind -that came bold through the smoke-hole in the roof, 'twas the rain, a -beady slant that hissed on the peats like roasting herrings. The woman -lay slack on the bed, her eyes glossed over with the glass that folks -see the great sights through, and her fingers making love over the face -and breast of a new-born boy that cried thinly at her knees. A lighted -cruisie spluttered with heavy smell at the end of a string on a rafter. - -"O Skilly Woman, Skilly Woman, it's late we are," said Black Murdo. - -"Late enough, as ye say, just man. Had ye bartered an old sword for -twenty minutes on the Tom-an-dearc, I was here before danger." - -Then the Skilly Woman set him on the wet windy side of the door, and -went about with busy hands. - -The man, with the ragged edge of his kilt scraping his knees and the -rain bubbling in his brogues, leaned against the wattled door and -smeared the blood from his brow. A cold wind gulped down from Glenurchy -and ghosts were over Inishail. The blast whirled about and whirled -about, and swung the rowan like a fern, and whistled in the gall, and -tore the thatch, all to drown a child's cry. The blackness crowded close -round like a wall, and flapped above like a plaid--Stronbuie was in a -tent and out of the world. Murdo strained to hear a voice, but the wind -had the better of him. He went round to the gable, thinking to listen at -the window, but the board on the inside shut the wind and him out. The -strange emptiness of grief was in his belly. - -Inside, the Skilly One went like a witch, beak-nosed and half-blind. -There was clatter of pans and the dash of water, the greeting of the -child and the moan of the mother. What else is no man's business. For -all she was skilly the old dame had no thought of the woman sinking. - -"You'll have blithe-meat in the morning," she said, cheerily, from the -fireside. - -Silis made worse moan than before. - -"Such a boy, white love! And hair like the copper! His hide is mottled -like a trout's back; calf of my heart!" - -Silis, on her side, put out white craving arms. "Give it to me, wife; -give it to me." - -"Wheesht! rest ye, dear, rest ye," said the Skilly Dame. - -But she put the bairn in its mother's arms. Silis, when she had it on -her breast, sobbed till the bed shook. - -"Is not he the hero, darling?" said the Skilly Woman. "It's easy seen -he's off Clan Diarmaid on one side, for all that yoar hair is black as -the sloe. Look at the colour of him!" - -Fright was in the mother's face. "Come close, come close till I tell -you," she said, her long hair damp on her milky shoulders. - -The Skilly Woman put down her head and listened with wonder. - -"Me-the-day! Was I not the blind one to miss it? His name, white love? -No one shall ken it from me, not even Murdo." - -A man's name took up the last breath of Silis; she gave a little shiver, -and choked with a sound that the old crone had heard too often not to -know. - -She looked, helpless, for a little at the bed, then felt the mother's -feet. They were as cold as stone. - -A cry caught Murdo's ear against the wattles, and he drove in the door -with his shoulder, heeding no sneck nor bar. - -"Am not I the blind fool?" said the crone. - -"There's your wife gone, cheap enough at the price of a yard of steel." - -They stood and looked at the bed together, the bairn crying without -notice. - -"I knew it," said the man, heaving; "_taibhsear_ half or whole, I could -see the shroud on her neck!" - -The grey light was drifting in from Cladich. The fir-trees put stretched -fingers up against the day, and Murdo was placing a platter of salt on a -bosom as cold and as white as the snow. - -"You're feeding him on the wrong cloth," said he, seeing the crone give -suck to the child from a rag of Diarmaid tartan dipped in goat's milk. - - -II. - -The boy grew like a tree in a dream, that is seed, sapling, and giant in -one turn on the side. Stronbuie's wattled bothy, old and ugly, quivered -with his laughing, and the young heather crept closer round the door. -The Spotted Death filled Inishail with the well-fed and the warm-happed; -but the little one, wild on the brae, forgotten, sucking the whey from -rags and robbing the bush of its berries, gathered sap and sinew like -the child of kings. It is the shrewd way of God! There was bloody -enough work forby, for never a sheiling passed but the brosey folks came -pouring down Glenstrae, scythe, sword, and spear, and went back with the -cattle before them, and redness and smoke behind. But no raider put hand -on Black Murdo, for now he was _taibhsear_ indeed, and the _taibhsear_ -has magic against dub or steel. How he became _taibhsear_ who can be -telling? When he buried Silis out on the isle, his heart grew heavy, -gloom seized him, the cut of the Diarmaid's sword gave a quirk to his -brain that spoiled him for the world's use. He took to the hills no more -in sport, he carried Gow-an-aora's sword no more in battle, for all that -it cost him so dear. A poor man's rig was his at the harvest because of -his Gift, and the cailzie cock or the salmon never refused his lure. - -Skill of the daymore, the seven cuts, and yon ready slash worth fifty -head of kyloes, he gave to the boy, and then the quick cunning parry, -and the use of the foot and knee that makes half a swordsman. - -But never a spot of crimson would he have on Rory's steel. - -"First dip in the blood of the man with the halt, and then farewell -to ye!" he said, wearying for the day when the boy should avenge his -mother. - -Folks--far-wandered ones--brought him news of the man with the halt that -was his giving, the Diarmaid whose bargain for a sword on Tom-an-dearc -cost Silis her life. He passed it on to the boy, and he filled him with -old men's tales. He weaved the cunning stories of the pigs of Inneraora, -for all that the boy's mother came from their loins, and he made -them--what there may well be doubts of--cowards and weak. - -"They killed your mother, Rory: her with the eyes like the sloe and the -neck like snow. Swear by the Holy Iron that the man with the halt we ken -of gets his pay for it." - -Rory swore on the iron. It is an easy thing for one when the blood is -strong and the _biodag_ still untried. He lay awake at night, thinking -of his mother's murderer till the sweat poured. He would have been on -the track of him before ever he had won his man's bonnet by lifting the -_clach-cuid-fear_, but Murdo said, "Let us be sure. You are young yet, -and I have one other trick of fencing worth while biding for." - -At last, upon a time, Murdo found the boy could match himself, and he -said, "Now let us to this affair." - -He took the boy, as it were, by the hand, and they ran up the hills and -down the hills, and through the wet glens, to wherever a Diarmaid might -be; and where were they not where strokes were going? The hoodie-crow -was no surer on the scent of war. Blar-na-leine took them over the six -valleys and the six mountains; Cowal saw them on the day the Lamonts got -their bellyful; a knock came on them on the night when the Stewarts took -their best from Appin and flung themselves on Inneraora, and they went -out without a word and marched with that high race. - -But luck was with the man with the halt they sought for. At muster -for raid, or at market, he was there, swank man and pretty but for the -lameness he had found on an ill day on Tom-an-dearc. He sang songs -round the ale with the sweetness of the bird, and his stories came ready -enough off the tongue. Black Murdo and the boy were often close enough -on his heel, but he was off and away like the corp-candle before they -were any nigher. If he had magic, it could have happened no stranger. - -Once, a caird who went round the world with the jingle of cans on his -back and a sheaf of withies in his oxter, told them that a lame Diarmaid -was bragging at Kilmichael fair that he would play single-stick for -three days against the country-side. They sped down to Ford, and over -the way; but nothing came of it, for the second day had found no one to -come to the challenge, and the man with the halt was home again. - -Black Murdo grew sick of the chase, and the cub too tired of it. For his -father's fancy he was losing the good times--many a fine exploit among -the Atholmen and the brosey folks of Glenstrae; and when he went down to -Innistrynich to see the lads go out with belt and plaid, he would give -gold to be with them. - -One day, "I have dreamed a dream," said Murdo, "Our time is come: what -we want will be on the edge of the sea, and it will be the third man -after dawn. Come, son, let us make for Inneraora." - -Inneraora lies now between the bays, sleeping day and night, for the -old times are forgot and the nettle's on Dunchuach. Before the plaid of -MacCailein Mor was spread from Cowal to Cruachan, it was the stirring -place; high and dry on the bank of Slochd-a-chubair, and the dogs -themselves fed on buck-flesh from the mountains, so rowth the times! One -we ken of has a right to this place or that place yonder that shall not -be named, and should hold his head as high on Aora as any chief of the -boar's snout; but _mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!_ the black bed of Macartair -is in the Castle itself, and Macartair is without soil or shield. How -Diarmaid got the old place is a sennachie's tale. "As much of the land -as a heifer's hide will cover," said the foolish writing, and -MacCailein had the guile to make the place his own. He cut the hide of -a long-backed heifer into thin thongs, and stretched it round Stronbuie. -There is day about to be seen with his race for that! Over to Inneraora -then went Murdo, and Rory clad for fighting, bearing with him the keen -old sword. 'Twas a different time going down the glen then from what it -was on the misty day Murdo fetched the Skilly Dame; for the Diarmaids he -met by the way said, "'Tis the Lochow _taibhsear_ and his tail," and let -them by without a word, or maybe with a salute. They went to the Skilly -Dame's house, and she gave them the Gael's welcome, with bannocks and -crowdie, _marag-dkubh_ and ale. But she asked them not their business, -for that is the way of the churl. She made them soft-scented beds of -white hay in a dirty black corner, where they slept till cockcrow with -sweet weariness in their bones. - -The morning was a grey day with frost and snow. Jumping John's bay below -the house was asleep with a soft smoke like a blanket over it. Lean deer -from behind the wood came down trotting along the shore, sniffing -the saltness, and wondering where the meat was. With luck and a good -_sgian-dubh_ a quick lad could do some gralloching. The tide was far -out from Ard Rannoch to the Gallows-tree, and first there was the brown -wrack, and then there was the dun sand, and on the edge of the sand a -bird went stalking. The old man and the young one stood at the gable and -looked at it all. - -It was a short cut from below the castle to the point of Ard Rannoch, -if the tide was out, to go over the sand. "What we wait on," said Murdo, -softly, "goes across there. There will be two men, and them ye shall -not heed, but the third is him ye ken of. Ye'll trap him between the -whin-bush and the sea, and there can be no escaping unless he takes to -the swimming for it." - -Rory plucked his belts tight, took out the good blade wondrous quiet, -breathing fast and heavy. The rich blood raced up his back, and tingled -hot against his ruddy neck. - -"What seest thou, my son?" said Murdo at last. - -"A man with a quick step and no limp," quoth the lad. - -"Let him pass." - -Then again said the old man, "What seest thou?" - -"A _bodach_ frail and bent, with a net on his shoulder," said Rory. - -"Let him pass." - -The sun went high over Ben Ime, and struck the snow till the eyes were -blinded. Rory rubbed the sweat from his drenched palm on the pleat of -his kilt, and caught the basket-hand tighter. Over Aora mouth reek went -up from a fishing-skiff, and a black spot stood out against the snow. - -"What seest thou now, lad?" asked Murdo. - -"The man with the halt," answered the lad. - -"Then your time has come, child. The stroke worth the fifty head, and -pith on your arm!" - -Rory left the old man's side, and went down through a patch of -shelisters, his mouth dry as a peat and his heart leaping. He was across -the wrack and below the pools before the coming man had noticed him. But -the coming man thought nothing wrong, and if he did, it was but one man -at any rate, and one man could use but one sword, if swords were going. -Rory stepped on the edge of the sand, and tagged the bonnet down on his -brow, while the man limped on between him and the sea. Then he stepped -out briskly and said, "Stop, pig!" He said it strangely soft, and -with, as it were, no heart in the business; for though the lame man was -strong, deepbreasted, supple, and all sound above the belt, there was a -look about him that made the young fellow have little keenness for the -work. - -"Pig?" said the Diarmaid, putting back his shoulders and looking under -his heavy brows. "You are the Lochow lad who has been seeking for -me?" - -"Ho, ho! red fellow; ye kent of it, then?" - -"Red fellow! It's red enough you are yourself, I'm thinking. I have no -great heed to draw steel on a lad of your colour, so I'll just go my -way." And the man looked with queer wistful eyes over his shoulder at -the lad, who, with blade-point on the sand, would have let him pass. - -But up-by at the house the _taibhsear_ watched the meeting. The quiet -turn it took was beyond his reading, for he had thought it would be but -the rush, and the fast fall-to, and no waste of time, for the tide was -coming in. - -"White love, give him it!" he cried out, making for the shore. "He looks -lame, but the pig's worth a man's first fencing." - -Up went the boy's steel against the grey cloud, and he was at the throat -of the Diarmaid like a beast. "Malison on your black heart, murderer!" -he roared, still gripping his broadsword. The Diarmaid flung him off -like a child, and put up his guard against the whisking of his blade. - -"Oh, foolish boy!" he panted wofully as the lad pressed, and the grey -light spread over sea and over shore. The quiet tide crawled in about -their feet; birds wheeled on white feathers with mocking screams; the -old man leaned on his staff and cheered the boy. The Diarmaid had all -the coolness and more of art, and he could have ended the play as he -wanted. But he only fended, and at last the slash worth fifty head found -his neck. He fell on his side, with a queer twisted laugh on his face, -saying, "Little hero, ye fence--ye fence----" - -"Haste ye, son! finish the thing!" said the _taibhsear,_ all shaking, -and the lad did as he was told, hocking at the spurt the blood made. He -was pushing his dirk in the sand to clean it, when his eye fell on the -Skilly Woman hirpling nimbly down to the shore. She was making a loud -cry. - -"God I God! it's the great pity about this," said she, looking at Murdo -cutting the silver buttons off the corpse's jacket. "Ken ye the man -that's there dripping?" - -"The man's no more," said Rory, cool enough. "He has gone travelling, -and we forgot to ask his name." - -"Then if happy you would be, go home to Lochow, and ask it not, nor -aught about him, if you wouldn't rue long. You sucked your first from a -Diarmaid rag, and it was not for nothing." - -Murdo drew back with a clumsy start from the dead man's side and looked -down on his face, then at the boy's, queerly. "I am for off," said he at -last with a sudden hurry. "You can follow if you like, red young one." -And he tossed the dead man's buttons in Rory's face! - - - - -THE SEA-FAIRY OF FRENCH FORELAND. - - -ONCE I saw a fairy King, and it was in the Castle up-by. The Castle took -fire, and a fine blaze it made at the foot of Dunchaach. A boy, I ran -with the rest to carry out the MacCailein's rich gear, and behold! I -wandered and lost my way in that large place where is a window for every -day in the year. Up the long stairs and through the far passages, and -over the shining sounding floors went I, barefoot, with a feared eye on -every hole and corner. At every door it was, "Surely now I'm with the -folks at the fire"; but every door was a way into a quieter quietness, -and the Castle was my own. I sat at last on a black chair that had a -curious twisted back, and the tears went raining on the lap of my kilt. - -Long, long I sat, and sore I grat, my mind full, not so much of my way -lost, but of the bigness of things, and the notion of what it would -be to have to live in a castle at night, with doors on every hand for -ghosts to rap at, and crooked passages without end for gowsty winds to -moan in. Thinks I, "The smallest hut in the town for me, with all plain -before me, with the one door shut and my face to it, and the candlelight -seeking into every crack and cranny!" - -It was then that the fairy King came on me out of the sewed cloth -hanging on the wall. - -He was a dainty wee man, in our own tartan, with a steel plate on his -breast baronly-style, and strange long curly hair. I ran my wet eyes -down seven silver buttons the shape of salmon on the front of his vest -before I let myself go, but go I must, so I put fast heels on my fright. -I galloped with a frozen tongue through miles of the Duke's castle till -a door brought me out on the grass of Cairnban, in front of the friendly -bleeze that my own folks were pouring the stoups of water on. - -That was the only time the quiet folk and I came to a meeting, though -our family was always gleg at seeing things. A cousin-german once saw -the fairy bull that puts up in Loch Steallaire-bhan behind the town. -It came on a jaunt to the glen in the guise of a rich maiden, and my -cousin, the son of the house, made love to her. One night--in a way that -I need not mention--he found himself in her room combing down her yellow -hair, and what was among her hair but fine sand that told the whole -story? "You are a _gruagach_ of the lake!" cried the lad, letting the -comb drop on the floor, with his face white, and the thing tarned to its -own shape and went bellowing to the shore. - -And there was a man--blessings with him! for he's here no more--who -would always be going up on Sithean Sluaidhe to have troke with the wee -people on that fine knowe. He would bring them tastings of honey and -butter to put them in a good key, and there they would dance by the hour -for his diversion to the piping of a piper who played on drones of grass -with reeds made of the midge's thrapple. - -Still, in all my time I know but one body who could find the way to the -den of the Sea-Fairies, and she was a lass whose folks were in Ceannmor -at the time the French traffickers were coming here to swap casks of -claret wine for the finest herrings in the wide world. - -It was her custom to go down on the hot days to the shore at the -Water-foot when the tide was far out, and the sand was crusting with -salt in the sun, and the wrack-balls burst with the heat, and the water -lay flat like oil, and lazy, for want of a breath of wind. Sometimes it -would be the French Foreland she would seek, and sometimes Dalchenna; -but when the Frenchmen were at the Foreland she kept clear of it by the -counsel of a cautious father. - -Up the loch they would sail, the Frenchmen, in their gabberts, and -hove-to with their casks to change for the cured herrings. A curious -people they were, not much like our own good Gaels in many a way, but -black-avised and slim; still with some of the Gael's notions about -them too, such as the humour of fighting and drinking and scouring the -countryside for girls. - -But it happened that one year they left behind them only a wine of -six-waters, and did some other dirty tricks forbye, and there was for -long a feud, so that the Frenchmen behooved to keep to their boats and -bargain with the curers over the gun'le. - -On a day at that time, Marseli that I speak of had been bathing at -the Ceannmor rocks--having a crave for salt water the Ceannmor folks -nowadays are not very namely for. When she had her gown on again, she -went round to Dalchenna sands and out far to the edge of the tide, where -she sat on a stone and took to the redding of her hair, that rolled in -copper waves before the comb--rich, thick, and splendid. - -Before her, the tide was on the turn so slow and soft that the edge -of it lifted the dry sand like meal. All about on the weedy stones the -tailor-tartans leaped like grasshoppers, the spout-fish stuck far out of -the sand and took a fresh gloss on their shells from the sun. - -You might seek from shire to shire for a handsomer maid. She was at -the age that's a father's heartbreak, rounding out at the bosom and -mellowing at the eyes; her skin was like milk, and the sigh was at her -lips as often as the song. But though she sighed, it was not for the -Ceannmor fishermen, coarse-bearded, and rough in their courting; for -she had vanity, from her mother's side, and queer notions. The mother's -family had been rich in their day, with bards and thoughtful people -among them. - -"If a sea-fairy could see me now," said Marseli, "it might put him -in the notion to come this way again," and she started to sing the -child-song-- - - "Little folk, little folk, come to me, - From the lobbies that lie below the sea." - -"_So agad el_" cried a gull at her back, so plainly that she tamed fast -to look, and there was the fairy before her! - -Up got Marseli, all shaking and ready to fly, but the fairy-man looked -harmless enough as he bowed low to her, and she stayed to put her hair -behind her ears and draw her gown closer. - -He was a little delicate man the smallest of Marseli's brothers could -have put in his oxter, with close curled hair, and eyes as black as -Ridir Lochiel's waistcoat. His clothes were the finest of the fine, -knee-breeches with silk hose, buckled brogues, a laced jacket, and a -dagger at his belt--no more like a fairy of the knowe than the green -tree's like the gall. - -"You're quick enough to take a girl at her word," said Marseli, cunning -one, thinking to hide from him the times and times she had cried over -the sands for the little sea-folks to come in with the tide. - -The fairy-man said something in his own tongue that had no sense for the -girl, and he bowed low again, with his bonnet waving in his hand, in the -style of Charlie Munn the dancer. - -"You must speak in the Gaelic," said Marseli, still a bit put about; "or -if you have not the Gaelic, I might be doing with the English, though -little I care for it." - -"Faith," said the fairy-man, "I have not the Gaelic, more's the pity, -but I know enough English to say you're the prettiest girl ever I set -eyes on since I left my own place." - -(Ho! hoi was he not the cunning one? The fairies for me for gallantry!) - -"One of such judgment can hardly be uncanny," thought Marseli, so she -stayed and cracked with him in the English tongue. - -The two of them walked up over the sand to the birch-trees, and under -the birches the little fellow asked Marseli to sit down. - -"You are bigger than I looked for in a sea-fairy," said she when the -crack was a little bit on. - -"A fairy?" said the little fellow, looking at her in the flash of an -eye. - -"Yes! Though I said just now that you took one fast at her word, the -truth to tell is, that always when the tide went out I sang at your -back-doors the song you heard to-day for the first time. I learned it -from Beann Francie in the Horse Park." - -The stranger had a merry laugh--not the roar of a Finne fisherman--and -a curions way of hitching the shoulders, and the laugh and the -shoulder-hitch were his answer for Marseli. - -"You'll be a king in the sea--in your own place--or a prince maybe," -said the girl, twisting rushes in her hand. - -The man gave a little start and got red at the face. - -"Who in God's name said so?" asked he, looking over her shoulder deep -into the little birch-wood, and then uneasy round about him. - -"I guessed it," said Marseli. "The kings of the land-fairies are -by-ordinar big, and the dagger is ever on their hips." - -"Well, indeed," said the little fellow, "to say I was king were a -bravado, but I would not be just denying that I might be Prince." - -And that way their friendship began. - -At the mouth of many nights when the fishing-boats were off at the -fishing, or sometimes even by day when her father and her two brothers -were chasing the signs of sea-pig and scart far down on Tarbert, Marseli -would meet her fairy friend in a cunning place at the Black-water-foot, -where the sea puts its arms well around a dainty waist of lost land. -Here one can see Loch Finne from Ardno to Strathlachlan: in front lift -the long lazy Cowal hills, and behind is Auchnabreac wood full of deer -and birds. Nowadays the Duke has his road round about this cunning fine -place, but then it lay forgotten among whins that never wanted bloom, -and thick, soft, salty grass. Two plantings of tall trees kept the wind -off, and the centre of it beaked in warm suns. It was like a garden -standing out upon the sea, cut off from the throng road at all tides by -a cluster of salt pools and an elbow of the Duglas Water. - -Here the Sea-Fairy was always waiting for the girl, walking up and down -in one or other of the tree clumps. He had doffed his fine clothes after -their first meeting for plain ones, and came douce and soberly, but aye -with a small sword on his thigh. - -The girl knew the folly of it; but tomorrow was always to be the last of -it, and every day brought new wonders to her. He fetched her rings once, -of cunning make, studded with, stones that tickled the eye in a way the -cairngorm and the Cromalt pearl could never come up to. - -She would finger them as if they were the first blaeberries of a season -and she was feared to spoil their bloom, and in a rapture the Sea-Fairy -would watch the sparkle of eyes that were far before the jewels. - -"Do your folk wear these?" she asked. - -"Now and then," he would say, "now and then. Ours is a strange family: -to-day we may have the best and the richest that is going, to-morrow who -so poor, without a dud to our backs and a mob crying for our heads?" - -"_Ochanorie!_ They are the lovely rings any way." - -"They might be better; they would need to be much better, my dear, to be -good enough for you." - -"For me!" - -"They're yours--for a kiss or two," and he put out an arm to wind round -the girl's waist. - -Marseli drew back and put up her chin and down her brows. - -"'_Stad!_" she cried. "We ken the worth of fairy gifts in these parts. -Your rings are, likely enough, but chuckie-stones if I could but see -them. Take them back, I must be going home." - -The little man took the jewels with a hot face and a laugh. - -"Troth," he said, "and the same fal-fals have done a lover's business -with more credit to them before this. There are dames in France who -would give their souls for them--and the one they belong to." - -"You have travelled?" said Marseli. "Of course a sea-fairy-" - -"Can travel as he likes. You are not far wrong, my dear. Well, well, I -ken France! O France, France! round and about the cold world, where's -your equal?" - -His eyes filled with tears, and the broad-cloth on his breast heaved -stormily, and Marseli saw that here was some sad thinking. - -"Tell me of Fairydom," said she, to change him off so dull a key. - -"'Tis the same, the same. France and fairyland, 'tis the same, -self-same, madame," said the sea-prince, with a hand on his heart and a -bow. - -He started to tell her of rich and rolling fields, flat and juicy, -waving to the wind; of country houses lost and drowned among flowers. -"And all the roads lead one way," said he, "to a great and sparkling -town. Rain or shine, there is comfort, and there is the happy heart! -The windows open on the laughing lanes, and the girls lean out and -look after us, who prance by on our horses. There is the hollow hearty -hoof-beat on the causey stones; in the halls the tables gleam with -silver and gold; the round red apples roll over the platter among the -slim-stemmed wine-beakers. It is the time of soft talk and the head full -of gallant thoughts. Then there are the nights warm and soft, when the -open doors let out the laughing and the gliding of silk-shooned feet, -and the airs come in heavy with the scent of breckan and tree!" - -"On my word," said Marseli, "but it's like a girl's dream!" - -"You may say it, black-eyes, _mo chridhe!_ The wonder is that folk can -be found to live so far astray from it. Let me tell you of the castles." -And he told Marseli of women sighing at the harp for far-wandered ones, -or sewing banners of gold. Trumpets and drums and the tall chevaliers -going briskly by with the jingle of sword on heel on the highway to -wars, every chevalier his love and a girl's hands warm upon his heart. - -That night Marseli went early abed to wander in fairydom. - -Next day the sea-gentleman had with him a curious harp that was not -altogether a harp, and was hung over the neck by a ribbon. - -"What hast here?" asked Marseli. - -"A salve for a sore heart, lass! I can play on it some old tunes, and by -the magic of it I'm back in my father's home and unafeared." - -He drew his white fingers over the strings and made a thin twittering -of music sweeter than comes from the _clarsach_-strings, but foreign and -uncanny. To Marseli it brought notions of far-off affairs, half sweet, -half sad, like the edges of dreams and the moods that come on one in -loneliness and strange places, and one tune he played was a tune she had -heard the French traffickers sing in the bay in the slack seasons. - -"Let me sing you a song," said he, "all for yourself." - -"You are bard?" she said, with a pleased face. - -He said nothing, but touched on the curious harp, and sang to the girl's -eyes, to the spark of them and the dance of them and the deep thought -lurking in their corners, to her lips crimson like the rowan and curled -with pride, to the set of breast and shoulder, and the voice melting on -the tongue. - -It was all in the tune and the player's looks, for the words were fairy -to the girl, but so plain the story, her face burned, and her eyes -filled with a rare confusion. - -"'Tis the enchantment of fairydom," said she. "Am not I the _oinseach_ -to listen? I'll warrant yon have sung the same to many a poor girl in -all airts of the world?" - -The little one laughed and up with the shoulders. "On my sword," quo' -he, "I could be content to sing to you and France for all my time. Wilt -come with a poor Prince on a Prince's honour?" - -He kissed her with hot lips; his breath was in her hair; enchantment -fell on her like a plaid, but she tore herself away and ran home, his -craving following at her heels. - -That night Marseli's brothers came to knives with the French -traffickers, and the morning saw the black-avised ones sailing out -over-sea for home. Back to French Foreland they came no more, and -Finne-side took to its own brewing for lack of the red wine of France. - -That, too, was the last of the Sea-Fairy. - -Marseli went to the Water-foot and waited, high tide and low; she cried -the old child tune and she redded her hair, but never again the little -man with the dainty clothes, and the sword upon his thigh. - - - - -SHUDDERMAN SOLDIER - - -BEYOND the Beannan is the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, and a stone-put -farther is the knowe where Shudderman Soldier died in the snow. He was -a half-wit who was wise enough in one thing, for he knew the heart of a -maid, and the proof of it came in the poor year, when the glen gathered -its com in boats, and the potato-shaws were black when they burst the -ground, and the catechist's horse came home by Dhuloch-side to a widow -that reckoned on no empty saddle. And this is the story. - -"_Ho, ho, suas e!_" said the nor' wind, and the snow, and the black -frost, as they galloped down Glenaora like a leash of strong dogs. It -was there was the pretty business! The Salachary hills lost their sink -and swell in the great drifts that swirled on them in the night; the -dumb white swathes made a cold harvest on the flats of Kilmune; -the frost gripped tight at the throats of the burns, and turned the -Salmon-Leap to a stack of silver lances. A cold world it was, sure -enough, at the mouth of day! The bloodshot sun looked over Ben Ime for -a little, and that was the last of him. The sheep lay in the shoulder -of the hill with the drift many a crook's-length above them, and the -cock-of-the-mountain and the white grouse, driven on the blast, met -death with a blind shock against the edge of the larch-wood. - -Up from Lochow, where Kames looks over to Cruachan, and Cruachan cocks -his grey cap against Lorn, a foolish lad came that day for a tryst that -was made by a wanton maid unthinking. Half-way over the hill he slipped -on the edge of a drift, and a sore wound in the side he got against a -splinter of the blue stone of the Quey's Rock; but he pushed on, with -the blood oozing through his cut vest. Yet, in spite of himself, he -slept beyond the Bog of the Fairy-Maid. _Mo-thruaigh! mo-thruaigh!_ - -The Fairy-Maid came and covered him up close and warm with a white -blanket that needs no posting, and sang the soft tune a man hears but -once, and kissed him on the beard as he slept in the drift--and his name -had been Ellar Ban. - -Round by the king's good highroad came Solomon the carrier with his -cart, and many a time he thought of turning between Carnus and Kilmune. -But he was of the stuff of Clan Coll, and his mare was Proud Maisie. He -had a boll of meal from Portinsherrich, from the son of a widow woman -who was hungry in Inneraora and waiting for that same. - -"No Ellar here yet!" he said at Kilmune when he asked, and they told -him. "Then there's a story to tell, for if he's not here, he's not at -Karnes, and his grave's on the grey mountain." - -Later came Luath, the collie of Ellar, slinking through the snow wet and -weary, and without wind enough for barking. 'Twas as good as the man's -ghost. - -The shepherds came in from the fanks, and over from the curling at -Carlonan, to go on a search. - -Long Duncan of Drimfem, the slim swarthy champion, was there before -them. He was a pretty man--the like never tied a shoe in Glenaora--and -he was the real one who had Mairi's eye, which the dead fellow thought -had the laugh only for him. But, lord! a young man with a good name with -the shinty and the _clachneart_ has other things to think of than the -whims of women, and Donacha never noticed. - -"We'll go up and see about it--about him at once, Main," he said, -sick-sorry for the girl. All the rest stood round pitying, because her -kists were said to be full of her own spinning for the day that was not -to be. - -Mairi took him to the other side of the peat-stack, and spoke with a red -face. - -"Is it any use your going till the snow's off the hill, Drimfem?" she -said, biting at the corner of her brattie, and not looking the man in -the face. - -"_Dhia gleiih sinn!_ it's who knows when the white'll be off the snouts -of these hills, and we can't wait till---- I thought it would ease your -mind." And Donacha looked at the maid stupid enough. For a woman with -her heart on the hill, cold, she was mighty queer on it. - -"Yes, yes; but it's dangerous for you to go up, and the showers so heavy -yet. It's not twenty finger-lengths you can see in front of you, and you -might go into the bog." - -"Is't the bog I would be thinking of, Main? It's little fear there is of -that, for here is the man that has been on Salachary when the mist was -like smoke, as well as when the spittle froze in my mouth. Oh, I'm not -the one to talk; but where's the other like me?" - -Mairi choked. "But, Dona---- but, Drimfem, it's dead Ellar must be; -and--and--you have a widow mother to mind." Donacha looked blank at the -maid. She had the sweet face, yon curve of the lip, and the soft turn of -the neck of all Arthur's children, ripe of the cheek, with tossed hair -like a fairy of the lake, and the quirk of the eye that never left a -plain man at ease if he was under the threescore. There were knives out -in the glen for many a worse one. - -It was the lee of the peat-stack they stood in, and the falling flakes -left for a while without a shroud a drop of crimson at the girl's feet. -She was gripping tight at her left wrist under the cover of her apron -till the nails cut the flesh. There was the stress of a dumb bard's -sorrow in her face; her heart was in her eyes, if there had been a woman -to see it; but Drimfern missed it, for he had no mind of the dance at -the last Old New Year, or the ploy at the sheep-dipping, or the nuts -they cracked on the hot peats at Hallowe'en. - -The girl saw he was bound to go. He was as restless as if the snow was a -swarm of _seangans_. She had not two drops of blood in her lips, but she -tried to laugh as she took something out from a pocket and half held it -out to him. He did not understand at first, for if he was smart on the -_caman_ ball, 'twas slow in the ways of women he was. - -"It's daft I am. I don't know what it is, Donacha, but I had a dream -that wasn't canny last night, and I'm afraid, I'm afraid," said the poor -girl. "I was going to give you----" - -Drimfern could not get the meaning of the laugh, strained as it was. He -thought the maid's reason was wandering. - -She had, whatever it was--a square piece of cloth of a woman's -sewing--into the man's hand before he knew what she would be after; and -when his fingers closed on it, she would have given a king's gold to -get it back. But the Tullich lads, and the Paymaster's shepherd from -Lecknamban, with Dol' Splendid and Francie Ro, in their plaids, and with -their crooks, came round the gable-end. Luath, who knew Glenaora as well -as he knew Creag Cranda, was with them, and away they went for the hill. -All that Donacha the blind one said, as he put the sewing in his pocket -to look at again, was, "Blessing with thee!" for all the world like a -man for the fair. - -Still the nor' wind, and the snow, and the dark frost said "_Suas e!_" -running down the glen like the strong dogs on the peching deer; and the -men were not a hundred yards away from the potato-pit when they were -ghosts that went out altogether, without a sound, like Drimendorran's -Grey Dame in the Red Forester's story. - -A white face on a plump neck stood the sting of the storm dourly, though -the goodwife said it would kill her out there, and the father cried -"Shame!" on her sorrow, and her a maiden. "Where's the decency of you?" -says he, fierce-like; "if it was a widow you were this day you couldn't -show your heart more." And into the house he went and supped two cogies -of brose, and swore at the _sgalag_ for noticing that his cheeks were -wet. - -When the searchers would be high on the hill Shudderman came on the -maid. He was a wizened, daft old one, always in a tinker Fencible's -tartan trews and scarlet doublet. He would pucker his bare brown face -like a foreign Italian, and whistle continually. The whistle was on his -face when he came on the girl standing behind the byre, looking up with -a corpse's whiteness where the Beannan should be. - -"Te-he! Lord! but we're cunning," said the soldier. "It's a pity about -Ellar, is it not, white darling?" - -Mairi saw nothing, but swallowed a sob. Was this thing to know her -secret, when the wise old women of the glen never guessed it? There was -something that troubled her in his look. - -The wee creature put his shoulder against the peats, and shoved each -hand up the other sleeve of his doublet, while he whistled soft, and -cunningly looked at the maid. The cords of her neck were working, and -her breast heaved sore, but she kept her teeth tight together. - -"Ay, ay, it's an awful thing, and him so fond, too," he went on; and -his face was nothing but a handful of wrinkles and peat-smoke. It was a -bigger ploy for the fool than a good dinner. - -"What--who--who are you talking about, you poor _amadan?_" cried Mairi, -desperately. - -"Och, it's yourself that'll know. They're saying over at Tullich and -upbye at Miss Jean's, Accurach, that it's a bonny pair you would make, -you and Ellar. Yonnat Yalla says he was the first Lochow man ever she -saw that would go a mile out of his way for a lass, and I saw him once -come the roundabout road by Cladich because it was too easy to meet you -coming the short cut over the hill. Oh! there's no doubt he was fond, -fond, and-" - -"_Amadan!_" cried the maid, with no canny light in her eyes. - -"Hoots! You're not angry with me, darling. I ken, I ken. Of course -Drimfern's the swanky lad too, but it's not very safe this night on yon -same hill. There's the Bog of the Fairy-Maid that never was frozen yet, -and there's the Quey's Rock, and--te-he! I wouldn't give much for some -of them not coming back any more than poor Ellar. It's namely that -Drimfem got the bad eye from the Glenurchy woman come Martinmas next -because of his taking up with her cousin-german's girl, Morag Callum." - -"Yon _spgachd_ doll, indeed!" - -"God, I do not know about that! but they're telling me he had her up at -all the reels at Baldy Geepie's wedding, whatever, and it's a Maclean -tartan frock she got for the same--I saw it with my own eyes." - -"Lies, lies, lies," said the girl to herself her lips dry, her hands and -feet restless to do some crazy thing to kill the pain in her heart. - -She was a little helpless bird in the hands of the silly one. - -He was bursting himself inside with laughing, that couldn't be seen for -the snow and the cracks on his face. - -"But it's not marriages nor tartan you'll be thinking on, Mairi, with -your own lad up there stiff. Let Morag have Drimfem----" - -"You and your Morag! Shudderman, if it was not the crazy one you were, -you would see that a man like Donacha Drimfern would have no dealings -with the breed of MacCallum, tinker children of the sixty fools." - -"Fools here or fools there, look at them in the castle at Duntroon! And -Drimfern is----" - -"Drimfern again! Who's thinking of Drimfern, the mother's big pet, the -soft, soft creature, the poor thing that's daft about the shinty and the -games--and--and---- Go inbye, haverer, and----oh, my heart, my heart!" - -"Cripple Callum," whistled the daft wee one; and faith it was the great -sport he was having! The flame sparkled in the lass's eyes; she stamped -furiously in the snow. She could have gone into the house, but the -Shudderman would follow, and the devil was in him, and she might just as -well tell her story at the cross-roads as risk. So she stayed. - -"Come in this minute, O foolish one!" her mother came to the door and -craved; but no. - -The wee _bodach_ took a wee pipe from his big poke and started at the -smoking. When his match went out the dark was almost flat on the glen, -and a night-hag complained with a wean's cry in the planting beyond the -burn. At each draw of the pipe the eyes of the soldier glinted like a -ferret's, and like any ferret's they were watching. He put in a word -between-while that stabbed the poor thing's heart, about the shame of -love in maids uncourted, and the cruelty of maids that cast love-looks -for mischief. There were some old havers about himself here and there -among the words: of a woman who changed her mind and went to another -man's bed and board; of sport up the glen, and burials beyond; and -Ellar Ban's widow mother, and the carry-on of Drimfem and the Glenurchy -woman's cousin-german's girl. And it was all ravelled, like the old -story Loch Finne comes up on the shore to tell when the moon's on -Sithean Sluaidhe. - -The girl was sobbing sore. "Man!" she said at last, "give me the peace -of a night till we know what is." The _amadan_ laughed at her, and went -shauchling down to the cotter's, and Mairi went in out of the darkness. - -The hours passed and passed, and the same leash of strong dogs were -scouring like fury down Glenaora, and the moon looked a little through -a hole, and was sickly at the sight, and went by in a hurry. A collie's -bark in the night came to the house where the people waited round the -peats, and "Oh, my heart!" said poor Mairi. - -The father took the tin lantern with the holes in it, and they all went -out to the house-end. The lantern-light stuck long needles in the night -as it swung on the goodman's finger, and the byre and the shed and the -peat-stack danced into the world and out of it, and the clouds were only -an arm's-length overhead. - -The men were coming down the brae in the smother of snow, carrying -something in a plaid. The dog was done with its barking, and there was -no more sound from the coming ones than if they were ghosts. Like enough -to ghosts they looked. No one said a word till the goodman spoke. - -"You have him there?" he said. - -"Ay, _beatmachi leis!_ all that there is of him," said the Paymaster's -man; and they took it but an' ben, where Mairi's mother had the white -dambrod cloth she had meant for herself, when her own time came, on the -table. - -"It's poor Ellar, indeed," said the goodman, noticing the fair beard. - -"Where's Donacha? where's Drimfern?" cried Mairi, who had pulled herself -together and come in from the byre-end, where she had waited to see if -there was none of the watchers behind. - -The Paymaster's man was leaning against the press-door, with a face like -the clay; Dol' Splendid was putting a story in the _sgalag's_ ear; -the Tullich men were very busy on it taking the snow off their boots. -Outside the wind had the sorry song of the curlew. - -"Me-the-day! it's the story of this there is to tell," at last said -Francie Ro, with a shake of the head. "Poor Drimfern----" - -"Drimfem--ay, where's Drimfem in all the world?" said the goodman, with -a start. He was standing before his girl to keep her from seeing the -thing on the table till the wife had the boots covered. It was the face -of a _cailleach_ of threescore Mairi had. - -"It's God knows! We were taking Ellar there down, turn about resting. It -was a cruel business, for the drifts. There's blood on his side where he -fell somewhere, and Drimfern had to put a clout on it to keep the blood -off his plaid. That's Drimfern's plaid. When Donacha's second turn was -over up at the bog, we couldn't get a bit of him. He's as lost as the -deer the Duke shot, and we looked and whistled for hours." The maid gave -a wee turn to the door, shivered, and fell like a clod at her mother's -feet. - -"Look at yon, now! Am not I the poor father altogether?" said the -old man with a soft lip to his friends. "Who would think, and her so -healthy, and not married to Ellar, that she would be so much put about? -You'll excuse it in her, lads, I know, for she's not twenty till the -dipping-time, and the mother maybe spoiled her." - -"Och, well," said the Splendid one, twisting his bonnet uneasy in his -hands, "I've seen them daft enough over a living lad, and it's no great -wonder when this one's dead." They took the maid beyond to the big room -by the kitchen, and a good mother's morning for Drimfern was set by the -men. They had a glass before going home, and when they were gone the -_bochdans_ came in the deep hollow of the night and rattled the windows -and shook the door-sneck; but what cared yon long white thing on the -goodwife's dambrod tablecloth? - -At the mouth of day there was one woman with a gnawing breast looking -about the glen-foot among the snow for the Shudder-man soldier. She -found him snedding the shaft of a shinny-stick at the Stronmagachan -Gate, and whistling as if it was six weeks south of Whitsunday and the -woods piping in the heat. - -"I ken all about it, my white little lamb," he said with a soft speech. -"All about them finding Ellar, and losing a better man, redding put her -to rights. A search in the maybe, but any way one that some will miss -more." - -"God's heavy, heavy on a woman!" said the poor child. "I gave Donacha a -sampler with something sewn on it yesterday, and the men, when they -go up the hill to look for him to-day, will get it on him--and--it -would----" - -"Ay, ay, ay! I ken, my dear. We'll put that right, or I'm no soldier." -And the little man cocked his bonnet on his head like a piper. Then he -was sorry for the pride of it, and he pulled it down on his face, and -whistled to stop his nose from jagging. - -"My heart! my bruised heart! they're saying sorry things of Ellar, and -Donacha dead. The cotter's wife was talking this morning, and it'll send -me daft!" - -"Blind, blind," quo' the soldier; "but you'll not be shamed, if the -_amadan_ can help it." - -"But what can you do, my poor Shudderman? And yet--and yet--there's no -one between Carnus and Croit-bhile I can speak to of it." - -"Go home, white love, and I'll make it right," said the daft one, and -faith he looked like meaning it. - -"Who knows?" thought the girl. Shudderman was chief enough with the -Glenurchy woman, and the Glenurchy woman sometimes gave her spells to -her friends. So Mairi went home half comforted. - -A cogie of brose and a bit braxy in his belly, and a farl of cake in his -poke, and out stepped the Shudderman with never a word to any one about -the end of his journey. Dol' Splendid had told him the story of the -night before, and whereabout Drimfern was lost, close beyond the -Beannan. He would find the body and the sampler, he promised himself as -he plunged up the brae at Taravh-dubh. The dogs were nearly as furious -as the night before, and the day's eye was blear. Hours passed, and the -flats of Kilmune were far below. - -There was nothing in all the world but whiteness, and a silly old -_bodach_ with a red coat trailing across it. Shudderman Soldier sank his -head between his shoulders as he pushed himself up with his hazel crook, -his tartan trews in rags about his ankles, his doublet letting in the -teeth of the wind here and there, and at the best grudging sore its too -tight shelter for his shrunk body. He had not the wind to whistle, but -he gasped bits of "Faill-il-o," and between he swore terribly at the -white hares that jerked across in front of him with the ill-luck of a -lifetime on their backs. - -If it was the earth that was white, the sky was not far behind it; if -they were paper, it would take schooling to write on them straight, for -there wasn't a line between them. The long sweep of Balantyre itself -was lost, and the Beannan stone was buried. The creature's brogues were -clods of snow, ugly, big, without a shape: his feet were lumps of ice; -his knees shook under his frail skinful of bones; but, by the black -stones, 'twas the man's heart he had! - -When the snow made a paste on his win'ard cheek, he had it off with a -jerk of the head, and one of the jerks put off his bonnet. Its frozen -ribbons had been whipping his eyes, and he left it where it fell, with -never a glance over his shoulder. His hair clogged with flakes that kept -the frost even after they fell. It was a peching effort for the foot of -the Beannan brae. - -"Poor lamb, poor Mairi, calf of my heart!" gasped the soldier to -himself. He was staggering half blind through the smother of snow, now -and then with a leg failing below him, and plunging him right or left. -Once his knees shut like a gardener's gully, and he made a crazy heap in -the drift. His tired wrists could hardly bring him up, and the corpse of -the world swung in his eyes when he was on his feet again and trying to -steady himself. - -There's a green knoll beside the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, where the -wee folks dance reels when the moon's on it, and there the old fellow -struggled to. He thought if he was up there he would see some sign of -what he wanted. Up he pushed, with the hazel _cromag_ bending behind -him, and his brogues slipping on the round snow-soles. Up he went, with -the pluck of a whole man, let alone a poor silly object; up he went -till he got his foot on the top, and then his heart failed, for he saw -nothing of what he sought. - -"I'll look again when I'm out of this foolish sleep,--I'll see better -when I waken," said the poor _amadan;_ and behold the dogs were on him! -and he was a man who was. - -***** - -For all that, the story tells, Drimfern was no ghost. When he was lost -he found Kames, where the Callum girl was that came to his fire-end -later and suckled his clan. And Ellar's mother, dressing her son's -corpse in the house at Kilmune, found on his wound a sampler that went -with him to his long home in green Inishail. Its letters, sewn in the -folly of a woman, told her story:-- - -"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better -than wine." - - - - -WAR. - - -I. - -IT was the pause of the morning, when time stands, and night and day -breathe hard ere they get to grips. A cock with a foggy throat started -at the crowing, down at Slochd-a-Chubair. Over from Stron a shrewd thin -wind came to make stir among the trees in the Duke's big garden, and the -crows rasped their beaks on the beech-branches, for they knew that here -was the day's forerunner. Still and on the town slept, stretched full -out, dour set on the business. Its quirky lanes and closes were as black -as the pit. There was only one light in all the place, and a big town -and a bonny it is, house and house with high outside stairs and glass -windows, so that the wonder is the King himself does not take thought to -stay in it, even if it were only for the comfort of it and the company -of the MacCailein Mor. Only one light, and that was splashing, yellow, -and mixed with a thick peat-reek, out of Jean Rob's open door, facing -the bay, on the left, on the Lowlands road. Now and then Jean would come -to the door and stand, a blob of darkness in the yellow light, to see -if the day was afoot on Ben Ime, or to throw a look at the front of the -town for signs of folk stirring. - -"Not a peep, not a peep! Sleep! sleep! Few of them part with a man -to-day with so sore a heart as Jean Rob." - -Then back to her Culross girdle, for she was at the baking of bannocks -to go in her husband's _dorlach_ for the wars. - -She had not shut an eye all night. Rob snored at her side slow and heavy -while she lay on her back on a bed of white hay, staring up at the black -larch joists glinting with the red scad of the peats. She was a Crarae -woman, and that same people were given to be throng with the head, -and she kept thinking, thinking even on. At last she could bide it no -longer, so she up with a leap on the floor to face a new day and all the -luck of it. - -About the luck being good or ill there might be little doubt. It was the -year after they started at the building of the Castle, a laggard spring -at the hind-end of a cruel winter, with not a fin in all the seas for -the poor fishermen, and black mutton at six Saxon shillings the side. -And what the wars were about Jean Rob or her like little knew or cared. -Very little, like enough, as is the way with wars, but any way wars -there were: the Duke and his House would have it that their people must -up and on with belt and target, and away on the weary road like their -fathers before them. Some said it was the old game with the Inverlochy -dogs (rive them and seize them!); others, that some bastard was at -variance with the Duke about the Papist Stewarts--a silly lad called -Tearlach with a pack of wild Irishers and daddy Macleans and Macdonalds -and Camerons from the Isles and the North at his back. - -"Bundle and Go" it was any way in Campbell country from Cruachan to -Cowal, from Cantyre to the march of Keppochan, and that's the fine -rolling land of sappy grasses and thick woods. In the heart and midst -of it Duke Archie played dirl on the boss of his shield on a cold March -day, and before night swords were at the sharping from shore to shore. -That's war for ye-- - -quicker than flame, surer than word of mouth, and poor's the man who -says "What for?" to his chief. - -Rob Donn, for all that, was vassal to no man; for he was come of the -swordsmiths of the glen, and they had paper to show that their rigs were -held for no service other than beating out good fighting steel on the -anvil. Poor, as he was, he could wear one feather in his bonnet if his -fancy was on feathers, and no one bragged more of his forefolk. But -Elrigmor--a thin old man with little stomach for quarrels--offered -twenty pounds English for a man to take his place with the Campbells; -and Rob took the money and the loan of Elrigmor's sword, half for the -sake of the money and half for the sake of a bit play with Sir Claymore. - -Said he to his wife, jingling the Geordies in his hand on the day he got -them, "Here's the price of a hero; and troth it's little enough for a -good armsmith's blood!" - -"Don't say it, Rob," said Jean. - -"Och! I am but laughing at thee, good-wife. Brave dogs would they be -that would face the tusks of the Diarmaid boars. Like the wind on the -chaff--troosh!--we'll scatter them! In a week I'll be home." - -"In a week?" - -"To be sure, Jean. I'll buy with the money a stot or two on the road -to bring back with me, for there's little lifting in the Duke's corps, -more's the pity! My grandfather seldom came back from the wars without a -few head of cattle before him." - -So the money went in Rob Donn's sporran, and Jean would have bit her -tongue out before she would crave for part o't from a man going among -strangers and swords. - -The bairn had but one word for her father from then till he started, and -that was "Cockade." What it was the little one never knew, but that it -was something braw and costly, a plaything for a father to go far off -for. - -"Two or three of them, my white love!" would Rob Donn say, fond and -hearty. "They'll be as thick as nuts on the ground when we're done of -the gentry that wear them on their bonnets." And he had a soft wet eye -for the child, a weakling, white and thin, never quite the better of -the snell winds of winter. If cockades, indeed, were to be had for the -fighting of a fortnight without sleep, Rob Donn would have them for her. - -So now was the morning to put on fighting gear and go on the foray for -white cockades. - -By-and-by a cruisie-light crept out at the gables of the town, and the -darkness filled with the smell of new peat burning. Aora, spluttering -past Jean Rob's door with a gulp into the Cooper's Pool, made, within -the house, the only sound of the morning. - -Jean scraped the meal off her hands and went again to the door to look -about and listen. - -"Ay, ay! up at last," she said to herself. - -"There's the Major's light, and Kate Mhor up for the making of his -breakfast, and a lowe in the weaver's shed. The Provost's is dark--poor -man!--it's little his lady is caring!" - -She was going to turn about and in, when the squeal of a bagpipe came -from the town-head, and the player started to put his drones in order. -"Ochan! ochan!" said poor Jean, for here, indeed, was the end of her -hopes; there was no putting back from the Duke's errand. She listened a -little to the tuning as if it was the finest of _piobaireachds_, and it -brought a curious notion to her mind of the first reel she danced with -her man to the squeezing of that same sheepskin. Then the reeds roared -into the air of "Baile Inneraora." - -"_Och a Dh! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob!"_ she cried in to the man -among the blankets, but there was no need for the summons. The gathering -rang far ben in the chambers of sleep, and Rob was stark awake, with a -grasp at his hip for the claymore. - -"Troth! I thought it was the camp! and them on us," he laughed foolishly -in his beard. - -Up and down the street went Dol' Dubh, the Duke's second piper, the same -who learned the art of music right well from the Macruimens of Boreraig, -and he had as sweet a finger on the chanter as Padruig himself, with the -nerve to go round the world. Fine, fine it was for him, be sure, to -be the summoner to battle! Lights jumped to the little lozens of the -windows and made streaks on the cracks of the doors, and the Major's man -came from his loft ganting with a mouth like the glee'd gun, a lantern -swinging on a finger, making for the stable to saddle his master's -horse. A garret window went up with a bang, and Peter MacIntyre, wright, -pat out a towsy head and snuffed the air. It was low tide in the two -bays, and the town was smelling less of peat-reek than of sea-wrack and -saltness. One star hung in the north over Dunchuach. - -"They have the good day for starting the jaunt, whatever," said the -wright. "If I was a stone or two lighter, and had one to look after the -shop, it's off on this ploy I would be too." He took in his head, the -top nodding briskly on his Kilmarnock bonnet, and wakened the wife to -help him on with his clothes. - - "Aora, Aora, Baile Inneraora, - I got a bidding to Baile Inneraora; - I got the bidding, but little they gave me, - Aora, Aora, Baile Chailein Mhoir!" - -Dol' Dubh was up at the Cross, swelled out like a net-bow, blasting -furiously, his heart athump with the piper's zest. Doors drummed, -windows screeched in their cases, women's voices went from land to land, -and the laugh and cry of bairns new roused from the hot toss of dreams. -Far up the highroad a horse's hoofs were dunting hollow and hearty on -the stones, and by-and-by through the Arches trotted the Cornal, his -tall body straight and black against the dun of the gables. He had -a voice like a rutting deer. "Master Piper," he roared to Dol' Dubh, -tugging his beast back on its haunches, "stop that braggart air and give -us 'Bundle and Go,' and God help the Campbell that's not on the Cadger's -Quay before the sun's over Stron Point!" - -"Where is the air like it?" said Dol' to himself, slacking a reed with a -thumb-nail. "Well they ken it where little they love it with its -vaunting!" But he up with his drones on his shoulder and into the tune -that had the Cornal's fancy. Beside him the Cornal stood at his horse's -stirrup in the grey-brown of the morning, his head still light with the -bottle of claret wine his lady in Lecknamban had put before him ere he -had boot over saddle. - -Then the town stirred to its affairs. The Major's horse went clattering -over the cobblestones to his door-end, the arm-room door opened, and old -Nanny Bheag, who kept the key, was lifted off her feet and in, on the -rush of young lads making for the new guns Lome Clerk had up from the -Low Country. On the belts of the older men, loth to leave the fire-end, -mothers and wives were hanging bags with thick farls of cake, and -cheese, and the old Aora salve for swordcuts. - -If they had their way of it, these _caille-achan_, the fighting gear -would be all kebbucks of cheese and dry hose, and no powder and ball. -The men blustered, high-breasted, with big words in their beards, and -no name too dirty for the crew they were off to scatter--praising -themselves and making the fine prophecies, as their folks did before -them with better rights when the town was more in the way of going to -wars. Or they roundly scolded the weans for making noise, though their -eyes were learning every twist of the copper hair and every trick of the -last moment, to think on when long and dreary would be the road before -them. - -There was a break in Dol' Dubh's music, and high over the big town rang -the Cornal's voice, starting the bairns in their sleep and setting them -up and screaming. - -"Laggards! laggards! O lazy ones! Out! out! Campbells before were never -so swear't to be marching. It is time to be steeping the withies!" - -Hard back went the stout doors on the walls, and out ran the folk. The -brogues skliffed and hammered; men with muskets, swords, dirks, and -targes ran down the street, and women and children behind them. A tumult -filled the town from side to side and end to end, and the lanes and -closes were streaming with the light from gaping doors. - -Old and young, the boy and the snooded girl, women with bairn at breast, -_bodach_ and _cailleach_, took to the Cross muster, leaving the houses -open to the wind and to the world. The cats thrummed by the fires, and -the smell of the sea-wrack came in beside them. - -"I have you here at last," said the Cornal, dour and dark, throwing his -keen eyes along the row of men. "Little credit are ye to my clan and -chief, and here's to the Lowlands low, and would to God I was there now -among the true soldados with stomachs for slaughter and the right skill -of fence and musketoon! A short tulzie, and a tow at the thrapple of -bastard Chevalier would there be in that case. Here's but a wheen herds, -weavers, and gillies holding Brown Betty like a kail-runt!" - -He was one of the Craignish Campbells, the Cornal--Dugald, brother -of Lachan who got death at a place called Fontenoy in the summer -before--very sib to the Duke, and it behoved the town-men to say -nothing. But they cursed his eyes to each other on the corners of their -mouths, and if he knew it he had sense enough to say nothing. - -The women and bairns and the old folks stood in a great crowd behind -the Cornal's horse. The Major's mare with him in the sell was dancing an -uncanny spring near the Arches, full of freshness and fine feeding as -a battle-horse should be, but overly much that way for a man sixteen -finger-lengths round the belly and full of fish and ale. From Glen -Beag came the slow morning, gusty and stinging; Stob-an-Eas stood -black against the grey of it; the tide stretched from shore to shore -unfriendly and forlorn. - -Jean Rob, with the bairn at her brattie-string, was with the other women -seeing her man away, stupid with two sorrows--one because he was going, -and the other because he had twenty pounds in his sporran that he might -well be doing without; for he was leaving the woman without a groat, and -only a boll of meal in the girnel and a wee firkin of salted fish. - -The steady breeze came yet from Stron, and sat snug in the sails of the -six boats that carried the Duke's men over to Cowal. Brog-and-Turk's -skiff put out first, himself at the helm in his tarry jacket; the -others, deep down, followed close on her heels. One by one they fell -off from the quay. The men waved their bonnets and cried cheerily and -vaunting, as was aye the good grace of Clan Diarmaid at the first and -the last of forays. - -"Blessings with ye!" cried the folk left behind, wet-eyed; and even the -Provost's wife took a grief at her inside to see her man with a shaking -lip look round the sail of the hin'most boat. Cheering and weeping, -singing and _ochain!_ there they were on the quay and on the sea, our -own folk, our dear folk; and who were ever like them when it came to the -bit, and stout hearts or kind hearts were wanted? - -"Stand back, kindred!" cried the Cornal, putting spurs to his horse, and -he pranced up the town-head, a pretty man, to join the Major and gallop -round the loch-head to join the corps at Cairn-dubh. - -Dol' Dubh stopped his playing at the bow of Brog-an-Turk's skiff when -she gulped the first quaich of brine, and the men in all the boats -started to sing the old boat-song of "Aora Mo Chridhe tha mi seoladh"-- - - "Aora, my heart, I am sailing, sailing, - Far to the South on the slope of the sea; - Aora _mo chridhe_, it is cold is the far land, - Bitter the stranger with wands on his doorway. - Aora Mochree!" - -It came back on the wind with a sorrow to break hearts, sinking and -swelling as the wind took the fancy, and the long-necked herons stood -on the fringe of the tide with their heads high to listen. The sails got -scattered and shrunk, and the tune got thin and low, and lost at last in -the swish of the waves on the shore, and the ears of those who listened -heard the curlew piping cursedly loud over the Cooper's Pool. A grey -cold day with rain on the tail of it. High Creag Dubh with its firs and -alders and rowans stark and careless over the hollow town. Broad day and -brightness, and the cruisies and candles burning the ghosts of flame in -the empty houses, with doors wide to the empty street and the lanes and -closes! - - -II. - -The wanderer has ever the best of it, and wae wae are the hearts behind -I Is it for war or sport, or for the red gold, that a man turns heel on -his home and takes the world for his pillow? In his pack is the salve -for care as well as for sword-cuts, for ever and always are new things -happening. The road crooks through the curious glens; the beasts trot -among the grass and fern and into the woods; the girls (the dear ones, -the red-lipped ones!) come from the milking of the white-shouldered -cattle and look with soft black eyes as he passes, and there is a new -tale at the corner of every change-house fire. All that may befall a -packman; but better's the lot of the fighter with steel at his haunch, -fire at his heart, and every halt a day closer to them he would be -seeking. - -But the folks behind in the old place! _Mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!_ -Daybreak, and hot sun, and the creeping in of the night, when the door -must be snecked on the rover; the same place, and still with a want in -it, and only guessing at where and how is the loved one out on strange -ways on the broad world. - -Far up the long Highlands the Campbells were on their way. Loch Sloy and -Glen Falloch, Rannoch's bleakness and Ben Alder's steepness, and each -morning its own wet grass and misty brae, and each night its dreams on -the springy heather. - -A woman was weeping on Achadunan because that her man was gone and her -chimney stone was cold, and Rob Donn's sporran was emptied at her feet, -though he knew not so much as the name of her. But he took a thought -and said, "I'll keep the half, for long's the way before us, and ill is -travelling among strangers without a round-piece in the purse." That was -but a day's march from Jean Rob, and she was making a supper of crowdie -that was the first meal of the day. - -On Spey-side was the camp of the Argylls, and card-play round the fires, -with the muskets shining, and the pipes playing sweeter for slumber than -for rouse. - -"I will put my watch on this turn," said a black Lowlander in the heat -of the game. - -"Rob Donn's watch is the sun on Toman-uardar," said our hero, "but here -are ten yellow Geordies," and out went his fortune among the roots of -the gall. - -"_Troosh! beannachd leat!_" and the coin was a jingle in the other one's -pouch. - -"I have plenty more where it came from, and cattle enough forbye," said -our braggart, and he turned on his elbow whistling "Crodh Chailein." - -But let them follow the drum who will, for us the story's beside the -hearth. It is not a clatter of steel and the tulzies of Chevaliers, but -the death of an only bairn. - -In her house on the Lowlands road Jean Rob starved with the true -Highland pride, that sets a face content against the world at kirk or -market. Between her and a craving stomach lay but shell-fish and herbs, -for she had not a plack to spend, and the little one got all the milk -that came from Mally, the dappled one, drying up for calving. Break of -day would see the woman, white, thin, keen-eyed, out on the ebb before -the fishing-boats were in, splashing in the pools in the sand for -partans and clabbie-doos, or with two ready fingers piercing the sand to -pull the long spout-fish from his hiding. Or she would put little stakes -in the sand, and between them a taut line with baited hooks to coax the -fish at high tide. But ill was her luck, indeed, for few were the fish -that came to the lure to be lifted again at ebb. - -Above Kilmalieu on the sea side of Dunchu-ach, in the tangle and dark of -the trees, among the soft splashing soil, the wild leeks gave a scent to -the air. These would Jean gather, and the nettle too, and turn them to -thin broth; but that same was no fare for a Crarae stomach. - -At night when the wee one slept, the mother would have her plaid on her -head, and through the town, barefoot, in the darkness, passing the folk -at the close-mouths quickly for fear they would speak to her, and her -heart would crave for share of the noble supper that made steam from the -door of her cousin the rich merchant. - -Like a ghost sometimes, wandering about the Cadger's Quay or the -gutting-stools, where she would be looking for a dropped giley or a bake -from the nets, she would come on a young woman. - -"_Dhe!_ Jean Rob! is it thyself that is here?" - -"Just Jean, my darling, for a little turn, because of the stir in the -town, and the smell of the barking nets. Well I like the smell of the -bark, and the wind takes little of it up the Lowlands road." - -"Thou art not coming out much since the men went to the North. Art well -at the house--the little one, now, bless her?" - -"Splendid, splendid, _m' eudail_. Faith, it is too fat we will be -getting on the fortune Rob got from Elrigmor." - -"Indeed, yes, Jean, it was the great luck! When a poor person comes----" - -"Hut tut! Poor nor rich, my people had their own place on Lochowside, -and little did my Rob need MacNicol's dirty money; but he was aye fond -of a 'horo-yally,' and that's the way of his being among them." - -"Well, well, if that's the way, our own people were good enough on a -time; but a pedigree, thou wilt allow, is a poor plaster for a pain in -the stomach. For me, I would have a good shaking of herring and money -in the town. It was but black brochan for our one meal to-day, and my -mother poorly." - -"My dear! _och_, my dear! and I to brag of plenty! Little enough, in -truth, is on my own board; but I have a boiling of meal if you come for -it in the morning." - -"Kindly, kindly, thou good dame. It would be but a loan." - -"Yes, indeed, one will be running out of the wherewithal now and again, -and 'twas aye 'Mine is yours and yours is mine' in Gaeldom. But I must -be stepping." - -And while Jean Rob starved, there was never a word from the best and -bravest off at the wars, or how they fared, only now and then a half -tale from a travelling caird or a Low-Country carrier about gatherings -and skirling pipes and hard knocks. His Grace himself kept a horse or -two and a good rider on the other side of the Rest, to gallop hot-hoof -into the Castle with the first news of how his clan won; but weary was -the waiting. - -The town took to its old appearance, the aged men clack-clacking with -the shuttle, the boys scattering seed over the rig-and-fur of the -ploughed fields, the women minding their houses. And that, too, is war -for ye! The dirk is out, the brogues trail over the hills and through -the glens, the clans meet and clash, the full heart belches blood, the -grass soaks, the world and the chance of it is put on the luck of a -swinging stroke at yon one's neck. War! war! red and lusty--the jar of -it fills the land! But oh, _mo chridhe!_ home in Glen Shie are women and -bairns living their own day's life, and the crack will be blithe in the -sheilings to come, for all your quarrels. Where is Hector, and where is -Gilean-of-the-Axe, and where is Diarmaid of the boar's snout? They are -all gone but for an old song at the sheiling-fire, and life, love, and -the Fell Sergeant still come and go in the place the warriors made such -stir in! A stranger would think there was little amiss in the Duke's -town. The women sang their long songs of love and yore as they span -about the wheel and carded the wool; the bairns guddled in Jumping -John's burn, and tore their kilts among the whins, and came home with -the crows, redfaced and hungry-warned. At the ale-house there was traffic -by day, and heavy drovers and gaugers stamped their feet to the choruses -at night. The day lengthened, and comforting winds came from the two -bonny black glens; the bracken put on new growths, like the crook of St -Molach that's up-by in the Castle; Easachosain reeled to the piping of -birds. - -There might be an eye many times a-day on the Stron Point to see if a -horseman was rounding it, and the cruisies were kept burning a little -longer at night in case the news would come in the darkness like the -Athol thieves. But patience was ever the gift of the Gael, and few lost -heart. - -And at last the news came of Culloden Moor. - -It was on a Sunday--a dry clear day--and all the folk were at the -church, with old Colin the minister sweating at it for the good of the -Ceannloch fishermen in the loft. He was in the middle of his prayer -when a noise came over the town, a dunting of hoofs on the causey of the -Provost's house-front. - -"Amen!" said the cunning Colin, quick as could be, and then, "Friends, -here is news for us," and down the pulpit steps he ran briskly like a -lad of twenty. - -Peter MacIntyre set back the bolt from the door with a bang, and past -him the people made rush. The Duke's rider from over the Rest was there -in the saddle of a grey garron foaming at the mouth and its hurdies in a -tremble. - -"Your tidings, your tidings, good man!" cried the people. - -The lad sat stark in the saddle, with his eyes wet and his nose pricking -with the Gaelic pride. - -"I have been at the Castle, and-" - -"Your news, just man." - -"I have been at the Castle, and Mac-Cailein Mor, who said I rode well -from the Rest, said I might come in-by and carry my budget to you." - -"Out with it, Paruig, little hero. Is't good or ill?" - -"What would it be, my heroes, with our own lads, but good? Where's the -beat of them? It's 'The Glen is Mine' Dol' Dubh will be playing this day -on Culloden, for ours is the battle. They scattered the dirty Northmen -and the Irishers like chaff, and Cailein Mor himself gave me a horn of -ale from his own hands on the head o't." - -A roar went up that stirred the crows on Scaurnoch, and there was -a Sunday spoiled for you; for the ale went free and merry in the -change-house at the Duke's charge till the moon was over Ben Ime. - -But there were five houses with the clocks stopped (for the ghosts take -no heed of time); five houses with the glasses turned face to the -wall (for who dare look in glass to see a wraith at the back of the -shoulder?); there were four widows and five mothers wet faced, keening -for five fine men who had been, and whose names were now writ on paper -on the church door. - - -III. - -Day followed day, and still home came no Campbells. They were far to the -dreary North, plying sword and fire among the bad clans, harrying for -the glory of Mac-Cailein Mor. - -And at last on a day the sea-pigs rolled and blew off Stron Point, -and the scarts dived like arrows from the sun's eye, deep into a loch -boiling with fish. Night found the brown sails bellying out on the -scudding smacks, and the snouts of skiff and galley tearing the waves to -get among the spoil. Bow-to-back, the nets spotted Finne mile on mile; -the kind herrings crowded thick into them; the old luck was back, and -the quays in the morning heard the fine tune of the cadger's clinking -silver. In a hurry of hurries the fleet came up to the mouth of -Shira--Tarbert men, Strathlachlan men, Minard men, black fellows from -MacCallum country, and the wine-traffickers from French Foreland to swap -sour claret for the sweet fat fish. - -It was ho-rol and spill the bicker in yon town, for all that the best of -its men were away and afar at the killing. The smoke was black from -the fires in the Cooper's Pool, the good healthy smell of the gut-pots -sought up to the Castle door. Little doubt his Grace (_beannachd leis!_) -would come out to the door-step and curse because it made him bock his -breakfast, dainty man! - -Throng though the town was, round about the little house on the left of -the Lowlands Road crept a queer quietness. The cow had dried, and the -dull weather kept the spout fish too deep down in the sand for the ready -fingers to reach them. So the household of Rob Donn starved to the bone. - -"To-morrow--they will be home tomorrow," said Jean to herself every day -to keep up her heart; but the days went by, and though it was something -to know that Rob was not among the killed at Culloden, it was not -something to stay the stomach. A stone-throw off were the best and -kindest hearts in the world: the woman's cousin, the rich merchant, -would give all he had on his board if he knew her trouble, and friends -without number would share the last bite with her. But to ask it would -be to say she was at the lowest, and to tell that Rob had left her -nothing, and she would sooner die in her pride. - -Such people as passed her way--and some of them old gossips--would have -gone in, but the withie was aye across the door, and that's the sign -that business is doing within no one dare disturb. The withie was -ever there except at night, when Jean was scouring the countryside for -something to eat. - -The bairn dwined so fast that even the mother (and blind indeed's -the mother at that bit) saw a little of it. There was no longer the -creepie-stool at the back of the house, in the sun, and the bairn on it, -watching the birds; her shanks grew thin like spirtles; her eyes sank -far ben in her face, and she would not go the length of the door. She -sat at the fireside and laughed her poor cold laugh less every day, till -one long thought came to her that kept her busy at the thinking from -morning till night with a face like a _cailleach_ of eighty. - -"White love, white love," Jean would be saying, "your father is on the -road with stots and a pouch of cockades." - -At that the bairn would come back from her roaming; but soon she was off -again into the deeps of mind, her wide eyes like the windows of an empty -house for all that could be seen through them. - -"Oh! but it will be the fine cockade," poor Jean would press--"what am -I saying?--the pack of your father will be full of them. Not the white -ones of silk only, but the red and the grassy green, my little calf. -You'll be wearing them when you will." - -No heeding in the bairn's face. - -Then Jean would go out and pull the tansy at the door, and give it to -the little one to get the fine scent. The curious shells from the shore, -too, would she gather, and lay in rings about the chair, and call her -the Queen in her castle. For ever would there be a song at her lips, -even if the drops would be in her eyes--old daft songs from fairs and -weddings, and fairy rhyming and cheery stories about the Good People up -on Sithean Sluaidhe. Her fingers were for ever soft about the bairn, her -flesh and blood, stroking in the hair, softening the cushion, petting -her in every hand's-turn. She made a treat to herself by asking her, now -and then, something that had to be answered "Yes" or "No," and "Mother" -was so sweet in her ears that she would be content to hear no more in -all her lifetime. - -All the day the bairn crouched up in a hoop-chair with her neck slack -and her chin on her breast. Jean was loth to leave her in her bed in the -mornings, for she had a notion that to get her out of the blankets and -to put her in the clothes of the busy world would be to keep her in the -trim for living on. - -Still there was no sign of the men returning. Often was Jean's foot at -the door and her hand over her eyes to see if there was no stir at Stron -or Kilachatrine, and but for good stuff, her heart failed five-score -times a-day. - -At last, on a day of days, the bairn could not be stirred to notice -anything. The tansy fell out of her fingers, and she picked at the wool -of the plaid that wrapped her; the shells had no charm for her eye. - -Jean made the pack of the coming father as routh as a magic cave. "That -father of yours, darling, what a many wonderful things he will bring! I -see him on the road. Stots, and cows with milk brimming from the udders, -and a pet sheep for his _caileag bheag_; pretty gold and silver things, -and brooches and shining stuff. That father of yours! Hurry, father, -hurry! Jingling things, and wee fairy-men, and bells to ring for you, -m' eudail; pretty glasses and dishes to play with, and--O my darling! my -darling!" - -The bairn's face lost the deep red spots; her little mouth slacked and -fell; her eyes shut on the sight of the fine things her poor mother made -for her out of a rich and willing mind. - -Jean lifted her and put her on the bed, and ran with a gutting-knife to -where Mally the dappled one lay at the back. - -"I must be doing it!" said the woman, and she bled the brute as they do -in the poor years in Lorn, and took the cogie of blood into the house to -make a pudding of. The last handful of meal in the girael went into the -pot with the warm blood, and she was stirring it with a spoon over the -fire when the child cluttered at the throat. - -Jean turned about with a cry, and at the minute a bagpipe's lilting came -over the glassy bay from Stron Point. - -It was Clan Campbell back from the wars, the heroes! clouted about the -heads and with stains on their red waistcoats that were thicker than -wine makes. Dol' Dubh played the old port, sweet and jaunty, at the head -of them; the Cornal and the Major snuffed the herrings and said, "Here's -our own place, sure enough! See the smoke from our own peats! And the -fine cock of the cap on Dunchuach!" - -On the Lowlands road the town emptied itself, and the folks ran fast and -furious--the boys first, the young women next, and the old folks peching -behind. But if the town was up on the warriors soon, the Duke himself -was before it. He saw the first of the Company from the Castle, and he -was in the saddle for all his threescore, like a boy, and down like the -wind to Boshang Gate. - -"Halt!" cried the Cornal to his men, and Dol' Dubh's bag emptied itself -with a grant. - -"_Tha sibh an sol!_ You are here, cousin," said the Duke. "Proud am I -to see you and our good lads. They did the old trick well!" - -"They did that, MacCailein. The stuff's aye to the fore." - -"It's in the blood, man. We have't in us, high or low. I have but one -thing to vex me." - -"Name it, cousin." - -"Well ye ken, Cornai. It's that I had not been with you to see the last -crushing Clan Campbell may need to give to an asp's head." - -"It was a good ploy missed, I'll not deny." - -"What about the Tearlach one? Well plucked, they are telling me?" - -"As foolish a lad as ever put tartan on hip, my lord! Frenchy, Frenchy, -MacCailein! all outside and no cognisance. Yourself or any of your -forebears at the head of his clans could have scoured all Albainn of -Geordie's Low-Country red-coats, and yet there were only six thousand -true Gaels in all the fellow's corps." - -"To read my letters, you would think the whole North was on fire!" - -"A bantam's crow, cousin. Clan Campbell itself could have thrawed the -neck of it at any time up to Dunedin." - -"They made a fair stand, did they not? - -"Uch! Poor eno'--indeed it was not what you would call a coward's tulzie -either." - -"Well, well, that's over, lads I I am proud of my clan and town. _Slochd -a Chubair gu bragh!_ Stack your guns in the arm-room, see your wives and -bairns, and come up-by to the Castle for the heroes' bite and sup. Who's -that with the white cockade in his bonnet? Is't Rob Donn?" - -"It is Rob Donn, cousin, with a bit of the ribbon contrivance for the -diversion of his bairn. He tore it from the bonnet of the seventh man he -put an end to." - -"There's luck in the number, any way, though it was a dear plaything. -March!" Down the road, with their friends hanging about them, and the -boys carrying guns and knapsacks, went the men for the town, and Rob -Donn left the company as it passed near his own door. - -"Faith! 'tis a poor enough home-coming, without wife or bairn to meet -one," said he, as he pushed in the door. - -"Wife! wife!" he cried ben among the peat-reek, "there's never a stot, -but here's the cockade for the little one!" - - - - -A FINE PAIR OF SHOES - - -THE beginnings of things are to be well considered--we have all a little -of that art; but to end well and wisely is the gift of few. Hunters and -herds on the corri and the hill--they are at the simple end of life, and -ken the need for the task complete. The stag must be gralloched ere ye -brag of him, the drove must be at the market ere ye say anything of the -honesty of the glens ye pass through. - -And what I like best about our own Gaels is their habit of bringing the -work of a day or the work of a lifetime to what (in their own notions) -is an end round and polished. - -When our women die, they do it with something of a daintiness. Their -dead-clothes are in the awmrie; I have seen them with the cakes toasted -and the board set for their funerals. Travelling wide on unfriendly -foreign roads, living by sword or wit, you know that our men, the -poorest among them, with an empty sporran, kept the buttons of their -duds of good silver, to pay, if need be, for something more than a -gangrel's burial. I like to think of him in story who, at his end in -bed, made the folk trick him out in gallant style with tartan, targe, -brogue, and bonnet, and the sword in his hand. - -"A Gaelic gentleman," said he, "should come to his journey's end -somewhat snod and well-put-on." And his son played "Cha till mi tuilidh" -("I return no more") on the bag-pipe by his firm command. - -It is not even in this unco undertaking of Death that the polish must -be put on the task (though poor's the creature who dies clumsily); it -should be the same with every task of a day. - -And so Baldi Crom, making a fine pair of shoes on a day in Carnus, put -the best skill of his fingers to every stitch. He had been working at -them since the command came in the morning, and now it was the mouth of -night, and on one of them the finest of the fine sewing was still to do. -About the place there was nobody but the old man, for he was the last, -in a way, of the old stock of Carnus (now a _larach_ of low lintels, and -the nettle over all); and he was without woman to put _caschrom_ to -his soil or hip to a creel of peats. And so he lived on the brae of -Camus--that same far up and lonely in the long glen. - -"They'll be the best I ever put brog in," said he, looking fondly at the -fine work, the yellow thread standing out on the toes, patterned like -a leaf of the whortleberry, set about with the serpent-work of the old -crosses. Bite nor sap, kail nor crowdie, did he taste all day. Working -in the light of his open door, he could see, if he had the notion, the -whole glen rolled out before him, brimming with sun, crossed in the heat -of the day by deer from Dalavich seeking for the woods of Loch Finne; -the blue reek of the townships at the far end might have cheered him -with the thought that life was in sight though his house was lonely. But -crouped over the lap-stone, he made love to his work, heeding nothing -else but the sewing of the fine pair of shoes. - -It was the night before the town market. Droves of bellowing -cattle--heifers, stots, and stirks--were going down the glen from Port -Sonachan, cropping hurried mouthfuls by the way as they went and as the -dogs would let them. And three Benderloch drovers came off the road and -into Baldi Crom's house, after the night was down on the glen and he had -the cruisie lighted. They sat them down round the fire in the middle of -the floor and ate bannocks and cheese. - -"How's thy family, 'Illeasbuig?" said a drover, stirring up the peat as -if he were at his own door-end. Down on the roadside the cattle, black -and yellow, crushed the sappy grass and mourned in bellows for their -lost fields. - -"Splendid! splendid!" said the old man, double over his shoes, fondling -them with the fingers of a mother on a first baby. The light was low -in the cruisie, for the oil was well down, and the fire and the cruisie -made a ring of light that could scarcely slip over the backs of the men -sitting round the peats. A goat scratched his head but-and-ben against -the wattles; in corners the darkness was brown and thick. - -"I hear Cailen's in the Low-country, but what has come of Tormaid?" said -one, with knee-breeches, and hose of coarse worsted. - -The old man gave a quick start, and the lapstone fell from his knees, -the shoe he was at with it. He bent over and felt like a blind man for -them on the floor before he made answer. - -"Tormaid, my gallant son! Ye have not heard of him lately, then?" - -"Never a word, 'Illeasbuig. People on the going foot, like drovers, hear -all the world's gossip but the _sgeuls_ of their own _sgireachd_. We -have been far North since Martinmas: for us there must be many a story -to tell 'twixt here and Inneraora. A stout lad and pretty, Tormaid too, -as ever went to the beginning of fortune! Where might he be enow?" - -"Here and there, friend, here and there! A restless scamp, a wanderer, -but with parts. Had he not the smart style at the game of _camanachi?_ -He was namely for it in many places." - -"As neat a player as ever took shinty in hand, master! I have the name -of a fair player myself, but that much I'll allow your lad. Is he to the -West side, or farther off?" - -"Farther off, friend. The pipes now--have you heard him as a player on -the chanter?" - -"As a piper, 'Illeasbuig! His like was not in three shires. I have -heard him at reel and march, but these were not his fancy: for him the -_piobaireachds_ that scholarly ones play!" - -"My gallant boy!" said Baldi Crom, rubbing soft on the shoe with the -palm of a hand. - -"Once upon a time," said the drover, "we were on our way to a Lowland -Tryst. Down Glen Falloch a Soccach man and I heard him fill the -nightfall with the 'Bhoilich' of Morar, with the brag of a whole clan in -his warbling. He knew piping, the fellow with me, and the tear came to -his cheek, thinking of the old days and the old ploys among the dirks -and _sgians_." - -"There was never the beat of him," said the shoemaker. - -"Throughither a bit--" - -"But good, good at heart, man! With a better chance of fortune he might -be holding his head to-day as high as the best of them." The drovers -looked at each other with a meaning that was not for the eyes of the old -man; but he had small chance of seeing it, for he was throng at his fine -pair of shoes. - -"He had a name for many arts," said the man with coarse hose, "but -they were not the arts that give a lad settlement and put money in his -purse." - -"The hot young head, man! He would have cured," said the old man, sewing -hard. "Think of it," said he: "was ever a more humoursome fellow to walk -a glen with? His songs, his stories, his fast jump at one's meaning, -and his trick of leaving all about him in a good key with themselves and -him. Did ever one ask a Saxon shilling from his purse that it was not a -cheery gift if the purse held it?" - -"True, indeed!" said the drovers, eating bannocks and cheese. - -"'Twixt heaven and hell," said the fellow with the coarse hose, "is but -a spang. It's so easy for some folk to deserve the one gate--so many -their gifts--that the cock-sureness leaves them careless, and they -wander into the wrong place." - -"You were speaking?" said Baldi, a little angry, though he heard but -half. - -"I said thy son was a fellow of many gifts," answered the drover, in a -confusion. - -"He had no unfriends that I ken of," said the old man, busy at the -shoes; "young or old, man or woman." - -"Especially woman," put in another drover, wrinkling at the eyes. - -"I've had five sons: three in the King's service, and one in the -Low-country; here's my young wanderer, and he was--he is--the jewel of -them all!" - -"You hear of him sometimes?" - -"I heard of him and from him this very day," said Baldi, busy at the -brogues, white and drawn at the face and shaking at the lips. "I have -worked at these shoes since morning, and little time is there to put bye -on them, for at Inneraora town must they be before breakfast. Solomon -Carrier, passing at three, gives me a cry and takes them." - -"They're a fine pair of shoes." - -"Fine indeed; the finest of the fine! They're for a particular one." - -"Duke John himself, perhaps?" - -"No, man; a particular one, and were they not his in time a sorry man -was I. They're the best Baldi Crom ever put leather on." - -Till the turn of the night the drovers slept in their plaids, their -cattle steaming out-by in the dark, munching the coarse grass selvedge, -breathing heavy. And when the men and their beasts went in the darkness -of the morning, Baldi Crom was still throng at his fine pair of shoes. - -"I'm late, I'm surely late," said he, toiling hard, but with no -sloven-work, at his task. - -The rain had come with the morning, and was threshing out-by on peat and -thatch. Inside, the fire died, and the cruisie gave warnings that its -oil was low, but Baldi Crom was too throng on the end of his task to -notice. And at last his house dropped into darkness. - -"Tormaid! Tormaid! my little hero--I'm sore feared you'll die without -shoes after all," cried the old man, staggering to the door for -daylight. He had the door but opened when he fell, a helpless lump, on -the clay floor. The rain slanted on his grey hairs and spat on a fine -shoe. - -Far down the good long glen the drovers were tramping after their -cattle, and the dun morning was just before them when they got to the -gate of Inneraora. Here there was a great to-do, for the kind gallows -stood stark before the Arches. Round about it were the townspeople -waiting for a hanging. - -"Who is't, and what is't for?" asked the drover with the knee-breeches -and the coarse hose, pushing into the crowd. - -"Tormaid, the son of the Carnus cobbler," said a woman with a plaid over -her head. "He killed a man in a brawl at Braleckan and raped his purse. -Little enough to put tow to a pretty lad's neck for, sure enough!" -"Stand clear there!" cried a sharp voice, and the hangman and his friend -came to the scaffold's foot with a lad in front of them, his hands -shackled behind his back. He was a strong straight lad, if anything -overly dour in the look, and he wore a good coat and tiews, but neither -boot nor bonnet. Under the beam he put back his shoulders with a jerk -and looked at the folk below, then over at Dunchuach with the mist above -the fort like smoke. - -"They might have given him a pair of old baucbels, if no better, to die -in," said the drover in the woman's ear. - -"_Ochanoch!_ and they might!" she said. "The darling! He lost his shoes -in swimming Duglas Water to get clear, and they say he sent yesterday to -his father for a pair, but they're not come. Queer, indeed, is that, for -'twas the brag of the folks he came of that they aye died with a good -pair of shoon on their feet!" - - - - -CASTLE DARK. - - -YOU know Castle Dark, women? - -"Well, we know the same, just man and blind!" - -And you, my lads? - -"None better, Paruig Dali; morning and night, in the moon and in the -full white day!" - -Then of Castle Dark is my story. Is the cruisie alight on the rafter? -More peats, little one, on the fire. - -Once upon a time Castle Dark was a place of gentility and stirring days. -You have heard it,--you know it; now it is like a deer's skull in Wood -Mamore, empty, eyeless, sounding to the whistling wind, but blackened -instead of bleached in the threshing rains. When the day shines and the -sun coaxes the drowsy mists from the levels by the river, that noble -house that was brisks up and grey-whitens, minding maybe of merry times; -the softest smirr of rain--and the scowl comes to corbie-stone and -gable; black, black grow the stones of old ancient Castle Dark! Little -one, _m' eudail_, put the door to, and the sneck down. - -"True for you, Paruig Dali; you know the place as if you had seen it." - -With eyes Paruig Dali has never seen it. But my friends tell me what -they know, and beyond I have learned of myself. Up the river-side, many -a time I pass to the place and over its low dykes, dry-stone, broken and -crumbling to the heel. The moss is soft on the little roads, so narrow -and so without end, winding round the land; the nettle cocks him right -braggardly over the old home of bush and flower, poisoning the air. -Where the lady dozed in her shady seat below the alder-tree, looking -out between half-shut eyes at the proud Highlands--loch, glen, and -mountain--is but a root rotten, and hacked by the woodman's whittle. -A tangle of wild wood, bracken, and weed smothers the rich gardens of -Castle Dark. - -"It is so, it is so, Paruig Dali, blind man, prince among splendid -pipers and storied men!" - -And to stand on the broad clanging steps that lifted from the -hunting-road to the great door--that is a thinking man's trial. To me, -then, will be coming graveyard airs, yellow and vexatious, searching -eager through my bones for this old man's last weakness. "Thou sturdy -dog!" will they be saying, "some day, some day! Look at this strong -tower!" With an ear to the gap on the side of the empty ditch, I can -hear the hollowness of the house rumbling with pains, racked at _cabar_ -and corner-stone, the thought and the song gone clean away. There is -no window, then, that has not a complaint of its own; no loop-hole, no -vent, no grassy chimney that the blind fellow cannot hear the pipe of. -Straight into the heart's core of Castle Dark looks the sun; the deep -tolbooth of the old reivers and the bed-chamber of the maid are open -wide to the night and to the star! - -"_Ochan! ochan!_" - -You that only ken the castle in common day or night and plain man's -weather have but little notion of its wonders. It was there, and black -and hollow, ere ever you were born, or Paruig Dali. To see Castle Dark -one must take the Blue Barge and venture on two trips. - -"The Blue Barge, just man?" - -That same. The _birlinn ghorm_, the galley of fairy Lorn. It lies in the -sunlight on the bay, or the moonlight in certain weathers, and twelve -of the handsomest sit on the seats with the oars in their hands, the red -shirt bulging over the kilt-belt. At the stem of the barge is the chair -of the visitor. Gentle or semple, 'tis the same boat and crew, and the -same cushioned chair, for all that make the jaunt to Castle Dark. My -story is of two trips a man made by Barge Blue up the river to the white -stairs. - -He roved round the Lowlands road on a fine summer day, and out on the -sands among the running salt threads of ebb tide. Among the shells, his -eyes (as it might be) fell on the castle, and he had a notion to make -the trip to it by a new road. Loudly he piped to sea. If loudly he -piped, keen was the hearing, for yonder came the galley of fairy Lorn, -the twelve red-shirts swinging merry at the oars and chanting a Skye -_iorram_. - -"Here's an exploit!" said the man of my story. "There's dignity in yon -craft, or less than red-shirts was the wearing of the scamps who row -her." - -The loch curled like a feather before her and frothed far behind, and -soon her nose ran high on the sand. No word was said, but the first pair -of rowers let out a carved plank, and the fellow of my story went over -it and behind to the chair with the cushioned seat. - -"To the castle?" asked the captain (as it might be), in the way of one -who speaks a master, and Adventurer said, "Castle be it." The barge was -pushed off the sand, the oars fell on the water, and she curved into the -river-mouth. - -When Adventurer reached the bridge, it was before the time of war, and -the country from end to end sat quiet, free, and honest. Our folks lived -the clean out-by life of shepherds and early risers. Round these hills, -the woods--the big green woods--were trembling with bird and beast, -and the two glens were crowded with warm homes--every door open, and -the cattle untethered on the hill. Summer found the folks like ourselves -here, far up on sappy levels among the hills, but their sheilings more -their own than ours are, with never a reiver nor a broken clan in all -the land. Good stout roads and dry went down the passes to Castle Dark -from all airts of Albainn--roads for knight and horse, but free and -safe for the gentlest girl ever so lonely. By sea came gabberts of far -France with wine and drink; by land the carriers brought rich cloths, -spices, and Italian swords such as never were before or since. I made a -small _piobaireachd_ once on such a blade; if you put me over my pipes, -I-- - -"Later the pipes, Paruig Dali, the best player in the world! to thy -story this time." Is the cup to my right or left? Blessings! The Castle -and Barge were my story. - -Up and on, then, under the bridge, went Adventurer and his company of -twelve, and he trailed white fingers over the low side of the boat, the -tide warm like new milk. Under the long arch he held up his head and -whooped gaily, like the boy he was in another dream, and Mactallamh -laughed back from behind the smell of lime-drop and _crotal_ hanging to -the stones. Then into the sun again, on the wide flat river, with the -fields sloping down on each hand, nodding to the lip with rush and -flower. - -"Faith and here's fortune!" said Adventurer. "Such a day for sailing and -sights was never before." - -And the Blue Barge met nor stone nor stay, but ever the twelve fine lads -swinging cheerily at the oars, till they came to the white stairs. - -Off the boat and up the clanging steps went Adventurer as bold as -Eachan, and the bushes waving soft on every side. The gravel crunched -to his foot--the white round gravel of Cantyre; kennelled hounds cried -warning from the ditch-side; round him were the scenting flowers and the -feeling of the little roads winding so without end all about the garden. - -"Queer is this!" said he, feeling the grass-edge with his feet and -fingering the leaves. "Here, surely, is weed nor nettle, but the trim -bush and the swinging rose. The gardeners have been busy in the gardens -of old ancient Castle Dark!" - -When he came to the ditch, the drawbrig was down. To the warm airs of -the day the windows, high and low, were open; a look of throng life was -over the house, and in-by some one plucked angrily at the strings of a -harp. Reek rose lazy and blue over the chimneys, the smell of roasting -meats and rich broths hung on the air. - -Under a tree got Adventurer and deep in thought. And soon the harping -came to an end. A girl stepped to the bridge and over into the garden. -She took to the left by the butter-house and into My Lady's Canter, -lined with foreign trees. Along the wide far road came a man to meet -her, good-shaped, in fine clothes, tartan trews fitting close on leg and -haunch, and a leather jacket held at the middle by a _crioslach_. - -Under his tree stood Adventurer as they passed back, and close beside -him the courtier pushed the hilt of a small-sword to his back and took -the woman in his arms. - -"Then if ye must ken," said he, shamefacedly, "I am for the road -to-morrow." - -The girl--ripe and full, not over-tall, well balanced, her hair waved -back from over brown eyes, gathered in a knot and breaking to a curl on -the nape of the neck like a wave on the shell-white shore--got hot at -the skin, and a foot drummed the gravel in an ill temper. - -"For yon silly cause again?" she asked, her lips thinning over her -teeth. - -"For the old cause," said he; "my father's, my dead brothers', my -clan's, ours for a hundred years. Do not lightly the cause, my dear; it -may be your children's yet." - -"You never go with my will," quo' the girl again. "Here am I, far from a -household of cheery sisters, so lonely, so lonely! Oh! Morag and Aoirig, -and the young ones! were I back among them from this brave tomb!" - -"Tomb, sweet!" - -"Tomb said I, and tomb is it!" cried the woman, in a storm. "Who is here -to sing with me and comfort me in the misty mornings, to hearten me -when you are at wood or hill? The dreary woods, the dreary, dreary -shore--they give me the gloom! My God, what a grey day!" - -(And yet, by my troth, 'twas a sunny day by the feel of it, and the -birds were chirming on every tree!) - -The gentleman put his hands on the girl's shoulder and looked deep -in her eyes, thinking hard for a wee, and biting at his low lip in a -nervous way. - -"At night," said he, "I speak to you of chase and the country-side's -gossip. We have sometimes neighbours in our house as now,--old Askaig's -goodwife and the Nun from Inishail--a good woman and pious." - -Up went the lady's head, and she laughed bitter and long. - -"My good husband," she said, in a weary way, "you are like all that wear -trews; you have never trained your tracking but to woodcraft, or else -you had found the wild-kit in a woman's heart." - -"There's my love, girl, and I think you love--" - -"Tuts, man! I talked not of that. Love is--love, while it lasts, and ye -brag of Askaig's wife and the Nun (good Lord!), and the old harridans -your cousins from Lochow!" - -"'Tis but a tirrivie of yours, my dear," said the man, kindly, kissing -her on the teeth, and she with her hands behind her back. "Tomorrow the -saddle, Sir Claymore, and the south country! Hark ye, sweet, I'll fetch -back the most darling thing woman ever dreamt of." - -"What might his name be?" asked the girl, laughing, but still with a -bitterness, and the two went round to the ditch-brig and in-by. - -Adventurer heard the little fine airs coming from the west, coiling, -full of sap-smell, crooning in turret and among the grassy gable-tops, -and piping into the empty windows. - -'Twas a summer's end when he went on the next jaunt, a hot night and -hung with dripping stars. The loch crawled in from a black waste of -sorrow and strange hills, and swished on the shore, trailing among the -wreck with the hiss of fingers through ribbons of silk. My dears, my -dears! the gloom of hidden seas in night and lonely places! 'Tis that -dauntens me. I will be standing sometimes at the night's down-fall over -above the bay, and hearkening to the grinding of the salt wash on rock -and gravel, and never a sound of hope or merriment in all that weary -song. You that have seeing may ken the meaning of it; never for Paruig -Dali but wonder and the heavy heart! - -"'Tis our thought a thousand times, just man; we are the stour that wind -and water make the clod of! You spoke of a second jaunt?" - -As ye say. It was in winter; and the morning-- - -"Winter, said ye, Paruig Dali? 'Twas summer and night before." - -Winter I said, and winter it was, before _faoilteach_, and the edge of -the morning. The fellow of my _sgeul_, more than a twelvemonth older, -went to the breast wall and cried on Barge Blue that's ever waiting for -the sailor who's for sailing on fairy seas. - -In she came, with her twelve red-shirts tugging bravely at the oars, and -the nose of her ripping the salt bree. Out, too, the carved plank, made, -I'll warrant, by the Norwegian fellow who fashioned the Black Bed of -MacArtair, and over it to the cushioned seat Adventurer! - -The little waves blobbed and bubbled at the boat's shoulders; she put -under the arch and up the cold river to the white stairs. - -It was the middle and bloodiest time of all our wars. The glens behind -were harried, and their cattle were bellowing in strange fields. Widows -grat on the brae-sides and starved with their bairns for the bere and -oat that were burned. But Adventurer found a castle full of company, the -rich scum of water-side lairds and Lowland gentry, dicing and drinking -in the best hall of Castle Dark. Their lands were black, their homes -levelled, or their way out of the country--if they were Lowland--was -barred by jealous clans. So there they were, drinking the reddest and -eating the fattest--a wanton crew, among them George Mor, namely for -women and wine and gentlemanly sword-play. - -They had been at the cartes after supper. Wine lay on the table in -rings and rivers. The curtains were across the window, and the candles -guttered in the sconces. Debauched airs flaffed abroad in the room. At -the head of the board, with her hair falling out of the knot, the -lady of the house dovered in her chair, her head against George Mor's -shoulder, and him sleeping fast with his chin on his vest. Two company -girls from the house in the forest slept forward on the table, their -heads on the thick of their arms, and on either hand of them the -lairds and foreigners. Of the company but two were awake, playing at -_bord-dubh_, small eyed, oozing with drink. But they slept by-and-by -like the lave, and sleep had a hold of Castle Dark through and through. - -Adventurer heard the cock crow away at the gean-tree park. - -One of the girls, stirring in her sleep, touched a glass with her -elbow, and it fell on its side, the dark wine splashing over the -table, crawling to the edge, thudding in heavy drops on the shoe of the -mistress of the house, who drew back her foot without waking. But her -moving started up the man at her ear. He looked at her face, kissed her -on the hair, and got to his feet with no noise. A sour smile curdled -his face when he looked about the room, drunken and yellow-sick in the -guttering candlelight. - -Stretching himself, he made for the window and pulled back the curtain. - -The mountain looked in on the wastrel company, with a black and blaming -scowl--the mountain set in blackness at the foot, but its brow touching -the first of a cold day. - -Tree and bush stood like wraiths all about the garden, the river -cried high and snell. George Mor turned and looked at the room and its -sleeping company like corpses propped in chairs, in the light of candle -and daybreak. - -The smell of the drunken chamber fogged at the back of his throat. -He laughed in a kind of bitter way, the lace shaking at his neck and -wrist-bands: then his humour changed, and he rued the night and his -merry life. - -"I wish I was yont this cursed country," said he to himself, shivering -with cold. "'Tis these folk lead me a pretty spring, and had George Mor -better luck of his company he was a decent man. And yet--and yet--who's -George Mor to be better than his neighbours? As grow the fir-trees, some -of them crooked and some of them straight, and we are the way the winds -would have us!" - -He was standing in the window yet, deep in the morning's grief, running -his fingers among his curls. - -Without warning the door of the room opened, and a man took one step in, -soft, without noise, white-faced, and expecting no less than he found, -by the look in his eyes. It was the goodwife's husband, still with the -mud on his shoes and the sword on his belt. He beckoned on the fellow -at the window, and went before him (the company still in their sleep), -making for the big door, and George Mor as he followed lifted a sword -from a pin. - -Close by Adventurer the two men stopped. It was on a level round of old -moss, damp but springy, hid from the house by some saugh-trees. - -The master of the house spoke first. Said he, "It's no great surprise; -they told me at the ferry over-by that strange carry-on and George Mor -were keeping up the wife's heart in Castle Dark." - -"She's as honest a wife as ever--" - -"Fairly, fairly, I'll allow--when the wind's in that airt. It's been a -dull place this for her, and I have small skill of entertainment; but, -man, I thought of her often, away in the camp!" - -He was taking off his jacket as he spoke, and looking past George Mor's -shoulder and in between the trees at the loch. And now the day was -fairly on the country. - -"A bit foolish is your wife--just a girl, I'm not denying; but true at -the core." - -"Young, young, as ye say, man! She'll make, maybe, all the more taking -a widow woman. She'll need looks and gaiety indeed, for my poor cause is -lost for good and all." - -"We saved the castle for you, at any rate. But for my friends in-by and -myself the flambeau was at the root o't." - -"So, my hero? In another key I might be having a glass with you over -such friendship, but the day spreads and here's our business before us." - -"I've small stomach for this. It's a fool's quarrel." - -"_Thoir an aire!_--Guard, George Mor!" - -They fought warmly on the mossy grass, and the tinkle of the thin blades -set the birds chirping in the bushes, but it could not be that that -wakened my lady dovering in her chair in the room of guttering candles. - -She started up in a dream, and found George Mor gone, and the mark of -muddy brogues near the door fitted in with her dream. She wakened none -of her drugged company, but hurried to the garden and in between the -foreign trees to the summons of the playing swords. - -"Stop, stop, husband!" she cried before she saw who was at the fighting; -but only George Mor heard, and he half turned his head. - -She was a little late. Her man, with a forefinger, was feeling the way -to the scabbard, and a gout of blood was gathering at the point of his -sword, when she got through the trees. - -"Madame," said he, cool enough but short in the breath, and bloody -a little at the mouth, "here's your gallant. He had maybe skill -at diversion, but I've seen better at the small-sword. To-night my -un-friends are coming back to harry Castle Dark, and I'm in little -humour to stop them. Fare ye weel!" - -A blash of rain threshed in Adventurer's face; the tide crept at his -feet, the fall of the oars on Barge Blue sank low and travelled far off. -It was the broad day. Over above the river, Castle Dark grew black, but -the fellow of my story could not see it. - -"And the woman, Paruig Dali? What came of the woman?" - -Another peat on the fire, little one. So! _That_ the fellow of my story -would need another trip to see. But Barge Blue is the ferry for all, -high tide or low, in the calm and in the storm. - - - - -A GAELIC GLOSSARY. - - -A bhean! O wife! - -A pheasain! O brat! - -Amadant fool. Amadaitt dhoill! O blind fool! - -Bas, the haft of a shinty in this case. - -Bs, death. Bs Dhiarmaid, death to Diarmaid! Beannachd, blessing. -Beannachdlets! blessing with him! - -Beannachd leat! blessing with thee, farewell! Biodag, a dirk. - -Btrlinn ghorm, blue barge. - -Bochdan, a ghost. - -Bodach, an old man. - -Bord-dubh, black-board, the game of draughts. - -Bratach, a banner. - -Cabar, a rafter, a log of wood for throwing in Highland sports. - -Caileag bkeag, a little girl. - -Cailleach, old woman. Cailleachan, old women. - -Camatty, club used in the game of shinty. Camanachd, the game of shinty. - -Cas, foot. Cas-chrom, a primitive hand-plough. Choillich-dhuibh, O -black-cock! - -Clach-cuid-fear, a lifting-stone for testing a man's strength. - -Clackneart, putting-stone. - -Clarsack, harp. - -Cothrom na Feinne, the fair-play of Finne; man to man. Crioslach, belt, -girdle. - -Cromag, a shepherd's crook. - -Crotal, lichen. - -Crunluadh, a movement in piping. Crunluadh breabach, a smarter movement -Crunluadh mack, the quickest part of a piobaireachd. - -Dh! O God! Dia, God. Dhia gleidh sinn! God keep us! - -Dorlach, a knapsack. - -Duitn'-nasal, gentleman. - -Eas, waterfall or cataract. - -Faoiltcach, the short season of stormy days at the end of January. - -Feadan, the chanter or pipe on which pipers practise tunes before -playing them on the bagpipes. Fuarag, hasty-pudding, a mixture of -oatmeal and cold water, or oatmeal and milk or cream. - -Gruagach, a sea-maiden in this case. - -'Ille! lad! 'Illean! lads! - -Iolair, eagle lorram, a boat-song. - -Laochain! hero! comrade! - -Larach, site of a ruined building. - -Londubh, blackbird. - -Mallachd ort! malediction on thee! - -Marag-dkubh, a black pudding, made with blood and suet. - -M' eudail, my darling, my treasure. - -Mhoire Mkathair, an ave, "Mary Mother." - -Mo chridhe! my heart! - -Mo thruaigh! alas, my trouble! - -Och! ochan! ochanoch! ochanie! ochanorie! exclamations of sorrow, alas! -Och a Dh! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob--O God! yonder it is now! -Rise, rise, Rob! - -Oinseach, a female fool. - -Piobaireachd, the symphony of bagpipe music, usually a lament, salute, -or gathering Piob-mhor, the great Highland bagpipe. - -Seangan, an ant. - -Sgalag, a male farm-servant. - -Sgeul, a tale, narrative. - -Sgiati-dubh, black knife, worn in the Highlander's stocking. - -Sgireachd, parish. - -Siod e! there it is! - -Siubhal, allegro of the piobaireachd music. - -Slochd-a-chubair gu bragh! the rallying cry of the old Inneraora -burghers, "Slochd-a-chubair for ever!" - -So! here! So agad e! here he is! - -Spgachd, club-footed, awkward at walking. - -Spreidh, cattle of all sorts, a drove. - -Stad! stop! - -Suas e! up with it! A term of encouragement. - -Taibhsear, a visionary; one with second-sight. - -Tha sibk an so! you are here! - -Thoir an aire! beware! look out! - -Uiseag, the skylark. - -Urlar, the ground-work, adagio, or simple melody of a piobaireachd. - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Pibroch, by Neil Munro - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PIBROCH *** - -***** This file should be named 43729-8.txt or 43729-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/7/2/43729/ - -Produced by David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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-<title>
-The Lost Pibroch, by Neil Munro
-</title>
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-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Pibroch, by Neil Munro
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: The Lost Pibroch
-And other Sheiling Stories
-
-Author: Neil Munro
-
-Release Date: September 15, 2013 [EBook #43729]
-Last Updated: March 8, 2018
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PIBROCH ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-<div style="height: 8em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h1>
-THE LOST PIBROCH
-</h1>
-<h3>
-AND OTHER SHEILING STORIES
-</h3>
-<p>
-<br />
-</p>
-<h2>
-By Neil Munro
-</h2>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<p>
-<b>CONTENTS</b>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE LOST PIBROCH </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0002"> RED HAND </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0003"> THE SECRET OF THE HEATHER-ALE </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0004"> BOBOON'S CHILDREN </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE FELL SERGEANT. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0006"> BLACK MURDO </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE SEA-FAIRY OF FRENCH FORELAND. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0008"> SHUDDERMAN SOLDIER </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0009"> WAR. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0010"> A FINE PAIR OF SHOES </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0011"> CASTLE DARK. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0012"> A GAELIC GLOSSARY. </a>
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-THE LOST PIBROCH
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>O the make of a piper go seven years of his own learning and seven
-generations before. If it is in, it will out, as the Gaelic old-word says;
-if not, let him take to the net or sword. At the end of his seven years
-one born to it will stand at the start of knowledge, and leaning a fond
-ear to the drone, he may have parley with old folks of old affairs.
-Playing the tune of the “Fairy Harp,” he can hear his forefolks, plaided
-in skins, towsy-headed and terrible, grunting at the oars and snoring in
-the caves; he has his whittle and club in the “Desperate Battle” (my own
-tune, my darling!), where the white-haired sea-rovers are on the shore,
-and a stain's on the edge of the tide; or, trying his art on Laments, he
-can stand by the cairn of kings, ken the colour of Fingal's hair, and see
-the moon-glint on the hook of the Druids!
-</p>
-<p>
-To-day there are but three pipers in the wide world, from the Sound of
-Sleat to the Wall of France. Who they are, and what their tartan, it is
-not for one to tell who has no heed for a thousand dirks in his doublet,
-but they may be known by the lucky ones who hear them. Namely players
-tickle the chanter and take out but the sound; the three give a tune the
-charm that I mention—a long thought and a bard's thought, and they
-bring the notes from the deeps of time, and the tale from the heart of the
-man who made it.
-</p>
-<p>
-But not of the three best in Albainn today is my story, for they have not
-the Lost Pibroch. It is of the three best, who were not bad, in a place I
-ken—Half Town that stands in the wood.
-</p>
-<p>
-You may rove for a thousand years on league-long brogues, or hurry on
-fairy wings from isle to isle and deep to deep, and find no equal to that
-same Half Town. It is not the splendour of it, nor the riches of its folk;
-it is not any great routh of field or sheep-fank, but the scented winds of
-it, and the comfort of the pine-trees round and about it on every hand. My
-mother used to be saying (when I had the notion of fairy tales), that once
-on a time, when the woods were young and thin, there was a road through
-them, and the pick of children of a country-side wandered among them into
-this place to play at sheilings. Up grew the trees, fast and tall, and
-shut the little folks in so that the way out they could not get if they
-had the mind for it. But never an out they wished for. They grew with the
-firs and alders, a quiet clan in the heart of the big wood, clear of the
-world out-by.
-</p>
-<p>
-But now and then wanderers would come to Half Town, through the gloomy
-coves, under the tall trees. There were packmen with tales of the
-out-world. There were broken men flying from rope or hatchet. And once on
-a day of days came two pipers—Gilian, of Clan Lachlan of
-Strathlachlan, and Rory Ban, of the Macnaghtons of Dundarave.
-</p>
-<p>
-They had seen Half Town from the sea—smoking to the clear air on the
-hillside; and through the weary woods they came, and the dead quiet of
-them, and they stood on the edge of the fir-belt.
-</p>
-<p>
-Before them was what might be a township in a dream, and to be seen at the
-one look, for it stood on the rising hill that goes back on Lochow.
-</p>
-<p>
-The dogs barked, and out from the houses and in from the fields came the
-quiet clan to see who could be here. Biggest of all the men, one they
-named Coll, cried on the strangers to come forward; so out they went from
-the wood-edge, neither coy nor crouse, but the equal of friend or foe, and
-they passed the word of day.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Hunting,” they said, “in Easachosain, we found the roe come this way.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If this way she came, she's at Duglas Water by now, so you may bide and
-eat. Few, indeed, come calling on us in Half Town; but whoever they are,
-here's the open door, and the horn spoon, and the stool by the fire.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He took them in and he fed them, nor asked their names nor calling, but
-when they had eaten well he said to Rory, “You have skill of the pipes; I
-know by the drum of your fingers on the horn spoon.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I have tried them,” said Rory, with a laugh, “a bit—a bit. My
-friend here is a player.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You have the art?” asked Coll.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, not what yoo might call the whole art,” said Gilian, “but I can
-play—oh yes!I can play two or three ports.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You can that!” said Rory.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No better than yourself, Rory.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, maybe not, but—anyway, not all tunes; I allow you do
-'Mackay's Banner' in a pretty style.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Pipers,” said Coll, with a quick eye to a coming quarrel, “I will take
-you to one of your own trade in this place—Paruig Dali, who is
-namely for music.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's a name that's new to me,” said Rory, short and sharp, but up they
-rose and followed Big Coll.
-</p>
-<p>
-He took them to a bothy behind the Half Town, a place with turf walls and
-never a window, where a blind man sat winding pirns for the weaver-folks.
-</p>
-<p>
-“This,” said Coll, showing the strangers in at the door, “is a piper of
-parts, or I'm no judge, and he has as rare a stand of great pipes as ever
-my eyes sat on.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I have that same,” said the blind man, with his face to the door. “Your
-friends, Coll?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Two pipers of the neighbourhood,” Rory made answer. “It was for no piping
-we came here, but by the accident of the chase. Still and on, if pipes are
-here, piping there might be.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So be it,” cried Coll; “but I must go back to my cattle till night comes.
-Get you to the playing with Paruig Dali, and I'll find you here when I
-come back.” And with that he turned about and went off.
-</p>
-<p>
-Parig put down the ale and cake before the two men, and “Welcome you are,”
- said he.
-</p>
-<p>
-They ate the stranger's bite, and lipped the stranger's cup, and then,
-“Whistle 'The Macraes' March,' my fair fellow,” said the blind man.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How ken you I'm fair?” asked Rory.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Your tongue tells that. A fair man has aye a soft bit in his speech, like
-the lapping of milk in a cogie; and a black one, like your friend there,
-has the sharp ring of a thin burn in frost running into an iron pot. 'The
-Macraes' March,' <i>laochain</i>.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Rory put a pucker on his mouth and played a little of the fine tune.
-</p>
-<p>
-“So!” said the blind man, with his head to a side, “you had your lesson.
-And you, my Strathlachlan boy without beard, do you ken 'Muinntir a'
-Ghlinne so'?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How ken ye I'm Strathlachlan and beardless?” asked Gilian.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Strathlachlan by the smell of herring-scale from your side of the house
-(for they told me yesterday the gannets were flying down Strathlachlan
-way, and that means fishing), and you have no beard I know, but in what
-way I know I do not know.” Gilian had the <i>siubhal</i> of the pibroch
-but begun when the blind man stopped him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You have it,” he said, “you have it in a way, the Macarthur's way, and
-that's not my way. But, no matter, let us to our piping.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The three men sat them down on three stools on the clay floor, and the
-blind man's pipes passed round between them.
-</p>
-<p>
-“First,” said Paruig (being the man of the house, and to get the vein of
-his own pipes)—“first I'll put on them 'The Vaunting.'” He stood to
-his shanks, a lean old man and straight, and the big drone came nigh on
-the black rafters. He filled the bag at a breath and swung a lover's arm
-round about it. To those who know not the pipes, the feel of the bag in
-the oxter is a gaiety lost. The sweet round curve is like a girl's waist;
-it is friendly and warm in the crook of the elbow and against a man's
-side, and to press it is to bring laughing or tears.
-</p>
-<p>
-The bothy roared with the tuning, and then the air came melting and sweet
-from the chanter. Eight steps up, four, to the turn, and eight down went
-Paruig, and the <i>piobaireachd</i> rolled to his fingers like a man's
-rhyming. The two men sat on, the stools, with their elbows on their knees,
-and listened.
-</p>
-<p>
-He played but the <i>urlar</i>, and the <i>crunluadh</i> to save time, and
-he played them well.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Good indeed! Splendid, my old fellow!” cried the two; and said Gilian,
-“You have a way of it in the <i>crunluadh</i> not my way, but as good as
-ever I heard.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is the way of Padruig Og,” said Rory.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well I know it! There are tunes and tunes, and 'The Vaunting' is not bad
-in its way, but give me 'The Macraes' March.'”
- </p>
-<p>
-He jumped to his feet and took the pipes from the old man's hands, and
-over his shoulder with the drones.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stand back, lad!” he cried to Gilian, and Gilian went nearer the door.
-</p>
-<p>
-The march came fast to the chanter—the old tune, the fine tune that
-Kintail has heard before, when the wild men in their red tartan came over
-hill and moor; the tune with the river in it, the fast river and the
-courageous that kens not stop nor tarry, that runs round rock and over
-fall with a good humour, yet no mood for anything but the way before it.
-The tune of the heroes, the tune of the pinelands and the broad straths,
-the tune that the eagles of Loch Duich crack their beaks together when
-they hear, and the crows of that country-side would as soon listen to as
-the squeal of their babies.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well! mighty well!” said Paruig Dali. “You have the tartan of the clan in
-it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not bad, I'll allow,” said Gilian. “Let me try.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He put his fingers on the holes, and his heart took a leap back over two
-generations, and yonder was Glencoe! The grey day crawled on the white
-hills and the Mack roofs smoked below. Snow choked the pass, <i>eas</i>
-and corn filled with drift and flatted to the brae-face; the wind tossed
-quirky and and in the little bashes and among the smooring lintels and
-joists; the Mood of old and young lappered on the hearthstone, and the
-bairn, with a knifed throat, had an icy lip on a frozen teat. Out of the
-place went the tramped path of the Campbell butchers—far on their
-way to Glenlyon and the towns of paper and ink and liars—“Muinntir
-a' ghlinne so, muinntir a' ghlinne so!—People, people, people of
-this glen, this glen, this glen!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Dogs! dogs! O God of grace—dogs and cowards!” cried Rory. “I could
-be dirking a Diarmaid or two if by luck they were near me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is piping that is to be here,” said Paruig, “and it is not piping for
-an hour nor piping for an evening, but the piping of Dunvegan that stops
-for sleep nor supper.”
- </p>
-<p>
-So the three stayed in the bothy and played tune about while time went by
-the door. The birds flew home to the branches, the longnecked beasts
-flapped off to the shore to spear their flat fish; the rutting deers
-bellowed with loud throats in the deeps of the wood that stands round Half
-Town, and the scents of the moist night came gusty round the door. Over
-the back of Auchnabreac the sun trailed his plaid of red and yellow, and
-the loch stretched salt and dark from Cairn Dubh to Creaggans.
-</p>
-<p>
-In from the hill the men and the women came, weary-legged, and the bairns
-nodded at their heels. Sleepiness was on the land, but the pipers, piping
-in the bothy, kept the world awake.
-</p>
-<p>
-“We will go to bed in good time,” said the folks, eating their suppers at
-their doors; “in good time when this tune is ended.” But tune came on
-tane, and every tune better than its neighbour, and they waited.
-</p>
-<p>
-A cruisie-light was set alowe in the blind man's bothy, and the three men
-played old tunes and new tunes—salute and lament and brisk dances
-and marches that coax tired brogues on the long roads.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Here's 'Tulloch Ard' for you, and tell me who made it,” said Rory.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Who kens that? Here's 'Raasay's Lament,' the best port Padruig Mor ever
-put together.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Tunes and tunes. I'm for 'A Kiss o' the King's Hand.'”
- </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Thug mi pòg 'us pòg 'us pòg,
-Thug mi pòg do làmh an righ,
-Cha do chuir gaoth an craicionn caorach,
-Fear a fhuair an fhaoilt ach mi!”
- </pre>
-<p>
-Then a quietness came on Half Town, for the piping stopped, and the people
-at their doors heard but their blood thumping and the night-hags in the
-dark of the firwood.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A little longer and maybe there will be more,” they said to each other,
-and they waited; but no more music came from the drones, so they went in
-to bed.
-</p>
-<p>
-There was quiet over Half Town, for the three pipers talked about the Lost
-Tune.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A man my father knew,” said Gilian, “heard a bit of it once in Moideart.
-A terrible fine tune he said it was, but sore on the mind.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It would be the tripling,” said the Macnaghton, stroking a reed with a
-fond hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Maybe. Tripling is ill enough, but what is tripling? There is more in
-piping than brisk fingers. Am I not right, Paruig?” “Right, oh! right. The
-Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i> asks for skilly tripling, but Macruimen himself
-could not get at the core of it for all his art.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You have heard it then!” cried Gilian.
-</p>
-<p>
-The blind man stood up and filled out his breast.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Heard it!” he said; “I heard it, and I play it—on the <i>feadan</i>,
-but not on the full set. To play the tune I mention on the full set is
-what I have not done since I came to Half Town.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I have ten round pieces in my sporran, and a bonnet-brooch it would take
-much to part me from; but they're there for the man who'll play me the
-Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i>” said Gilian, with the words tripping each other
-to the tip of his tongue.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And here's a Macnaghton's fortune on the top of the round pieces,” cried
-Rory, emptying his purse on the table.
-</p>
-<p>
-The old man's face got hot and angry. “I am not,” he said, “a tinker's
-minstrel, to give my tuning for bawbees and a quaich of ale. The king
-himself could not buy the tune I ken if he had but a whim for it. But when
-pipers ask it they can have it, and it's yours without a fee. Still if you
-think to learn the tune by my piping once, poor's the delusion. It is not
-a port to be picked up like a cockle on the sand, for it takes the
-schooling of years and blindness forbye.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Blindness?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Blindness indeed. The thought of it is only for the dark eye.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If we could hear it on the full set!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Come out, then, on the grass, and you'll hear it, if Half Town should
-sleep no sleep this night.”
- </p>
-<p>
-They went out of the bothy to the wet short grass. Ragged mists shook o'er
-Cowal, and on Ben Ime sat a horned moon like a galley of Lorn.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I heard this tune from the Moideart man—the last in Albainn who
-knew it then, and he's in the clods,” said the blind fellow.
-</p>
-<p>
-He had the mouthpiece at his lip, and his hand was coaxing the bag, when a
-bairn's cry came from a house in the Half Town—a suckling's whimper,
-that, heard in the night, sets a man's mind busy on the sorrows that folks
-are born to. The drones clattered together on the piper's elbow and he
-stayed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I have a notion,” he said to the two men. “I did not tell you that the
-Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i> is the <i>piobaireachd</i> of good-byes. It is
-the tune of broken clans, that sets the men on the foray and makes cold
-hearth-stones. It was played in Glenshira when Gilleasbuig Gruamach could
-stretch stout swordsmen from Boshang to Ben Bhuidhe, and where are the
-folks of Glenshira this day? I saw a cheery night in Carnus that's over
-Lochow, and song and story busy about the fire, and the Moideart man
-played it for a wager. In the morning the weans were without fathers, and
-Carnus men were scattered about the wide world.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It must be the magic tune, sure enough,” said Gilian.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Magic indeed, <i>laochain!</i> It is the tune that puts men on the open
-road, that makes restless lads and seeking women. Here's a Half Town of
-dreamers and men fattening for want of men's work. They forget the world
-is wide and round about their fir-trees, and I can make them crave for
-something they cannot name.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Good or bad, out with it,” said Rory, “if you know it at all.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Maybe no', maybe no'. I am old and done. Perhaps I have lost the right
-skill of the tune, for it's long since I put it on the great pipe. There's
-in me the strong notion to try it whatever may come of it, and here's for
-it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He put his pipe up again, filled the bag at a breath, brought the booming
-to the drones, and then the chanter-reed cried sharp and high.
-</p>
-<p>
-“He's on it,” said Rory in Gilian's ear.
-</p>
-<p>
-The groundwork of the tune was a drumming on the deep notes where the
-sorrows lie—“Come, come, come, my children, rain on the brae and the
-wind blowing.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is a salute.” said Rory.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's the strange tune anyway,” said Gilian; “listen to the time of yon!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The tune searched through Half Town and into the gloomy pine-wood; it put
-an end to the whoop of the night-hag and rang to Ben Bhreac. Boatmen deep
-and far on the loch could hear it, and Half Town folks sat up to listen.
-</p>
-<p>
-It's story was the story that's ill to tell—something of the heart's
-longing and the curious chances of life. It bound up all the tales of all
-the clans, and made one tale of the Gaels' past. Dirk nor sword against
-the tartan, but the tartan against all else, and the Gaels' target fending
-the hill-land and the juicy straths from the pock-pitted little black men.
-The winters and the summers passing fast and furious, day and night
-roaring in the ears, and then again the clans at variance, and warders on
-every pass and on every parish.
-</p>
-<p>
-Then the tune changed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Folks,” said the reeds, coaxing. “Wide's the world and merry the road.
-Here's but the old story and the women we kissed before. Come, come to the
-flat-lands rich and full, where the wonderful new things happen and the
-women's lips are still to try!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To-morrow,” said Gilian in his friend's ear—“to-morrow I will go
-jaunting to the North. It has been in my mind since Beltane.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“One might be doing worse,” said Rory, “and I have the notion to try a
-trip with my cousin to the foreign wars.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The blind piper put up his shoulder higher and rolled the air into the <i>crunluadh
-breabach</i> that comes prancing with variations. Pride stiffened him from
-heel to hip, and hip to head, and set his sinews like steel.
-</p>
-<p>
-He was telling of the gold to get for the searching and the bucks that may
-be had for the hunting. “What,” said the reeds, “are your poor crops,
-slashed by the constant rain and rotting, all for a scart in the bottom of
-a pot? What are your stots and heifers—black, dun, and yellow—to
-milch-cows and horses? Here's but the same for ever—toil and sleep,
-sleep and toil even on, no feud nor foray nor castles to harry—only
-the starved field and the sleeping moss. Let us to a brisker place! Over
-yonder are the long straths and the deep rivers and townships strewn thick
-as your corn-rigs; over yonder's the place of the packmen's tales and the
-packmen's wares: steep we the withies and go!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The two men stood with heads full of bravery and dreaming—men in a
-carouse. “This,” said they, “is the notion we had, but had no words for.
-It's a poor trade piping and eating and making amusement when one might be
-wandering up and down the world. We must be packing the haversacks.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Then the <i>crunluadh mach</i> came fast and furious on the chanter, and
-Half Town shook with it. It buzzed in the ear like the flowers in the
-Honey Croft, and made commotion among the birds rocking on their eggs in
-the wood.
-</p>
-<p>
-“So! so!” barked the <i>iolair</i> on Craig-an-eas.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I have heard before it was an ill thing to be satisfied; in the morning
-I'll try the kids on Maam-side, for the hares here are wersh and tough.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Hearken, dear,” said the <i>londubh</i>, “I know now why my beak is gold;
-it is because I once ate richer berries than the whortle, and in season
-I'll look for them on the braes of Glenfinne.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Honk-unk,” said the fox, the cunning red fellow, “am not I the fool to be
-staying on this little brae when I know so many roads elsewhere?”
- </p>
-<p>
-And the people sitting up in their beds in Half Town moaned for something
-new. “Paruig Dall is putting the strange tune on her there,” said they.
-“What the meaning of it is we must ask in the morning, but, <i>ochanoch!</i>
-it leaves one hungry at the heart.” And then gusty winds came snell from
-the north, and where the dark crept first, the day made his first showing,
-so that Ben Ime rose black against a grey sky.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That's the Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i>,” said Paruig Dali when the bag sunk
-on his arm.
-</p>
-<p>
-And the two men looked at him in a daze.
-</p>
-<p>
-Sometimes in the spring of the year the winds from Lorn have it their own
-way with the Highlands. They will come tearing furious over the hundred
-hills, spurred the faster by the prongs of Cruachan and Dunchuach, and the
-large woods of home toss before them like corn before the hook. Up come
-the poor roots and over on their broken arms go the tall trees, and in the
-morning the deer will trot through new lanes cut in the forest.
-</p>
-<p>
-A wind of that sort came on the full of the day when the two pipers were
-leaving Half Town.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stay till the storm is over,” said the kind folks; and “Your bed and
-board are here for the pipers forty days,” said Paruig Dali. But “No” said
-the two; “we have business that your <i>piobaireachd</i> put us in mind
-of.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm hoping that I did not play yon with too much skill,” said the old
-man.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Skill or no skill,” said Gilian, “the like of yon I never heard. You
-played a port that makes poor enough all ports ever one listened to, and
-piping's no more for us wanderers.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Blessings with thee!” said the folks all, and the two men went down into
-the black wood among the cracking trees.
-</p>
-<p>
-Six lads looked after them, and one said, “It is an ill day for a body to
-take the world for his pillow, but what say you to following the pipers?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It might,” said one, “be the beginning of fortune. I am weary enough of
-this poor place, with nothing about it but wood and water and tufty grass.
-If we went now, there might be gold and girls at the other end.”
- </p>
-<p>
-They took crooks and bonnets and went after the two pipers. And when they
-were gone half a day, six women said to their men, “Where can the lads
-be?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“We do not know that,” said the men, with hot faces, “but we might be
-looking.” They kissed their children and went, with <i>cromags</i> in
-their hands, and the road they took was the road the King of Errin rides,
-and that is the road to the end of days.
-</p>
-<p>
-A weary season fell on Half Town, and the very bairns dwined at the breast
-for a change of fortune. The women lost their strength, and said, “To-day
-my back is weak, tomorrow I will put things to right,” and they looked
-slack-mouthed and heedless-eyed at the sun wheeling round the trees. Every
-week a man or two would go to seek something—a lost heifer or a
-wounded roe that was never brought back—and a new trade came to the
-place, the selling of herds. Far away in the low country, where the winds
-are warm and the poorest have money, black-cattle were wanted, so the men
-of Half Town made up long droves and took them round Glen Beag and the
-Rest.
-</p>
-<p>
-Wherever they went they stayed, or the clans on the roadside put them to
-steel, for Half Town saw them no more. And a day came when all that was
-left in that fine place were but women and children and a blind piper.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Am I the only man here?” asked Paruig Dali when it came to the bit, and
-they told him he was.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then here's another for fortune!” said he, and he went down through the
-woods with his pipes in his oxter.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-RED HAND
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE smell of wet larch was in the air, and Glenaora was aburst to the
-coaxing of Spring. Paruig Dali the piper—son of the son of Iain Mor—filled
-his broad chest with two men's wind, and flung the drones over his
-shoulder. They dangled a little till the bag swelled out, and the first
-blast rang in the ear of the morning. Rough and noisy, the reeds cried
-each other down till a master's hand held them in check, and the long soft
-singing of the <i>piobaireachd</i> floated out among the tartan ribbons.
-The grey peak of Drimfern heard the music; the rock that wards the mouth
-of Carnus let it pass through the gap and over the hill and down to the
-isles below; Dun Corr-bhile and Dunchuach, proud Kilmune, the Paps of
-Salachary, and a hundred other braes around, leaned over to listen to the
-vaunting notes that filled the valley. “The Glen, the Glen is mine!” sang
-the blithe chanter; and, by Finne's sword, Macruimen himself could not
-have fingered it better!
-</p>
-<p>
-It was before Paruig Dali left for Halt Town; before the wars that
-scorched the glens; and Clan Campbell could cock its bonnet in the face of
-all Albainn. Paruig was old, and Paruig was blind, as the name of him
-tells, but he swung with a king's port up and down on the short grass, his
-foot firm to every beat of the tune, his kilt tossing from side to side
-like a bard's song, his sporran leaping gaily on his brown knees. Two
-score of lilting steps to the bumside, a slow wheel on a brogue-heel, and
-then back with the sun-glint on the buckles of his belt.
-</p>
-<p>
-The men, tossing the caber and hurling the <i>clachncart</i> against the
-sun beyond the peat-bog, paused in their stride at the chanter's boast,
-jerked the tartan tight on their loins, and came over to listen; the
-women, posting blankets for the coming sheiling, stopped their splashing
-in the little linn, and hummed in a dream; and men and women had mind of
-the days that were, when the Glen was soft with the blood of men, for the
-Stewarts were over the way from Appin.
-</p>
-<p>
-“God's splendour! but he can play too,” said the piper's son, with his
-head areel to the fine tripling.
-</p>
-<p>
-Then Paruig pushed the bag further into his oxter, and the tune changed.
-He laid the ground of “Bodaich nam Briogais,” and such as knew the story
-saw the “carles with the breeks” broken and flying before Glenurchy's
-thirsty swords, far north of Morven, long days of weary march through
-spoiled glens.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's fine playing, I'll allow,” said the blind man's son, standing below
-a saugh-tree with the bag of his bannered pipes in the crook of his arm.
-He wore the dull tartan of the Diarmaids, and he had a sprig of gall in
-his bonnet, for he was in Black Duncan's tail. “Son of Paruig Dali,” said
-the Chief seven years ago come Martinmas, “if you're to play like your
-father, there's but Dunvegan for you, and the schooling of Patrick
-Macruimen.” So Tearlach went to Skye—cold isle of knives and caves—and
-in the college of Macruimen he learned the <i>piob-mhor</i>. Morning and
-evening, and all day between, he fingered the <i>feadan</i> or the full
-set—gathering and march, massacre and moaning, and the stately
-salute. Where the lusty breeze comes in salt from Vatemish across Loch
-Vegan, and the purple loom of Uist breaks the sunset's golden bars, he
-stood on the braes over against Borearaig and charmed the grumbling tide.
-And there came a day that he played “The Lament of the Harp-Tree,” with
-the old years of sturdy fight and strong men all in the strain of it, and
-Patrick Macruimen said, “No more, lad; go home: Lochow never heard another
-like you.” As a cock with its comb uncut, came the stripling from Skye.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Father,” he had said, “you play not ill for a blind man, but you miss the
-look on the men's faces, and that's half the music. Forbye, you are old,
-and your fingers are slow on the grace-notes. Here's your own flesh and
-blood can show you fingering there was never the like of anywhere east the
-Isles.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The stepmother heard the brag. “<i>A pheasain!</i>” she snapped, with hate
-in her peat-smoked face. “Your father's a man, and you are but a boy with
-no heart for a long day. A place in Black Duncan's tail, with a gillie to
-carry your pipes and knapsack, is not, mind ye, all that's to the making
-of a piper.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Tearlach laughed in her face. “Boy or man,” said he, “look at me! north,
-east, south, and west, where is the one to beat me? Macruimen has the
-name, but there were pipers before Macruimen, and pipers will come after
-him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's maybe as you say,” said Paruig. “The stuff's in you, and what is in
-must out; but give me <i>cothrom na Feinne</i>, and old as I am, with
-Finne's chance, and that's fair play, I can maybe make you crow less
-crouse. Are ye for trying?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I am at the training of a new chanter-reed,” said Tearlach; “but let it
-be when you will.”
- </p>
-<p>
-They fixed a day, and went out to play against each other for glory, and
-so it befell that on this day Paruig Dali was playing “The Glen is Mine”
- and “Bodaich nam Briogais” in a way to make stounding hearts.
-</p>
-<p>
-Giorsal snapped her fingers in her stepson's face when her husband closed
-the <i>crunluadh</i> of his <i>piobaireachd.</i>
-</p>
-<p>
-“Can you better it, bastard?” snarled she.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Here goes for it, whatever!” said Tear-lach, and over his back went the
-banner with its boar's head sewn on gold. A pretty lad, by the cross!
-clean-cut of limb and light of foot, supple of loin, with the toss of the
-shoulder that never a decent piper lacked. The women who had been at the
-linn leaned on each other all in the soft larch-scented day, and looked at
-him out of deep eyes; the men on the heather arose and stood nigher.
-</p>
-<p>
-A little tuning, and then
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Is comadh leam's comadh leam, cogadh na sithe,
-Marbhar 'sa chogadh na crochar's an t-sith mi.”
- </pre>
-<p>
-“Peace or war!” cried Giorsal, choking in anger, to her man—“peace
-or war! the black braggart! it's an asp ye have for a son, goodman!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The lad's fingers danced merry on the chanter, and the shiver of something
-to come fell on all the folk around. The old hills sported with the
-prancing tune; Dun Corrbhile tossed it to Drimfem, and Drimfern sent it
-leaping across the flats of Kilmune to the green corries of Lecknamban.
-“Love, love, the old tune; come and get flesh!” rasped a crow to his mate
-far off on misty Ben Bhreac, and the heavy black wings flapped east. The
-friendly wind forgot to dally with the pine-tuft and the twanging
-bog-myrtle, the plash of Aora in its brown linn was the tinkle of wine in
-a goblet. “Peace or war, peace or war; come which will, we care not,” sang
-the pipe-reeds, and there was the muster and the march, hot-foot rush over
-the rotting rain-wet moor, the jingle of iron, the dunt of pike and targe,
-the choked roar of hate and hunger, batter and slash and fall, and behind,
-the old, old feud with Appin!
-</p>
-<p>
-Leaning forward, lost in a dream, stood the swank lads of Aora. They felt
-at their hips, where were only empty belts, and one said to his child,
-“White love, get me yon long knife with the nicks on it, and the
-basket-hand, for I am sick of shepherding.” The bairn took a look at his
-face and went home crying.
-</p>
-<p>
-And the music still poured on. 'Twas “I got a Kiss o' the King's Hand” and
-“The Pretty Dirk,” and every air better than another. The fairy pipe of
-the Wee Folk's Knowe never made a sweeter fever of sound, yet it hurt the
-ears of the women, who had reason to know the payment of pipers' springs.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stop, stop, O Tearlach og!” they cried; “enough of war: have ye not a
-reel in your budget?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“There was never a reel in Boreraig,” said the lad, and he into “Duniveg's
-Warning,” the tune Coll Ciotach heard his piper play in the west on a day
-when a black bitch from Dunstaffnage lay panting for him, and his barge
-put nose about in time to save his skin.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There's the very word itself in it,” said Paruig, forgetting the taunting
-of Giorsal and all but a father's pride.
-</p>
-<p>
-'Twas in the middle of the “Warning” Black Duncan, his toe on the stirrup,
-came up from Castle Inneraora, with a gillie-wet-foot behind, on his way
-to Lochow.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's down yonder you should be, Sir Piper, and not blasting here for
-drink,” said he, switching his trews with his whip and scowling under
-black brows at the people. “My wife is sick of the <i>clarsach</i> and
-wants the pipes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm no woman's piper, Lochow; your wife can listen to the hum of her
-spinning-wheel if she's weary of her harp,” said the lad; and away rode
-the Chief, and back to the linn went the women, and the men to the <i>cabar</i>
-and the stone, and Tearlach, with an extra feather in his bonnet, home to
-Inneraora, leafing a gibe as he went, for his father.
-</p>
-<p>
-Paruig Dali cursed till the evening at the son he never saw, and his wife
-poisoned his mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-“The Glen laughs at you, man, from Carnus to Croit-bhile. It's a black,
-burning day of shame for you, Paruig Dall!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Lord, it's a black enough day for me at the best!” said the blind man.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's disgraced by your own ill-got son you are, by a boy with no blood on
-his <i>biodag</i>, and the pride to crow over you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-And Paruig cursed anew, by the Cross and the Dogs of Lorn, and the White
-Glaive of Light the giants wear, and the Seven Witches of Cothmar. He was
-bad though he was blind, and he went back to the start of time for his
-language. “But <i>Dhé!</i> the boy can play!” he said at the last.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, <i>amadain dhoill</i>” cried the woman; “if it was I, a claw was off
-the cub before the mouth of day.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Witless woman, men have played the pipes before now, lacking a finger:
-look at Alasdair Corrag!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Allowing; but a hand's as easy to cut as a finger for a man who has
-gralloched deer with a keen <i>sgian-dubh</i>. Will ye do't or no'?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Parig would hearken no more, and took to his pillow.
-</p>
-<p>
-Rain came with the gloaming. Aora, the splendid river, roared up the dark
-glen from the Salmon Leap; the hills gathered thick and heavy round about
-the scattered townships, the green new tips of fir and the copper leaves
-of the young oaks moaned in the wind. Then salt airs came tearing up from
-the sea, grinding branch on branch, and the whole land smoked with the
-drumming of rain that slanted on it hot and fast.
-</p>
-<p>
-Giorsal arose, her clothes still on her, put a plaid on her black head,
-and the thick door banged back on the bed as she dived into the storm. Her
-heavy feet sogged through the boggy grass, the heather clutched at her
-draggled coat-tails to make her stay, but she filled her heart with one
-thought, and that was hate, and behold! she was on the slope of the Black
-Bull before her blind husband guessed her meaning. Castle Inneraora lay at
-the foot of the woody dun, dozing to the music of the salt loch that made
-tumult and spume north and south in the hollow of the mountains. Now and
-then the moon took a look at things, now and then a night-hag in the
-dripping wood hooted as the rain whipped her breast feathers; a roe leaped
-out of the gloom and into it with a feared hoof-plunge above Carlonan; a
-thunderbolt struck in the dark against the brow of Ben Ime and rocked the
-world.
-</p>
-<p>
-In the cold hour before the mouth of day the woman was in the piper's room
-at the gate of Inneraora, where never a door was barred against the night
-while Strong Colin the warder could see from the Fort of Dunchuach to
-Cladich. Tearlach the piper lay on his back, with the glow of a half-dead
-peat on his face and hands. “Paruig, Paruig!” said the woman to herself,
-as she softly tramped out the peat-fire and turned to the bed. And lo! it
-was over. Her husband's little black knife made a fast sweep on the
-sleeper's wrist, and her hand was drenched with the hot blood of her
-husband's son.
-</p>
-<p>
-Tearlach leaped up with a roar in the dark and felt for his foe; but the
-house was empty, for Giorsal was running like a hind across the soaked
-stretch of Caimban. The lightning struck at Glenaora in jagged fury and
-confusion; the thunder drummed hollow on Creag
-</p>
-<p>
-Dubh: in a turn of the pass at the Three Bridges the woman met her
-husband.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Daughter of hell!” said he, “is't done? and was't death?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Darling,” said she, with a fond laugh, “'twas only a brat's hand. You can
-give us 'The Glen is Mine!' in the morning.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-THE SECRET OF THE HEATHER-ALE
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>OWN Glenaora threescore and ten of Diarmaid's stout fellows took the road
-on a fine day. They were men from Carnus, with more of Clan Artair than
-Campbell in them; but they wore Gilleasbuig Gruamach's tartan,. and if
-they were not on Gilleasbuig Gruamach's errand, it makes little difference
-on our story. It was about the time Antrim and his dirty Irishers came
-scouring through our glens with flambeaux, dirk and sword and other arms
-invasive, and the country was back at its old trade of fighting, with not
-a sheiling from end to end, except on the slopes of Shira Glen, where a
-clan kept free of battle and drank the finest of heather-ale that the
-world envied the secret of.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Lift we and go, for the Cattle's before!” said Alasdair Piobaire on the
-chanter of a Dunvegan great-pipe—a neat tune that roared gallant and
-far from Carnus to Bara-caldine; so there they were, the pick of swank
-fellows on the road!
-</p>
-<p>
-At the head of them was Niall Mor a' Chamais—the same gentleman
-namely in story for many an art and the slaughter of the strongest man in
-the world, as you'll find in the writings of my Lord Archie. “God! look at
-us!” said he, when his lads came over the hill in the grey mouth of day.
-“Are not we the splendid men? Fleas will there be this day in the hose of
-the Glenshira folk.” And he sent his targe in the air in a bravado,
-catching it by the prong in its navel, smart and clean, when it whirled
-back.
-</p>
-<p>
-Hawks yelped as they passed; far up on Tullich there was barking of
-eagles; the brogues met the road as light as the stagslot; laughing,
-singing, roaring; sword-heads and pikes dunting on wooden targets—and
-only once they looked back at their women high on the brae-face.
-</p>
-<p>
-The nuts were thick on the roadside, hanging heavy from swinging branches,
-and some of the men pulled them off as they passed, stayed for more,
-straggled, and sang bits of rough songs they ken over many of on
-Lochowside to this day. So Niall Mor glunched at his corps from under his
-bonnet and showed his teeth.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Gather in, gather in,” said he; “ye march like a drove of low-country
-cattle. Alasdair, put 'Baile Inneraora' on her!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Alasdair changed his tune, and the good march of Clan Diarmaid went
-swinging down the glen.
-</p>
-<p>
-The time passed; the sun stood high and hot; clucking from the
-fir-plantings came woodcock and cailzie; the two rivers were crossed, and
-the Diarmaids slockened their thirst at the water of Altan Aluinn, whose
-birth is somewhere in the bogs beside tall Bhuidhe Ben.
-</p>
-<p>
-Where the clans met was at the Foal's Gap, past Maam. A score of the
-MacKellars ran out in a line from the bushes, and stotted back from the
-solid weight of Diarmaid moving in a lump and close-shouldered in the
-style Niall Mor got from the Italian soldier. Some fell, hacked on the
-head by the heavy slash of the dry sword; some gripped too late at the
-pikes that kittled them cruelly; and one—Iver-of-the-Oars—tripped
-on a root of heather, and fell with his breast on the point of a
-Diarmaid's dirk.
-</p>
-<p>
-To the hills went a fast summons, and soon at the mouth of the gap came
-twoscore of the MacKellars. They took a new plan, and close together faced
-the green tartan, keeping it back at the point of steel, though the pick
-of Glenaora wore it, and the brogues slipped on the brae-face. It was fast
-cut and drive, quick flash of the dirk, with the palm up and the hand low
-to find the groin, and a long reach with the short black knife. The choked
-breath hissed at teeth and nose, the salt smell of new blood brought a
-shiver to birch-leaf and gall. But ever the green tartan had the best of
-it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Bas, bas, Dhiarmaid!</i>” cried Calum Dubh, coming up on the back of
-his breaking two-score with fresh lads from Elerigmor, bed-naked to the
-hide, and a new fury fell on the two clans tearing at it in the narrow
-hollow in between the rocky hills. So close they were, there was small
-room for the whirl of the basket-hilt, and “Mind Tom-a-Phubaill and the
-shortened steel!” cried Niall Mor, smashing a pretty man's face with a
-blow from the iron guard of his Ferrara sword. The halberts, snapped at
-the haft to make whittles, hammered on the target-hides like stones on a
-coffin, or rang on the bosses; the tartan ripped when the stuck one rolled
-on his side before the steel could be twisted out; below the foot the
-grass felt warm and greasy, and the reason was not ill to seek.
-</p>
-<p>
-Once it looked like the last of Calum Dubh. He was facing Niall Mor, sword
-and targe, and Niall Mor changed the sword to the other hand, pulled the
-<i>sgian-dubh</i> from his garter, and with snapping teeth pushed like a
-lightning fork below MacKellar's target. An Elerigmor man ran in between;
-the little black knife sunk into his belly with a moist plunge, and the
-blood spouted on the deer-horn haft.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Mallachd ort!</i> I meant yon for a better man,” cried Niall Mor; “but
-it's well as it is, for the secret's to the fore,” and he stood up dour
-and tall against a new front of Mac-Kellar's men.
-</p>
-<p>
-Then the sky changed, and a thin smirr of warm rains fell on the glen like
-smoke; some black-cattle bellowed at the ford in a wonder at where their
-herds could be, and the herds—stuck, slashed, and cudgelled—lay
-stiffening on the torn grass between the gap and Mac-Kellar's house. From
-end to end of the glen there was no man left but was at the fighting. The
-hook was tossed among the corn; the man hot-foot behind the roe, turned
-when he had his knife at its throat, to go to war; a lover left his lass
-among the heather; and all, with tightened belts, were at the old game
-with Clan Diarmaid, while their women, far up on the sappy levels between
-the hill-tops and beside the moor-lochs, span at the wheel or carded wool,
-singing songs with light hearts and thinking no danger.
-</p>
-<p>
-Back went MacKellar's men before Niall
-</p>
-<p>
-Mor and his sturdy lads from Camus, the breeder of soldiers—back
-through the gap and down on the brae to the walls of Calum Dubh.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'Illean, 'illean!” cried Calum; “lads, lads! they have us, sure enough.
-Oh! pigs and thieves! squint mouths and sons of liars!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The cry gathered up the strength of all that was left of his clan, Art and
-Uileam, the Maam lads, the brothers from Drimlea and two from over Stron
-hill, and they stood up together against the Carnus men—a gallant
-madness! They died fast and hard, and soon but Calum and his two sons were
-left fencing, till a rush of Diarmaids sent them through the door of the
-house and tossed among the peats.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Give in and your lives are your own,” said Niall Mor, wiping his sword on
-his shirtsleeve, and with all that were left of his Diarmaids behind his
-back.
-</p>
-<p>
-To their feet stood the three MacKellars.
-</p>
-<p>
-Calum looked at the folk in front of him, and had mind of other ends to
-battles. “To die in a house like a rat were no great credit,” said he, and
-he threw his sword on the floor, where the blades of Art and Uileam soon
-joined it.
-</p>
-<p>
-With tied arms the father and his sons were taken outside, where the air
-was full of the scents of birch and gall new-washed. The glen, clearing
-fast of mist, lay green and sweet for mile and mile, and far at its mouth
-the fat Blaranbuie woods chuckled in the sun.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I have you now,” said Niall Mor. “Ye ken what we seek. It's the old ploy—the
-secret of the ale.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Calum laughed in his face, and the two sons said things that cut like
-knives.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Man! I'm feared ye'll rue this,” said Niall Mor, calm enough. “Ye may
-laugh, but—what would ye call a gentleman's death?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“With the sword or the dagger in the hand, and a Diarmaid or two before
-me,” cried Calum.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, there might be worse ways of travelling yont—indeed there
-could ill be better; but if the secret of the ale is not to be ours for
-the asking, ye'll die a less well-bred death.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Name it, man, name it,” said Calum. “Might it be tow at the throat and a
-fir-branch.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Troth,” said Niall Mor, “and that were too gentle a travelling. The
-Scaurnoch's on our way, and the crows at the foot of it might relish a
-Glen Shira carcass.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Uileam whitened at the notion of so ugly an end, but Calum only said, “Die
-we must any way,” and Art whistled a bit of a pipe-tune, grinding his heel
-on the moss.
-</p>
-<p>
-Niall Mor made to strike the father on the face, but stayed his hand and
-ordered the three in-by, with a few of his corps to guard them. Up and
-down Glen Shira went the Diarmaids, seeking the brewing-cave, giving hut
-and home to the flame, and making black hearths and low lintels for the
-women away in the sheilings. They buried their dead at Kilblaan, and, with
-no secret the better, set out for Scaurnoch with Calum and his sons.
-</p>
-<p>
-The MacKellars were before, like a <i>spreidh</i> of stolen cattle, and
-the lot of the driven herd was theirs. They were laughed at and spat on,
-and dirk-hilts and <i>cromags</i> hammered on their shoulders, and through
-Blaranbuie wood they went to the bosky elbow of Dun Corr-bhile and round
-to the Dun beyond.
-</p>
-<p>
-Calum, for all his weariness, stepped like a man with a lifetime's plans
-before his mind; Art looked about him in the fashion of one with an eye to
-woodcraft; Uileam slouched with a heavy foot, white at the jaw and wild of
-eye.
-</p>
-<p>
-The wood opened, the hunting-road bent about the hill-face to give a level
-that the eye might catch the country spread below. Loch Finne stretched
-far, from Ardno to French Foreland, a glassy field, specked with one sail
-off Creaggans. When the company came to a stand, Calum Dubh tossed his
-head to send the hair from his eyes, and looked at what lay below. The
-Scaurnoch broke at his feet, the grey rock-face falling to a depth so deep
-that weary mists still hung upon the sides, jagged here and there by the
-top of a fir-tree. The sun, behind the Dun, gave the last of her glory to
-the Cowal Hills; Hell's Glen filled with wheeling mists; Ben Ime, Ben
-Vane, and Ben Arthur crept together and held princely converse on the
-other side of the sea.
-</p>
-<p>
-All in a daze of weariness and thinking the Diarmaids stood, and looked
-and listened, and the curlews were crying bitter on the shore.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, haste ye, lads, or it's not Carnus for us to-night,” cried Niall Mor.
-“We have business before us, and long's the march to follow. The secret,
-black fellow!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Calum Dubh laughed, and spat in a bravado over the edge of the rock.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Come, fool; if we have not the word from you before the sun's off Sithean
-Sluaidhe, your sleep this night is yonder,” and he pointed at the pit
-below.
-</p>
-<p>
-Calum laughed the more. “If it was hell itself,” said he, “I would not
-save my soul from it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Look, man, look! the Sithean Sluaidhe's getting black, and any one of ye
-can save the three yet. I swear it on the cross of my knife.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Behind the brothers, one, John-Without-Asking, stood, with a gash on his
-face, eager to give them to the crows below.
-</p>
-<p>
-A shiver came to Uileam's lips; he looked at his father with a questioning
-face, and then stepped back a bit from the edge, making to speak to the
-tall man of Chamis.
-</p>
-<p>
-Calum saw the meaning, and spoke fast and thick.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stop, stop,” said he; “it's a trifle of a secret, after all, and to save
-life ye can have it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Art took but a little look at his father's face, then turned round on
-Shira Glen and looked on the hills where the hunting had many a time been
-sweet. “Maam no more,” said he to himself; “but here's death in the hero's
-style!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I thought you would tell it,” laughed Niall Mor. “There was never one of
-your clan but had a tight grip of his little life.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ay!” said Calum Dubh; “but it's <i>my</i> secret. I had it from one who
-made me swear on the holy steel to keep it; but take me to Carnus, and
-I'll make you the heather-ale.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So be't, and——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But there's this in it, I can look no clansmen nor kin in the face after
-telling it, so Art and Uileam must be out of the way first.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Death, MacKellar?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That same.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Uileam shook like a leaf, and Art laughed, with his face still to Shira,
-for he had guessed his father's mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Faith!” said Niall Mor, “and that's an easy thing enough,” and he nodded
-to John-Without-Asking.
-</p>
-<p>
-The man made stay nor tarry. He put a hand on each son's back and pushed
-them over the edge to their death below. One cry came up to the listening
-Diarmaids, one cry and no more—the last gasp of a craven.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Now we'll take you to Camus, and you'll make us the ale, the fine ale,
-the cream of rich heather-ale,” said Niall Mor, putting a knife to the
-thongs that tied MacKellar's arms to his side.
-</p>
-<p>
-With a laugh and a fast leap Calum Dubh stood back on the edge of the rock
-again.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Crook-mouths, fools, pigs' sons! did ye think it?” he cried. “Come with
-me and my sons and ye'll get ale, ay, and death's black wine, at the foot
-of Scaurnoch.” He caught fast and firm at John-Without-Asking, and threw
-himself over the rock-face. They fell as the scart dives, straight to the
-dim sea of mist and pine-tip, and the Diarmaids threw themselves on their
-breasts to look over. There was nothing to see of life but the crows
-swinging on black feathers; there was nothing to hear but the crows
-scolding.
-</p>
-<p>
-Niall Mor put the bonnet on his head and said his first and last friendly
-thing of a foe.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yon,” said he, “had the heart of a man!”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-BOBOON'S CHILDREN
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>ROM Knapdale to Lorn three wandering clans share the country between
-them, and of the three the oldest and the greatest are the swart
-Macdonalds, children of the Old Boboon.
-</p>
-<p>
-You will come on them on Wade's roads,—jaunty fellows, a bit dour in
-the look, and braggart; or girls with sloe-eyes, tall and supple, not with
-a flat slouching foot on the soil, but high in the instep, bounding and
-stag-sure. At their head will be a long lean old man on crutches—John
-Fine Macdonald—
-</p>
-<p>
-Old Boboon, the father and head of the noblest of wandering tribes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Sir,” will Boboon say to you, “I am the fellow you read of in books as
-the teller of Fingalian tales; wilt hear one of them for a poor Saxon
-shilling, or wilt buy my lures for the fish? Or perhaps a display of
-scholarly piping by my daughter's son—the gallant scamp!—who
-has carried arms for his king?”
- </p>
-<p>
-If one must have the truth, the piping is bad piping, but the fish-lures
-and the tales are the best in the world. You will find some of the tales
-in the writings of Iain Og of Isla—such as “The Brown Bear of the
-Green Glen”; but the best are to hear as Boboon minds them when he sits
-with you on the roadside or on the heather beside the evening fire, when
-the brown fluffy eagles bark at the mist on Braevallach. Listen well to
-them, for this person has the gift. He had it from his father, who had it
-from <i>his</i> father, who had it from a mother, who, in deep trouble and
-disease, lay awake through long nights gathering thoughts as healthy folks
-gather nuts—a sweet thing enough from a sour husk.
-</p>
-<p>
-And if time were your property (as it should be the portion of every
-wiselike man), you might hear many tales from Old Boboon, but never the
-tale of his own three chances.
-</p>
-<p>
-It happened once upon a time that the captain in the town took a notion to
-make Boboon into a tame house-man instead of a creature of the woods and
-highways. He took him first by himself and clapped him into a kilt of his
-own tartan eight yards round the buttocks, full pleated, with hose of fine
-worsted, and a coat with silver buttons. He put a pickle money in his
-sporran, and gave him a place a little way down his table. The feeding was
-high and the work was to a wanderer's fancy; for it was but whistling to a
-dog now and then, chanting a stave, or telling a story, or roaming through
-the garden behind the house.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ho, ho!” said Boboon, “am not I the sturdy fellow come to his own?” and
-about the place he would go with a piper's swagger, switching the grass
-and shrubs with a withie as he went, in the way gentlemen use
-riding-sticks.
-</p>
-<p>
-But when Inneraora town lay in the dark of the winter night, and the
-captain's household slept, Boboon would hear his clan calling on him
-outside the wall.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Boboon! oh, Boboon! old hero! come and collogue with your children.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He would go to the wall, which was lower on the inside than the out (and
-is, indeed, the wall of old Quinten, where a corps of Campbells,
-slaughtered by Inverlochy dogs, lie under a Latin stone), and he would
-look down at his friends running about like pole-cats in the darkness, in
-their ragged kilts and trews, their stringy hair tossing in the wind. The
-women themselves would be there, with the bairns whining on their backs.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ay! ay! this is you, my hearty folk!” he would say; “glad am I to see you
-and smell the wood-fire reek off you. How is it on the road?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“From here we have not moved since you left us, John Fine. We are camped
-in the Blue Quarry, and you never came near your children and friends.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“God! and here's the one that's sorry for that same. But over the walls
-they will not let me. 'If gentleman you would be,' says the captain, 'you
-must keep out of woods and off the highway.'”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And you like it, Boboon?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Like it, heroes! But for the honour and ease of it, give me a fir-root
-fire in Glen Croe and a dinner of <i>fuarag</i>. It is not the day so much
-as the night. Lying in-by there on a posted-bed, I choke for the want of
-air, though the windows and doors are open wide.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Come away with us, Boboon; we have little lack with the fish, and few are
-our stories since you took to the town.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, no, dears. Conan's curse, and I tell you no! In this place there is
-comfort, and every day its own bellyful.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But the freedom outbye, John, old hero! Last night we had the bravest of
-fires; the sparks flew like birds among the Duke's birches, the ground was
-snug and dry, and-”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Begone! I tell ye no!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Listen! To-day we were among the white hares beyond the Beannan,
-thwacking the big fat fellows with our clubs. Such sport was not in all
-Albainn!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“White hares!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“White hares, old John! And Alasdair Beag has some new tunes since you
-left us—a <i>piobaireachd</i> he picked up from a Mull man.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Would it be 'Failte an Roich '?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Better than that by far; a masterly tune! Come out and hear him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-But Old Boboon leaned with his arms on the wall and made no move to be off
-with his children.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Come and stravaig,” said the girls, and his daughter Betty put a foot in
-a cranny and pulled herself up beside him to put coaxing arms round his
-neck.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Calf of my heart!” said Boboon, stroking her hair, soft handed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“We have the fine feeding,” said the girl in his ear. “Yesterday it was
-plotted trout in the morning and tunnag's eggs; dinner was a collop off a
-fat hind.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A grailoched hind?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, nor grailoched! That is a fool's fashion and the spoiling of good
-meat. But come with us, father. Think of the burns bubbling, and the stars
-through the branches, and the fresh airs of the morning!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Down, down, you bitch! Would ye tempt me?” cried Boboon, pushing the girl
-from the wall and hurrying back with shaking knees to the Latin stone. The
-night was deep black, and for all he could tell by eyesight, he might have
-been in the middle of breezy Moor Rannoch, but the town gables crowded
-'thick and solid round his heart. He missed the free flowing winds; there
-was a smell of peat and coal from dead house-fires, and he spat the dust
-of lime from his throat.
-</p>
-<p>
-Over the wall the clan scraped and skurried as weasels do. They dared make
-no noise for fear the town should waken, but in hoarse voices they called
-all together—
-</p>
-<p>
-“Boboon, Boboon, oh! come home to the wood, Boboon!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Am not I the poor caged one?” said Boboon to himself, and he ran in that
-he might hear no more.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was the same the next night and the next, and it looked like going on
-without end. Ever the wanderers coming at night to the wall and craving
-their head to come out. And one night they threw over a winged black-cock,
-that fell with beating feathers at Boboon's feet as he stood in the dark
-listening to the swart Macdonalds whining outbye.
-</p>
-<p>
-He picked up the bird and ran kind fingers through its feathers. The heat
-coursed in its breast and burned to a fever in its wounded oxter. Its
-little heart beat on Boboon's thumb like a drumstick.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Poor bird!” said he; “well I ken where ye came from, and the merry times
-ye had. Ye hatched in the braes of Ben Bhuidhe, and clucked on the reedy
-places round about the side of that tall hill. Before your keen eyes in
-the morning was the Dubh Loch, and the Shira—winding like a silver
-belt. Sure am I ye took wing for it with the day, and over Stuc Scardan to
-Aora Glen to make merry among your mates in the heather and the fern. Oh!
-<i>choillich-dhuibh, choillich-dhuibh</i>, hard's our fate with broken
-wings and the heart still strong!”
- </p>
-<p>
-He thrawed the bird's neck, and then went over the wall to join his clan.
-</p>
-<p>
-His second chance ended no better. He was back in a new kilt and jacket a
-twelvemonth later, and this time the captain tried the trick of a dog's
-freedom—oat on the road as he liked by day, but kennel at night.
-</p>
-<p>
-One day Boboon was on his master's errand round Stron. It was the spring
-of the year. The shore, at the half-ebb, was clean and sweet, and the tide
-lapped at the edge as soft as a cat at milk.
-</p>
-<p>
-Going round Stron on the hard yellow road, he got to think of the sea's
-good fortune,—of the many bays it wandered into by night or day; of
-its friendship with far-out forelands, and its brisk quarrels with the
-black rocks. Here was no dyke at any time, but all freedom, the
-restlessness and the roaming, sleep or song as the mood had it, and the
-ploys with galleys and gabberts; the cheery halloo of the winds and the
-waving of branches on foreign isles to welcome one.
-</p>
-<p>
-The road opened before him in short swatches—the sort of road a
-wanderer likes, with not too much of it to be seen at one look. In the
-hazel-wood by the way the bark of the young trees glistened like brass;
-thin new switches shot out straight as shelisters.
-</p>
-<p>
-John Fine, with the sun heating his back, started at the singing of
-Donnacha Ban's “Coire Cheathaich”:—
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“O 'twas gladsome to go a-hunting
-Out in the dew of the sunny mom!
-For the great red stag was never wanting,
-Nor the fawn, nor the doe with never a horn.
-My beauteous corri, my misty corri!
-What light feet trod thee in joy and pride!
-What strong hand gathered thy precious treasures,
-What great hearts leaped on thy craggy side!”
- </pre>
-<p>
-Rounding Dundarave, the road lay straight before him till it thinned in
-the distance to a needle-point pricking the trees, and at the end of it
-was a cloud of dust.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What have I here?” said Boboon to himself, stretching out with long
-steps, the kilt flapping against the back of his knees.
-</p>
-<p>
-The cloud came close, and lo! here was his own clan on the march, draggled
-and stoury, rambling, scattered like crows, along the road.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Boboon! Boboon!” they cried, and they hung about him, fingering his fine
-clothes.
-</p>
-<p>
-He looked at their brown flesh, he saw the yellow soil in the crannies of
-their brogues, the men loose and blackguardly, the women red-cheeked,
-ripe, and big-breasted, with bold eyes, and all had enchantment for him! A
-stir set up in his heart that he could not put down.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Where were you yesterday?” he asked.
-</p>
-<p>
-“On the side of the Rest in Glen Croe, with dry beds of white hay and no
-hurry.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Where are you for?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Have you forgotten the wanderer's ways, Boboon? Where does this road go
-to?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well ye ken, my heroes! It goes to the end of a man's will. If the man'
-says, 'I bide here,' it's the end of the road; but if he has the notion,
-it will take him to the end of days. That, by my soul! is the charm of all
-roads that are not in towns; and now that I think of it, let the captain
-whistle on his errand, for I'm Boboon and sick of the causey stones.”
- </p>
-<p>
-So night found Boboon and his clan far in at the back of Auchnabreac,
-town-muir and bonny place, where some we ken would sooner be than
-wandering o'er the world.
-</p>
-<p>
-And the days passed, and at Martinmas the captain was at Kilmichael
-Market, and he came on Boboon with his people on the edge of the
-market-place. Boboon in those days was as straight as a young saugh-wand,
-sharp and thin, all thong at the joints, and as supple as a wild cat. He
-was giving a display with the <i>sgian-dubh</i>, stabbing it on the ground
-at the back of his left heel and twisting his right arm round the leg to
-get the blade out of the ground without bending the knee. It was a trick
-to take the eye, but neither bardic nor soldierly, yet there was a throng
-of drovers about him. Along with him was his daughter Betty, who took
-after him for looks, but had her dead mother's dainty tongue, and from her
-mother a little book-schooling John Fine had never the need of.
-</p>
-<p>
-The eye of the captain fell on the two of them as they stood there, with
-their forty clan-folk going about the market, and he was gripped by a new
-notion to give Boboon the third and the last chance.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Boboon!” he said, “come back to the town this once, and I'll put you and
-your daughter up together in a house of your own.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Before a week was out the thing was as he wanted. Boboon and Betty got a
-room in Macvicar's Land, with a wooden floor, and a fire on the side of
-the wall with a built-in chimney, and other gentilities beside. They
-stayed for months, and they stayed for years, and the clan craved them in
-vain to come home. Betty was put to the books and the arts of ladydom by
-the captain's mother and sister, and she took to them like a Ridir's
-daughter. She lost the twang of the road-folk; she put her errant hair in
-leash; she grew to the habit of snodding and redding, until for grace and
-good looks she was the match of them that taught her.
-</p>
-<p>
-One day the captain, walking in his garden in deep cogitation, fell in the
-way of the girl as she roamed among the bushes. He got for the first time
-the true glance of her (for one may look at a person for years and not see
-the reality till a scale falls from the eyes), and behold! here was a
-woman who set his heart drumming.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was that very night Boboon put an end to his last chance.
-</p>
-<p>
-The strong sun of the day left the night hot and clammy, and a haze hung
-on the country such as one sees in these parts in keenest frost.
-Macvicar's Land was full of smells—of sweating flesh and dirty
-water, of fish and the rotting airs of sunless holes—and the dainty
-nose of Macdonald took a disgust. He flung open door and window, and
-leaned out at the window with his neck bared and his mouth stretched wide
-gasping to the air. The bairns in the back-land looked up and laughed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Look at Boboon, Boboon, Boboon, the father of Lady Betty!” they cried,
-and John Fine shook his fist and cursed their families.
-</p>
-<p>
-But there was no ease from the trouble in this fashion, so he got up and
-went behind the town, and threw himself under the large trees with an ear
-to the ground. Beside him the cattle crunched the sappy grass in so sweet
-and hearty mouthfuls that he could well wish he had the taste of nature
-himself, and they breathed great breaths of content. His keen ears could
-catch the hopping of beasts on the grass and the scratching of claws in
-the wood, he could hear the patter of little feet, and the birds above him
-scraping on the bark when they turned in their sleep. A townman would
-think the world slept, so great was the booming of quietness; but Boboon
-heard the song of the night, the bustle of the half world that thrives in
-shade and starshine.
-</p>
-<p>
-Leaning now on an elbow, he let his eyes rove among the beeches, into the
-bossy tops, solemn and sedate, and the deep recesses that might be full of
-the little folk of fairy-land at their cantrips. And then farther back and
-above all was Dunchuach the stately, lifting its face, wood-bearded, to
-the stars!
-</p>
-<p>
-“If a wind was here it was all I wanted,” said Boboon, and when he said it
-the wind came—a salty air from the sea. The whole country-side
-cooled and gave out fresh scents of grass and earth.
-</p>
-<p>
-“O God! O God!” cried the wanderer, “here we are out-by, the beasts and
-the birds and the best of Boboon together! Here is the place for ease and
-the full heart.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He up and ran into the town, and up to the captain's gate and in.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Master,” he cried, 'it's the old story,—I must be taking the road
-for it; here's no rest for John Fine Macdonald!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But you'll leave the girl,” said the captain, who saw the old fever in
-the man's eyes; “I have taken a notion of her, and—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So be it! let her bide.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'll marry her before the morn's out.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Marry!” cried Boboon, putting back his hair from his face with a nervous
-hand. “You would marry a wanderer's child?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, they'll talk, no doubt; but she has gifts to make them forget, and
-she's good enough to make a king's woman.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Sir,” said Boboon, “I have but one thing to say, and that's our own
-Gaelic old-word, 'There are few lapdogs in a fox's litter.'” The captain's
-face got as red as his vest, and he had a ready hand up for an answer to
-Boboon, but he had mind the man was the girl's father.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I'll risk it,” he said, “and you can go your wandering ways, for Betty is
-willing.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No doubt, no doubt,” said Boboon, and he went. In the hollow of the night
-he was hooting back like a boy at the hoolets on the slopes of
-Coillevraid, and at the mouth of day, in a silver wet light, he was
-standing on the edge of the hills that look on two lochs, his head high
-like a scenting deer's. He turned him round about to all airts with his
-eyes from Cruachan to Cowal, and as far between Knapdale and Lorn as a
-wanderer has vision, and yonder, down at Kames, was the camp of his clan!
-</p>
-<p>
-Betty his daughter left Macvicar's Land in the morning and went to be
-captain's wife, with a seat in the kirk and callers from the castle
-itself.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Wait, wait,” said old Craignure, when the tale reached him, “you'll see
-the fox come out on her ere long.”
- </p>
-<p>
-But the fox was not there; it was skipping a day, as the fox will do
-sometimes when the day before has been good hunting. All went well with
-the woman till the worst that might have been the best happened, and she
-died with her first child. It was the year of the stunted oats, that
-brought poverty to Inneraora and black bread to the captain's board; but
-black bread and brochan would have been the blithest of meat for him if
-Betty was left to share it. He took to the bottle, and left the boy to
-women who had no skill of wild youth.
-</p>
-<p>
-And the child grew like a fir-tree, straight and tall, full of hot blood,
-swung about by whim and the moment's fancy. For him it was ever the horse
-and gun, a snatched dinner and hearty, and off to the wood or hill. He got
-to know the inner ways of the beasts that hide in the coarse grasses and
-the whin; at a whistle he could coax flapping birds to come to heel. A
-loose vest and a naked neck for ever were marring his gentility, and his
-closest friends were countrymen with hard hands and the loud ready laugh.
-</p>
-<p>
-One day it came to the captain's mind that something must be made of this
-young blade, and he sent for him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Boy,” said he, “are you at your books?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, but—but I ken a short way with the badgers,” the lad made
-answer.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Did you have a lesson this morning?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Never a lesson,” said the lad; “I was too busy living.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Living, said ye?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Living. I was at the swimming at the Creags, and beaking in the sun on
-the braes above the Garron beside the march wall where the hedgehogs
-creep, and I am new from the shinty,” and he shook the shinty-stick in his
-hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-The captain took to pondering, his chin on his hand and his elbows on the
-table, where a bottle and glass lay beside him.
-</p>
-<p>
-After a bit he said, “Look ye, my son, what are ye meaning to be?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm for the sword-work,” the lad said, in a flash, his face twitching.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I would sooner see you in hell first!” cried the captain, thumping the
-board till the glass rang. He had seen foreign wars himself and had a hack
-on the groin.
-</p>
-<p>
-That was the first of the feud between them. They fought it dour and they
-fought it hard, the father for the crafts of peace and the lad for his own
-way, and at last one day the captain said—
-</p>
-<p>
-“To the door, brat, and your lair with the Boboons you belong to! Faith,
-and your grandfather was right when he said there was never a lapdog in a
-fox's litter.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Who he came of, the lad had no notion, for the swart Macdonalds never came
-near the town after Boboon left it for the last time; but he put on his
-bonnet, and went out of the house and on to the highroad.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was well on to winter, a brawling day, with the leaves of the Duke's
-trees swishing thick and high over the thatch and through the streets of
-the Duke's town. Snug stood the gables, friendly and warm, and the
-window-lozens winked with the light of big peat-fires within. Over the
-breast the seabirds yelped and crows craked without a stop, stirring about
-in the branches behind Macvicar's Land. And the salt wind! It blew in from
-the low bay at one end of the town and through it to the other, and before
-it went a lad into the wide world that starts at the factor's corner.
-</p>
-<p>
-“By the shore-side to the low country, or by the woods to the hills?” the
-lad asked himself. He had the <i>caman</i> still in his hand, and he
-tossed it in the air. “Bas for the highway, <i>cas</i> for the low,” said
-he. The shinty fell <i>bos</i>, and our hero took to it for the highway to
-the north. He swithered at the Arches, and looked back on the front of the
-town and the quay with the oil-lights on it. He was half in the humour to
-bide, but he put the notion behind him and stretched to the brae,
-whistling a piper's march. At the head of the brae the town houses were
-lost to him, and this so soon he could not put up with, so he went down on
-a way to the right a little and stood on the grass of the Winterton field.
-</p>
-<p>
-Fast and dark the night was falling, a heavy smirr of rain was drooking
-the grass, and the trees on every hand shook the water in blobs from the
-branches. Through them the lights of the finest town in the world shone
-damp and woe-begone.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There are good folk in't, and bad folk in't,” said the lad to himself;
-“but somehow 'twas never the place for me!”
- </p>
-<p>
-He turned and went into the road through the wood, savage at heart,
-without a thought of where his sleep would be. When he came to
-Kennachregan, there was the scad of a fire above the trees beside the
-roaring river, and he went down and looked over a march dyke at a band of
-wanderers under the trees. Young and old, men and women, they lay steaming
-on soft beds of springy spruce-branches with their toes to the crackling
-logs, snoring as snore sound sleepers, sheltered from the rain by the
-thick branches, the side of the hill, and here and there a canvas
-covering. There was but one of them up—a long old man with lank jaws
-and black eyes—John Fine Macdonald. He was stirring up the logs with
-the shod of a crutch and humming a Perth song, and before the hottest of
-the fire a plucked bird was roasting.
-</p>
-<p>
-The smell of the meat and the wood-fire rose to the dykeside where the lad
-stood shivering in his wet clothes, and the comfort of the camp was
-something he could not pass by.
-</p>
-<p>
-He took a jump over the dyke and went out in the light of the fire,
-wondering what would be his welcome. Old Boboon looked up with his hand
-over his eyes, then rose on his crutches and put a hand on the young
-fellow's shoulder.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You're from Inneraora town?” said he.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I am,” said the lad; “but it's Inneraora no more for me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ho! ho!” laughed the old wanderer. “Sit ye down, ye scamp, and take your
-fingers to a pick of your grandfather's hen. Boboon's children may be slow
-and far, but home's aye home to them!”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-THE FELL SERGEANT.
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T is ill enough to have to die in Glenaora at any season, but to get the
-word for travelling from it on yon trip in the spring of the year is hard
-indeed. The gug-gug will halloo in your ears to bid you bide a wee and see
-the red of the heather creep on Tom-an-dearc; the soft and sap-scented
-winds will come in at the open door, and you will mind, maybe, of a day
-long-off and lost when you pulled the copper leaves of the bursting oak
-and tossed them among a girl's hair. Oh! the long days and the strong
-days! They will come back to you like the curious bit in a tune that is
-vexatious and sweet, and not for words or a set thought. You will think of
-the lambs on the slopes, of the birds tearing through the thousand ways in
-the woods, of the magic hollows in below the thick-sown pines, of the
-burns, deep at the bottom of <i>eas</i> and corri, spilling like gold on a
-stair. And then, it may be, Solomon Carrier's cart goes by to the town,
-the first time since the drifts went off the high road; you hear the
-clatter of the iron shoes, and your mind will go with him to the throng
-street where the folks are so kind and so free.
-</p>
-<p>
-But to turn your back for the last at that time on Lecknamban must come
-sorest of all. For Lecknamban has seven sheilings hidden in its hills,
-where the grass is long and juicy, and five burns that are aye on the
-giggle like girls at a wedding, and the Aora daunders down in front of the
-knowe, full of fish for the Duke alone, but bonny for earl or caird.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was in this same glen, in this same Lecknamban, in the spring of a
-year, a woman was at her end. She was a woman up in years but not old, a
-black Bana-Mhuileach who had seen pleasant things and trials like all who
-come to this queer market-place; but now when the time was come to take
-the long road with no convoy, only the good times were in her
-recollection. And though Glenaora was not her calf-country (for she came
-but a year ago to bide with a friend), she was swear't to turn heel on a
-place so cosy.
-</p>
-<p>
-She sat propped up in a box-bed, on pillows, with her face to the open
-door, and the friendly airs of the country-side came in to stir her hair.
-With them came scents of the red earth and the grass, birch-tree and
-myrtle, from the moor. But more than all they brought her who was at her
-end a keen craving for one more summer of the grand world. Strong in her
-make and dour at the giving-in, she kept talking of the world's affairs
-and foolishness to the folk about her who were waiting the Almighty's will
-and the coming of the stretching-board. Her fingers picked without a stop
-at the woolly bits of the blankets, and her eyes were on as much of the
-knowe below the house as she could see out at the open door. It was yellow
-at the foot with flowers, and here and there was a spot of blue from the
-cuckoo-brogue.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Women, women,” she said with short breaths, “I'm thinking aye, when I see
-the flowers, of a man that came from these parts to Duart. He sang 'Mo
-Nighean Dubh' in a style was never heard before in our place, and he once
-brought me the scented cuckoo-brogues from Aora.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Said the goodwife, “Aoirig, poor woman, it is not the hour for ancient old
-<i>sgeuls</i>; be thinking of a canny going.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Going! it was aye going with me,” said the woman in the bed. “And it was
-aye going when things were at their best and I was the keener for them.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's the way of God, my dear, <i>ochanie!</i>” said one of the two
-Tullich sisters, putting a little salt in a plate for-the coming business.
-</p>
-<p>
-“O God! it's the hard way, indeed. And I'm not so old as you by two or
-three clippings.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Peace, Aoirig, heart; you had your own merry times, and that's as much as
-most of us have claim to.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Merry times! merry times!” said Aoirig, humped among the bedding, her
-mind wandering.
-</p>
-<p>
-Curls of the peat-reek coiled from the floor among the <i>cabars</i> or
-through the hole in the roof; a lamb ran by the door bleating for its
-mother, and the whistling of an <i>uiseag</i> high over the grass where
-his nest lay ran out to a thin thread of song. The sound of it troubled
-the dying woman, and she asked her friends to shut the door. Now and again
-Maisie would put a wet cloth to her lips and dry the death-sweat from her
-face. The goodwife was throng among chests and presses looking for sheets,
-shrouds, and dead-caps.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's a pity,” said she, “you brought no grave-clothes with you from Mull,
-my dear.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Are you grudging me yours?” asked Aoirig, coming round from wandering.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No, nor grudging; fine ye ken it, cousin. But I know ye have them, and
-it's a pity you should be dressed in another's spinning than your own.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ay, they're yonder sure enough: clean and ready. And there's more than
-that beside them. The linen I should have brought to a man's home.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You and your man's home! Is it Duart, my dear, among your own folk, or
-down to Inishail, you would have us take you?” Aoirig coughed till the red
-froth was at her lips.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Duart is homely and Inishail is holy, sure enough, but I would have it
-Kilmalieu. They tell me it's a fine kirkyard; but I never had the luck to
-see it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's well enough, I'll not deny, and it would not be so far to take you.
-Our folk have a space of their own among the MacVicars, below the parson.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The woman in the bed signed for a sip of water, and they had it fast at
-her lips.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Could you be putting me near the Macnicols?” she asked in a weakening
-voice. “The one I speak of was a Macnicol.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ay, ay,” said the goodwife; “they were aye gallant among the girls.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gallant he was,” said the one among the blankets. “I see him now. The
-best man ever I saw. It was at a wedding——”
- </p>
-<p>
-The woman's breast racked and the spume spattered over the home-spun
-blankets.
-</p>
-<p>
-Maisie was heating a death-shift at the peat-fire, turning it over in her
-hands, letting the dry airs into every seam and corner.
-</p>
-<p>
-Looking at her preparation, the dying woman caught back her breath to ask
-why such trouble with a dead-shift.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ye would not have it on damp and cold,” said Maisie, settling the
-business. “I doubt it'll be long in the sleeves, woman, for the goodwife
-has a lengthy reach.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It was at a marriage in Glenurchy,” said Aoirig in a haver, the pillows
-slipping down behind her back. “Yonder he is. A slim straight lad. Ronnal,
-O Ronnal my hero! What a dancer! not his match in Mull. Aye so——”
- </p>
-<p>
-A foot could be heard on the road, and one of the two sisters ran out, for
-she knew whom it would be. They had sent word to the town by Solomon in
-the morning for Macnicol the wright to come up with the stretching-board,
-thinking there was but an hour more for poor Macnicol's were the
-footsteps, and there he was with the stretching-board under his arm—a
-good piece of larch rubbed smooth by sheet and shroud, and a little hollow
-worn at the head. He was a fat man, rolling a bit to one side on a short
-leg, gross and flabby at the jowl, and thick-lipped; but he might have
-been a swanky lad in his day, and there was a bit of good-humour in the
-corner of his eye, where you will never see it when one has been born with
-the uneasy mind. He was humming to himself as he came up the brae a
-Badenoch ditty they have in these parts on the winter nights, gossiping
-round the fire. Whom he was going to stretch he had no notion, except that
-it was a woman and a stranger to the glen.
-</p>
-<p>
-The sister took him round to the corner of the house and in at the byre
-door, and told him to wait. “It'll not be long now,” she said.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then she's still to the fore,” said the wright. “I might have waited on
-the paymaster's dram at Three Bridges if I had ken't. Women are aye thrawn
-about dying. They'll put it off to the last, when a man would be glad to
-be taking the road. Who is she, poor woman?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A cousin-german of Nanny's,” said the sister, putting a bottle before
-him, and whipping out for some bannock and cheese. He sat down on a
-shearing-stool, facing the door, half open, between the byre he was in and
-the kitchen where Aoirig was at the dying. The stretching-board leaned
-against the wall outside.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Aye so gentle, so kind,” the woman in the bed was saying in her last
-dover. “He kissed me first on a day like this. And the blue flowers from
-Aora?”
- </p>
-<p>
-In the byre the wright was preeing the drink and paying little heed to
-food. It was the good warm stuff they brew on the side of Lochow, the
-heart of the very heart of the barley-fields, with the taste of gall and
-peat, and he mellowed with every quaich, and took to the soft lilting of
-Niall Ban's song:—
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“'I am the Sergeant fell but kind
-(Ho! ho! heroes, agus ho-e-ro! );
-I only lift but the deaf and blind,
-The wearied-out and the rest-inclined.
-Many a booty I drive before,
-Through the glens, through the glens.'
-said the Sergeant Mor.”
- </pre>
-<p>
-Ben the house the goodwife was saying the prayers for the dying woman the
-woman should have said for herself while she had the wind for it, but
-Aoirig harped on her love-tale. She was going fast, and the sisters,
-putting their hands to her feet, could feel that they were cold as the
-rocks. Maisie's arms were round her, and she seemed to have the notion
-that here was the grip of death, for she pushed her back.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I am not so old—so old. There is Seana, my neighbour at Duart—long
-past the fourscore and still spinning—I am not so old—God of
-grace—so old—and the flowers——”
- </p>
-<p>
-A grey shiver went over her face; her breast heaved and fell in; her voice
-stopped with a gluck in the throat.
-</p>
-<p>
-The women stirred round fast in the kitchen. Out on the clay floor the two
-sisters pushed the table and laid a sheet on it, the goodwife put aside
-the pillows and let Aoirig's head fall back on the bed. Maisie put her
-hand to the clock and stopped it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Open the door, open the door!” cried the goodwife, turning round in a
-hurry and seeing the door still shut.
-</p>
-<p>
-One of the sisters put a finger below the sneck and did as she was told,
-to let out the dead one's ghost.
-</p>
-<p>
-Outside, taking the air, to get the stir of the strong waters out of his
-head, was the wright.
-</p>
-<p>
-He knew what the opening of the door meant, and he lifted his board and
-went in with it under his arm. A wafting of the spring smells came in at
-his back, and he stood with his bonnet in his hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-“So this is the end o't?” he said in a soft way, stamping out the fire on
-the floor.
-</p>
-<p>
-He had but said it when Eurig sat up with a start in the bed, and the
-women cried out. She opened her eyes and looked at the man, with his fat
-face, his round back, and ill-made clothes, and the death-deal under his
-oxter, and then she fell back on the bed with her face stiffening.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Here's the board for ye,” said the wright, his face spotted white and his
-eyes staring. “I'll go out a bit and take a look about me. I once knew a
-woman who was terribly like you, and she came from Mull.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-BLACK MURDO
-</h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Mas breug uam e is breug thugam e.”
-
-—Gaelic Proverb.
-</pre>
-<h3>
-I.
-</h3>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>LACK MURDO'S wife was heavy, and 'twas the time the little brown nats
-were pattering in Stronbuie wood. Stronbuie spreads out its greenness to
-the sun from the slope of Cladich. It is, in its season, full of the
-piping of birds and the hurry of wings, and the winds of it have the smell
-of a fat soil. The Diarmaids were the cunning folk to steal it; for if
-Stronshira is good, Stronbuie is better; and though the loops of Aora
-tangle themselves in the gardens of the Red Duke, Lochow has enchantment
-for the galley of a king. Fraoch Eilean, Innis Chonell, and Innis Chonain—they
-cluster on the bend of it like the gems on a brooch, Inishail of the Monks
-makes it holy, and Cruachan-ben, who lords it over Lorn, keeps the cold
-north wind from the shore. They may talk of Glenaora, but Stronbuie comes
-close, close to the heart!
-</p>
-<p>
-For all that, 'twas on a time a poor enough place for a woman in yon
-plight; for the rest of the clan crowded down on Innistiynich, all
-fighters and coarse men of the sword, and a skilly woman or a
-stretching-board was no nearer than a day's tramp over the hill and down
-Aora glen to the walls of Inneraora. If one died on Cladich-side then—and
-'twas a dying time, for the Athol dogs were for ever at the harrying—it
-was but a rough burying, with no corranach and no mort-cloth; if a child
-came, it found but cold water and a cold world, whatever hearts might be.
-But for seven years no child came for Black Murdo.
-</p>
-<p>
-They say, in the Gaelic old-word, that a stolen bitch will never throw
-clean pups nor a home-sick woman giants. Murdo recked nothing of that when
-he went wooing in a time of truce to Croit-bhile, the honey-croft that
-makes a red patch on the edge of Creag Dubh. He brought Silis home to the
-dull place at Stronbuie, and she baked his bannocks and ploughed his bit
-of soil, but her heart never left salt Finne-side. In the morning she
-would go to the hill to look through the blurred glen, and she would have
-made bargains with the ugliest crow that could flap on feathers for a
-day's use of his wings. She could have walked it right often and gaily to
-her people's place, but Black Murdo was of Clan Artair, and Artairich had
-not yet come under the <i>bratach</i> of Diarmaid, and bloody knives made
-a march-dyke between the two tartans.
-</p>
-<p>
-Seven years and seven days went by, and Black Murdo, coming in on an
-evening after a hard day at the deer, found Silis making the curious wee
-clothes. He looked at her keen, questioning, and she bleached to the lips.
-</p>
-<p>
-“So!” said he.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Just so,” said she, breaking a thread with her teeth, and bending till
-the peat-flame dyed her neck like wine.
-</p>
-<p>
-“God, and I'm the stout fellow!” said he, and out he went, down all the
-way to Portinsherrich, and lusty he was with the ale among the pretty men
-there.
-</p>
-<p>
-Weeks chased each other like sheep in a fank, and Silis grew sick at the
-heart. There's a time for a woman when the word of a woman is sweeter than
-a harp; but there were only foolish girls at Innistrynich, and coarse men
-of the sword. So Murdo stayed in from the roes when the time crept close.
-To see him do the heavy work of the house and carrying in the peats was a
-sorry sight.
-</p>
-<p>
-Silis kept dreaming of Finne-side, where she had heard the long wave in
-the spring of the year when she had gone home on a password to a woman's
-wedding with Long Coll. The same Long Coll had brothers, and one had put a
-man's foolish sayings in her ears before ever she met Murdo, she a thin
-girl like a saugh-wand and not eighteen till Beltane. They called him—no
-matter—and he had the way with the women. Faith, it's the strange
-art! It is not looks, nor dancing, nor the good heart, nor wit, but some
-soft fire of the eye and maybe a song to the bargain. Whatever it was, it
-had Silis, for all that her goodman Murdo had a man's qualities and
-honesty extra.
-</p>
-<p>
-They say, “<i>Cnuic is sluic is Alpeinich, ach cuin a thàinig Artharaich?</i>”(1)
-in the by-word; but Artharaich had age enough for a <i>taibhsear</i>
-whatever, for Black Murdo had the Sight.
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-1 The hills and hollows and Clan Alpine came together, but
-when arose Clan Artair?
-</pre>
-<p>
-It's the curious thing to say of a man with all his parts that he should
-be <i>taibhsear</i> and see visions; for a <i>taibhsear</i>, by all the
-laws, should be an old fellow with little use for swords or shinny-sticks.
-But Murdo missed being a full taibhsear by an ell, so the fit had him
-seldom. He was the seventh son of a mother who died with the brand of a
-cross on her brow, and she was kin to the Glenurchy Woman. And something
-crept over him with the days, that put a mist in his eyes when he looked
-at Silis; but “I'm no real <i>taibhsear</i>,” he said to himself, “and I
-swear by the black stones it is no cloth. A man with all the Gift might
-call it a shroud high on her breast, but——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Silis, <i>a bhean!</i> shall it be the Skilly Dame of Inneraora?”
- </p>
-<p>
-A light leaped to the woman's eyes, for the very thing was in her mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-“If it could be,” she said, slowly; “but it's not easy to get her, for
-black's your name on Aoraside.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Black or white, Murdo stands in his own shoes. He has been at the gate of
-Inneraora when Strong Colin the warder had little thought of it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then, oh heart! it must be soon—tomorrow—but——”
- </p>
-<p>
-The mouth of day found Silis worse, and Murdo on his way to Inneraora.
-</p>
-<p>
-He stepped it down Glenaora like Coll Mor in the story, or the man with
-the fairy shoes. A cloud was over Tullich and a wet wind whistled on
-Kennachregan. The man's target played dunt on his back, so hasty was he,
-for all that the outposts of Big Colin had hawk's eyes on the pass. He had
-got the length of Alt Shelechan when a Diarmaid came out on him from the
-bracken with a curse on his mouth. He was a big Diarmaid, high-breasted
-and stark, for there's no denying there was breed in the pigs.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ho, ho, lad!” said he, crousely, “it's risking it you are this day!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Black Murdo's hands went to his sides, where a ready man's should ready
-be; but he had sight of Silis. He could see her in Stronbuie in the bothy,
-on the wee creepy-stool beside the peats, and he knew she was saying the
-Wise Woman's Wish that Diarmaid mothers have so often need of. Length is
-length, and it's a far cry to Lochow sure enough; but even half a <i>taibhsear</i>
-takes no count of miles and time.
-</p>
-<p>
-He spoke softly. “I go to Inneraora for the Skilly Woman. My wife is a
-daughter of your folks, and she'll have none but the dame who brought
-herself home.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Death or life?” asked the Diarmaid, a freckled hand still on the
-basket-hilt. He put the question roughly, for nobody likes to lose a ploy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Life it is, my lad. It's not to dress corpses but to wash weans she's
-wanted.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ho-chutt!” went the blade back against the brass of the scabbard (for he
-was <i>duin-uasal</i> who carried it), and the man's face changed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Pass!” he said. “I would not stand in a bairn's way to life. Had it been
-shrouds instead of sweelers, we could have had it out, for a corpse is in
-no great hurry. But troth it's yourself is the tight one, and I would have
-liked a bit of the old game.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No more than Murdo, red fellow!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Murdo! So be't; yet Murdo will give me his dirk for gate-pay, or they'll
-be saying farther down that Calum, as good a man, kept out of his way.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The <i>biodag</i> went flying into the grass at Calum's feet, and Murdo
-went leaping down the glen. It was like stalking deer for the Diarmaids.
-Here and there he had to go into the river or among the hazel-switches, or
-crawl on his stomach among the gall.
-</p>
-<p>
-From Kilmune to Uchdan-barracaldine the red fellows were passing, or
-playing with the <i>clachneart</i> or the <i>cabar,</i> or watching their
-women toiling in the little fields.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Thorns in their sides!” he said to himself, furious at last, when another
-keen-eyed Diarmaid caught sight of his tartan and his black beard among
-some whins. It was a stripling with only a dirk, but he could gather fifty
-men on the crook of his finger.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stand!” cried the Diarmaid, flashing the dirk out. “What want ye so far
-over this way?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Murdo, even in the rage, saw Silis, a limp creature, sweating in her
-pains, her black eyes (like the sloe) keen on the door. So close, so sure,
-so sorrowful! He could have touched her on the shoulder and whispered in
-her ear.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I am Black Murdo,” he told the lad. “I am for Inneraora for the Skilly
-Woman for my wife, child of your own clan.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Death or life?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Life.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“'Tis a bonny targe ye have, man; it might be doing for toll.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The lad got it, and Murdo went on his way. He found the Skilly Woman, who
-put before him sour milk and brose. But he would not have drink or sup, so
-back through the Diarmaids they went without question (for the woman's
-trade was as good as the chief's convoy), till they came to Tom-an-dearc.
-Out upon them there a fellow red and pretty.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Hold!” he said, as if it had been dogs. “What's the name of ye, black
-fellow?” Murdo cursed in his beard. “My name's honest man, but I have not
-time to prove it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Troth that's a pity. But seeing there's the <i>caüleach</i> with you, you
-must e'en go your way. There's aye some of you folk on the
-stretching-board. Ye want heart, and ye die with a flaff of wind. Lend me
-your sword, <i>'ille!</i>''
-</p>
-<p>
-“Squint-mouth!” cried Murdo, “your greedy clan took too much off me this
-day already for me to part with the sweetest blade Gow-an-aora ever beat
-on iron. I took it from one of your cowards at Carnus, and if it's back it
-goes, it's not with my will.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then it's the better man must have it,” said the red fellow, and, Lord,
-he was the neat-built one! They took off their coats, and for lack of
-bucklers rolled them round their arms, both calm and canny. The Diarmaid
-was first ready with his brand out, and Murdo put to his point. For a
-little the two men stood, spread out, hard-drawn behind the knees, with
-the cords of the neck like thongs, then at it with a clatter of steel.
-</p>
-<p>
-The Skilly Woman, with the plaid pulled tight over her grey hair, sat with
-sunk eyes on a stone and waited without wonder. She had sons who had died
-in brawls at Kilmichael market, or in the long foray far in Kintail; and
-her man, foster-brother to a chief, got death in the strange foreign wars,
-where the pay was not hide and horn but round gold.
-</p>
-<p>
-A smoky soft smirr of rain filled all the gap between the hills, though
-Sithean Sluaidhe and Dunchuach had tips of brass from a sun dropping
-behind the Salachary hills. The grass and the gall lost their glitter and
-became grey and dull; the hill of Lecknamban, where five burns are born,
-coaxed the mist down on its breast like a lover. It was wet, wet, but
-never a drop made a rush bend or a leaf fall. Below the foot the ground
-was greasy, as it is in a fold at the dippingtime; but the two men pulled
-themselves up with a leap on it as if it might be dry sand, and the
-brogues made no error on the soil.
-</p>
-<p>
-First the Diarmaid pressed, for he had it over the other man in youth, and
-youth is but tame when it's slow or slack. Murdo waited, all eyes that
-never blinked, with the basket well up, and kept on his toes. “Splank,
-sp-ll-ank, sp-ll-ank—<i>siod e</i>!” said the blades, and the
-Diarmaid's for a time made the most of the music, but he never got inside
-the black fellow's guard. Then Murdo took up the story with a snap of the
-teeth, skelping hard at the red one till the hands dirled in the basket
-like a bag of pins. The smirr gathered thicker, and went to rain that fell
-solid, the brogues grew like steeped bladders on the feet, a scatter of
-crows made a noisy homing to the trees at Tullich, and Aora gobbled like
-swine in a baron's trough.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Haste ye, heroes,” said the old woman, cowering on the wet stone; “haste
-ye, dears; it's mighty long ye are about it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The Diarmaid turned the edge twice on the coated arm, and Murdo wasted his
-wind to curse. Then he gave the stroke that's worth fifty head of kyloes
-(fine they know that same all below Cladichl), and a red seam jumped to
-the Diarmaid's face. All his heart went to stiffen his slacking heavy arm,
-and he poured on Murdo till Murdo felt it like a rain of spears. One hot
-wandering stroke he got on the bonnet, and for want of the bowl of brose
-at Inneraora, the wind that should go to help him went inside, and turned
-his stomach. Sweat, hot and salt, stung his eyes, his ears filled with a
-great booming, he fell in a weary dream of a far-off fight on a witched
-shore, with the waves rolling, and some one else at the fencing, and
-caring nought, but holding guard with the best blade Gow-an-aora ever took
-from flame. Back stepped the Diarmaid, sudden, and sweep went his steel at
-the shaking knees.
-</p>
-<p>
-A bairn's cry struck Murdo's ear through the booming and sent him full
-awake. He drew back the stretched foot fast, and round the red one's sword
-hissed through air. “Foil! foil!” said Murdo, and he slashed him on the
-groin.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That'll do, man; no more,” said the Skilly Woman, quickly,
-</p>
-<p>
-“I may as well finish him; it's lame he'll be all his days any way, and
-little use is a man with a halt in a healthy clan.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Halt or no halt, let him be; he's my second cousin's son.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Murdo looked for a bit at the bloody thing before him, but the woman
-craved again with bony fingers on his wrist; so he spat on the dirty green
-tartan and went. The smoke rose from him and hung about with a smell of
-wearied flesh, the grey of the mist was black at Carnus. When the pair
-came over against Lochow, where one can see the holy isle when it is day,
-the night was deep and cold; but the woman bent at the cross with a “<i>Mhoire
-Mhathair</i>,” and so did the man, picking the clotted blood from his ear.
-They dropped down the brae on the house at last.
-</p>
-<p>
-For a little Black Murdo's finger hung on the sneck, and when he heard a
-sound he pushed in the door.
-</p>
-<p>
-All about the house the peat-reek swung like mist on the mountain. Wind
-and rain fought it out on Cladich brae, and when it was not the wind that
-came bold through the smoke-hole in the roof, 'twas the rain, a beady
-slant that hissed on the peats like roasting herrings. The woman lay slack
-on the bed, her eyes glossed over with the glass that folks see the great
-sights through, and her fingers making love over the face and breast of a
-new-born boy that cried thinly at her knees. A lighted cruisie spluttered
-with heavy smell at the end of a string on a rafter.
-</p>
-<p>
-“O Skilly Woman, Skilly Woman, it's late we are,” said Black Murdo.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Late enough, as ye say, just man. Had ye bartered an old sword for twenty
-minutes on the Tom-an-dearc, I was here before danger.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Then the Skilly Woman set him on the wet windy side of the door, and went
-about with busy hands.
-</p>
-<p>
-The man, with the ragged edge of his kilt scraping his knees and the rain
-bubbling in his brogues, leaned against the wattled door and smeared the
-blood from his brow. A cold wind gulped down from Glenurchy and ghosts
-were over Inishail. The blast whirled about and whirled about, and swung
-the rowan like a fern, and whistled in the gall, and tore the thatch, all
-to drown a child's cry. The blackness crowded close round like a wall, and
-flapped above like a plaid—Stronbuie was in a tent and out of the
-world. Murdo strained to hear a voice, but the wind had the better of him.
-He went round to the gable, thinking to listen at the window, but the
-board on the inside shut the wind and him out. The strange emptiness of
-grief was in his belly.
-</p>
-<p>
-Inside, the Skilly One went like a witch, beak-nosed and half-blind. There
-was clatter of pans and the dash of water, the greeting of the child and
-the moan of the mother. What else is no man's business. For all she was
-skilly the old dame had no thought of the woman sinking.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You'll have blithe-meat in the morning,” she said, cheerily, from the
-fireside.
-</p>
-<p>
-Silis made worse moan than before.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Such a boy, white love! And hair like the copper! His hide is mottled
-like a trout's back; calf of my heart!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Silis, on her side, put out white craving arms. “Give it to me, wife; give
-it to me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Wheesht! rest ye, dear, rest ye,” said the Skilly Dame.
-</p>
-<p>
-But she put the bairn in its mother's arms. Silis, when she had it on her
-breast, sobbed till the bed shook.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Is not he the hero, darling?” said the Skilly Woman. “It's easy seen he's
-off Clan Diarmaid on one side, for all that yoar hair is black as the
-sloe. Look at the colour of him!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Fright was in the mother's face. “Come close, come close till I tell you,”
- she said, her long hair damp on her milky shoulders.
-</p>
-<p>
-The Skilly Woman put down her head and listened with wonder.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Me-the-day! Was I not the blind one to miss it? His name, white love? No
-one shall ken it from me, not even Murdo.”
- </p>
-<p>
-A man's name took up the last breath of Silis; she gave a little shiver,
-and choked with a sound that the old crone had heard too often not to
-know.
-</p>
-<p>
-She looked, helpless, for a little at the bed, then felt the mother's
-feet. They were as cold as stone.
-</p>
-<p>
-A cry caught Murdo's ear against the wattles, and he drove in the door
-with his shoulder, heeding no sneck nor bar.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Am not I the blind fool?” said the crone.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There's your wife gone, cheap enough at the price of a yard of steel.”
- </p>
-<p>
-They stood and looked at the bed together, the bairn crying without
-notice.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I knew it,” said the man, heaving; “<i>taibhsear</i> half or whole, I
-could see the shroud on her neck!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The grey light was drifting in from Cladich. The fir-trees put stretched
-fingers up against the day, and Murdo was placing a platter of salt on a
-bosom as cold and as white as the snow.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You're feeding him on the wrong cloth,” said he, seeing the crone give
-suck to the child from a rag of Diarmaid tartan dipped in goat's milk.
-</p>
-<h3>
-II.
-</h3>
-<p>
-The boy grew like a tree in a dream, that is seed, sapling, and giant in
-one turn on the side. Stronbuie's wattled bothy, old and ugly, quivered
-with his laughing, and the young heather crept closer round the door. The
-Spotted Death filled Inishail with the well-fed and the warm-happed; but
-the little one, wild on the brae, forgotten, sucking the whey from rags
-and robbing the bush of its berries, gathered sap and sinew like the child
-of kings. It is the shrewd way of God! There was bloody enough work forby,
-for never a sheiling passed but the brosey folks came pouring down
-Glenstrae, scythe, sword, and spear, and went back with the cattle before
-them, and redness and smoke behind. But no raider put hand on Black Murdo,
-for now he was <i>taibhsear</i> indeed, and the <i>taibhsear</i> has magic
-against dub or steel. How he became <i>taibhsear</i> who can be telling?
-When he buried Silis out on the isle, his heart grew heavy, gloom seized
-him, the cut of the Diarmaid's sword gave a quirk to his brain that
-spoiled him for the world's use. He took to the hills no more in sport, he
-carried Gow-an-aora's sword no more in battle, for all that it cost him so
-dear. A poor man's rig was his at the harvest because of his Gift, and the
-cailzie cock or the salmon never refused his lure.
-</p>
-<p>
-Skill of the daymore, the seven cuts, and yon ready slash worth fifty head
-of kyloes, he gave to the boy, and then the quick cunning parry, and the
-use of the foot and knee that makes half a swordsman.
-</p>
-<p>
-But never a spot of crimson would he have on Rory's steel.
-</p>
-<p>
-“First dip in the blood of the man with the halt, and then farewell to
-ye!” he said, wearying for the day when the boy should avenge his mother.
-</p>
-<p>
-Folks—far-wandered ones—brought him news of the man with the
-halt that was his giving, the Diarmaid whose bargain for a sword on
-Tom-an-dearc cost Silis her life. He passed it on to the boy, and he
-filled him with old men's tales. He weaved the cunning stories of the pigs
-of Inneraora, for all that the boy's mother came from their loins, and he
-made them—what there may well be doubts of—cowards and weak.
-</p>
-<p>
-“They killed your mother, Rory: her with the eyes like the sloe and the
-neck like snow. Swear by the Holy Iron that the man with the halt we ken
-of gets his pay for it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Rory swore on the iron. It is an easy thing for one when the blood is
-strong and the <i>biodag</i> still untried. He lay awake at night,
-thinking of his mother's murderer till the sweat poured. He would have
-been on the track of him before ever he had won his man's bonnet by
-lifting the <i>clach-cuid-fear</i>, but Murdo said, “Let us be sure. You
-are young yet, and I have one other trick of fencing worth while biding
-for.”
- </p>
-<p>
-At last, upon a time, Murdo found the boy could match himself, and he
-said, “Now let us to this affair.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He took the boy, as it were, by the hand, and they ran up the hills and
-down the hills, and through the wet glens, to wherever a Diarmaid might
-be; and where were they not where strokes were going? The hoodie-crow was
-no surer on the scent of war. Blar-na-leine took them over the six valleys
-and the six mountains; Cowal saw them on the day the Lamonts got their
-bellyful; a knock came on them on the night when the Stewarts took their
-best from Appin and flung themselves on Inneraora, and they went out
-without a word and marched with that high race.
-</p>
-<p>
-But luck was with the man with the halt they sought for. At muster for
-raid, or at market, he was there, swank man and pretty but for the
-lameness he had found on an ill day on Tom-an-dearc. He sang songs round
-the ale with the sweetness of the bird, and his stories came ready enough
-off the tongue. Black Murdo and the boy were often close enough on his
-heel, but he was off and away like the corp-candle before they were any
-nigher. If he had magic, it could have happened no stranger.
-</p>
-<p>
-Once, a caird who went round the world with the jingle of cans on his back
-and a sheaf of withies in his oxter, told them that a lame Diarmaid was
-bragging at Kilmichael fair that he would play single-stick for three days
-against the country-side. They sped down to Ford, and over the way; but
-nothing came of it, for the second day had found no one to come to the
-challenge, and the man with the halt was home again.
-</p>
-<p>
-Black Murdo grew sick of the chase, and the cub too tired of it. For his
-father's fancy he was losing the good times—many a fine exploit
-among the Atholmen and the brosey folks of Glenstrae; and when he went
-down to Innistrynich to see the lads go out with belt and plaid, he would
-give gold to be with them.
-</p>
-<p>
-One day, “I have dreamed a dream,” said Murdo, “Our time is come: what we
-want will be on the edge of the sea, and it will be the third man after
-dawn. Come, son, let us make for Inneraora.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Inneraora lies now between the bays, sleeping day and night, for the old
-times are forgot and the nettle's on Dunchuach. Before the plaid of
-MacCailein Mor was spread from Cowal to Cruachan, it was the stirring
-place; high and dry on the bank of Slochd-a-chubair, and the dogs
-themselves fed on buck-flesh from the mountains, so rowth the times! One
-we ken of has a right to this place or that place yonder that shall not be
-named, and should hold his head as high on Aora as any chief of the boar's
-snout; but <i>mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!</i> the black bed of Macartair is
-in the Castle itself, and Macartair is without soil or shield. How
-Diarmaid got the old place is a sennachie's tale. “As much of the land as
-a heifer's hide will cover,” said the foolish writing, and MacCailein had
-the guile to make the place his own. He cut the hide of a long-backed
-heifer into thin thongs, and stretched it round Stronbuie. There is day
-about to be seen with his race for that! Over to Inneraora then went
-Murdo, and Rory clad for fighting, bearing with him the keen old sword.
-'Twas a different time going down the glen then from what it was on the
-misty day Murdo fetched the Skilly Dame; for the Diarmaids he met by the
-way said, “'Tis the Lochow <i>taibhsear</i> and his tail,” and let them by
-without a word, or maybe with a salute. They went to the Skilly Dame's
-house, and she gave them the Gael's welcome, with bannocks and crowdie, <i>marag-dkubh</i>
-and ale. But she asked them not their business, for that is the way of the
-churl. She made them soft-scented beds of white hay in a dirty black
-corner, where they slept till cockcrow with sweet weariness in their
-bones.
-</p>
-<p>
-The morning was a grey day with frost and snow. Jumping John's bay below
-the house was asleep with a soft smoke like a blanket over it. Lean deer
-from behind the wood came down trotting along the shore, sniffing the
-saltness, and wondering where the meat was. With luck and a good <i>sgian-dubh</i>
-a quick lad could do some gralloching. The tide was far out from Ard
-Rannoch to the Gallows-tree, and first there was the brown wrack, and then
-there was the dun sand, and on the edge of the sand a bird went stalking.
-The old man and the young one stood at the gable and looked at it all.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was a short cut from below the castle to the point of Ard Rannoch, if
-the tide was out, to go over the sand. “What we wait on,” said Murdo,
-softly, “goes across there. There will be two men, and them ye shall not
-heed, but the third is him ye ken of. Ye'll trap him between the whin-bush
-and the sea, and there can be no escaping unless he takes to the swimming
-for it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Rory plucked his belts tight, took out the good blade wondrous quiet,
-breathing fast and heavy. The rich blood raced up his back, and tingled
-hot against his ruddy neck.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What seest thou, my son?” said Murdo at last.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A man with a quick step and no limp,” quoth the lad.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Let him pass.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Then again said the old man, “What seest thou?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A <i>bodach</i> frail and bent, with a net on his shoulder,” said Rory.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Let him pass.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The sun went high over Ben Ime, and struck the snow till the eyes were
-blinded. Rory rubbed the sweat from his drenched palm on the pleat of his
-kilt, and caught the basket-hand tighter. Over Aora mouth reek went up
-from a fishing-skiff, and a black spot stood out against the snow.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What seest thou now, lad?” asked Murdo.
-</p>
-<p>
-“The man with the halt,” answered the lad.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then your time has come, child. The stroke worth the fifty head, and pith
-on your arm!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Rory left the old man's side, and went down through a patch of shelisters,
-his mouth dry as a peat and his heart leaping. He was across the wrack and
-below the pools before the coming man had noticed him. But the coming man
-thought nothing wrong, and if he did, it was but one man at any rate, and
-one man could use but one sword, if swords were going. Rory stepped on the
-edge of the sand, and tagged the bonnet down on his brow, while the man
-limped on between him and the sea. Then he stepped out briskly and said,
-“Stop, pig!” He said it strangely soft, and with, as it were, no heart in
-the business; for though the lame man was strong, deepbreasted, supple,
-and all sound above the belt, there was a look about him that made the
-young fellow have little keenness for the work.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Pig?” said the Diarmaid, putting back his shoulders and looking under his
-heavy brows. “You are the Lochow lad who has been seeking for me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ho, ho! red fellow; ye kent of it, then?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Red fellow! It's red enough you are yourself, I'm thinking. I have no
-great heed to draw steel on a lad of your colour, so I'll just go my way.”
- And the man looked with queer wistful eyes over his shoulder at the lad,
-who, with blade-point on the sand, would have let him pass.
-</p>
-<p>
-But up-by at the house the <i>taibhsear</i> watched the meeting. The quiet
-turn it took was beyond his reading, for he had thought it would be but
-the rush, and the fast fall-to, and no waste of time, for the tide was
-coming in.
-</p>
-<p>
-“White love, give him it!” he cried out, making for the shore. “He looks
-lame, but the pig's worth a man's first fencing.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Up went the boy's steel against the grey cloud, and he was at the throat
-of the Diarmaid like a beast. “Malison on your black heart, murderer!” he
-roared, still gripping his broadsword. The Diarmaid flung him off like a
-child, and put up his guard against the whisking of his blade.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, foolish boy!” he panted wofully as the lad pressed, and the grey
-light spread over sea and over shore. The quiet tide crawled in about
-their feet; birds wheeled on white feathers with mocking screams; the old
-man leaned on his staff and cheered the boy. The Diarmaid had all the
-coolness and more of art, and he could have ended the play as he wanted.
-But he only fended, and at last the slash worth fifty head found his neck.
-He fell on his side, with a queer twisted laugh on his face, saying,
-“Little hero, ye fence—ye fence——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Haste ye, son! finish the thing!” said the <i>taibhsear,</i> all shaking,
-and the lad did as he was told, hocking at the spurt the blood made. He
-was pushing his dirk in the sand to clean it, when his eye fell on the
-Skilly Woman hirpling nimbly down to the shore. She was making a loud cry.
-</p>
-<p>
-“God I God! it's the great pity about this,” said she, looking at Murdo
-cutting the silver buttons off the corpse's jacket. “Ken ye the man that's
-there dripping?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“The man's no more,” said Rory, cool enough. “He has gone travelling, and
-we forgot to ask his name.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then if happy you would be, go home to Lochow, and ask it not, nor aught
-about him, if you wouldn't rue long. You sucked your first from a Diarmaid
-rag, and it was not for nothing.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Murdo drew back with a clumsy start from the dead man's side and looked
-down on his face, then at the boy's, queerly. “I am for off,” said he at
-last with a sudden hurry. “You can follow if you like, red young one.” And
-he tossed the dead man's buttons in Rory's face!
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-THE SEA-FAIRY OF FRENCH FORELAND.
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>NCE I saw a fairy King, and it was in the Castle up-by. The Castle took
-fire, and a fine blaze it made at the foot of Dunchaach. A boy, I ran with
-the rest to carry out the MacCailein's rich gear, and behold! I wandered
-and lost my way in that large place where is a window for every day in the
-year. Up the long stairs and through the far passages, and over the
-shining sounding floors went I, barefoot, with a feared eye on every hole
-and corner. At every door it was, “Surely now I'm with the folks at the
-fire”; but every door was a way into a quieter quietness, and the Castle
-was my own. I sat at last on a black chair that had a curious twisted
-back, and the tears went raining on the lap of my kilt.
-</p>
-<p>
-Long, long I sat, and sore I grat, my mind full, not so much of my way
-lost, but of the bigness of things, and the notion of what it would be to
-have to live in a castle at night, with doors on every hand for ghosts to
-rap at, and crooked passages without end for gowsty winds to moan in.
-Thinks I, “The smallest hut in the town for me, with all plain before me,
-with the one door shut and my face to it, and the candlelight seeking into
-every crack and cranny!”
- </p>
-<p>
-It was then that the fairy King came on me out of the sewed cloth hanging
-on the wall.
-</p>
-<p>
-He was a dainty wee man, in our own tartan, with a steel plate on his
-breast baronly-style, and strange long curly hair. I ran my wet eyes down
-seven silver buttons the shape of salmon on the front of his vest before I
-let myself go, but go I must, so I put fast heels on my fright. I galloped
-with a frozen tongue through miles of the Duke's castle till a door
-brought me out on the grass of Cairnban, in front of the friendly bleeze
-that my own folks were pouring the stoups of water on.
-</p>
-<p>
-That was the only time the quiet folk and I came to a meeting, though our
-family was always gleg at seeing things. A cousin-german once saw the
-fairy bull that puts up in Loch Steallaire-bhan behind the town. It came
-on a jaunt to the glen in the guise of a rich maiden, and my cousin, the
-son of the house, made love to her. One night—in a way that I need
-not mention—he found himself in her room combing down her yellow
-hair, and what was among her hair but fine sand that told the whole story?
-“You are a <i>gruagach</i> of the lake!” cried the lad, letting the comb
-drop on the floor, with his face white, and the thing tarned to its own
-shape and went bellowing to the shore.
-</p>
-<p>
-And there was a man—blessings with him! for he's here no more—who
-would always be going up on Sithean Sluaidhe to have troke with the wee
-people on that fine knowe. He would bring them tastings of honey and
-butter to put them in a good key, and there they would dance by the hour
-for his diversion to the piping of a piper who played on drones of grass
-with reeds made of the midge's thrapple.
-</p>
-<p>
-Still, in all my time I know but one body who could find the way to the
-den of the Sea-Fairies, and she was a lass whose folks were in Ceannmor at
-the time the French traffickers were coming here to swap casks of claret
-wine for the finest herrings in the wide world.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was her custom to go down on the hot days to the shore at the
-Water-foot when the tide was far out, and the sand was crusting with salt
-in the sun, and the wrack-balls burst with the heat, and the water lay
-flat like oil, and lazy, for want of a breath of wind. Sometimes it would
-be the French Foreland she would seek, and sometimes Dalchenna; but when
-the Frenchmen were at the Foreland she kept clear of it by the counsel of
-a cautious father.
-</p>
-<p>
-Up the loch they would sail, the Frenchmen, in their gabberts, and hove-to
-with their casks to change for the cured herrings. A curious people they
-were, not much like our own good Gaels in many a way, but black-avised and
-slim; still with some of the Gael's notions about them too, such as the
-humour of fighting and drinking and scouring the countryside for girls.
-</p>
-<p>
-But it happened that one year they left behind them only a wine of
-six-waters, and did some other dirty tricks forbye, and there was for long
-a feud, so that the Frenchmen behooved to keep to their boats and bargain
-with the curers over the gun'le.
-</p>
-<p>
-On a day at that time, Marseli that I speak of had been bathing at the
-Ceannmor rocks—having a crave for salt water the Ceannmor folks
-nowadays are not very namely for. When she had her gown on again, she went
-round to Dalchenna sands and out far to the edge of the tide, where she
-sat on a stone and took to the redding of her hair, that rolled in copper
-waves before the comb—rich, thick, and splendid.
-</p>
-<p>
-Before her, the tide was on the turn so slow and soft that the edge of it
-lifted the dry sand like meal. All about on the weedy stones the
-tailor-tartans leaped like grasshoppers, the spout-fish stuck far out of
-the sand and took a fresh gloss on their shells from the sun.
-</p>
-<p>
-You might seek from shire to shire for a handsomer maid. She was at the
-age that's a father's heartbreak, rounding out at the bosom and mellowing
-at the eyes; her skin was like milk, and the sigh was at her lips as often
-as the song. But though she sighed, it was not for the Ceannmor fishermen,
-coarse-bearded, and rough in their courting; for she had vanity, from her
-mother's side, and queer notions. The mother's family had been rich in
-their day, with bards and thoughtful people among them.
-</p>
-<p>
-“If a sea-fairy could see me now,” said Marseli, “it might put him in the
-notion to come this way again,” and she started to sing the child-song—
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Little folk, little folk, come to me,
-From the lobbies that lie below the sea.”
- </pre>
-<p>
-“<i>So agad el</i>” cried a gull at her back, so plainly that she tamed
-fast to look, and there was the fairy before her!
-</p>
-<p>
-Up got Marseli, all shaking and ready to fly, but the fairy-man looked
-harmless enough as he bowed low to her, and she stayed to put her hair
-behind her ears and draw her gown closer.
-</p>
-<p>
-He was a little delicate man the smallest of Marseli's brothers could have
-put in his oxter, with close curled hair, and eyes as black as Ridir
-Lochiel's waistcoat. His clothes were the finest of the fine,
-knee-breeches with silk hose, buckled brogues, a laced jacket, and a
-dagger at his belt—no more like a fairy of the knowe than the green
-tree's like the gall.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You're quick enough to take a girl at her word,” said Marseli, cunning
-one, thinking to hide from him the times and times she had cried over the
-sands for the little sea-folks to come in with the tide.
-</p>
-<p>
-The fairy-man said something in his own tongue that had no sense for the
-girl, and he bowed low again, with his bonnet waving in his hand, in the
-style of Charlie Munn the dancer.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You must speak in the Gaelic,” said Marseli, still a bit put about; “or
-if you have not the Gaelic, I might be doing with the English, though
-little I care for it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Faith,” said the fairy-man, “I have not the Gaelic, more's the pity, but
-I know enough English to say you're the prettiest girl ever I set eyes on
-since I left my own place.”
- </p>
-<p>
-(Ho! hoi was he not the cunning one? The fairies for me for gallantry!)
-</p>
-<p>
-“One of such judgment can hardly be uncanny,” thought Marseli, so she
-stayed and cracked with him in the English tongue.
-</p>
-<p>
-The two of them walked up over the sand to the birch-trees, and under the
-birches the little fellow asked Marseli to sit down.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You are bigger than I looked for in a sea-fairy,” said she when the crack
-was a little bit on.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A fairy?” said the little fellow, looking at her in the flash of an eye.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes! Though I said just now that you took one fast at her word, the truth
-to tell is, that always when the tide went out I sang at your back-doors
-the song you heard to-day for the first time. I learned it from Beann
-Francie in the Horse Park.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The stranger had a merry laugh—not the roar of a Finne fisherman—and
-a curions way of hitching the shoulders, and the laugh and the
-shoulder-hitch were his answer for Marseli.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You'll be a king in the sea—in your own place—or a prince
-maybe,” said the girl, twisting rushes in her hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-The man gave a little start and got red at the face.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Who in God's name said so?” asked he, looking over her shoulder deep into
-the little birch-wood, and then uneasy round about him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I guessed it,” said Marseli. “The kings of the land-fairies are
-by-ordinar big, and the dagger is ever on their hips.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, indeed,” said the little fellow, “to say I was king were a bravado,
-but I would not be just denying that I might be Prince.”
- </p>
-<p>
-And that way their friendship began.
-</p>
-<p>
-At the mouth of many nights when the fishing-boats were off at the
-fishing, or sometimes even by day when her father and her two brothers
-were chasing the signs of sea-pig and scart far down on Tarbert, Marseli
-would meet her fairy friend in a cunning place at the Black-water-foot,
-where the sea puts its arms well around a dainty waist of lost land. Here
-one can see Loch Finne from Ardno to Strathlachlan: in front lift the long
-lazy Cowal hills, and behind is Auchnabreac wood full of deer and birds.
-Nowadays the Duke has his road round about this cunning fine place, but
-then it lay forgotten among whins that never wanted bloom, and thick,
-soft, salty grass. Two plantings of tall trees kept the wind off, and the
-centre of it beaked in warm suns. It was like a garden standing out upon
-the sea, cut off from the throng road at all tides by a cluster of salt
-pools and an elbow of the Duglas Water.
-</p>
-<p>
-Here the Sea-Fairy was always waiting for the girl, walking up and down in
-one or other of the tree clumps. He had doffed his fine clothes after
-their first meeting for plain ones, and came douce and soberly, but aye
-with a small sword on his thigh.
-</p>
-<p>
-The girl knew the folly of it; but tomorrow was always to be the last of
-it, and every day brought new wonders to her. He fetched her rings once,
-of cunning make, studded with, stones that tickled the eye in a way the
-cairngorm and the Cromalt pearl could never come up to.
-</p>
-<p>
-She would finger them as if they were the first blaeberries of a season
-and she was feared to spoil their bloom, and in a rapture the Sea-Fairy
-would watch the sparkle of eyes that were far before the jewels.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Do your folk wear these?” she asked.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Now and then,” he would say, “now and then. Ours is a strange family:
-to-day we may have the best and the richest that is going, to-morrow who
-so poor, without a dud to our backs and a mob crying for our heads?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>Ochanorie!</i> They are the lovely rings any way.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They might be better; they would need to be much better, my dear, to be
-good enough for you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“For me!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They're yours—for a kiss or two,” and he put out an arm to wind
-round the girl's waist.
-</p>
-<p>
-Marseli drew back and put up her chin and down her brows.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'<i>Stad!</i>” she cried. “We ken the worth of fairy gifts in these
-parts. Your rings are, likely enough, but chuckie-stones if I could but
-see them. Take them back, I must be going home.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The little man took the jewels with a hot face and a laugh.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Troth,” he said, “and the same fal-fals have done a lover's business with
-more credit to them before this. There are dames in France who would give
-their souls for them—and the one they belong to.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You have travelled?” said Marseli. “Of course a sea-fairy-”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Can travel as he likes. You are not far wrong, my dear. Well, well, I ken
-France! O France, France! round and about the cold world, where's your
-equal?”
- </p>
-<p>
-His eyes filled with tears, and the broad-cloth on his breast heaved
-stormily, and Marseli saw that here was some sad thinking.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Tell me of Fairydom,” said she, to change him off so dull a key.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'Tis the same, the same. France and fairyland, 'tis the same, self-same,
-madame,” said the sea-prince, with a hand on his heart and a bow.
-</p>
-<p>
-He started to tell her of rich and rolling fields, flat and juicy, waving
-to the wind; of country houses lost and drowned among flowers. “And all
-the roads lead one way,” said he, “to a great and sparkling town. Rain or
-shine, there is comfort, and there is the happy heart! The windows open on
-the laughing lanes, and the girls lean out and look after us, who prance
-by on our horses. There is the hollow hearty hoof-beat on the causey
-stones; in the halls the tables gleam with silver and gold; the round red
-apples roll over the platter among the slim-stemmed wine-beakers. It is
-the time of soft talk and the head full of gallant thoughts. Then there
-are the nights warm and soft, when the open doors let out the laughing and
-the gliding of silk-shooned feet, and the airs come in heavy with the
-scent of breckan and tree!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“On my word,” said Marseli, “but it's like a girl's dream!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You may say it, black-eyes, <i>mo chridhe!</i> The wonder is that folk
-can be found to live so far astray from it. Let me tell you of the
-castles.” And he told Marseli of women sighing at the harp for
-far-wandered ones, or sewing banners of gold. Trumpets and drums and the
-tall chevaliers going briskly by with the jingle of sword on heel on the
-highway to wars, every chevalier his love and a girl's hands warm upon his
-heart.
-</p>
-<p>
-That night Marseli went early abed to wander in fairydom.
-</p>
-<p>
-Next day the sea-gentleman had with him a curious harp that was not
-altogether a harp, and was hung over the neck by a ribbon.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What hast here?” asked Marseli.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A salve for a sore heart, lass! I can play on it some old tunes, and by
-the magic of it I'm back in my father's home and unafeared.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He drew his white fingers over the strings and made a thin twittering of
-music sweeter than comes from the <i>clarsach</i>-strings, but foreign and
-uncanny. To Marseli it brought notions of far-off affairs, half sweet,
-half sad, like the edges of dreams and the moods that come on one in
-loneliness and strange places, and one tune he played was a tune she had
-heard the French traffickers sing in the bay in the slack seasons.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Let me sing you a song,” said he, “all for yourself.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You are bard?” she said, with a pleased face.
-</p>
-<p>
-He said nothing, but touched on the curious harp, and sang to the girl's
-eyes, to the spark of them and the dance of them and the deep thought
-lurking in their corners, to her lips crimson like the rowan and curled
-with pride, to the set of breast and shoulder, and the voice melting on
-the tongue.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was all in the tune and the player's looks, for the words were fairy to
-the girl, but so plain the story, her face burned, and her eyes filled
-with a rare confusion.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'Tis the enchantment of fairydom,” said she. “Am not I the <i>oinseach</i>
-to listen? I'll warrant yon have sung the same to many a poor girl in all
-airts of the world?”
- </p>
-<p>
-The little one laughed and up with the shoulders. “On my sword,” quo' he,
-“I could be content to sing to you and France for all my time. Wilt come
-with a poor Prince on a Prince's honour?”
- </p>
-<p>
-He kissed her with hot lips; his breath was in her hair; enchantment fell
-on her like a plaid, but she tore herself away and ran home, his craving
-following at her heels.
-</p>
-<p>
-That night Marseli's brothers came to knives with the French traffickers,
-and the morning saw the black-avised ones sailing out over-sea for home.
-Back to French Foreland they came no more, and Finne-side took to its own
-brewing for lack of the red wine of France.
-</p>
-<p>
-That, too, was the last of the Sea-Fairy.
-</p>
-<p>
-Marseli went to the Water-foot and waited, high tide and low; she cried
-the old child tune and she redded her hair, but never again the little man
-with the dainty clothes, and the sword upon his thigh.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-SHUDDERMAN SOLDIER
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>EYOND the Beannan is the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, and a stone-put farther
-is the knowe where Shudderman Soldier died in the snow. He was a half-wit
-who was wise enough in one thing, for he knew the heart of a maid, and the
-proof of it came in the poor year, when the glen gathered its com in
-boats, and the potato-shaws were black when they burst the ground, and the
-catechist's horse came home by Dhuloch-side to a widow that reckoned on no
-empty saddle. And this is the story.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Ho, ho, suas e!</i>” said the nor' wind, and the snow, and the black
-frost, as they galloped down Glenaora like a leash of strong dogs. It was
-there was the pretty business! The Salachary hills lost their sink and
-swell in the great drifts that swirled on them in the night; the dumb
-white swathes made a cold harvest on the flats of Kilmune; the frost
-gripped tight at the throats of the burns, and turned the Salmon-Leap to a
-stack of silver lances. A cold world it was, sure enough, at the mouth of
-day! The bloodshot sun looked over Ben Ime for a little, and that was the
-last of him. The sheep lay in the shoulder of the hill with the drift many
-a crook's-length above them, and the cock-of-the-mountain and the white
-grouse, driven on the blast, met death with a blind shock against the edge
-of the larch-wood.
-</p>
-<p>
-Up from Lochow, where Kames looks over to Cruachan, and Cruachan cocks his
-grey cap against Lorn, a foolish lad came that day for a tryst that was
-made by a wanton maid unthinking. Half-way over the hill he slipped on the
-edge of a drift, and a sore wound in the side he got against a splinter of
-the blue stone of the Quey's Rock; but he pushed on, with the blood oozing
-through his cut vest. Yet, in spite of himself, he slept beyond the Bog of
-the Fairy-Maid. <i>Mo-thruaigh! mo-thruaigh!</i>
-</p>
-<p>
-The Fairy-Maid came and covered him up close and warm with a white blanket
-that needs no posting, and sang the soft tune a man hears but once, and
-kissed him on the beard as he slept in the drift—and his name had
-been Ellar Ban.
-</p>
-<p>
-Round by the king's good highroad came Solomon the carrier with his cart,
-and many a time he thought of turning between Carnus and Kilmune. But he
-was of the stuff of Clan Coll, and his mare was Proud Maisie. He had a
-boll of meal from Portinsherrich, from the son of a widow woman who was
-hungry in Inneraora and waiting for that same.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No Ellar here yet!” he said at Kilmune when he asked, and they told him.
-“Then there's a story to tell, for if he's not here, he's not at Karnes,
-and his grave's on the grey mountain.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Later came Luath, the collie of Ellar, slinking through the snow wet and
-weary, and without wind enough for barking. 'Twas as good as the man's
-ghost.
-</p>
-<p>
-The shepherds came in from the fanks, and over from the curling at
-Carlonan, to go on a search.
-</p>
-<p>
-Long Duncan of Drimfem, the slim swarthy champion, was there before them.
-He was a pretty man—the like never tied a shoe in Glenaora—and
-he was the real one who had Mairi's eye, which the dead fellow thought had
-the laugh only for him. But, lord! a young man with a good name with the
-shinty and the <i>clachneart</i> has other things to think of than the
-whims of women, and Donacha never noticed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“We'll go up and see about it—about him at once, Main,” he said,
-sick-sorry for the girl. All the rest stood round pitying, because her
-kists were said to be full of her own spinning for the day that was not to
-be.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mairi took him to the other side of the peat-stack, and spoke with a red
-face.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Is it any use your going till the snow's off the hill, Drimfem?” she
-said, biting at the corner of her brattie, and not looking the man in the
-face.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Dhia gleiih sinn!</i> it's who knows when the white'll be off the
-snouts of these hills, and we can't wait till—— I thought it
-would ease your mind.” And Donacha looked at the maid stupid enough. For a
-woman with her heart on the hill, cold, she was mighty queer on it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes, yes; but it's dangerous for you to go up, and the showers so heavy
-yet. It's not twenty finger-lengths you can see in front of you, and you
-might go into the bog.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Is't the bog I would be thinking of, Main? It's little fear there is of
-that, for here is the man that has been on Salachary when the mist was
-like smoke, as well as when the spittle froze in my mouth. Oh, I'm not the
-one to talk; but where's the other like me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mairi choked. “But, Dona—— but, Drimfem, it's dead Ellar must
-be; and—and—you have a widow mother to mind.” Donacha looked
-blank at the maid. She had the sweet face, yon curve of the lip, and the
-soft turn of the neck of all Arthur's children, ripe of the cheek, with
-tossed hair like a fairy of the lake, and the quirk of the eye that never
-left a plain man at ease if he was under the threescore. There were knives
-out in the glen for many a worse one.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was the lee of the peat-stack they stood in, and the falling flakes
-left for a while without a shroud a drop of crimson at the girl's feet.
-She was gripping tight at her left wrist under the cover of her apron till
-the nails cut the flesh. There was the stress of a dumb bard's sorrow in
-her face; her heart was in her eyes, if there had been a woman to see it;
-but Drimfern missed it, for he had no mind of the dance at the last Old
-New Year, or the ploy at the sheep-dipping, or the nuts they cracked on
-the hot peats at Hallowe'en.
-</p>
-<p>
-The girl saw he was bound to go. He was as restless as if the snow was a
-swarm of <i>seangans</i>. She had not two drops of blood in her lips, but
-she tried to laugh as she took something out from a pocket and half held
-it out to him. He did not understand at first, for if he was smart on the
-<i>caman</i> ball, 'twas slow in the ways of women he was.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's daft I am. I don't know what it is, Donacha, but I had a dream that
-wasn't canny last night, and I'm afraid, I'm afraid,” said the poor girl.
-“I was going to give you——”
- </p>
-<p>
-Drimfern could not get the meaning of the laugh, strained as it was. He
-thought the maid's reason was wandering.
-</p>
-<p>
-She had, whatever it was—a square piece of cloth of a woman's sewing—into
-the man's hand before he knew what she would be after; and when his
-fingers closed on it, she would have given a king's gold to get it back.
-But the Tullich lads, and the Paymaster's shepherd from Lecknamban, with
-Dol' Splendid and Francie Ro, in their plaids, and with their crooks, came
-round the gable-end. Luath, who knew Glenaora as well as he knew Creag
-Cranda, was with them, and away they went for the hill. All that Donacha
-the blind one said, as he put the sewing in his pocket to look at again,
-was, “Blessing with thee!” for all the world like a man for the fair.
-</p>
-<p>
-Still the nor' wind, and the snow, and the dark frost said “<i>Suas e!</i>”
- running down the glen like the strong dogs on the peching deer; and the
-men were not a hundred yards away from the potato-pit when they were
-ghosts that went out altogether, without a sound, like Drimendorran's Grey
-Dame in the Red Forester's story.
-</p>
-<p>
-A white face on a plump neck stood the sting of the storm dourly, though
-the goodwife said it would kill her out there, and the father cried
-“Shame!” on her sorrow, and her a maiden. “Where's the decency of you?”
- says he, fierce-like; “if it was a widow you were this day you couldn't
-show your heart more.” And into the house he went and supped two cogies of
-brose, and swore at the <i>sgalag</i> for noticing that his cheeks were
-wet.
-</p>
-<p>
-When the searchers would be high on the hill Shudderman came on the maid.
-He was a wizened, daft old one, always in a tinker Fencible's tartan trews
-and scarlet doublet. He would pucker his bare brown face like a foreign
-Italian, and whistle continually. The whistle was on his face when he came
-on the girl standing behind the byre, looking up with a corpse's whiteness
-where the Beannan should be.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Te-he! Lord! but we're cunning,” said the soldier. “It's a pity about
-Ellar, is it not, white darling?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mairi saw nothing, but swallowed a sob. Was this thing to know her secret,
-when the wise old women of the glen never guessed it? There was something
-that troubled her in his look.
-</p>
-<p>
-The wee creature put his shoulder against the peats, and shoved each hand
-up the other sleeve of his doublet, while he whistled soft, and cunningly
-looked at the maid. The cords of her neck were working, and her breast
-heaved sore, but she kept her teeth tight together.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ay, ay, it's an awful thing, and him so fond, too,” he went on; and his
-face was nothing but a handful of wrinkles and peat-smoke. It was a bigger
-ploy for the fool than a good dinner.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What—who—who are you talking about, you poor <i>amadan?</i>”
- cried Mairi, desperately.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Och, it's yourself that'll know. They're saying over at Tullich and upbye
-at Miss Jean's, Accurach, that it's a bonny pair you would make, you and
-Ellar. Yonnat Yalla says he was the first Lochow man ever she saw that
-would go a mile out of his way for a lass, and I saw him once come the
-roundabout road by Cladich because it was too easy to meet you coming the
-short cut over the hill. Oh! there's no doubt he was fond, fond, and-”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>Amadan!</i>” cried the maid, with no canny light in her eyes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Hoots! You're not angry with me, darling. I ken, I ken. Of course
-Drimfern's the swanky lad too, but it's not very safe this night on yon
-same hill. There's the Bog of the Fairy-Maid that never was frozen yet,
-and there's the Quey's Rock, and—te-he! I wouldn't give much for
-some of them not coming back any more than poor Ellar. It's namely that
-Drimfem got the bad eye from the Glenurchy woman come Martinmas next
-because of his taking up with her cousin-german's girl, Morag Callum.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yon <i>spàgachd</i> doll, indeed!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“God, I do not know about that! but they're telling me he had her up at
-all the reels at Baldy Geepie's wedding, whatever, and it's a Maclean
-tartan frock she got for the same—I saw it with my own eyes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Lies, lies, lies,” said the girl to herself her lips dry, her hands and
-feet restless to do some crazy thing to kill the pain in her heart.
-</p>
-<p>
-She was a little helpless bird in the hands of the silly one.
-</p>
-<p>
-He was bursting himself inside with laughing, that couldn't be seen for
-the snow and the cracks on his face.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But it's not marriages nor tartan you'll be thinking on, Mairi, with your
-own lad up there stiff. Let Morag have Drimfem——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You and your Morag! Shudderman, if it was not the crazy one you were, you
-would see that a man like Donacha Drimfern would have no dealings with the
-breed of MacCallum, tinker children of the sixty fools.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Fools here or fools there, look at them in the castle at Duntroon! And
-Drimfern is——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Drimfern again! Who's thinking of Drimfern, the mother's big pet, the
-soft, soft creature, the poor thing that's daft about the shinty and the
-games—and—and—— Go inbye, haverer, and——oh,
-my heart, my heart!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Cripple Callum,” whistled the daft wee one; and faith it was the great
-sport he was having! The flame sparkled in the lass's eyes; she stamped
-furiously in the snow. She could have gone into the house, but the
-Shudderman would follow, and the devil was in him, and she might just as
-well tell her story at the cross-roads as risk. So she stayed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Come in this minute, O foolish one!” her mother came to the door and
-craved; but no.
-</p>
-<p>
-The wee <i>bodach</i> took a wee pipe from his big poke and started at the
-smoking. When his match went out the dark was almost flat on the glen, and
-a night-hag complained with a wean's cry in the planting beyond the burn.
-At each draw of the pipe the eyes of the soldier glinted like a ferret's,
-and like any ferret's they were watching. He put in a word between-while
-that stabbed the poor thing's heart, about the shame of love in maids
-uncourted, and the cruelty of maids that cast love-looks for mischief.
-There were some old havers about himself here and there among the words:
-of a woman who changed her mind and went to another man's bed and board;
-of sport up the glen, and burials beyond; and Ellar Ban's widow mother,
-and the carry-on of Drimfem and the Glenurchy woman's cousin-german's
-girl. And it was all ravelled, like the old story Loch Finne comes up on
-the shore to tell when the moon's on Sithean Sluaidhe.
-</p>
-<p>
-The girl was sobbing sore. “Man!” she said at last, “give me the peace of
-a night till we know what is.” The <i>amadan</i> laughed at her, and went
-shauchling down to the cotter's, and Mairi went in out of the darkness.
-</p>
-<p>
-The hours passed and passed, and the same leash of strong dogs were
-scouring like fury down Glenaora, and the moon looked a little through a
-hole, and was sickly at the sight, and went by in a hurry. A collie's bark
-in the night came to the house where the people waited round the peats,
-and “Oh, my heart!” said poor Mairi.
-</p>
-<p>
-The father took the tin lantern with the holes in it, and they all went
-out to the house-end. The lantern-light stuck long needles in the night as
-it swung on the goodman's finger, and the byre and the shed and the
-peat-stack danced into the world and out of it, and the clouds were only
-an arm's-length overhead.
-</p>
-<p>
-The men were coming down the brae in the smother of snow, carrying
-something in a plaid. The dog was done with its barking, and there was no
-more sound from the coming ones than if they were ghosts. Like enough to
-ghosts they looked. No one said a word till the goodman spoke.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You have him there?” he said.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ay, <i>beatmachi leis!</i> all that there is of him,” said the
-Paymaster's man; and they took it but an' ben, where Mairi's mother had
-the white dambrod cloth she had meant for herself, when her own time came,
-on the table.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's poor Ellar, indeed,” said the goodman, noticing the fair beard.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Where's Donacha? where's Drimfern?” cried Mairi, who had pulled herself
-together and come in from the byre-end, where she had waited to see if
-there was none of the watchers behind.
-</p>
-<p>
-The Paymaster's man was leaning against the press-door, with a face like
-the clay; Dol' Splendid was putting a story in the <i>sgalag's</i> ear;
-the Tullich men were very busy on it taking the snow off their boots.
-Outside the wind had the sorry song of the curlew.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Me-the-day! it's the story of this there is to tell,” at last said
-Francie Ro, with a shake of the head. “Poor Drimfern——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Drimfem—ay, where's Drimfem in all the world?” said the goodman,
-with a start. He was standing before his girl to keep her from seeing the
-thing on the table till the wife had the boots covered. It was the face of
-a <i>cailleach</i> of threescore Mairi had.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's God knows! We were taking Ellar there down, turn about resting. It
-was a cruel business, for the drifts. There's blood on his side where he
-fell somewhere, and Drimfern had to put a clout on it to keep the blood
-off his plaid. That's Drimfern's plaid. When Donacha's second turn was
-over up at the bog, we couldn't get a bit of him. He's as lost as the deer
-the Duke shot, and we looked and whistled for hours.” The maid gave a wee
-turn to the door, shivered, and fell like a clod at her mother's feet.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Look at yon, now! Am not I the poor father altogether?” said the old man
-with a soft lip to his friends. “Who would think, and her so healthy, and
-not married to Ellar, that she would be so much put about? You'll excuse
-it in her, lads, I know, for she's not twenty till the dipping-time, and
-the mother maybe spoiled her.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Och, well,” said the Splendid one, twisting his bonnet uneasy in his
-hands, “I've seen them daft enough over a living lad, and it's no great
-wonder when this one's dead.” They took the maid beyond to the big room by
-the kitchen, and a good mother's morning for Drimfern was set by the men.
-They had a glass before going home, and when they were gone the <i>bochdans</i>
-came in the deep hollow of the night and rattled the windows and shook the
-door-sneck; but what cared yon long white thing on the goodwife's dambrod
-tablecloth?
-</p>
-<p>
-At the mouth of day there was one woman with a gnawing breast looking
-about the glen-foot among the snow for the Shudder-man soldier. She found
-him snedding the shaft of a shinny-stick at the Stronmagachan Gate, and
-whistling as if it was six weeks south of Whitsunday and the woods piping
-in the heat.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I ken all about it, my white little lamb,” he said with a soft speech.
-“All about them finding Ellar, and losing a better man, redding put her to
-rights. A search in the maybe, but any way one that some will miss more.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“God's heavy, heavy on a woman!” said the poor child. “I gave Donacha a
-sampler with something sewn on it yesterday, and the men, when they go up
-the hill to look for him to-day, will get it on him—and—it
-would——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ay, ay, ay! I ken, my dear. We'll put that right, or I'm no soldier.” And
-the little man cocked his bonnet on his head like a piper. Then he was
-sorry for the pride of it, and he pulled it down on his face, and whistled
-to stop his nose from jagging.
-</p>
-<p>
-“My heart! my bruised heart! they're saying sorry things of Ellar, and
-Donacha dead. The cotter's wife was talking this morning, and it'll send
-me daft!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Blind, blind,” quo' the soldier; “but you'll not be shamed, if the <i>amadan</i>
-can help it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But what can you do, my poor Shudderman? And yet—and yet—there's
-no one between Carnus and Croit-bhile I can speak to of it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Go home, white love, and I'll make it right,” said the daft one, and
-faith he looked like meaning it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Who knows?” thought the girl. Shudderman was chief enough with the
-Glenurchy woman, and the Glenurchy woman sometimes gave her spells to her
-friends. So Mairi went home half comforted.
-</p>
-<p>
-A cogie of brose and a bit braxy in his belly, and a farl of cake in his
-poke, and out stepped the Shudderman with never a word to any one about
-the end of his journey. Dol' Splendid had told him the story of the night
-before, and whereabout Drimfern was lost, close beyond the Beannan. He
-would find the body and the sampler, he promised himself as he plunged up
-the brae at Taravh-dubh. The dogs were nearly as furious as the night
-before, and the day's eye was blear. Hours passed, and the flats of
-Kilmune were far below.
-</p>
-<p>
-There was nothing in all the world but whiteness, and a silly old <i>bodach</i>
-with a red coat trailing across it. Shudderman Soldier sank his head
-between his shoulders as he pushed himself up with his hazel crook, his
-tartan trews in rags about his ankles, his doublet letting in the teeth of
-the wind here and there, and at the best grudging sore its too tight
-shelter for his shrunk body. He had not the wind to whistle, but he gasped
-bits of “Faill-il-o,” and between he swore terribly at the white hares
-that jerked across in front of him with the ill-luck of a lifetime on
-their backs.
-</p>
-<p>
-If it was the earth that was white, the sky was not far behind it; if they
-were paper, it would take schooling to write on them straight, for there
-wasn't a line between them. The long sweep of Balantyre itself was lost,
-and the Beannan stone was buried. The creature's brogues were clods of
-snow, ugly, big, without a shape: his feet were lumps of ice; his knees
-shook under his frail skinful of bones; but, by the black stones, 'twas
-the man's heart he had!
-</p>
-<p>
-When the snow made a paste on his win'ard cheek, he had it off with a jerk
-of the head, and one of the jerks put off his bonnet. Its frozen ribbons
-had been whipping his eyes, and he left it where it fell, with never a
-glance over his shoulder. His hair clogged with flakes that kept the frost
-even after they fell. It was a peching effort for the foot of the Beannan
-brae.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Poor lamb, poor Mairi, calf of my heart!” gasped the soldier to himself.
-He was staggering half blind through the smother of snow, now and then
-with a leg failing below him, and plunging him right or left. Once his
-knees shut like a gardener's gully, and he made a crazy heap in the drift.
-His tired wrists could hardly bring him up, and the corpse of the world
-swung in his eyes when he was on his feet again and trying to steady
-himself.
-</p>
-<p>
-There's a green knoll beside the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, where the wee
-folks dance reels when the moon's on it, and there the old fellow
-struggled to. He thought if he was up there he would see some sign of what
-he wanted. Up he pushed, with the hazel <i>cromag</i> bending behind him,
-and his brogues slipping on the round snow-soles. Up he went, with the
-pluck of a whole man, let alone a poor silly object; up he went till he
-got his foot on the top, and then his heart failed, for he saw nothing of
-what he sought.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I'll look again when I'm out of this foolish sleep,—I'll see better
-when I waken,” said the poor <i>amadan;</i> and behold the dogs were on
-him! and he was a man who was.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<p>
-For all that, the story tells, Drimfern was no ghost. When he was lost he
-found Kames, where the Callum girl was that came to his fire-end later and
-suckled his clan. And Ellar's mother, dressing her son's corpse in the
-house at Kilmune, found on his wound a sampler that went with him to his
-long home in green Inishail. Its letters, sewn in the folly of a woman,
-told her story:—
-</p>
-<p>
-“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than
-wine.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-WAR.
-</h2>
-<h3>
-I.
-</h3>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T was the pause of the morning, when time stands, and night and day
-breathe hard ere they get to grips. A cock with a foggy throat started at
-the crowing, down at Slochd-a-Chubair. Over from Stron a shrewd thin wind
-came to make stir among the trees in the Duke's big garden, and the crows
-rasped their beaks on the beech-branches, for they knew that here was the
-day's forerunner. Still and on the town slept, stretched full out, dour
-set on the business. Its quirky lanes and closes were as black as the pit.
-There was only one light in all the place, and a big town and a bonny it
-is, house and house with high outside stairs and glass windows, so that
-the wonder is the King himself does not take thought to stay in it, even
-if it were only for the comfort of it and the company of the MacCailein
-Mor. Only one light, and that was splashing, yellow, and mixed with a
-thick peat-reek, out of Jean Rob's open door, facing the bay, on the left,
-on the Lowlands road. Now and then Jean would come to the door and stand,
-a blob of darkness in the yellow light, to see if the day was afoot on Ben
-Ime, or to throw a look at the front of the town for signs of folk
-stirring.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Not a peep, not a peep! Sleep! sleep! Few of them part with a man to-day
-with so sore a heart as Jean Rob.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Then back to her Culross girdle, for she was at the baking of bannocks to
-go in her husband's <i>dorlach</i> for the wars.
-</p>
-<p>
-She had not shut an eye all night. Rob snored at her side slow and heavy
-while she lay on her back on a bed of white hay, staring up at the black
-larch joists glinting with the red scad of the peats. She was a Crarae
-woman, and that same people were given to be throng with the head, and she
-kept thinking, thinking even on. At last she could bide it no longer, so
-she up with a leap on the floor to face a new day and all the luck of it.
-</p>
-<p>
-About the luck being good or ill there might be little doubt. It was the
-year after they started at the building of the Castle, a laggard spring at
-the hind-end of a cruel winter, with not a fin in all the seas for the
-poor fishermen, and black mutton at six Saxon shillings the side. And what
-the wars were about Jean Rob or her like little knew or cared. Very
-little, like enough, as is the way with wars, but any way wars there were:
-the Duke and his House would have it that their people must up and on with
-belt and target, and away on the weary road like their fathers before
-them. Some said it was the old game with the Inverlochy dogs (rive them
-and seize them!); others, that some bastard was at variance with the Duke
-about the Papist Stewarts—a silly lad called Tearlach with a pack of
-wild Irishers and daddy Macleans and Macdonalds and Camerons from the
-Isles and the North at his back.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Bundle and Go” it was any way in Campbell country from Cruachan to Cowal,
-from Cantyre to the march of Keppochan, and that's the fine rolling land
-of sappy grasses and thick woods. In the heart and midst of it Duke Archie
-played dirl on the boss of his shield on a cold March day, and before
-night swords were at the sharping from shore to shore. That's war for ye—
-</p>
-<p>
-quicker than flame, surer than word of mouth, and poor's the man who says
-“What for?” to his chief.
-</p>
-<p>
-Rob Donn, for all that, was vassal to no man; for he was come of the
-swordsmiths of the glen, and they had paper to show that their rigs were
-held for no service other than beating out good fighting steel on the
-anvil. Poor, as he was, he could wear one feather in his bonnet if his
-fancy was on feathers, and no one bragged more of his forefolk. But
-Elrigmor—a thin old man with little stomach for quarrels—offered
-twenty pounds English for a man to take his place with the Campbells; and
-Rob took the money and the loan of Elrigmor's sword, half for the sake of
-the money and half for the sake of a bit play with Sir Claymore.
-</p>
-<p>
-Said he to his wife, jingling the Geordies in his hand on the day he got
-them, “Here's the price of a hero; and troth it's little enough for a good
-armsmith's blood!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Don't say it, Rob,” said Jean.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Och! I am but laughing at thee, good-wife. Brave dogs would they be that
-would face the tusks of the Diarmaid boars. Like the wind on the chaff—troosh!—we'll
-scatter them! In a week I'll be home.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“In a week?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To be sure, Jean. I'll buy with the money a stot or two on the road to
-bring back with me, for there's little lifting in the Duke's corps, more's
-the pity! My grandfather seldom came back from the wars without a few head
-of cattle before him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-So the money went in Rob Donn's sporran, and Jean would have bit her
-tongue out before she would crave for part o't from a man going among
-strangers and swords.
-</p>
-<p>
-The bairn had but one word for her father from then till he started, and
-that was “Cockade.” What it was the little one never knew, but that it was
-something braw and costly, a plaything for a father to go far off for.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Two or three of them, my white love!” would Rob Donn say, fond and
-hearty. “They'll be as thick as nuts on the ground when we're done of the
-gentry that wear them on their bonnets.” And he had a soft wet eye for the
-child, a weakling, white and thin, never quite the better of the snell
-winds of winter. If cockades, indeed, were to be had for the fighting of a
-fortnight without sleep, Rob Donn would have them for her.
-</p>
-<p>
-So now was the morning to put on fighting gear and go on the foray for
-white cockades.
-</p>
-<p>
-By-and-by a cruisie-light crept out at the gables of the town, and the
-darkness filled with the smell of new peat burning. Aora, spluttering past
-Jean Rob's door with a gulp into the Cooper's Pool, made, within the
-house, the only sound of the morning.
-</p>
-<p>
-Jean scraped the meal off her hands and went again to the door to look
-about and listen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ay, ay! up at last,” she said to herself.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There's the Major's light, and Kate Mhor up for the making of his
-breakfast, and a lowe in the weaver's shed. The Provost's is dark—poor
-man!—it's little his lady is caring!”
- </p>
-<p>
-She was going to turn about and in, when the squeal of a bagpipe came from
-the town-head, and the player started to put his drones in order. “Ochan!
-ochan!” said poor Jean, for here, indeed, was the end of her hopes; there
-was no putting back from the Duke's errand. She listened a little to the
-tuning as if it was the finest of <i>piobaireachds</i>, and it brought a
-curious notion to her mind of the first reel she danced with her man to
-the squeezing of that same sheepskin. Then the reeds roared into the air
-of “Baile Inneraora.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>Och a Dhé! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob!”</i> she cried in to the
-man among the blankets, but there was no need for the summons. The
-gathering rang far ben in the chambers of sleep, and Rob was stark awake,
-with a grasp at his hip for the claymore.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Troth! I thought it was the camp! and them on us,” he laughed foolishly
-in his beard.
-</p>
-<p>
-Up and down the street went Dol' Dubh, the Duke's second piper, the same
-who learned the art of music right well from the Macruimens of Boreraig,
-and he had as sweet a finger on the chanter as Padruig himself, with the
-nerve to go round the world. Fine, fine it was for him, be sure, to be the
-summoner to battle! Lights jumped to the little lozens of the windows and
-made streaks on the cracks of the doors, and the Major's man came from his
-loft ganting with a mouth like the glee'd gun, a lantern swinging on a
-finger, making for the stable to saddle his master's horse. A garret
-window went up with a bang, and Peter MacIntyre, wright, pat out a towsy
-head and snuffed the air. It was low tide in the two bays, and the town
-was smelling less of peat-reek than of sea-wrack and saltness. One star
-hung in the north over Dunchuach.
-</p>
-<p>
-“They have the good day for starting the jaunt, whatever,” said the
-wright. “If I was a stone or two lighter, and had one to look after the
-shop, it's off on this ploy I would be too.” He took in his head, the top
-nodding briskly on his Kilmarnock bonnet, and wakened the wife to help him
-on with his clothes.
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Aora, Aora, Baile Inneraora,
-I got a bidding to Baile Inneraora;
-I got the bidding, but little they gave me,
-Aora, Aora, Baile Chailein Mhoir!”
- </pre>
-<p>
-Dol' Dubh was up at the Cross, swelled out like a net-bow, blasting
-furiously, his heart athump with the piper's zest. Doors drummed, windows
-screeched in their cases, women's voices went from land to land, and the
-laugh and cry of bairns new roused from the hot toss of dreams. Far up the
-highroad a horse's hoofs were dunting hollow and hearty on the stones, and
-by-and-by through the Arches trotted the Cornal, his tall body straight
-and black against the dun of the gables. He had a voice like a rutting
-deer. “Master Piper,” he roared to Dol' Dubh, tugging his beast back on
-its haunches, “stop that braggart air and give us 'Bundle and Go,' and God
-help the Campbell that's not on the Cadger's Quay before the sun's over
-Stron Point!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Where is the air like it?” said Dol' to himself, slacking a reed with a
-thumb-nail. “Well they ken it where little they love it with its
-vaunting!” But he up with his drones on his shoulder and into the tune
-that had the Cornal's fancy. Beside him the Cornal stood at his horse's
-stirrup in the grey-brown of the morning, his head still light with the
-bottle of claret wine his lady in Lecknamban had put before him ere he had
-boot over saddle.
-</p>
-<p>
-Then the town stirred to its affairs. The Major's horse went clattering
-over the cobblestones to his door-end, the arm-room door opened, and old
-Nanny Bheag, who kept the key, was lifted off her feet and in, on the rush
-of young lads making for the new guns Lome Clerk had up from the Low
-Country. On the belts of the older men, loth to leave the fire-end,
-mothers and wives were hanging bags with thick farls of cake, and cheese,
-and the old Aora salve for swordcuts.
-</p>
-<p>
-If they had their way of it, these <i>caille-achan</i>, the fighting gear
-would be all kebbucks of cheese and dry hose, and no powder and ball. The
-men blustered, high-breasted, with big words in their beards, and no name
-too dirty for the crew they were off to scatter—praising themselves
-and making the fine prophecies, as their folks did before them with better
-rights when the town was more in the way of going to wars. Or they roundly
-scolded the weans for making noise, though their eyes were learning every
-twist of the copper hair and every trick of the last moment, to think on
-when long and dreary would be the road before them.
-</p>
-<p>
-There was a break in Dol' Dubh's music, and high over the big town rang
-the Cornal's voice, starting the bairns in their sleep and setting them up
-and screaming.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Laggards! laggards! O lazy ones! Out! out! Campbells before were never so
-swear't to be marching. It is time to be steeping the withies!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Hard back went the stout doors on the walls, and out ran the folk. The
-brogues skliffed and hammered; men with muskets, swords, dirks, and targes
-ran down the street, and women and children behind them. A tumult filled
-the town from side to side and end to end, and the lanes and closes were
-streaming with the light from gaping doors.
-</p>
-<p>
-Old and young, the boy and the snooded girl, women with bairn at breast,
-<i>bodach</i> and <i>cailleach</i>, took to the Cross muster, leaving the
-houses open to the wind and to the world. The cats thrummed by the fires,
-and the smell of the sea-wrack came in beside them.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I have you here at last,” said the Cornal, dour and dark, throwing his
-keen eyes along the row of men. “Little credit are ye to my clan and
-chief, and here's to the Lowlands low, and would to God I was there now
-among the true soldados with stomachs for slaughter and the right skill of
-fence and musketoon! A short tulzie, and a tow at the thrapple of bastard
-Chevalier would there be in that case. Here's but a wheen herds, weavers,
-and gillies holding Brown Betty like a kail-runt!”
- </p>
-<p>
-He was one of the Craignish Campbells, the Cornal—Dugald, brother of
-Lachan who got death at a place called Fontenoy in the summer before—very
-sib to the Duke, and it behoved the town-men to say nothing. But they
-cursed his eyes to each other on the corners of their mouths, and if he
-knew it he had sense enough to say nothing.
-</p>
-<p>
-The women and bairns and the old folks stood in a great crowd behind the
-Cornal's horse. The Major's mare with him in the sell was dancing an
-uncanny spring near the Arches, full of freshness and fine feeding as a
-battle-horse should be, but overly much that way for a man sixteen
-finger-lengths round the belly and full of fish and ale. From Glen Beag
-came the slow morning, gusty and stinging; Stob-an-Eas stood black against
-the grey of it; the tide stretched from shore to shore unfriendly and
-forlorn.
-</p>
-<p>
-Jean Rob, with the bairn at her brattie-string, was with the other women
-seeing her man away, stupid with two sorrows—one because he was
-going, and the other because he had twenty pounds in his sporran that he
-might well be doing without; for he was leaving the woman without a groat,
-and only a boll of meal in the girnel and a wee firkin of salted fish.
-</p>
-<p>
-The steady breeze came yet from Stron, and sat snug in the sails of the
-six boats that carried the Duke's men over to Cowal. Brog-and-Turk's skiff
-put out first, himself at the helm in his tarry jacket; the others, deep
-down, followed close on her heels. One by one they fell off from the quay.
-The men waved their bonnets and cried cheerily and vaunting, as was aye
-the good grace of Clan Diarmaid at the first and the last of forays.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Blessings with ye!” cried the folk left behind, wet-eyed; and even the
-Provost's wife took a grief at her inside to see her man with a shaking
-lip look round the sail of the hin'most boat. Cheering and weeping,
-singing and <i>ochain!</i> there they were on the quay and on the sea, our
-own folk, our dear folk; and who were ever like them when it came to the
-bit, and stout hearts or kind hearts were wanted?
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stand back, kindred!” cried the Cornal, putting spurs to his horse, and
-he pranced up the town-head, a pretty man, to join the Major and gallop
-round the loch-head to join the corps at Cairn-dubh.
-</p>
-<p>
-Dol' Dubh stopped his playing at the bow of Brog-an-Turk's skiff when she
-gulped the first quaich of brine, and the men in all the boats started to
-sing the old boat-song of “Aora Mo Chridhe tha mi seoladh”—
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Aora, my heart, I am sailing, sailing,
-Far to the South on the slope of the sea;
-Aora <i>mo chridhe</i>, it is cold is the far land,
-Bitter the stranger with wands on his doorway.
-Aora Mochree!”
- </pre>
-<p>
-It came back on the wind with a sorrow to break hearts, sinking and
-swelling as the wind took the fancy, and the long-necked herons stood on
-the fringe of the tide with their heads high to listen. The sails got
-scattered and shrunk, and the tune got thin and low, and lost at last in
-the swish of the waves on the shore, and the ears of those who listened
-heard the curlew piping cursedly loud over the Cooper's Pool. A grey cold
-day with rain on the tail of it. High Creag Dubh with its firs and alders
-and rowans stark and careless over the hollow town. Broad day and
-brightness, and the cruisies and candles burning the ghosts of flame in
-the empty houses, with doors wide to the empty street and the lanes and
-closes!
-</p>
-<h3>
-II.
-</h3>
-<p>
-The wanderer has ever the best of it, and wae wae are the hearts behind I
-Is it for war or sport, or for the red gold, that a man turns heel on his
-home and takes the world for his pillow? In his pack is the salve for care
-as well as for sword-cuts, for ever and always are new things happening.
-The road crooks through the curious glens; the beasts trot among the grass
-and fern and into the woods; the girls (the dear ones, the red-lipped
-ones!) come from the milking of the white-shouldered cattle and look with
-soft black eyes as he passes, and there is a new tale at the corner of
-every change-house fire. All that may befall a packman; but better's the
-lot of the fighter with steel at his haunch, fire at his heart, and every
-halt a day closer to them he would be seeking.
-</p>
-<p>
-But the folks behind in the old place! <i>Mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!</i>
-Daybreak, and hot sun, and the creeping in of the night, when the door
-must be snecked on the rover; the same place, and still with a want in it,
-and only guessing at where and how is the loved one out on strange ways on
-the broad world.
-</p>
-<p>
-Far up the long Highlands the Campbells were on their way. Loch Sloy and
-Glen Falloch, Rannoch's bleakness and Ben Alder's steepness, and each
-morning its own wet grass and misty brae, and each night its dreams on the
-springy heather.
-</p>
-<p>
-A woman was weeping on Achadunan because that her man was gone and her
-chimney stone was cold, and Rob Donn's sporran was emptied at her feet,
-though he knew not so much as the name of her. But he took a thought and
-said, “I'll keep the half, for long's the way before us, and ill is
-travelling among strangers without a round-piece in the purse.” That was
-but a day's march from Jean Rob, and she was making a supper of crowdie
-that was the first meal of the day.
-</p>
-<p>
-On Spey-side was the camp of the Argylls, and card-play round the fires,
-with the muskets shining, and the pipes playing sweeter for slumber than
-for rouse.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I will put my watch on this turn,” said a black Lowlander in the heat of
-the game.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Rob Donn's watch is the sun on Toman-uardar,” said our hero, “but here
-are ten yellow Geordies,” and out went his fortune among the roots of the
-gall.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Troosh! beannachd leat!</i>” and the coin was a jingle in the other
-one's pouch.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I have plenty more where it came from, and cattle enough forbye,” said
-our braggart, and he turned on his elbow whistling “Crodh Chailein.”
- </p>
-<p>
-But let them follow the drum who will, for us the story's beside the
-hearth. It is not a clatter of steel and the tulzies of Chevaliers, but
-the death of an only bairn.
-</p>
-<p>
-In her house on the Lowlands road Jean Rob starved with the true Highland
-pride, that sets a face content against the world at kirk or market.
-Between her and a craving stomach lay but shell-fish and herbs, for she
-had not a plack to spend, and the little one got all the milk that came
-from Mally, the dappled one, drying up for calving. Break of day would see
-the woman, white, thin, keen-eyed, out on the ebb before the fishing-boats
-were in, splashing in the pools in the sand for partans and clabbie-doos,
-or with two ready fingers piercing the sand to pull the long spout-fish
-from his hiding. Or she would put little stakes in the sand, and between
-them a taut line with baited hooks to coax the fish at high tide. But ill
-was her luck, indeed, for few were the fish that came to the lure to be
-lifted again at ebb.
-</p>
-<p>
-Above Kilmalieu on the sea side of Dunchu-ach, in the tangle and dark of
-the trees, among the soft splashing soil, the wild leeks gave a scent to
-the air. These would Jean gather, and the nettle too, and turn them to
-thin broth; but that same was no fare for a Crarae stomach.
-</p>
-<p>
-At night when the wee one slept, the mother would have her plaid on her
-head, and through the town, barefoot, in the darkness, passing the folk at
-the close-mouths quickly for fear they would speak to her, and her heart
-would crave for share of the noble supper that made steam from the door of
-her cousin the rich merchant.
-</p>
-<p>
-Like a ghost sometimes, wandering about the Cadger's Quay or the
-gutting-stools, where she would be looking for a dropped giley or a bake
-from the nets, she would come on a young woman.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Dhe!</i> Jean Rob! is it thyself that is here?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Just Jean, my darling, for a little turn, because of the stir in the
-town, and the smell of the barking nets. Well I like the smell of the
-bark, and the wind takes little of it up the Lowlands road.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Thou art not coming out much since the men went to the North. Art well at
-the house—the little one, now, bless her?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Splendid, splendid, <i>m' eudail</i>. Faith, it is too fat we will be
-getting on the fortune Rob got from Elrigmor.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Indeed, yes, Jean, it was the great luck! When a poor person comes——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Hut tut! Poor nor rich, my people had their own place on Lochowside, and
-little did my Rob need MacNicol's dirty money; but he was aye fond of a
-'horo-yally,' and that's the way of his being among them.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, well, if that's the way, our own people were good enough on a time;
-but a pedigree, thou wilt allow, is a poor plaster for a pain in the
-stomach. For me, I would have a good shaking of herring and money in the
-town. It was but black brochan for our one meal to-day, and my mother
-poorly.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“My dear! <i>och</i>, my dear! and I to brag of plenty! Little enough, in
-truth, is on my own board; but I have a boiling of meal if you come for it
-in the morning.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Kindly, kindly, thou good dame. It would be but a loan.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes, indeed, one will be running out of the wherewithal now and again,
-and 'twas aye 'Mine is yours and yours is mine' in Gaeldom. But I must be
-stepping.”
- </p>
-<p>
-And while Jean Rob starved, there was never a word from the best and
-bravest off at the wars, or how they fared, only now and then a half tale
-from a travelling caird or a Low-Country carrier about gatherings and
-skirling pipes and hard knocks. His Grace himself kept a horse or two and
-a good rider on the other side of the Rest, to gallop hot-hoof into the
-Castle with the first news of how his clan won; but weary was the waiting.
-</p>
-<p>
-The town took to its old appearance, the aged men clack-clacking with the
-shuttle, the boys scattering seed over the rig-and-fur of the ploughed
-fields, the women minding their houses. And that, too, is war for ye! The
-dirk is out, the brogues trail over the hills and through the glens, the
-clans meet and clash, the full heart belches blood, the grass soaks, the
-world and the chance of it is put on the luck of a swinging stroke at yon
-one's neck. War! war! red and lusty—the jar of it fills the land!
-But oh, <i>mo chridhe!</i> home in Glen Shie are women and bairns living
-their own day's life, and the crack will be blithe in the sheilings to
-come, for all your quarrels. Where is Hector, and where is
-Gilean-of-the-Axe, and where is Diarmaid of the boar's snout? They are all
-gone but for an old song at the sheiling-fire, and life, love, and the
-Fell Sergeant still come and go in the place the warriors made such stir
-in! A stranger would think there was little amiss in the Duke's town. The
-women sang their long songs of love and yore as they span about the wheel
-and carded the wool; the bairns guddled in Jumping John's burn, and tore
-their kilts among the whins, and came home with the crows, redfaced and
-hungry-warned. At the ale-house there was traffic by day, and heavy
-drovers and gaugers stamped their feet to the choruses at night. The day
-lengthened, and comforting winds came from the two bonny black glens; the
-bracken put on new growths, like the crook of St Molach that's up-by in
-the Castle; Easachosain reeled to the piping of birds.
-</p>
-<p>
-There might be an eye many times a-day on the Stron Point to see if a
-horseman was rounding it, and the cruisies were kept burning a little
-longer at night in case the news would come in the darkness like the Athol
-thieves. But patience was ever the gift of the Gael, and few lost heart.
-</p>
-<p>
-And at last the news came of Culloden Moor.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was on a Sunday—a dry clear day—and all the folk were at
-the church, with old Colin the minister sweating at it for the good of the
-Ceannloch fishermen in the loft. He was in the middle of his prayer when a
-noise came over the town, a dunting of hoofs on the causey of the
-Provost's house-front.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Amen!” said the cunning Colin, quick as could be, and then, “Friends,
-here is news for us,” and down the pulpit steps he ran briskly like a lad
-of twenty.
-</p>
-<p>
-Peter MacIntyre set back the bolt from the door with a bang, and past him
-the people made rush. The Duke's rider from over the Rest was there in the
-saddle of a grey garron foaming at the mouth and its hurdies in a tremble.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Your tidings, your tidings, good man!” cried the people.
-</p>
-<p>
-The lad sat stark in the saddle, with his eyes wet and his nose pricking
-with the Gaelic pride.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I have been at the Castle, and-”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Your news, just man.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I have been at the Castle, and Mac-Cailein Mor, who said I rode well from
-the Rest, said I might come in-by and carry my budget to you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Out with it, Paruig, little hero. Is't good or ill?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What would it be, my heroes, with our own lads, but good? Where's the
-beat of them? It's 'The Glen is Mine' Dol' Dubh will be playing this day
-on Culloden, for ours is the battle. They scattered the dirty Northmen and
-the Irishers like chaff, and Cailein Mor himself gave me a horn of ale
-from his own hands on the head o't.”
- </p>
-<p>
-A roar went up that stirred the crows on Scaurnoch, and there was a Sunday
-spoiled for you; for the ale went free and merry in the change-house at
-the Duke's charge till the moon was over Ben Ime.
-</p>
-<p>
-But there were five houses with the clocks stopped (for the ghosts take no
-heed of time); five houses with the glasses turned face to the wall (for
-who dare look in glass to see a wraith at the back of the shoulder?);
-there were four widows and five mothers wet faced, keening for five fine
-men who had been, and whose names were now writ on paper on the church
-door.
-</p>
-<h3>
-III.
-</h3>
-<p>
-Day followed day, and still home came no Campbells. They were far to the
-dreary North, plying sword and fire among the bad clans, harrying for the
-glory of Mac-Cailein Mor.
-</p>
-<p>
-And at last on a day the sea-pigs rolled and blew off Stron Point, and the
-scarts dived like arrows from the sun's eye, deep into a loch boiling with
-fish. Night found the brown sails bellying out on the scudding smacks, and
-the snouts of skiff and galley tearing the waves to get among the spoil.
-Bow-to-back, the nets spotted Finne mile on mile; the kind herrings
-crowded thick into them; the old luck was back, and the quays in the
-morning heard the fine tune of the cadger's clinking silver. In a hurry of
-hurries the fleet came up to the mouth of Shira—Tarbert men,
-Strathlachlan men, Minard men, black fellows from MacCallum country, and
-the wine-traffickers from French Foreland to swap sour claret for the
-sweet fat fish.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was ho-rol and spill the bicker in yon town, for all that the best of
-its men were away and afar at the killing. The smoke was black from the
-fires in the Cooper's Pool, the good healthy smell of the gut-pots sought
-up to the Castle door. Little doubt his Grace (<i>beannachd leis!</i>)
-would come out to the door-step and curse because it made him bock his
-breakfast, dainty man!
-</p>
-<p>
-Throng though the town was, round about the little house on the left of
-the Lowlands Road crept a queer quietness. The cow had dried, and the dull
-weather kept the spout fish too deep down in the sand for the ready
-fingers to reach them. So the household of Rob Donn starved to the bone.
-</p>
-<p>
-“To-morrow—they will be home tomorrow,” said Jean to herself every
-day to keep up her heart; but the days went by, and though it was
-something to know that Rob was not among the killed at Culloden, it was
-not something to stay the stomach. A stone-throw off were the best and
-kindest hearts in the world: the woman's cousin, the rich merchant, would
-give all he had on his board if he knew her trouble, and friends without
-number would share the last bite with her. But to ask it would be to say
-she was at the lowest, and to tell that Rob had left her nothing, and she
-would sooner die in her pride.
-</p>
-<p>
-Such people as passed her way—and some of them old gossips—would
-have gone in, but the withie was aye across the door, and that's the sign
-that business is doing within no one dare disturb. The withie was ever
-there except at night, when Jean was scouring the countryside for
-something to eat.
-</p>
-<p>
-The bairn dwined so fast that even the mother (and blind indeed's the
-mother at that bit) saw a little of it. There was no longer the
-creepie-stool at the back of the house, in the sun, and the bairn on it,
-watching the birds; her shanks grew thin like spirtles; her eyes sank far
-ben in her face, and she would not go the length of the door. She sat at
-the fireside and laughed her poor cold laugh less every day, till one long
-thought came to her that kept her busy at the thinking from morning till
-night with a face like a <i>cailleach</i> of eighty.
-</p>
-<p>
-“White love, white love,” Jean would be saying, “your father is on the
-road with stots and a pouch of cockades.”
- </p>
-<p>
-At that the bairn would come back from her roaming; but soon she was off
-again into the deeps of mind, her wide eyes like the windows of an empty
-house for all that could be seen through them.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh! but it will be the fine cockade,” poor Jean would press—“what
-am I saying?—the pack of your father will be full of them. Not the
-white ones of silk only, but the red and the grassy green, my little calf.
-You'll be wearing them when you will.”
- </p>
-<p>
-No heeding in the bairn's face.
-</p>
-<p>
-Then Jean would go out and pull the tansy at the door, and give it to the
-little one to get the fine scent. The curious shells from the shore, too,
-would she gather, and lay in rings about the chair, and call her the Queen
-in her castle. For ever would there be a song at her lips, even if the
-drops would be in her eyes—old daft songs from fairs and weddings,
-and fairy rhyming and cheery stories about the Good People up on Sithean
-Sluaidhe. Her fingers were for ever soft about the bairn, her flesh and
-blood, stroking in the hair, softening the cushion, petting her in every
-hand's-turn. She made a treat to herself by asking her, now and then,
-something that had to be answered “Yes” or “No,” and “Mother” was so sweet
-in her ears that she would be content to hear no more in all her lifetime.
-</p>
-<p>
-All the day the bairn crouched up in a hoop-chair with her neck slack and
-her chin on her breast. Jean was loth to leave her in her bed in the
-mornings, for she had a notion that to get her out of the blankets and to
-put her in the clothes of the busy world would be to keep her in the trim
-for living on.
-</p>
-<p>
-Still there was no sign of the men returning. Often was Jean's foot at the
-door and her hand over her eyes to see if there was no stir at Stron or
-Kilachatrine, and but for good stuff, her heart failed five-score times
-a-day.
-</p>
-<p>
-At last, on a day of days, the bairn could not be stirred to notice
-anything. The tansy fell out of her fingers, and she picked at the wool of
-the plaid that wrapped her; the shells had no charm for her eye.
-</p>
-<p>
-Jean made the pack of the coming father as routh as a magic cave. “That
-father of yours, darling, what a many wonderful things he will bring! I
-see him on the road. Stots, and cows with milk brimming from the udders,
-and a pet sheep for his <i>caileag bheag</i>; pretty gold and silver
-things, and brooches and shining stuff. That father of yours! Hurry,
-father, hurry! Jingling things, and wee fairy-men, and bells to ring for
-you, m' eudail; pretty glasses and dishes to play with, and—O my
-darling! my darling!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The bairn's face lost the deep red spots; her little mouth slacked and
-fell; her eyes shut on the sight of the fine things her poor mother made
-for her out of a rich and willing mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-Jean lifted her and put her on the bed, and ran with a gutting-knife to
-where Mally the dappled one lay at the back.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I must be doing it!” said the woman, and she bled the brute as they do in
-the poor years in Lorn, and took the cogie of blood into the house to make
-a pudding of. The last handful of meal in the girael went into the pot
-with the warm blood, and she was stirring it with a spoon over the fire
-when the child cluttered at the throat.
-</p>
-<p>
-Jean turned about with a cry, and at the minute a bagpipe's lilting came
-over the glassy bay from Stron Point.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was Clan Campbell back from the wars, the heroes! clouted about the
-heads and with stains on their red waistcoats that were thicker than wine
-makes. Dol' Dubh played the old port, sweet and jaunty, at the head of
-them; the Cornal and the Major snuffed the herrings and said, “Here's our
-own place, sure enough! See the smoke from our own peats! And the fine
-cock of the cap on Dunchuach!”
- </p>
-<p>
-On the Lowlands road the town emptied itself, and the folks ran fast and
-furious—the boys first, the young women next, and the old folks
-peching behind. But if the town was up on the warriors soon, the Duke
-himself was before it. He saw the first of the Company from the Castle,
-and he was in the saddle for all his threescore, like a boy, and down like
-the wind to Boshang Gate.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Halt!” cried the Cornal to his men, and Dol' Dubh's bag emptied itself
-with a grant.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Tha sibh an sol!</i> You are here, cousin,” said the Duke. “Proud am I
-to see you and our good lads. They did the old trick well!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They did that, MacCailein. The stuff's aye to the fore.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's in the blood, man. We have't in us, high or low. I have but one
-thing to vex me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Name it, cousin.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well ye ken, Cornai. It's that I had not been with you to see the last
-crushing Clan Campbell may need to give to an asp's head.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It was a good ploy missed, I'll not deny.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What about the Tearlach one? Well plucked, they are telling me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“As foolish a lad as ever put tartan on hip, my lord! Frenchy, Frenchy,
-MacCailein! all outside and no cognisance. Yourself or any of your
-forebears at the head of his clans could have scoured all Albainn of
-Geordie's Low-Country red-coats, and yet there were only six thousand true
-Gaels in all the fellow's corps.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To read my letters, you would think the whole North was on fire!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A bantam's crow, cousin. Clan Campbell itself could have thrawed the neck
-of it at any time up to Dunedin.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They made a fair stand, did they not?
-</p>
-<p>
-“Uch! Poor eno'—indeed it was not what you would call a coward's
-tulzie either.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, well, that's over, lads I I am proud of my clan and town. <i>Slochd
-a Chubair gu bragh!</i> Stack your guns in the arm-room, see your wives
-and bairns, and come up-by to the Castle for the heroes' bite and sup.
-Who's that with the white cockade in his bonnet? Is't Rob Donn?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is Rob Donn, cousin, with a bit of the ribbon contrivance for the
-diversion of his bairn. He tore it from the bonnet of the seventh man he
-put an end to.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“There's luck in the number, any way, though it was a dear plaything.
-March!” Down the road, with their friends hanging about them, and the boys
-carrying guns and knapsacks, went the men for the town, and Rob Donn left
-the company as it passed near his own door.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Faith! 'tis a poor enough home-coming, without wife or bairn to meet
-one,” said he, as he pushed in the door.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Wife! wife!” he cried ben among the peat-reek, “there's never a stot, but
-here's the cockade for the little one!”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-A FINE PAIR OF SHOES
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE beginnings of things are to be well considered—we have all a
-little of that art; but to end well and wisely is the gift of few. Hunters
-and herds on the corri and the hill—they are at the simple end of
-life, and ken the need for the task complete. The stag must be gralloched
-ere ye brag of him, the drove must be at the market ere ye say anything of
-the honesty of the glens ye pass through.
-</p>
-<p>
-And what I like best about our own Gaels is their habit of bringing the
-work of a day or the work of a lifetime to what (in their own notions) is
-an end round and polished.
-</p>
-<p>
-When our women die, they do it with something of a daintiness. Their
-dead-clothes are in the awmrie; I have seen them with the cakes toasted
-and the board set for their funerals. Travelling wide on unfriendly
-foreign roads, living by sword or wit, you know that our men, the poorest
-among them, with an empty sporran, kept the buttons of their duds of good
-silver, to pay, if need be, for something more than a gangrel's burial. I
-like to think of him in story who, at his end in bed, made the folk trick
-him out in gallant style with tartan, targe, brogue, and bonnet, and the
-sword in his hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A Gaelic gentleman,” said he, “should come to his journey's end somewhat
-snod and well-put-on.” And his son played “Cha till mi tuilidh” (“I return
-no more”) on the bag-pipe by his firm command.
-</p>
-<p>
-It is not even in this unco undertaking of Death that the polish must be
-put on the task (though poor's the creature who dies clumsily); it should
-be the same with every task of a day.
-</p>
-<p>
-And so Baldi Crom, making a fine pair of shoes on a day in Carnus, put the
-best skill of his fingers to every stitch. He had been working at them
-since the command came in the morning, and now it was the mouth of night,
-and on one of them the finest of the fine sewing was still to do. About
-the place there was nobody but the old man, for he was the last, in a way,
-of the old stock of Carnus (now a <i>larach</i> of low lintels, and the
-nettle over all); and he was without woman to put <i>caschrom</i> to his
-soil or hip to a creel of peats. And so he lived on the brae of Camus—that
-same far up and lonely in the long glen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“They'll be the best I ever put brog in,” said he, looking fondly at the
-fine work, the yellow thread standing out on the toes, patterned like a
-leaf of the whortleberry, set about with the serpent-work of the old
-crosses. Bite nor sap, kail nor crowdie, did he taste all day. Working in
-the light of his open door, he could see, if he had the notion, the whole
-glen rolled out before him, brimming with sun, crossed in the heat of the
-day by deer from Dalavich seeking for the woods of Loch Finne; the blue
-reek of the townships at the far end might have cheered him with the
-thought that life was in sight though his house was lonely. But crouped
-over the lap-stone, he made love to his work, heeding nothing else but the
-sewing of the fine pair of shoes.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was the night before the town market. Droves of bellowing cattle—heifers,
-stots, and stirks—were going down the glen from Port Sonachan,
-cropping hurried mouthfuls by the way as they went and as the dogs would
-let them. And three Benderloch drovers came off the road and into Baldi
-Crom's house, after the night was down on the glen and he had the cruisie
-lighted. They sat them down round the fire in the middle of the floor and
-ate bannocks and cheese.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How's thy family, 'Illeasbuig?” said a drover, stirring up the peat as if
-he were at his own door-end. Down on the roadside the cattle, black and
-yellow, crushed the sappy grass and mourned in bellows for their lost
-fields.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Splendid! splendid!” said the old man, double over his shoes, fondling
-them with the fingers of a mother on a first baby. The light was low in
-the cruisie, for the oil was well down, and the fire and the cruisie made
-a ring of light that could scarcely slip over the backs of the men sitting
-round the peats. A goat scratched his head but-and-ben against the
-wattles; in corners the darkness was brown and thick.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I hear Cailen's in the Low-country, but what has come of Tormaid?” said
-one, with knee-breeches, and hose of coarse worsted.
-</p>
-<p>
-The old man gave a quick start, and the lapstone fell from his knees, the
-shoe he was at with it. He bent over and felt like a blind man for them on
-the floor before he made answer.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Tormaid, my gallant son! Ye have not heard of him lately, then?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Never a word, 'Illeasbuig. People on the going foot, like drovers, hear
-all the world's gossip but the <i>sgeuls</i> of their own <i>sgireachd</i>.
-We have been far North since Martinmas: for us there must be many a story
-to tell 'twixt here and Inneraora. A stout lad and pretty, Tormaid too, as
-ever went to the beginning of fortune! Where might he be enow?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Here and there, friend, here and there! A restless scamp, a wanderer, but
-with parts. Had he not the smart style at the game of <i>camanachi?</i> He
-was namely for it in many places.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“As neat a player as ever took shinty in hand, master! I have the name of
-a fair player myself, but that much I'll allow your lad. Is he to the West
-side, or farther off?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Farther off, friend. The pipes now—have you heard him as a player
-on the chanter?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“As a piper, 'Illeasbuig! His like was not in three shires. I have heard
-him at reel and march, but these were not his fancy: for him the <i>piobaireachds</i>
-that scholarly ones play!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“My gallant boy!” said Baldi Crom, rubbing soft on the shoe with the palm
-of a hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Once upon a time,” said the drover, “we were on our way to a Lowland
-Tryst. Down Glen Falloch a Soccach man and I heard him fill the nightfall
-with the 'Bhoilich' of Morar, with the brag of a whole clan in his
-warbling. He knew piping, the fellow with me, and the tear came to his
-cheek, thinking of the old days and the old ploys among the dirks and <i>sgians</i>.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“There was never the beat of him,” said the shoemaker.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Throughither a bit—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But good, good at heart, man! With a better chance of fortune he might be
-holding his head to-day as high as the best of them.” The drovers looked
-at each other with a meaning that was not for the eyes of the old man; but
-he had small chance of seeing it, for he was throng at his fine pair of
-shoes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“He had a name for many arts,” said the man with coarse hose, “but they
-were not the arts that give a lad settlement and put money in his purse.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“The hot young head, man! He would have cured,” said the old man, sewing
-hard. “Think of it,” said he: “was ever a more humoursome fellow to walk a
-glen with? His songs, his stories, his fast jump at one's meaning, and his
-trick of leaving all about him in a good key with themselves and him. Did
-ever one ask a Saxon shilling from his purse that it was not a cheery gift
-if the purse held it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“True, indeed!” said the drovers, eating bannocks and cheese.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'Twixt heaven and hell,” said the fellow with the coarse hose, “is but a
-spang. It's so easy for some folk to deserve the one gate—so many
-their gifts—that the cock-sureness leaves them careless, and they
-wander into the wrong place.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You were speaking?” said Baldi, a little angry, though he heard but half.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I said thy son was a fellow of many gifts,” answered the drover, in a
-confusion.
-</p>
-<p>
-“He had no unfriends that I ken of,” said the old man, busy at the shoes;
-“young or old, man or woman.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Especially woman,” put in another drover, wrinkling at the eyes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I've had five sons: three in the King's service, and one in the
-Low-country; here's my young wanderer, and he was—he is—the
-jewel of them all!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You hear of him sometimes?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I heard of him and from him this very day,” said Baldi, busy at the
-brogues, white and drawn at the face and shaking at the lips. “I have
-worked at these shoes since morning, and little time is there to put bye
-on them, for at Inneraora town must they be before breakfast. Solomon
-Carrier, passing at three, gives me a cry and takes them.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They're a fine pair of shoes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Fine indeed; the finest of the fine! They're for a particular one.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Duke John himself, perhaps?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, man; a particular one, and were they not his in time a sorry man was
-I. They're the best Baldi Crom ever put leather on.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Till the turn of the night the drovers slept in their plaids, their cattle
-steaming out-by in the dark, munching the coarse grass selvedge, breathing
-heavy. And when the men and their beasts went in the darkness of the
-morning, Baldi Crom was still throng at his fine pair of shoes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I'm late, I'm surely late,” said he, toiling hard, but with no
-sloven-work, at his task.
-</p>
-<p>
-The rain had come with the morning, and was threshing out-by on peat and
-thatch. Inside, the fire died, and the cruisie gave warnings that its oil
-was low, but Baldi Crom was too throng on the end of his task to notice.
-And at last his house dropped into darkness.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Tormaid! Tormaid! my little hero—I'm sore feared you'll die without
-shoes after all,” cried the old man, staggering to the door for daylight.
-He had the door but opened when he fell, a helpless lump, on the clay
-floor. The rain slanted on his grey hairs and spat on a fine shoe.
-</p>
-<p>
-Far down the good long glen the drovers were tramping after their cattle,
-and the dun morning was just before them when they got to the gate of
-Inneraora. Here there was a great to-do, for the kind gallows stood stark
-before the Arches. Round about it were the townspeople waiting for a
-hanging.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Who is't, and what is't for?” asked the drover with the knee-breeches and
-the coarse hose, pushing into the crowd.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Tormaid, the son of the Carnus cobbler,” said a woman with a plaid over
-her head. “He killed a man in a brawl at Braleckan and raped his purse.
-Little enough to put tow to a pretty lad's neck for, sure enough!” “Stand
-clear there!” cried a sharp voice, and the hangman and his friend came to
-the scaffold's foot with a lad in front of them, his hands shackled behind
-his back. He was a strong straight lad, if anything overly dour in the
-look, and he wore a good coat and tiews, but neither boot nor bonnet.
-Under the beam he put back his shoulders with a jerk and looked at the
-folk below, then over at Dunchuach with the mist above the fort like
-smoke.
-</p>
-<p>
-“They might have given him a pair of old baucbels, if no better, to die
-in,” said the drover in the woman's ear.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Ochanoch!</i> and they might!” she said. “The darling! He lost his
-shoes in swimming Duglas Water to get clear, and they say he sent
-yesterday to his father for a pair, but they're not come. Queer, indeed,
-is that, for 'twas the brag of the folks he came of that they aye died
-with a good pair of shoon on their feet!”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CASTLE DARK.
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>OU know Castle Dark, women?
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, we know the same, just man and blind!”
- </p>
-<p>
-And you, my lads?
-</p>
-<p>
-“None better, Paruig Dali; morning and night, in the moon and in the full
-white day!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Then of Castle Dark is my story. Is the cruisie alight on the rafter? More
-peats, little one, on the fire.
-</p>
-<p>
-Once upon a time Castle Dark was a place of gentility and stirring days.
-You have heard it,—you know it; now it is like a deer's skull in
-Wood Mamore, empty, eyeless, sounding to the whistling wind, but blackened
-instead of bleached in the threshing rains. When the day shines and the
-sun coaxes the drowsy mists from the levels by the river, that noble house
-that was brisks up and grey-whitens, minding maybe of merry times; the
-softest smirr of rain—and the scowl comes to corbie-stone and gable;
-black, black grow the stones of old ancient Castle Dark! Little one, <i>m'
-eudail</i>, put the door to, and the sneck down.
-</p>
-<p>
-“True for you, Paruig Dali; you know the place as if you had seen it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-With eyes Paruig Dali has never seen it. But my friends tell me what they
-know, and beyond I have learned of myself. Up the river-side, many a time
-I pass to the place and over its low dykes, dry-stone, broken and
-crumbling to the heel. The moss is soft on the little roads, so narrow and
-so without end, winding round the land; the nettle cocks him right
-braggardly over the old home of bush and flower, poisoning the air. Where
-the lady dozed in her shady seat below the alder-tree, looking out between
-half-shut eyes at the proud Highlands—loch, glen, and mountain—is
-but a root rotten, and hacked by the woodman's whittle. A tangle of wild
-wood, bracken, and weed smothers the rich gardens of Castle Dark.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It is so, it is so, Paruig Dali, blind man, prince among splendid pipers
-and storied men!”
- </p>
-<p>
-And to stand on the broad clanging steps that lifted from the hunting-road
-to the great door—that is a thinking man's trial. To me, then, will
-be coming graveyard airs, yellow and vexatious, searching eager through my
-bones for this old man's last weakness. “Thou sturdy dog!” will they be
-saying, “some day, some day! Look at this strong tower!” With an ear to
-the gap on the side of the empty ditch, I can hear the hollowness of the
-house rumbling with pains, racked at <i>cabar</i> and corner-stone, the
-thought and the song gone clean away. There is no window, then, that has
-not a complaint of its own; no loop-hole, no vent, no grassy chimney that
-the blind fellow cannot hear the pipe of. Straight into the heart's core
-of Castle Dark looks the sun; the deep tolbooth of the old reivers and the
-bed-chamber of the maid are open wide to the night and to the star!
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Ochan! ochan!</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-You that only ken the castle in common day or night and plain man's
-weather have but little notion of its wonders. It was there, and black and
-hollow, ere ever you were born, or Paruig Dali. To see Castle Dark one
-must take the Blue Barge and venture on two trips.
-</p>
-<p>
-“The Blue Barge, just man?”
- </p>
-<p>
-That same. The <i>birlinn ghorm</i>, the galley of fairy Lorn. It lies in
-the sunlight on the bay, or the moonlight in certain weathers, and twelve
-of the handsomest sit on the seats with the oars in their hands, the red
-shirt bulging over the kilt-belt. At the stem of the barge is the chair of
-the visitor. Gentle or semple, 'tis the same boat and crew, and the same
-cushioned chair, for all that make the jaunt to Castle Dark. My story is
-of two trips a man made by Barge Blue up the river to the white stairs.
-</p>
-<p>
-He roved round the Lowlands road on a fine summer day, and out on the
-sands among the running salt threads of ebb tide. Among the shells, his
-eyes (as it might be) fell on the castle, and he had a notion to make the
-trip to it by a new road. Loudly he piped to sea. If loudly he piped, keen
-was the hearing, for yonder came the galley of fairy Lorn, the twelve
-red-shirts swinging merry at the oars and chanting a Skye <i>iorram</i>.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Here's an exploit!” said the man of my story. “There's dignity in yon
-craft, or less than red-shirts was the wearing of the scamps who row her.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The loch curled like a feather before her and frothed far behind, and soon
-her nose ran high on the sand. No word was said, but the first pair of
-rowers let out a carved plank, and the fellow of my story went over it and
-behind to the chair with the cushioned seat.
-</p>
-<p>
-“To the castle?” asked the captain (as it might be), in the way of one who
-speaks a master, and Adventurer said, “Castle be it.” The barge was pushed
-off the sand, the oars fell on the water, and she curved into the
-river-mouth.
-</p>
-<p>
-When Adventurer reached the bridge, it was before the time of war, and the
-country from end to end sat quiet, free, and honest. Our folks lived the
-clean out-by life of shepherds and early risers. Round these hills, the
-woods—the big green woods—were trembling with bird and beast,
-and the two glens were crowded with warm homes—every door open, and
-the cattle untethered on the hill. Summer found the folks like ourselves
-here, far up on sappy levels among the hills, but their sheilings more
-their own than ours are, with never a reiver nor a broken clan in all the
-land. Good stout roads and dry went down the passes to Castle Dark from
-all airts of Albainn—roads for knight and horse, but free and safe
-for the gentlest girl ever so lonely. By sea came gabberts of far France
-with wine and drink; by land the carriers brought rich cloths, spices, and
-Italian swords such as never were before or since. I made a small <i>piobaireachd</i>
-once on such a blade; if you put me over my pipes, I—
-</p>
-<p>
-“Later the pipes, Paruig Dali, the best player in the world! to thy story
-this time.” Is the cup to my right or left? Blessings! The Castle and
-Barge were my story.
-</p>
-<p>
-Up and on, then, under the bridge, went Adventurer and his company of
-twelve, and he trailed white fingers over the low side of the boat, the
-tide warm like new milk. Under the long arch he held up his head and
-whooped gaily, like the boy he was in another dream, and Mactallamh
-laughed back from behind the smell of lime-drop and <i>crotal</i> hanging
-to the stones. Then into the sun again, on the wide flat river, with the
-fields sloping down on each hand, nodding to the lip with rush and flower.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Faith and here's fortune!” said Adventurer. “Such a day for sailing and
-sights was never before.”
- </p>
-<p>
-And the Blue Barge met nor stone nor stay, but ever the twelve fine lads
-swinging cheerily at the oars, till they came to the white stairs.
-</p>
-<p>
-Off the boat and up the clanging steps went Adventurer as bold as Eachan,
-and the bushes waving soft on every side. The gravel crunched to his foot—the
-white round gravel of Cantyre; kennelled hounds cried warning from the
-ditch-side; round him were the scenting flowers and the feeling of the
-little roads winding so without end all about the garden.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Queer is this!” said he, feeling the grass-edge with his feet and
-fingering the leaves. “Here, surely, is weed nor nettle, but the trim bush
-and the swinging rose. The gardeners have been busy in the gardens of old
-ancient Castle Dark!”
- </p>
-<p>
-When he came to the ditch, the drawbrig was down. To the warm airs of the
-day the windows, high and low, were open; a look of throng life was over
-the house, and in-by some one plucked angrily at the strings of a harp.
-Reek rose lazy and blue over the chimneys, the smell of roasting meats and
-rich broths hung on the air.
-</p>
-<p>
-Under a tree got Adventurer and deep in thought. And soon the harping came
-to an end. A girl stepped to the bridge and over into the garden. She took
-to the left by the butter-house and into My Lady's Canter, lined with
-foreign trees. Along the wide far road came a man to meet her,
-good-shaped, in fine clothes, tartan trews fitting close on leg and
-haunch, and a leather jacket held at the middle by a <i>crioslach</i>.
-</p>
-<p>
-Under his tree stood Adventurer as they passed back, and close beside him
-the courtier pushed the hilt of a small-sword to his back and took the
-woman in his arms.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then if ye must ken,” said he, shamefacedly, “I am for the road
-to-morrow.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The girl—ripe and full, not over-tall, well balanced, her hair waved
-back from over brown eyes, gathered in a knot and breaking to a curl on
-the nape of the neck like a wave on the shell-white shore—got hot at
-the skin, and a foot drummed the gravel in an ill temper.
-</p>
-<p>
-“For yon silly cause again?” she asked, her lips thinning over her teeth.
-</p>
-<p>
-“For the old cause,” said he; “my father's, my dead brothers', my clan's,
-ours for a hundred years. Do not lightly the cause, my dear; it may be
-your children's yet.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You never go with my will,” quo' the girl again. “Here am I, far from a
-household of cheery sisters, so lonely, so lonely! Oh! Morag and Aoirig,
-and the young ones! were I back among them from this brave tomb!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Tomb, sweet!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Tomb said I, and tomb is it!” cried the woman, in a storm. “Who is here
-to sing with me and comfort me in the misty mornings, to hearten me when
-you are at wood or hill? The dreary woods, the dreary, dreary shore—they
-give me the gloom! My God, what a grey day!”
- </p>
-<p>
-(And yet, by my troth, 'twas a sunny day by the feel of it, and the birds
-were chirming on every tree!)
-</p>
-<p>
-The gentleman put his hands on the girl's shoulder and looked deep in her
-eyes, thinking hard for a wee, and biting at his low lip in a nervous way.
-</p>
-<p>
-“At night,” said he, “I speak to you of chase and the country-side's
-gossip. We have sometimes neighbours in our house as now,—old
-Askaig's goodwife and the Nun from Inishail—a good woman and pious.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Up went the lady's head, and she laughed bitter and long.
-</p>
-<p>
-“My good husband,” she said, in a weary way, “you are like all that wear
-trews; you have never trained your tracking but to woodcraft, or else you
-had found the wild-kit in a woman's heart.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“There's my love, girl, and I think you love—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Tuts, man! I talked not of that. Love is—love, while it lasts, and
-ye brag of Askaig's wife and the Nun (good Lord!), and the old harridans
-your cousins from Lochow!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“'Tis but a tirrivie of yours, my dear,” said the man, kindly, kissing her
-on the teeth, and she with her hands behind her back. “Tomorrow the
-saddle, Sir Claymore, and the south country! Hark ye, sweet, I'll fetch
-back the most darling thing woman ever dreamt of.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What might his name be?” asked the girl, laughing, but still with a
-bitterness, and the two went round to the ditch-brig and in-by.
-</p>
-<p>
-Adventurer heard the little fine airs coming from the west, coiling, full
-of sap-smell, crooning in turret and among the grassy gable-tops, and
-piping into the empty windows.
-</p>
-<p>
-'Twas a summer's end when he went on the next jaunt, a hot night and hung
-with dripping stars. The loch crawled in from a black waste of sorrow and
-strange hills, and swished on the shore, trailing among the wreck with the
-hiss of fingers through ribbons of silk. My dears, my dears! the gloom of
-hidden seas in night and lonely places! 'Tis that dauntens me. I will be
-standing sometimes at the night's down-fall over above the bay, and
-hearkening to the grinding of the salt wash on rock and gravel, and never
-a sound of hope or merriment in all that weary song. You that have seeing
-may ken the meaning of it; never for Paruig Dali but wonder and the heavy
-heart!
-</p>
-<p>
-“'Tis our thought a thousand times, just man; we are the stour that wind
-and water make the clod of! You spoke of a second jaunt?”
- </p>
-<p>
-As ye say. It was in winter; and the morning—
-</p>
-<p>
-“Winter, said ye, Paruig Dali? 'Twas summer and night before.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Winter I said, and winter it was, before <i>faoilteach</i>, and the edge
-of the morning. The fellow of my <i>sgeul</i>, more than a twelvemonth
-older, went to the breast wall and cried on Barge Blue that's ever waiting
-for the sailor who's for sailing on fairy seas.
-</p>
-<p>
-In she came, with her twelve red-shirts tugging bravely at the oars, and
-the nose of her ripping the salt bree. Out, too, the carved plank, made,
-I'll warrant, by the Norwegian fellow who fashioned the Black Bed of
-MacArtair, and over it to the cushioned seat Adventurer!
-</p>
-<p>
-The little waves blobbed and bubbled at the boat's shoulders; she put
-under the arch and up the cold river to the white stairs.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was the middle and bloodiest time of all our wars. The glens behind
-were harried, and their cattle were bellowing in strange fields. Widows
-grat on the brae-sides and starved with their bairns for the bere and oat
-that were burned. But Adventurer found a castle full of company, the rich
-scum of water-side lairds and Lowland gentry, dicing and drinking in the
-best hall of Castle Dark. Their lands were black, their homes levelled, or
-their way out of the country—if they were Lowland—was barred
-by jealous clans. So there they were, drinking the reddest and eating the
-fattest—a wanton crew, among them George Mor, namely for women and
-wine and gentlemanly sword-play.
-</p>
-<p>
-They had been at the cartes after supper. Wine lay on the table in rings
-and rivers. The curtains were across the window, and the candles guttered
-in the sconces. Debauched airs flaffed abroad in the room. At the head of
-the board, with her hair falling out of the knot, the lady of the house
-dovered in her chair, her head against George Mor's shoulder, and him
-sleeping fast with his chin on his vest. Two company girls from the house
-in the forest slept forward on the table, their heads on the thick of
-their arms, and on either hand of them the lairds and foreigners. Of the
-company but two were awake, playing at <i>bord-dubh</i>, small eyed,
-oozing with drink. But they slept by-and-by like the lave, and sleep had a
-hold of Castle Dark through and through.
-</p>
-<p>
-Adventurer heard the cock crow away at the gean-tree park.
-</p>
-<p>
-One of the girls, stirring in her sleep, touched a glass with her elbow,
-and it fell on its side, the dark wine splashing over the table, crawling
-to the edge, thudding in heavy drops on the shoe of the mistress of the
-house, who drew back her foot without waking. But her moving started up
-the man at her ear. He looked at her face, kissed her on the hair, and got
-to his feet with no noise. A sour smile curdled his face when he looked
-about the room, drunken and yellow-sick in the guttering candlelight.
-</p>
-<p>
-Stretching himself, he made for the window and pulled back the curtain.
-</p>
-<p>
-The mountain looked in on the wastrel company, with a black and blaming
-scowl—the mountain set in blackness at the foot, but its brow
-touching the first of a cold day.
-</p>
-<p>
-Tree and bush stood like wraiths all about the garden, the river cried
-high and snell. George Mor turned and looked at the room and its sleeping
-company like corpses propped in chairs, in the light of candle and
-daybreak.
-</p>
-<p>
-The smell of the drunken chamber fogged at the back of his throat. He
-laughed in a kind of bitter way, the lace shaking at his neck and
-wrist-bands: then his humour changed, and he rued the night and his merry
-life.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I wish I was yont this cursed country,” said he to himself, shivering
-with cold. “'Tis these folk lead me a pretty spring, and had George Mor
-better luck of his company he was a decent man. And yet—and yet—who's
-George Mor to be better than his neighbours? As grow the fir-trees, some
-of them crooked and some of them straight, and we are the way the winds
-would have us!”
- </p>
-<p>
-He was standing in the window yet, deep in the morning's grief, running
-his fingers among his curls.
-</p>
-<p>
-Without warning the door of the room opened, and a man took one step in,
-soft, without noise, white-faced, and expecting no less than he found, by
-the look in his eyes. It was the goodwife's husband, still with the mud on
-his shoes and the sword on his belt. He beckoned on the fellow at the
-window, and went before him (the company still in their sleep), making for
-the big door, and George Mor as he followed lifted a sword from a pin.
-</p>
-<p>
-Close by Adventurer the two men stopped. It was on a level round of old
-moss, damp but springy, hid from the house by some saugh-trees.
-</p>
-<p>
-The master of the house spoke first. Said he, “It's no great surprise;
-they told me at the ferry over-by that strange carry-on and George Mor
-were keeping up the wife's heart in Castle Dark.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“She's as honest a wife as ever—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Fairly, fairly, I'll allow—when the wind's in that airt. It's been
-a dull place this for her, and I have small skill of entertainment; but,
-man, I thought of her often, away in the camp!”
- </p>
-<p>
-He was taking off his jacket as he spoke, and looking past George Mor's
-shoulder and in between the trees at the loch. And now the day was fairly
-on the country.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A bit foolish is your wife—just a girl, I'm not denying; but true
-at the core.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Young, young, as ye say, man! She'll make, maybe, all the more taking a
-widow woman. She'll need looks and gaiety indeed, for my poor cause is
-lost for good and all.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“We saved the castle for you, at any rate. But for my friends in-by and
-myself the flambeau was at the root o't.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So, my hero? In another key I might be having a glass with you over such
-friendship, but the day spreads and here's our business before us.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I've small stomach for this. It's a fool's quarrel.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>Thoir an aire!</i>—Guard, George Mor!”
- </p>
-<p>
-They fought warmly on the mossy grass, and the tinkle of the thin blades
-set the birds chirping in the bushes, but it could not be that that
-wakened my lady dovering in her chair in the room of guttering candles.
-</p>
-<p>
-She started up in a dream, and found George Mor gone, and the mark of
-muddy brogues near the door fitted in with her dream. She wakened none of
-her drugged company, but hurried to the garden and in between the foreign
-trees to the summons of the playing swords.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stop, stop, husband!” she cried before she saw who was at the fighting;
-but only George Mor heard, and he half turned his head.
-</p>
-<p>
-She was a little late. Her man, with a forefinger, was feeling the way to
-the scabbard, and a gout of blood was gathering at the point of his sword,
-when she got through the trees.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Madame,” said he, cool enough but short in the breath, and bloody a
-little at the mouth, “here's your gallant. He had maybe skill at
-diversion, but I've seen better at the small-sword. To-night my un-friends
-are coming back to harry Castle Dark, and I'm in little humour to stop
-them. Fare ye weel!”
- </p>
-<p>
-A blash of rain threshed in Adventurer's face; the tide crept at his feet,
-the fall of the oars on Barge Blue sank low and travelled far off. It was
-the broad day. Over above the river, Castle Dark grew black, but the
-fellow of my story could not see it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And the woman, Paruig Dali? What came of the woman?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Another peat on the fire, little one. So! <i>That</i> the fellow of my
-story would need another trip to see. But Barge Blue is the ferry for all,
-high tide or low, in the calm and in the storm.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-A GAELIC GLOSSARY.
-</h2>
-<p>
-A bhean! O wife!
-</p>
-<p>
-A pheasain! O brat!
-</p>
-<p>
-Amadant fool. Amadaitt dhoill! O blind fool!
-</p>
-<p>
-Bas, the haft of a shinty in this case.
-</p>
-<p>
-Bàs, death. Bàs Dhiarmaid, death to Diarmaid! Beannachd, blessing.
-Beannachdlets! blessing with him!
-</p>
-<p>
-Beannachd leat! blessing with thee, farewell! Biodag, a dirk.
-</p>
-<p>
-Btrlinn ghorm, blue barge.
-</p>
-<p>
-Bochdan, a ghost.
-</p>
-<p>
-Bodach, an old man.
-</p>
-<p>
-Bord-dubh, black-board, the game of draughts.
-</p>
-<p>
-Bratach, a banner.
-</p>
-<p>
-Cabar, a rafter, a log of wood for throwing in Highland sports.
-</p>
-<p>
-Caileag bkeag, a little girl.
-</p>
-<p>
-Cailleach, old woman. Cailleachan, old women.
-</p>
-<p>
-Camatty, club used in the game of shinty. Camanachd, the game of shinty.
-</p>
-<p>
-Cas, foot. Cas-chrom, a primitive hand-plough. Choillich-dhuibh, O
-black-cock!
-</p>
-<p>
-Clach-cuid-fear, a lifting-stone for testing a man's strength.
-</p>
-<p>
-Clackneart, putting-stone.
-</p>
-<p>
-Clarsack, harp.
-</p>
-<p>
-Cothrom na Feinne, the fair-play of Finne; man to man. Crioslach, belt,
-girdle.
-</p>
-<p>
-Cromag, a shepherd's crook.
-</p>
-<p>
-Crotal, lichen.
-</p>
-<p>
-Crunluadh, a movement in piping. Crunluadh breabach, a smarter movement
-Crunluadh mack, the quickest part of a piobaireachd.
-</p>
-<p>
-Dhé! O God! Dia, God. Dhia gleidh sinn! God keep us!
-</p>
-<p>
-Dorlach, a knapsack.
-</p>
-<p>
-Duitn'-nasal, gentleman.
-</p>
-<p>
-Eas, waterfall or cataract.
-</p>
-<p>
-Faoiltcach, the short season of stormy days at the end of January.
-</p>
-<p>
-Feadan, the chanter or pipe on which pipers practise tunes before playing
-them on the bagpipes. Fuarag, hasty-pudding, a mixture of oatmeal and cold
-water, or oatmeal and milk or cream.
-</p>
-<p>
-Gruagach, a sea-maiden in this case.
-</p>
-<p>
-'Ille! lad! 'Illean! lads!
-</p>
-<p>
-Iolair, eagle lorram, a boat-song.
-</p>
-<p>
-Laochain! hero! comrade!
-</p>
-<p>
-Larach, site of a ruined building.
-</p>
-<p>
-Londubh, blackbird.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mallachd ort! malediction on thee!
-</p>
-<p>
-Marag-dkubh, a black pudding, made with blood and suet.
-</p>
-<p>
-M' eudail, my darling, my treasure.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mhoire Mkathair, an ave, “Mary Mother.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mo chridhe! my heart!
-</p>
-<p>
-Mo thruaigh! alas, my trouble!
-</p>
-<p>
-Och! ochan! ochanoch! ochanie! ochanorie! exclamations of sorrow, alas!
-Och a Dhé! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob—O God! yonder it is now!
-Rise, rise, Rob!
-</p>
-<p>
-Oinseach, a female fool.
-</p>
-<p>
-Piobaireachd, the symphony of bagpipe music, usually a lament, salute, or
-gathering Piob-mhor, the great Highland bagpipe.
-</p>
-<p>
-Seangan, an ant.
-</p>
-<p>
-Sgalag, a male farm-servant.
-</p>
-<p>
-Sgeul, a tale, narrative.
-</p>
-<p>
-Sgiati-dubh, black knife, worn in the Highlander's stocking.
-</p>
-<p>
-Sgireachd, parish.
-</p>
-<p>
-Siod e! there it is!
-</p>
-<p>
-Siubhal, allegro of the piobaireachd music.
-</p>
-<p>
-Slochd-a-chubair gu bragh! the rallying cry of the old Inneraora burghers,
-“Slochd-a-chubair for ever!”
- </p>
-<p>
-So! here! So agad e! here he is!
-</p>
-<p>
-Spàgachd, club-footed, awkward at walking.
-</p>
-<p>
-Spreidh, cattle of all sorts, a drove.
-</p>
-<p>
-Stad! stop!
-</p>
-<p>
-Suas e! up with it! A term of encouragement.
-</p>
-<p>
-Taibhsear, a visionary; one with second-sight.
-</p>
-<p>
-Tha sibk an so! you are here!
-</p>
-<p>
-Thoir an aire! beware! look out!
-</p>
-<p>
-Uiseag, the skylark.
-</p>
-<p>
-Urlar, the ground-work, adagio, or simple melody of a piobaireachd.
-</p>
-<div style="height: 6em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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diff --git a/old/43729-h.zip b/old/43729-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 99c3f0f..0000000 --- a/old/43729-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/43729-h/43729-h.htm b/old/43729-h/43729-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index a2df334..0000000 --- a/old/43729-h/43729-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5983 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> - -<!DOCTYPE html -PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" -"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> -<head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> -<title> -The Lost Pibroch, by Neil Munro -</title> -<style type="text/css"> - <!-- - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 100%; font-style:normal; - margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; - text-align: right;} - .side { float: left; font-size: 75%; width: 25%; padding-left: 0.8em; - border-left: dashed thin; text-align: left; - text-indent: 0; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic; - font-weight: bold; color: black; background: #eeeeee; border: solid 1px;} - p.pfirst, p.noindent {text-indent: 0} - span.dropcap { float: left; margin: 0 0.1em 0 0; line-height: 1 } - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - --> -</style> -</head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Pibroch, by Neil Munro - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Lost Pibroch -And other Sheiling Stories - -Author: Neil Munro - -Release Date: September 15, 2013 [EBook #43729] -Last Updated: March 8, 2018 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PIBROCH *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - -</pre> - -<div style="height: 8em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h1> -THE LOST PIBROCH -</h1> -<h3> -AND OTHER SHEILING STORIES -</h3> -<p> -<br /> -</p> -<h2> -By Neil Munro -</h2> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<p> -<b>CONTENTS</b> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE LOST PIBROCH </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0002"> RED HAND </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0003"> THE SECRET OF THE HEATHER-ALE </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0004"> BOBOON'S CHILDREN </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE FELL SERGEANT. </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0006"> BLACK MURDO </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE SEA-FAIRY OF FRENCH FORELAND. </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0008"> SHUDDERMAN SOLDIER </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0009"> WAR. </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0010"> A FINE PAIR OF SHOES </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0011"> CASTLE DARK. </a> -</p> -<p class="toc"> -<a href="#link2H_4_0012"> A GAELIC GLOSSARY. </a> -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -THE LOST PIBROCH -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>O the make of a piper go seven years of his own learning and seven -generations before. If it is in, it will out, as the Gaelic old-word says; -if not, let him take to the net or sword. At the end of his seven years -one born to it will stand at the start of knowledge, and leaning a fond -ear to the drone, he may have parley with old folks of old affairs. -Playing the tune of the “Fairy Harp,” he can hear his forefolks, plaided -in skins, towsy-headed and terrible, grunting at the oars and snoring in -the caves; he has his whittle and club in the “Desperate Battle” (my own -tune, my darling!), where the white-haired sea-rovers are on the shore, -and a stain's on the edge of the tide; or, trying his art on Laments, he -can stand by the cairn of kings, ken the colour of Fingal's hair, and see -the moon-glint on the hook of the Druids! -</p> -<p> -To-day there are but three pipers in the wide world, from the Sound of -Sleat to the Wall of France. Who they are, and what their tartan, it is -not for one to tell who has no heed for a thousand dirks in his doublet, -but they may be known by the lucky ones who hear them. Namely players -tickle the chanter and take out but the sound; the three give a tune the -charm that I mention—a long thought and a bard's thought, and they -bring the notes from the deeps of time, and the tale from the heart of the -man who made it. -</p> -<p> -But not of the three best in Albainn today is my story, for they have not -the Lost Pibroch. It is of the three best, who were not bad, in a place I -ken—Half Town that stands in the wood. -</p> -<p> -You may rove for a thousand years on league-long brogues, or hurry on -fairy wings from isle to isle and deep to deep, and find no equal to that -same Half Town. It is not the splendour of it, nor the riches of its folk; -it is not any great routh of field or sheep-fank, but the scented winds of -it, and the comfort of the pine-trees round and about it on every hand. My -mother used to be saying (when I had the notion of fairy tales), that once -on a time, when the woods were young and thin, there was a road through -them, and the pick of children of a country-side wandered among them into -this place to play at sheilings. Up grew the trees, fast and tall, and -shut the little folks in so that the way out they could not get if they -had the mind for it. But never an out they wished for. They grew with the -firs and alders, a quiet clan in the heart of the big wood, clear of the -world out-by. -</p> -<p> -But now and then wanderers would come to Half Town, through the gloomy -coves, under the tall trees. There were packmen with tales of the -out-world. There were broken men flying from rope or hatchet. And once on -a day of days came two pipers—Gilian, of Clan Lachlan of -Strathlachlan, and Rory Ban, of the Macnaghtons of Dundarave. -</p> -<p> -They had seen Half Town from the sea—smoking to the clear air on the -hillside; and through the weary woods they came, and the dead quiet of -them, and they stood on the edge of the fir-belt. -</p> -<p> -Before them was what might be a township in a dream, and to be seen at the -one look, for it stood on the rising hill that goes back on Lochow. -</p> -<p> -The dogs barked, and out from the houses and in from the fields came the -quiet clan to see who could be here. Biggest of all the men, one they -named Coll, cried on the strangers to come forward; so out they went from -the wood-edge, neither coy nor crouse, but the equal of friend or foe, and -they passed the word of day. -</p> -<p> -“Hunting,” they said, “in Easachosain, we found the roe come this way.” - </p> -<p> -“If this way she came, she's at Duglas Water by now, so you may bide and -eat. Few, indeed, come calling on us in Half Town; but whoever they are, -here's the open door, and the horn spoon, and the stool by the fire.” - </p> -<p> -He took them in and he fed them, nor asked their names nor calling, but -when they had eaten well he said to Rory, “You have skill of the pipes; I -know by the drum of your fingers on the horn spoon.” - </p> -<p> -“I have tried them,” said Rory, with a laugh, “a bit—a bit. My -friend here is a player.” - </p> -<p> -“You have the art?” asked Coll. -</p> -<p> -“Well, not what yoo might call the whole art,” said Gilian, “but I can -play—oh yes!I can play two or three ports.” - </p> -<p> -“You can that!” said Rory. -</p> -<p> -“No better than yourself, Rory.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, maybe not, but—anyway, not all tunes; I allow you do -'Mackay's Banner' in a pretty style.” - </p> -<p> -“Pipers,” said Coll, with a quick eye to a coming quarrel, “I will take -you to one of your own trade in this place—Paruig Dali, who is -namely for music.” - </p> -<p> -“It's a name that's new to me,” said Rory, short and sharp, but up they -rose and followed Big Coll. -</p> -<p> -He took them to a bothy behind the Half Town, a place with turf walls and -never a window, where a blind man sat winding pirns for the weaver-folks. -</p> -<p> -“This,” said Coll, showing the strangers in at the door, “is a piper of -parts, or I'm no judge, and he has as rare a stand of great pipes as ever -my eyes sat on.” - </p> -<p> -“I have that same,” said the blind man, with his face to the door. “Your -friends, Coll?” - </p> -<p> -“Two pipers of the neighbourhood,” Rory made answer. “It was for no piping -we came here, but by the accident of the chase. Still and on, if pipes are -here, piping there might be.” - </p> -<p> -“So be it,” cried Coll; “but I must go back to my cattle till night comes. -Get you to the playing with Paruig Dali, and I'll find you here when I -come back.” And with that he turned about and went off. -</p> -<p> -Parig put down the ale and cake before the two men, and “Welcome you are,” - said he. -</p> -<p> -They ate the stranger's bite, and lipped the stranger's cup, and then, -“Whistle 'The Macraes' March,' my fair fellow,” said the blind man. -</p> -<p> -“How ken you I'm fair?” asked Rory. -</p> -<p> -“Your tongue tells that. A fair man has aye a soft bit in his speech, like -the lapping of milk in a cogie; and a black one, like your friend there, -has the sharp ring of a thin burn in frost running into an iron pot. 'The -Macraes' March,' <i>laochain</i>.” - </p> -<p> -Rory put a pucker on his mouth and played a little of the fine tune. -</p> -<p> -“So!” said the blind man, with his head to a side, “you had your lesson. -And you, my Strathlachlan boy without beard, do you ken 'Muinntir a' -Ghlinne so'?” - </p> -<p> -“How ken ye I'm Strathlachlan and beardless?” asked Gilian. -</p> -<p> -“Strathlachlan by the smell of herring-scale from your side of the house -(for they told me yesterday the gannets were flying down Strathlachlan -way, and that means fishing), and you have no beard I know, but in what -way I know I do not know.” Gilian had the <i>siubhal</i> of the pibroch -but begun when the blind man stopped him. -</p> -<p> -“You have it,” he said, “you have it in a way, the Macarthur's way, and -that's not my way. But, no matter, let us to our piping.” - </p> -<p> -The three men sat them down on three stools on the clay floor, and the -blind man's pipes passed round between them. -</p> -<p> -“First,” said Paruig (being the man of the house, and to get the vein of -his own pipes)—“first I'll put on them 'The Vaunting.'” He stood to -his shanks, a lean old man and straight, and the big drone came nigh on -the black rafters. He filled the bag at a breath and swung a lover's arm -round about it. To those who know not the pipes, the feel of the bag in -the oxter is a gaiety lost. The sweet round curve is like a girl's waist; -it is friendly and warm in the crook of the elbow and against a man's -side, and to press it is to bring laughing or tears. -</p> -<p> -The bothy roared with the tuning, and then the air came melting and sweet -from the chanter. Eight steps up, four, to the turn, and eight down went -Paruig, and the <i>piobaireachd</i> rolled to his fingers like a man's -rhyming. The two men sat on, the stools, with their elbows on their knees, -and listened. -</p> -<p> -He played but the <i>urlar</i>, and the <i>crunluadh</i> to save time, and -he played them well. -</p> -<p> -“Good indeed! Splendid, my old fellow!” cried the two; and said Gilian, -“You have a way of it in the <i>crunluadh</i> not my way, but as good as -ever I heard.” - </p> -<p> -“It is the way of Padruig Og,” said Rory. -</p> -<p> -“Well I know it! There are tunes and tunes, and 'The Vaunting' is not bad -in its way, but give me 'The Macraes' March.'” - </p> -<p> -He jumped to his feet and took the pipes from the old man's hands, and -over his shoulder with the drones. -</p> -<p> -“Stand back, lad!” he cried to Gilian, and Gilian went nearer the door. -</p> -<p> -The march came fast to the chanter—the old tune, the fine tune that -Kintail has heard before, when the wild men in their red tartan came over -hill and moor; the tune with the river in it, the fast river and the -courageous that kens not stop nor tarry, that runs round rock and over -fall with a good humour, yet no mood for anything but the way before it. -The tune of the heroes, the tune of the pinelands and the broad straths, -the tune that the eagles of Loch Duich crack their beaks together when -they hear, and the crows of that country-side would as soon listen to as -the squeal of their babies. -</p> -<p> -“Well! mighty well!” said Paruig Dali. “You have the tartan of the clan in -it.” - </p> -<p> -“Not bad, I'll allow,” said Gilian. “Let me try.” - </p> -<p> -He put his fingers on the holes, and his heart took a leap back over two -generations, and yonder was Glencoe! The grey day crawled on the white -hills and the Mack roofs smoked below. Snow choked the pass, <i>eas</i> -and corn filled with drift and flatted to the brae-face; the wind tossed -quirky and and in the little bashes and among the smooring lintels and -joists; the Mood of old and young lappered on the hearthstone, and the -bairn, with a knifed throat, had an icy lip on a frozen teat. Out of the -place went the tramped path of the Campbell butchers—far on their -way to Glenlyon and the towns of paper and ink and liars—“Muinntir -a' ghlinne so, muinntir a' ghlinne so!—People, people, people of -this glen, this glen, this glen!” - </p> -<p> -“Dogs! dogs! O God of grace—dogs and cowards!” cried Rory. “I could -be dirking a Diarmaid or two if by luck they were near me.” - </p> -<p> -“It is piping that is to be here,” said Paruig, “and it is not piping for -an hour nor piping for an evening, but the piping of Dunvegan that stops -for sleep nor supper.” - </p> -<p> -So the three stayed in the bothy and played tune about while time went by -the door. The birds flew home to the branches, the longnecked beasts -flapped off to the shore to spear their flat fish; the rutting deers -bellowed with loud throats in the deeps of the wood that stands round Half -Town, and the scents of the moist night came gusty round the door. Over -the back of Auchnabreac the sun trailed his plaid of red and yellow, and -the loch stretched salt and dark from Cairn Dubh to Creaggans. -</p> -<p> -In from the hill the men and the women came, weary-legged, and the bairns -nodded at their heels. Sleepiness was on the land, but the pipers, piping -in the bothy, kept the world awake. -</p> -<p> -“We will go to bed in good time,” said the folks, eating their suppers at -their doors; “in good time when this tune is ended.” But tune came on -tane, and every tune better than its neighbour, and they waited. -</p> -<p> -A cruisie-light was set alowe in the blind man's bothy, and the three men -played old tunes and new tunes—salute and lament and brisk dances -and marches that coax tired brogues on the long roads. -</p> -<p> -“Here's 'Tulloch Ard' for you, and tell me who made it,” said Rory. -</p> -<p> -“Who kens that? Here's 'Raasay's Lament,' the best port Padruig Mor ever -put together.” - </p> -<p> -“Tunes and tunes. I'm for 'A Kiss o' the King's Hand.'” - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“Thug mi pòg 'us pòg 'us pòg, -Thug mi pòg do làmh an righ, -Cha do chuir gaoth an craicionn caorach, -Fear a fhuair an fhaoilt ach mi!” - </pre> -<p> -Then a quietness came on Half Town, for the piping stopped, and the people -at their doors heard but their blood thumping and the night-hags in the -dark of the firwood. -</p> -<p> -“A little longer and maybe there will be more,” they said to each other, -and they waited; but no more music came from the drones, so they went in -to bed. -</p> -<p> -There was quiet over Half Town, for the three pipers talked about the Lost -Tune. -</p> -<p> -“A man my father knew,” said Gilian, “heard a bit of it once in Moideart. -A terrible fine tune he said it was, but sore on the mind.” - </p> -<p> -“It would be the tripling,” said the Macnaghton, stroking a reed with a -fond hand. -</p> -<p> -“Maybe. Tripling is ill enough, but what is tripling? There is more in -piping than brisk fingers. Am I not right, Paruig?” “Right, oh! right. The -Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i> asks for skilly tripling, but Macruimen himself -could not get at the core of it for all his art.” - </p> -<p> -“You have heard it then!” cried Gilian. -</p> -<p> -The blind man stood up and filled out his breast. -</p> -<p> -“Heard it!” he said; “I heard it, and I play it—on the <i>feadan</i>, -but not on the full set. To play the tune I mention on the full set is -what I have not done since I came to Half Town.” - </p> -<p> -“I have ten round pieces in my sporran, and a bonnet-brooch it would take -much to part me from; but they're there for the man who'll play me the -Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i>” said Gilian, with the words tripping each other -to the tip of his tongue. -</p> -<p> -“And here's a Macnaghton's fortune on the top of the round pieces,” cried -Rory, emptying his purse on the table. -</p> -<p> -The old man's face got hot and angry. “I am not,” he said, “a tinker's -minstrel, to give my tuning for bawbees and a quaich of ale. The king -himself could not buy the tune I ken if he had but a whim for it. But when -pipers ask it they can have it, and it's yours without a fee. Still if you -think to learn the tune by my piping once, poor's the delusion. It is not -a port to be picked up like a cockle on the sand, for it takes the -schooling of years and blindness forbye.” - </p> -<p> -“Blindness?” - </p> -<p> -“Blindness indeed. The thought of it is only for the dark eye.” - </p> -<p> -“If we could hear it on the full set!” - </p> -<p> -“Come out, then, on the grass, and you'll hear it, if Half Town should -sleep no sleep this night.” - </p> -<p> -They went out of the bothy to the wet short grass. Ragged mists shook o'er -Cowal, and on Ben Ime sat a horned moon like a galley of Lorn. -</p> -<p> -“I heard this tune from the Moideart man—the last in Albainn who -knew it then, and he's in the clods,” said the blind fellow. -</p> -<p> -He had the mouthpiece at his lip, and his hand was coaxing the bag, when a -bairn's cry came from a house in the Half Town—a suckling's whimper, -that, heard in the night, sets a man's mind busy on the sorrows that folks -are born to. The drones clattered together on the piper's elbow and he -stayed. -</p> -<p> -“I have a notion,” he said to the two men. “I did not tell you that the -Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i> is the <i>piobaireachd</i> of good-byes. It is -the tune of broken clans, that sets the men on the foray and makes cold -hearth-stones. It was played in Glenshira when Gilleasbuig Gruamach could -stretch stout swordsmen from Boshang to Ben Bhuidhe, and where are the -folks of Glenshira this day? I saw a cheery night in Carnus that's over -Lochow, and song and story busy about the fire, and the Moideart man -played it for a wager. In the morning the weans were without fathers, and -Carnus men were scattered about the wide world.” - </p> -<p> -“It must be the magic tune, sure enough,” said Gilian. -</p> -<p> -“Magic indeed, <i>laochain!</i> It is the tune that puts men on the open -road, that makes restless lads and seeking women. Here's a Half Town of -dreamers and men fattening for want of men's work. They forget the world -is wide and round about their fir-trees, and I can make them crave for -something they cannot name.” - </p> -<p> -“Good or bad, out with it,” said Rory, “if you know it at all.” - </p> -<p> -“Maybe no', maybe no'. I am old and done. Perhaps I have lost the right -skill of the tune, for it's long since I put it on the great pipe. There's -in me the strong notion to try it whatever may come of it, and here's for -it.” - </p> -<p> -He put his pipe up again, filled the bag at a breath, brought the booming -to the drones, and then the chanter-reed cried sharp and high. -</p> -<p> -“He's on it,” said Rory in Gilian's ear. -</p> -<p> -The groundwork of the tune was a drumming on the deep notes where the -sorrows lie—“Come, come, come, my children, rain on the brae and the -wind blowing.” - </p> -<p> -“It is a salute.” said Rory. -</p> -<p> -“It's the strange tune anyway,” said Gilian; “listen to the time of yon!” - </p> -<p> -The tune searched through Half Town and into the gloomy pine-wood; it put -an end to the whoop of the night-hag and rang to Ben Bhreac. Boatmen deep -and far on the loch could hear it, and Half Town folks sat up to listen. -</p> -<p> -It's story was the story that's ill to tell—something of the heart's -longing and the curious chances of life. It bound up all the tales of all -the clans, and made one tale of the Gaels' past. Dirk nor sword against -the tartan, but the tartan against all else, and the Gaels' target fending -the hill-land and the juicy straths from the pock-pitted little black men. -The winters and the summers passing fast and furious, day and night -roaring in the ears, and then again the clans at variance, and warders on -every pass and on every parish. -</p> -<p> -Then the tune changed. -</p> -<p> -“Folks,” said the reeds, coaxing. “Wide's the world and merry the road. -Here's but the old story and the women we kissed before. Come, come to the -flat-lands rich and full, where the wonderful new things happen and the -women's lips are still to try!” - </p> -<p> -“To-morrow,” said Gilian in his friend's ear—“to-morrow I will go -jaunting to the North. It has been in my mind since Beltane.” - </p> -<p> -“One might be doing worse,” said Rory, “and I have the notion to try a -trip with my cousin to the foreign wars.” - </p> -<p> -The blind piper put up his shoulder higher and rolled the air into the <i>crunluadh -breabach</i> that comes prancing with variations. Pride stiffened him from -heel to hip, and hip to head, and set his sinews like steel. -</p> -<p> -He was telling of the gold to get for the searching and the bucks that may -be had for the hunting. “What,” said the reeds, “are your poor crops, -slashed by the constant rain and rotting, all for a scart in the bottom of -a pot? What are your stots and heifers—black, dun, and yellow—to -milch-cows and horses? Here's but the same for ever—toil and sleep, -sleep and toil even on, no feud nor foray nor castles to harry—only -the starved field and the sleeping moss. Let us to a brisker place! Over -yonder are the long straths and the deep rivers and townships strewn thick -as your corn-rigs; over yonder's the place of the packmen's tales and the -packmen's wares: steep we the withies and go!” - </p> -<p> -The two men stood with heads full of bravery and dreaming—men in a -carouse. “This,” said they, “is the notion we had, but had no words for. -It's a poor trade piping and eating and making amusement when one might be -wandering up and down the world. We must be packing the haversacks.” - </p> -<p> -Then the <i>crunluadh mach</i> came fast and furious on the chanter, and -Half Town shook with it. It buzzed in the ear like the flowers in the -Honey Croft, and made commotion among the birds rocking on their eggs in -the wood. -</p> -<p> -“So! so!” barked the <i>iolair</i> on Craig-an-eas. -</p> -<p> -“I have heard before it was an ill thing to be satisfied; in the morning -I'll try the kids on Maam-side, for the hares here are wersh and tough.” - </p> -<p> -“Hearken, dear,” said the <i>londubh</i>, “I know now why my beak is gold; -it is because I once ate richer berries than the whortle, and in season -I'll look for them on the braes of Glenfinne.” - </p> -<p> -“Honk-unk,” said the fox, the cunning red fellow, “am not I the fool to be -staying on this little brae when I know so many roads elsewhere?” - </p> -<p> -And the people sitting up in their beds in Half Town moaned for something -new. “Paruig Dall is putting the strange tune on her there,” said they. -“What the meaning of it is we must ask in the morning, but, <i>ochanoch!</i> -it leaves one hungry at the heart.” And then gusty winds came snell from -the north, and where the dark crept first, the day made his first showing, -so that Ben Ime rose black against a grey sky. -</p> -<p> -“That's the Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i>,” said Paruig Dali when the bag sunk -on his arm. -</p> -<p> -And the two men looked at him in a daze. -</p> -<p> -Sometimes in the spring of the year the winds from Lorn have it their own -way with the Highlands. They will come tearing furious over the hundred -hills, spurred the faster by the prongs of Cruachan and Dunchuach, and the -large woods of home toss before them like corn before the hook. Up come -the poor roots and over on their broken arms go the tall trees, and in the -morning the deer will trot through new lanes cut in the forest. -</p> -<p> -A wind of that sort came on the full of the day when the two pipers were -leaving Half Town. -</p> -<p> -“Stay till the storm is over,” said the kind folks; and “Your bed and -board are here for the pipers forty days,” said Paruig Dali. But “No” said -the two; “we have business that your <i>piobaireachd</i> put us in mind -of.” - </p> -<p> -“I'm hoping that I did not play yon with too much skill,” said the old -man. -</p> -<p> -“Skill or no skill,” said Gilian, “the like of yon I never heard. You -played a port that makes poor enough all ports ever one listened to, and -piping's no more for us wanderers.” - </p> -<p> -“Blessings with thee!” said the folks all, and the two men went down into -the black wood among the cracking trees. -</p> -<p> -Six lads looked after them, and one said, “It is an ill day for a body to -take the world for his pillow, but what say you to following the pipers?” - </p> -<p> -“It might,” said one, “be the beginning of fortune. I am weary enough of -this poor place, with nothing about it but wood and water and tufty grass. -If we went now, there might be gold and girls at the other end.” - </p> -<p> -They took crooks and bonnets and went after the two pipers. And when they -were gone half a day, six women said to their men, “Where can the lads -be?” - </p> -<p> -“We do not know that,” said the men, with hot faces, “but we might be -looking.” They kissed their children and went, with <i>cromags</i> in -their hands, and the road they took was the road the King of Errin rides, -and that is the road to the end of days. -</p> -<p> -A weary season fell on Half Town, and the very bairns dwined at the breast -for a change of fortune. The women lost their strength, and said, “To-day -my back is weak, tomorrow I will put things to right,” and they looked -slack-mouthed and heedless-eyed at the sun wheeling round the trees. Every -week a man or two would go to seek something—a lost heifer or a -wounded roe that was never brought back—and a new trade came to the -place, the selling of herds. Far away in the low country, where the winds -are warm and the poorest have money, black-cattle were wanted, so the men -of Half Town made up long droves and took them round Glen Beag and the -Rest. -</p> -<p> -Wherever they went they stayed, or the clans on the roadside put them to -steel, for Half Town saw them no more. And a day came when all that was -left in that fine place were but women and children and a blind piper. -</p> -<p> -“Am I the only man here?” asked Paruig Dali when it came to the bit, and -they told him he was. -</p> -<p> -“Then here's another for fortune!” said he, and he went down through the -woods with his pipes in his oxter. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -RED HAND -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE smell of wet larch was in the air, and Glenaora was aburst to the -coaxing of Spring. Paruig Dali the piper—son of the son of Iain Mor—filled -his broad chest with two men's wind, and flung the drones over his -shoulder. They dangled a little till the bag swelled out, and the first -blast rang in the ear of the morning. Rough and noisy, the reeds cried -each other down till a master's hand held them in check, and the long soft -singing of the <i>piobaireachd</i> floated out among the tartan ribbons. -The grey peak of Drimfern heard the music; the rock that wards the mouth -of Carnus let it pass through the gap and over the hill and down to the -isles below; Dun Corr-bhile and Dunchuach, proud Kilmune, the Paps of -Salachary, and a hundred other braes around, leaned over to listen to the -vaunting notes that filled the valley. “The Glen, the Glen is mine!” sang -the blithe chanter; and, by Finne's sword, Macruimen himself could not -have fingered it better! -</p> -<p> -It was before Paruig Dali left for Halt Town; before the wars that -scorched the glens; and Clan Campbell could cock its bonnet in the face of -all Albainn. Paruig was old, and Paruig was blind, as the name of him -tells, but he swung with a king's port up and down on the short grass, his -foot firm to every beat of the tune, his kilt tossing from side to side -like a bard's song, his sporran leaping gaily on his brown knees. Two -score of lilting steps to the bumside, a slow wheel on a brogue-heel, and -then back with the sun-glint on the buckles of his belt. -</p> -<p> -The men, tossing the caber and hurling the <i>clachncart</i> against the -sun beyond the peat-bog, paused in their stride at the chanter's boast, -jerked the tartan tight on their loins, and came over to listen; the -women, posting blankets for the coming sheiling, stopped their splashing -in the little linn, and hummed in a dream; and men and women had mind of -the days that were, when the Glen was soft with the blood of men, for the -Stewarts were over the way from Appin. -</p> -<p> -“God's splendour! but he can play too,” said the piper's son, with his -head areel to the fine tripling. -</p> -<p> -Then Paruig pushed the bag further into his oxter, and the tune changed. -He laid the ground of “Bodaich nam Briogais,” and such as knew the story -saw the “carles with the breeks” broken and flying before Glenurchy's -thirsty swords, far north of Morven, long days of weary march through -spoiled glens. -</p> -<p> -“It's fine playing, I'll allow,” said the blind man's son, standing below -a saugh-tree with the bag of his bannered pipes in the crook of his arm. -He wore the dull tartan of the Diarmaids, and he had a sprig of gall in -his bonnet, for he was in Black Duncan's tail. “Son of Paruig Dali,” said -the Chief seven years ago come Martinmas, “if you're to play like your -father, there's but Dunvegan for you, and the schooling of Patrick -Macruimen.” So Tearlach went to Skye—cold isle of knives and caves—and -in the college of Macruimen he learned the <i>piob-mhor</i>. Morning and -evening, and all day between, he fingered the <i>feadan</i> or the full -set—gathering and march, massacre and moaning, and the stately -salute. Where the lusty breeze comes in salt from Vatemish across Loch -Vegan, and the purple loom of Uist breaks the sunset's golden bars, he -stood on the braes over against Borearaig and charmed the grumbling tide. -And there came a day that he played “The Lament of the Harp-Tree,” with -the old years of sturdy fight and strong men all in the strain of it, and -Patrick Macruimen said, “No more, lad; go home: Lochow never heard another -like you.” As a cock with its comb uncut, came the stripling from Skye. -</p> -<p> -“Father,” he had said, “you play not ill for a blind man, but you miss the -look on the men's faces, and that's half the music. Forbye, you are old, -and your fingers are slow on the grace-notes. Here's your own flesh and -blood can show you fingering there was never the like of anywhere east the -Isles.” - </p> -<p> -The stepmother heard the brag. “<i>A pheasain!</i>” she snapped, with hate -in her peat-smoked face. “Your father's a man, and you are but a boy with -no heart for a long day. A place in Black Duncan's tail, with a gillie to -carry your pipes and knapsack, is not, mind ye, all that's to the making -of a piper.” - </p> -<p> -Tearlach laughed in her face. “Boy or man,” said he, “look at me! north, -east, south, and west, where is the one to beat me? Macruimen has the -name, but there were pipers before Macruimen, and pipers will come after -him.” - </p> -<p> -“It's maybe as you say,” said Paruig. “The stuff's in you, and what is in -must out; but give me <i>cothrom na Feinne</i>, and old as I am, with -Finne's chance, and that's fair play, I can maybe make you crow less -crouse. Are ye for trying?” - </p> -<p> -“I am at the training of a new chanter-reed,” said Tearlach; “but let it -be when you will.” - </p> -<p> -They fixed a day, and went out to play against each other for glory, and -so it befell that on this day Paruig Dali was playing “The Glen is Mine” - and “Bodaich nam Briogais” in a way to make stounding hearts. -</p> -<p> -Giorsal snapped her fingers in her stepson's face when her husband closed -the <i>crunluadh</i> of his <i>piobaireachd.</i> -</p> -<p> -“Can you better it, bastard?” snarled she. -</p> -<p> -“Here goes for it, whatever!” said Tear-lach, and over his back went the -banner with its boar's head sewn on gold. A pretty lad, by the cross! -clean-cut of limb and light of foot, supple of loin, with the toss of the -shoulder that never a decent piper lacked. The women who had been at the -linn leaned on each other all in the soft larch-scented day, and looked at -him out of deep eyes; the men on the heather arose and stood nigher. -</p> -<p> -A little tuning, and then -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“Is comadh leam's comadh leam, cogadh na sithe, -Marbhar 'sa chogadh na crochar's an t-sith mi.” - </pre> -<p> -“Peace or war!” cried Giorsal, choking in anger, to her man—“peace -or war! the black braggart! it's an asp ye have for a son, goodman!” - </p> -<p> -The lad's fingers danced merry on the chanter, and the shiver of something -to come fell on all the folk around. The old hills sported with the -prancing tune; Dun Corrbhile tossed it to Drimfem, and Drimfern sent it -leaping across the flats of Kilmune to the green corries of Lecknamban. -“Love, love, the old tune; come and get flesh!” rasped a crow to his mate -far off on misty Ben Bhreac, and the heavy black wings flapped east. The -friendly wind forgot to dally with the pine-tuft and the twanging -bog-myrtle, the plash of Aora in its brown linn was the tinkle of wine in -a goblet. “Peace or war, peace or war; come which will, we care not,” sang -the pipe-reeds, and there was the muster and the march, hot-foot rush over -the rotting rain-wet moor, the jingle of iron, the dunt of pike and targe, -the choked roar of hate and hunger, batter and slash and fall, and behind, -the old, old feud with Appin! -</p> -<p> -Leaning forward, lost in a dream, stood the swank lads of Aora. They felt -at their hips, where were only empty belts, and one said to his child, -“White love, get me yon long knife with the nicks on it, and the -basket-hand, for I am sick of shepherding.” The bairn took a look at his -face and went home crying. -</p> -<p> -And the music still poured on. 'Twas “I got a Kiss o' the King's Hand” and -“The Pretty Dirk,” and every air better than another. The fairy pipe of -the Wee Folk's Knowe never made a sweeter fever of sound, yet it hurt the -ears of the women, who had reason to know the payment of pipers' springs. -</p> -<p> -“Stop, stop, O Tearlach og!” they cried; “enough of war: have ye not a -reel in your budget?” - </p> -<p> -“There was never a reel in Boreraig,” said the lad, and he into “Duniveg's -Warning,” the tune Coll Ciotach heard his piper play in the west on a day -when a black bitch from Dunstaffnage lay panting for him, and his barge -put nose about in time to save his skin. -</p> -<p> -“There's the very word itself in it,” said Paruig, forgetting the taunting -of Giorsal and all but a father's pride. -</p> -<p> -'Twas in the middle of the “Warning” Black Duncan, his toe on the stirrup, -came up from Castle Inneraora, with a gillie-wet-foot behind, on his way -to Lochow. -</p> -<p> -“It's down yonder you should be, Sir Piper, and not blasting here for -drink,” said he, switching his trews with his whip and scowling under -black brows at the people. “My wife is sick of the <i>clarsach</i> and -wants the pipes.” - </p> -<p> -“I'm no woman's piper, Lochow; your wife can listen to the hum of her -spinning-wheel if she's weary of her harp,” said the lad; and away rode -the Chief, and back to the linn went the women, and the men to the <i>cabar</i> -and the stone, and Tearlach, with an extra feather in his bonnet, home to -Inneraora, leafing a gibe as he went, for his father. -</p> -<p> -Paruig Dali cursed till the evening at the son he never saw, and his wife -poisoned his mind. -</p> -<p> -“The Glen laughs at you, man, from Carnus to Croit-bhile. It's a black, -burning day of shame for you, Paruig Dall!” - </p> -<p> -“Lord, it's a black enough day for me at the best!” said the blind man. -</p> -<p> -“It's disgraced by your own ill-got son you are, by a boy with no blood on -his <i>biodag</i>, and the pride to crow over you.” - </p> -<p> -And Paruig cursed anew, by the Cross and the Dogs of Lorn, and the White -Glaive of Light the giants wear, and the Seven Witches of Cothmar. He was -bad though he was blind, and he went back to the start of time for his -language. “But <i>Dhé!</i> the boy can play!” he said at the last. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, <i>amadain dhoill</i>” cried the woman; “if it was I, a claw was off -the cub before the mouth of day.” - </p> -<p> -“Witless woman, men have played the pipes before now, lacking a finger: -look at Alasdair Corrag!” - </p> -<p> -“Allowing; but a hand's as easy to cut as a finger for a man who has -gralloched deer with a keen <i>sgian-dubh</i>. Will ye do't or no'?” - </p> -<p> -Parig would hearken no more, and took to his pillow. -</p> -<p> -Rain came with the gloaming. Aora, the splendid river, roared up the dark -glen from the Salmon Leap; the hills gathered thick and heavy round about -the scattered townships, the green new tips of fir and the copper leaves -of the young oaks moaned in the wind. Then salt airs came tearing up from -the sea, grinding branch on branch, and the whole land smoked with the -drumming of rain that slanted on it hot and fast. -</p> -<p> -Giorsal arose, her clothes still on her, put a plaid on her black head, -and the thick door banged back on the bed as she dived into the storm. Her -heavy feet sogged through the boggy grass, the heather clutched at her -draggled coat-tails to make her stay, but she filled her heart with one -thought, and that was hate, and behold! she was on the slope of the Black -Bull before her blind husband guessed her meaning. Castle Inneraora lay at -the foot of the woody dun, dozing to the music of the salt loch that made -tumult and spume north and south in the hollow of the mountains. Now and -then the moon took a look at things, now and then a night-hag in the -dripping wood hooted as the rain whipped her breast feathers; a roe leaped -out of the gloom and into it with a feared hoof-plunge above Carlonan; a -thunderbolt struck in the dark against the brow of Ben Ime and rocked the -world. -</p> -<p> -In the cold hour before the mouth of day the woman was in the piper's room -at the gate of Inneraora, where never a door was barred against the night -while Strong Colin the warder could see from the Fort of Dunchuach to -Cladich. Tearlach the piper lay on his back, with the glow of a half-dead -peat on his face and hands. “Paruig, Paruig!” said the woman to herself, -as she softly tramped out the peat-fire and turned to the bed. And lo! it -was over. Her husband's little black knife made a fast sweep on the -sleeper's wrist, and her hand was drenched with the hot blood of her -husband's son. -</p> -<p> -Tearlach leaped up with a roar in the dark and felt for his foe; but the -house was empty, for Giorsal was running like a hind across the soaked -stretch of Caimban. The lightning struck at Glenaora in jagged fury and -confusion; the thunder drummed hollow on Creag -</p> -<p> -Dubh: in a turn of the pass at the Three Bridges the woman met her -husband. -</p> -<p> -“Daughter of hell!” said he, “is't done? and was't death?” - </p> -<p> -“Darling,” said she, with a fond laugh, “'twas only a brat's hand. You can -give us 'The Glen is Mine!' in the morning.” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -THE SECRET OF THE HEATHER-ALE -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>OWN Glenaora threescore and ten of Diarmaid's stout fellows took the road -on a fine day. They were men from Carnus, with more of Clan Artair than -Campbell in them; but they wore Gilleasbuig Gruamach's tartan,. and if -they were not on Gilleasbuig Gruamach's errand, it makes little difference -on our story. It was about the time Antrim and his dirty Irishers came -scouring through our glens with flambeaux, dirk and sword and other arms -invasive, and the country was back at its old trade of fighting, with not -a sheiling from end to end, except on the slopes of Shira Glen, where a -clan kept free of battle and drank the finest of heather-ale that the -world envied the secret of. -</p> -<p> -“Lift we and go, for the Cattle's before!” said Alasdair Piobaire on the -chanter of a Dunvegan great-pipe—a neat tune that roared gallant and -far from Carnus to Bara-caldine; so there they were, the pick of swank -fellows on the road! -</p> -<p> -At the head of them was Niall Mor a' Chamais—the same gentleman -namely in story for many an art and the slaughter of the strongest man in -the world, as you'll find in the writings of my Lord Archie. “God! look at -us!” said he, when his lads came over the hill in the grey mouth of day. -“Are not we the splendid men? Fleas will there be this day in the hose of -the Glenshira folk.” And he sent his targe in the air in a bravado, -catching it by the prong in its navel, smart and clean, when it whirled -back. -</p> -<p> -Hawks yelped as they passed; far up on Tullich there was barking of -eagles; the brogues met the road as light as the stagslot; laughing, -singing, roaring; sword-heads and pikes dunting on wooden targets—and -only once they looked back at their women high on the brae-face. -</p> -<p> -The nuts were thick on the roadside, hanging heavy from swinging branches, -and some of the men pulled them off as they passed, stayed for more, -straggled, and sang bits of rough songs they ken over many of on -Lochowside to this day. So Niall Mor glunched at his corps from under his -bonnet and showed his teeth. -</p> -<p> -“Gather in, gather in,” said he; “ye march like a drove of low-country -cattle. Alasdair, put 'Baile Inneraora' on her!” - </p> -<p> -Alasdair changed his tune, and the good march of Clan Diarmaid went -swinging down the glen. -</p> -<p> -The time passed; the sun stood high and hot; clucking from the -fir-plantings came woodcock and cailzie; the two rivers were crossed, and -the Diarmaids slockened their thirst at the water of Altan Aluinn, whose -birth is somewhere in the bogs beside tall Bhuidhe Ben. -</p> -<p> -Where the clans met was at the Foal's Gap, past Maam. A score of the -MacKellars ran out in a line from the bushes, and stotted back from the -solid weight of Diarmaid moving in a lump and close-shouldered in the -style Niall Mor got from the Italian soldier. Some fell, hacked on the -head by the heavy slash of the dry sword; some gripped too late at the -pikes that kittled them cruelly; and one—Iver-of-the-Oars—tripped -on a root of heather, and fell with his breast on the point of a -Diarmaid's dirk. -</p> -<p> -To the hills went a fast summons, and soon at the mouth of the gap came -twoscore of the MacKellars. They took a new plan, and close together faced -the green tartan, keeping it back at the point of steel, though the pick -of Glenaora wore it, and the brogues slipped on the brae-face. It was fast -cut and drive, quick flash of the dirk, with the palm up and the hand low -to find the groin, and a long reach with the short black knife. The choked -breath hissed at teeth and nose, the salt smell of new blood brought a -shiver to birch-leaf and gall. But ever the green tartan had the best of -it. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Bas, bas, Dhiarmaid!</i>” cried Calum Dubh, coming up on the back of -his breaking two-score with fresh lads from Elerigmor, bed-naked to the -hide, and a new fury fell on the two clans tearing at it in the narrow -hollow in between the rocky hills. So close they were, there was small -room for the whirl of the basket-hilt, and “Mind Tom-a-Phubaill and the -shortened steel!” cried Niall Mor, smashing a pretty man's face with a -blow from the iron guard of his Ferrara sword. The halberts, snapped at -the haft to make whittles, hammered on the target-hides like stones on a -coffin, or rang on the bosses; the tartan ripped when the stuck one rolled -on his side before the steel could be twisted out; below the foot the -grass felt warm and greasy, and the reason was not ill to seek. -</p> -<p> -Once it looked like the last of Calum Dubh. He was facing Niall Mor, sword -and targe, and Niall Mor changed the sword to the other hand, pulled the -<i>sgian-dubh</i> from his garter, and with snapping teeth pushed like a -lightning fork below MacKellar's target. An Elerigmor man ran in between; -the little black knife sunk into his belly with a moist plunge, and the -blood spouted on the deer-horn haft. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Mallachd ort!</i> I meant yon for a better man,” cried Niall Mor; “but -it's well as it is, for the secret's to the fore,” and he stood up dour -and tall against a new front of Mac-Kellar's men. -</p> -<p> -Then the sky changed, and a thin smirr of warm rains fell on the glen like -smoke; some black-cattle bellowed at the ford in a wonder at where their -herds could be, and the herds—stuck, slashed, and cudgelled—lay -stiffening on the torn grass between the gap and Mac-Kellar's house. From -end to end of the glen there was no man left but was at the fighting. The -hook was tossed among the corn; the man hot-foot behind the roe, turned -when he had his knife at its throat, to go to war; a lover left his lass -among the heather; and all, with tightened belts, were at the old game -with Clan Diarmaid, while their women, far up on the sappy levels between -the hill-tops and beside the moor-lochs, span at the wheel or carded wool, -singing songs with light hearts and thinking no danger. -</p> -<p> -Back went MacKellar's men before Niall -</p> -<p> -Mor and his sturdy lads from Camus, the breeder of soldiers—back -through the gap and down on the brae to the walls of Calum Dubh. -</p> -<p> -“'Illean, 'illean!” cried Calum; “lads, lads! they have us, sure enough. -Oh! pigs and thieves! squint mouths and sons of liars!” - </p> -<p> -The cry gathered up the strength of all that was left of his clan, Art and -Uileam, the Maam lads, the brothers from Drimlea and two from over Stron -hill, and they stood up together against the Carnus men—a gallant -madness! They died fast and hard, and soon but Calum and his two sons were -left fencing, till a rush of Diarmaids sent them through the door of the -house and tossed among the peats. -</p> -<p> -“Give in and your lives are your own,” said Niall Mor, wiping his sword on -his shirtsleeve, and with all that were left of his Diarmaids behind his -back. -</p> -<p> -To their feet stood the three MacKellars. -</p> -<p> -Calum looked at the folk in front of him, and had mind of other ends to -battles. “To die in a house like a rat were no great credit,” said he, and -he threw his sword on the floor, where the blades of Art and Uileam soon -joined it. -</p> -<p> -With tied arms the father and his sons were taken outside, where the air -was full of the scents of birch and gall new-washed. The glen, clearing -fast of mist, lay green and sweet for mile and mile, and far at its mouth -the fat Blaranbuie woods chuckled in the sun. -</p> -<p> -“I have you now,” said Niall Mor. “Ye ken what we seek. It's the old ploy—the -secret of the ale.” - </p> -<p> -Calum laughed in his face, and the two sons said things that cut like -knives. -</p> -<p> -“Man! I'm feared ye'll rue this,” said Niall Mor, calm enough. “Ye may -laugh, but—what would ye call a gentleman's death?” - </p> -<p> -“With the sword or the dagger in the hand, and a Diarmaid or two before -me,” cried Calum. -</p> -<p> -“Well, there might be worse ways of travelling yont—indeed there -could ill be better; but if the secret of the ale is not to be ours for -the asking, ye'll die a less well-bred death.” - </p> -<p> -“Name it, man, name it,” said Calum. “Might it be tow at the throat and a -fir-branch.” - </p> -<p> -“Troth,” said Niall Mor, “and that were too gentle a travelling. The -Scaurnoch's on our way, and the crows at the foot of it might relish a -Glen Shira carcass.” - </p> -<p> -Uileam whitened at the notion of so ugly an end, but Calum only said, “Die -we must any way,” and Art whistled a bit of a pipe-tune, grinding his heel -on the moss. -</p> -<p> -Niall Mor made to strike the father on the face, but stayed his hand and -ordered the three in-by, with a few of his corps to guard them. Up and -down Glen Shira went the Diarmaids, seeking the brewing-cave, giving hut -and home to the flame, and making black hearths and low lintels for the -women away in the sheilings. They buried their dead at Kilblaan, and, with -no secret the better, set out for Scaurnoch with Calum and his sons. -</p> -<p> -The MacKellars were before, like a <i>spreidh</i> of stolen cattle, and -the lot of the driven herd was theirs. They were laughed at and spat on, -and dirk-hilts and <i>cromags</i> hammered on their shoulders, and through -Blaranbuie wood they went to the bosky elbow of Dun Corr-bhile and round -to the Dun beyond. -</p> -<p> -Calum, for all his weariness, stepped like a man with a lifetime's plans -before his mind; Art looked about him in the fashion of one with an eye to -woodcraft; Uileam slouched with a heavy foot, white at the jaw and wild of -eye. -</p> -<p> -The wood opened, the hunting-road bent about the hill-face to give a level -that the eye might catch the country spread below. Loch Finne stretched -far, from Ardno to French Foreland, a glassy field, specked with one sail -off Creaggans. When the company came to a stand, Calum Dubh tossed his -head to send the hair from his eyes, and looked at what lay below. The -Scaurnoch broke at his feet, the grey rock-face falling to a depth so deep -that weary mists still hung upon the sides, jagged here and there by the -top of a fir-tree. The sun, behind the Dun, gave the last of her glory to -the Cowal Hills; Hell's Glen filled with wheeling mists; Ben Ime, Ben -Vane, and Ben Arthur crept together and held princely converse on the -other side of the sea. -</p> -<p> -All in a daze of weariness and thinking the Diarmaids stood, and looked -and listened, and the curlews were crying bitter on the shore. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, haste ye, lads, or it's not Carnus for us to-night,” cried Niall Mor. -“We have business before us, and long's the march to follow. The secret, -black fellow!” - </p> -<p> -Calum Dubh laughed, and spat in a bravado over the edge of the rock. -</p> -<p> -“Come, fool; if we have not the word from you before the sun's off Sithean -Sluaidhe, your sleep this night is yonder,” and he pointed at the pit -below. -</p> -<p> -Calum laughed the more. “If it was hell itself,” said he, “I would not -save my soul from it.” - </p> -<p> -“Look, man, look! the Sithean Sluaidhe's getting black, and any one of ye -can save the three yet. I swear it on the cross of my knife.” - </p> -<p> -Behind the brothers, one, John-Without-Asking, stood, with a gash on his -face, eager to give them to the crows below. -</p> -<p> -A shiver came to Uileam's lips; he looked at his father with a questioning -face, and then stepped back a bit from the edge, making to speak to the -tall man of Chamis. -</p> -<p> -Calum saw the meaning, and spoke fast and thick. -</p> -<p> -“Stop, stop,” said he; “it's a trifle of a secret, after all, and to save -life ye can have it.” - </p> -<p> -Art took but a little look at his father's face, then turned round on -Shira Glen and looked on the hills where the hunting had many a time been -sweet. “Maam no more,” said he to himself; “but here's death in the hero's -style!” - </p> -<p> -“I thought you would tell it,” laughed Niall Mor. “There was never one of -your clan but had a tight grip of his little life.” - </p> -<p> -“Ay!” said Calum Dubh; “but it's <i>my</i> secret. I had it from one who -made me swear on the holy steel to keep it; but take me to Carnus, and -I'll make you the heather-ale.” - </p> -<p> -“So be't, and——” - </p> -<p> -“But there's this in it, I can look no clansmen nor kin in the face after -telling it, so Art and Uileam must be out of the way first.” - </p> -<p> -“Death, MacKellar?” - </p> -<p> -“That same.” - </p> -<p> -Uileam shook like a leaf, and Art laughed, with his face still to Shira, -for he had guessed his father's mind. -</p> -<p> -“Faith!” said Niall Mor, “and that's an easy thing enough,” and he nodded -to John-Without-Asking. -</p> -<p> -The man made stay nor tarry. He put a hand on each son's back and pushed -them over the edge to their death below. One cry came up to the listening -Diarmaids, one cry and no more—the last gasp of a craven. -</p> -<p> -“Now we'll take you to Camus, and you'll make us the ale, the fine ale, -the cream of rich heather-ale,” said Niall Mor, putting a knife to the -thongs that tied MacKellar's arms to his side. -</p> -<p> -With a laugh and a fast leap Calum Dubh stood back on the edge of the rock -again. -</p> -<p> -“Crook-mouths, fools, pigs' sons! did ye think it?” he cried. “Come with -me and my sons and ye'll get ale, ay, and death's black wine, at the foot -of Scaurnoch.” He caught fast and firm at John-Without-Asking, and threw -himself over the rock-face. They fell as the scart dives, straight to the -dim sea of mist and pine-tip, and the Diarmaids threw themselves on their -breasts to look over. There was nothing to see of life but the crows -swinging on black feathers; there was nothing to hear but the crows -scolding. -</p> -<p> -Niall Mor put the bonnet on his head and said his first and last friendly -thing of a foe. -</p> -<p> -“Yon,” said he, “had the heart of a man!” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -BOBOON'S CHILDREN -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>ROM Knapdale to Lorn three wandering clans share the country between -them, and of the three the oldest and the greatest are the swart -Macdonalds, children of the Old Boboon. -</p> -<p> -You will come on them on Wade's roads,—jaunty fellows, a bit dour in -the look, and braggart; or girls with sloe-eyes, tall and supple, not with -a flat slouching foot on the soil, but high in the instep, bounding and -stag-sure. At their head will be a long lean old man on crutches—John -Fine Macdonald— -</p> -<p> -Old Boboon, the father and head of the noblest of wandering tribes. -</p> -<p> -“Sir,” will Boboon say to you, “I am the fellow you read of in books as -the teller of Fingalian tales; wilt hear one of them for a poor Saxon -shilling, or wilt buy my lures for the fish? Or perhaps a display of -scholarly piping by my daughter's son—the gallant scamp!—who -has carried arms for his king?” - </p> -<p> -If one must have the truth, the piping is bad piping, but the fish-lures -and the tales are the best in the world. You will find some of the tales -in the writings of Iain Og of Isla—such as “The Brown Bear of the -Green Glen”; but the best are to hear as Boboon minds them when he sits -with you on the roadside or on the heather beside the evening fire, when -the brown fluffy eagles bark at the mist on Braevallach. Listen well to -them, for this person has the gift. He had it from his father, who had it -from <i>his</i> father, who had it from a mother, who, in deep trouble and -disease, lay awake through long nights gathering thoughts as healthy folks -gather nuts—a sweet thing enough from a sour husk. -</p> -<p> -And if time were your property (as it should be the portion of every -wiselike man), you might hear many tales from Old Boboon, but never the -tale of his own three chances. -</p> -<p> -It happened once upon a time that the captain in the town took a notion to -make Boboon into a tame house-man instead of a creature of the woods and -highways. He took him first by himself and clapped him into a kilt of his -own tartan eight yards round the buttocks, full pleated, with hose of fine -worsted, and a coat with silver buttons. He put a pickle money in his -sporran, and gave him a place a little way down his table. The feeding was -high and the work was to a wanderer's fancy; for it was but whistling to a -dog now and then, chanting a stave, or telling a story, or roaming through -the garden behind the house. -</p> -<p> -“Ho, ho!” said Boboon, “am not I the sturdy fellow come to his own?” and -about the place he would go with a piper's swagger, switching the grass -and shrubs with a withie as he went, in the way gentlemen use -riding-sticks. -</p> -<p> -But when Inneraora town lay in the dark of the winter night, and the -captain's household slept, Boboon would hear his clan calling on him -outside the wall. -</p> -<p> -“Boboon! oh, Boboon! old hero! come and collogue with your children.” - </p> -<p> -He would go to the wall, which was lower on the inside than the out (and -is, indeed, the wall of old Quinten, where a corps of Campbells, -slaughtered by Inverlochy dogs, lie under a Latin stone), and he would -look down at his friends running about like pole-cats in the darkness, in -their ragged kilts and trews, their stringy hair tossing in the wind. The -women themselves would be there, with the bairns whining on their backs. -</p> -<p> -“Ay! ay! this is you, my hearty folk!” he would say; “glad am I to see you -and smell the wood-fire reek off you. How is it on the road?” - </p> -<p> -“From here we have not moved since you left us, John Fine. We are camped -in the Blue Quarry, and you never came near your children and friends.” - </p> -<p> -“God! and here's the one that's sorry for that same. But over the walls -they will not let me. 'If gentleman you would be,' says the captain, 'you -must keep out of woods and off the highway.'” - </p> -<p> -“And you like it, Boboon?” - </p> -<p> -“Like it, heroes! But for the honour and ease of it, give me a fir-root -fire in Glen Croe and a dinner of <i>fuarag</i>. It is not the day so much -as the night. Lying in-by there on a posted-bed, I choke for the want of -air, though the windows and doors are open wide.” - </p> -<p> -“Come away with us, Boboon; we have little lack with the fish, and few are -our stories since you took to the town.” - </p> -<p> -“No, no, dears. Conan's curse, and I tell you no! In this place there is -comfort, and every day its own bellyful.” - </p> -<p> -“But the freedom outbye, John, old hero! Last night we had the bravest of -fires; the sparks flew like birds among the Duke's birches, the ground was -snug and dry, and-” - </p> -<p> -“Begone! I tell ye no!” - </p> -<p> -“Listen! To-day we were among the white hares beyond the Beannan, -thwacking the big fat fellows with our clubs. Such sport was not in all -Albainn!” - </p> -<p> -“White hares!” - </p> -<p> -“White hares, old John! And Alasdair Beag has some new tunes since you -left us—a <i>piobaireachd</i> he picked up from a Mull man.” - </p> -<p> -“Would it be 'Failte an Roich '?” - </p> -<p> -“Better than that by far; a masterly tune! Come out and hear him.” - </p> -<p> -But Old Boboon leaned with his arms on the wall and made no move to be off -with his children. -</p> -<p> -“Come and stravaig,” said the girls, and his daughter Betty put a foot in -a cranny and pulled herself up beside him to put coaxing arms round his -neck. -</p> -<p> -“Calf of my heart!” said Boboon, stroking her hair, soft handed. -</p> -<p> -“We have the fine feeding,” said the girl in his ear. “Yesterday it was -plotted trout in the morning and tunnag's eggs; dinner was a collop off a -fat hind.” - </p> -<p> -“A grailoched hind?” - </p> -<p> -“No, nor grailoched! That is a fool's fashion and the spoiling of good -meat. But come with us, father. Think of the burns bubbling, and the stars -through the branches, and the fresh airs of the morning!” - </p> -<p> -“Down, down, you bitch! Would ye tempt me?” cried Boboon, pushing the girl -from the wall and hurrying back with shaking knees to the Latin stone. The -night was deep black, and for all he could tell by eyesight, he might have -been in the middle of breezy Moor Rannoch, but the town gables crowded -'thick and solid round his heart. He missed the free flowing winds; there -was a smell of peat and coal from dead house-fires, and he spat the dust -of lime from his throat. -</p> -<p> -Over the wall the clan scraped and skurried as weasels do. They dared make -no noise for fear the town should waken, but in hoarse voices they called -all together— -</p> -<p> -“Boboon, Boboon, oh! come home to the wood, Boboon!” - </p> -<p> -“Am not I the poor caged one?” said Boboon to himself, and he ran in that -he might hear no more. -</p> -<p> -It was the same the next night and the next, and it looked like going on -without end. Ever the wanderers coming at night to the wall and craving -their head to come out. And one night they threw over a winged black-cock, -that fell with beating feathers at Boboon's feet as he stood in the dark -listening to the swart Macdonalds whining outbye. -</p> -<p> -He picked up the bird and ran kind fingers through its feathers. The heat -coursed in its breast and burned to a fever in its wounded oxter. Its -little heart beat on Boboon's thumb like a drumstick. -</p> -<p> -“Poor bird!” said he; “well I ken where ye came from, and the merry times -ye had. Ye hatched in the braes of Ben Bhuidhe, and clucked on the reedy -places round about the side of that tall hill. Before your keen eyes in -the morning was the Dubh Loch, and the Shira—winding like a silver -belt. Sure am I ye took wing for it with the day, and over Stuc Scardan to -Aora Glen to make merry among your mates in the heather and the fern. Oh! -<i>choillich-dhuibh, choillich-dhuibh</i>, hard's our fate with broken -wings and the heart still strong!” - </p> -<p> -He thrawed the bird's neck, and then went over the wall to join his clan. -</p> -<p> -His second chance ended no better. He was back in a new kilt and jacket a -twelvemonth later, and this time the captain tried the trick of a dog's -freedom—oat on the road as he liked by day, but kennel at night. -</p> -<p> -One day Boboon was on his master's errand round Stron. It was the spring -of the year. The shore, at the half-ebb, was clean and sweet, and the tide -lapped at the edge as soft as a cat at milk. -</p> -<p> -Going round Stron on the hard yellow road, he got to think of the sea's -good fortune,—of the many bays it wandered into by night or day; of -its friendship with far-out forelands, and its brisk quarrels with the -black rocks. Here was no dyke at any time, but all freedom, the -restlessness and the roaming, sleep or song as the mood had it, and the -ploys with galleys and gabberts; the cheery halloo of the winds and the -waving of branches on foreign isles to welcome one. -</p> -<p> -The road opened before him in short swatches—the sort of road a -wanderer likes, with not too much of it to be seen at one look. In the -hazel-wood by the way the bark of the young trees glistened like brass; -thin new switches shot out straight as shelisters. -</p> -<p> -John Fine, with the sun heating his back, started at the singing of -Donnacha Ban's “Coire Cheathaich”:— -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“O 'twas gladsome to go a-hunting -Out in the dew of the sunny mom! -For the great red stag was never wanting, -Nor the fawn, nor the doe with never a horn. -My beauteous corri, my misty corri! -What light feet trod thee in joy and pride! -What strong hand gathered thy precious treasures, -What great hearts leaped on thy craggy side!” - </pre> -<p> -Rounding Dundarave, the road lay straight before him till it thinned in -the distance to a needle-point pricking the trees, and at the end of it -was a cloud of dust. -</p> -<p> -“What have I here?” said Boboon to himself, stretching out with long -steps, the kilt flapping against the back of his knees. -</p> -<p> -The cloud came close, and lo! here was his own clan on the march, draggled -and stoury, rambling, scattered like crows, along the road. -</p> -<p> -“Boboon! Boboon!” they cried, and they hung about him, fingering his fine -clothes. -</p> -<p> -He looked at their brown flesh, he saw the yellow soil in the crannies of -their brogues, the men loose and blackguardly, the women red-cheeked, -ripe, and big-breasted, with bold eyes, and all had enchantment for him! A -stir set up in his heart that he could not put down. -</p> -<p> -“Where were you yesterday?” he asked. -</p> -<p> -“On the side of the Rest in Glen Croe, with dry beds of white hay and no -hurry.” - </p> -<p> -“Where are you for?” - </p> -<p> -“Have you forgotten the wanderer's ways, Boboon? Where does this road go -to?” - </p> -<p> -“Well ye ken, my heroes! It goes to the end of a man's will. If the man' -says, 'I bide here,' it's the end of the road; but if he has the notion, -it will take him to the end of days. That, by my soul! is the charm of all -roads that are not in towns; and now that I think of it, let the captain -whistle on his errand, for I'm Boboon and sick of the causey stones.” - </p> -<p> -So night found Boboon and his clan far in at the back of Auchnabreac, -town-muir and bonny place, where some we ken would sooner be than -wandering o'er the world. -</p> -<p> -And the days passed, and at Martinmas the captain was at Kilmichael -Market, and he came on Boboon with his people on the edge of the -market-place. Boboon in those days was as straight as a young saugh-wand, -sharp and thin, all thong at the joints, and as supple as a wild cat. He -was giving a display with the <i>sgian-dubh</i>, stabbing it on the ground -at the back of his left heel and twisting his right arm round the leg to -get the blade out of the ground without bending the knee. It was a trick -to take the eye, but neither bardic nor soldierly, yet there was a throng -of drovers about him. Along with him was his daughter Betty, who took -after him for looks, but had her dead mother's dainty tongue, and from her -mother a little book-schooling John Fine had never the need of. -</p> -<p> -The eye of the captain fell on the two of them as they stood there, with -their forty clan-folk going about the market, and he was gripped by a new -notion to give Boboon the third and the last chance. -</p> -<p> -“Boboon!” he said, “come back to the town this once, and I'll put you and -your daughter up together in a house of your own.” - </p> -<p> -Before a week was out the thing was as he wanted. Boboon and Betty got a -room in Macvicar's Land, with a wooden floor, and a fire on the side of -the wall with a built-in chimney, and other gentilities beside. They -stayed for months, and they stayed for years, and the clan craved them in -vain to come home. Betty was put to the books and the arts of ladydom by -the captain's mother and sister, and she took to them like a Ridir's -daughter. She lost the twang of the road-folk; she put her errant hair in -leash; she grew to the habit of snodding and redding, until for grace and -good looks she was the match of them that taught her. -</p> -<p> -One day the captain, walking in his garden in deep cogitation, fell in the -way of the girl as she roamed among the bushes. He got for the first time -the true glance of her (for one may look at a person for years and not see -the reality till a scale falls from the eyes), and behold! here was a -woman who set his heart drumming. -</p> -<p> -It was that very night Boboon put an end to his last chance. -</p> -<p> -The strong sun of the day left the night hot and clammy, and a haze hung -on the country such as one sees in these parts in keenest frost. -Macvicar's Land was full of smells—of sweating flesh and dirty -water, of fish and the rotting airs of sunless holes—and the dainty -nose of Macdonald took a disgust. He flung open door and window, and -leaned out at the window with his neck bared and his mouth stretched wide -gasping to the air. The bairns in the back-land looked up and laughed. -</p> -<p> -“Look at Boboon, Boboon, Boboon, the father of Lady Betty!” they cried, -and John Fine shook his fist and cursed their families. -</p> -<p> -But there was no ease from the trouble in this fashion, so he got up and -went behind the town, and threw himself under the large trees with an ear -to the ground. Beside him the cattle crunched the sappy grass in so sweet -and hearty mouthfuls that he could well wish he had the taste of nature -himself, and they breathed great breaths of content. His keen ears could -catch the hopping of beasts on the grass and the scratching of claws in -the wood, he could hear the patter of little feet, and the birds above him -scraping on the bark when they turned in their sleep. A townman would -think the world slept, so great was the booming of quietness; but Boboon -heard the song of the night, the bustle of the half world that thrives in -shade and starshine. -</p> -<p> -Leaning now on an elbow, he let his eyes rove among the beeches, into the -bossy tops, solemn and sedate, and the deep recesses that might be full of -the little folk of fairy-land at their cantrips. And then farther back and -above all was Dunchuach the stately, lifting its face, wood-bearded, to -the stars! -</p> -<p> -“If a wind was here it was all I wanted,” said Boboon, and when he said it -the wind came—a salty air from the sea. The whole country-side -cooled and gave out fresh scents of grass and earth. -</p> -<p> -“O God! O God!” cried the wanderer, “here we are out-by, the beasts and -the birds and the best of Boboon together! Here is the place for ease and -the full heart.” - </p> -<p> -He up and ran into the town, and up to the captain's gate and in. -</p> -<p> -“Master,” he cried, 'it's the old story,—I must be taking the road -for it; here's no rest for John Fine Macdonald!” - </p> -<p> -“But you'll leave the girl,” said the captain, who saw the old fever in -the man's eyes; “I have taken a notion of her, and—” - </p> -<p> -“So be it! let her bide.” - </p> -<p> -“I'll marry her before the morn's out.” - </p> -<p> -“Marry!” cried Boboon, putting back his hair from his face with a nervous -hand. “You would marry a wanderer's child?” - </p> -<p> -“Well, they'll talk, no doubt; but she has gifts to make them forget, and -she's good enough to make a king's woman.” - </p> -<p> -“Sir,” said Boboon, “I have but one thing to say, and that's our own -Gaelic old-word, 'There are few lapdogs in a fox's litter.'” The captain's -face got as red as his vest, and he had a ready hand up for an answer to -Boboon, but he had mind the man was the girl's father. -</p> -<p> -“I'll risk it,” he said, “and you can go your wandering ways, for Betty is -willing.” - </p> -<p> -“No doubt, no doubt,” said Boboon, and he went. In the hollow of the night -he was hooting back like a boy at the hoolets on the slopes of -Coillevraid, and at the mouth of day, in a silver wet light, he was -standing on the edge of the hills that look on two lochs, his head high -like a scenting deer's. He turned him round about to all airts with his -eyes from Cruachan to Cowal, and as far between Knapdale and Lorn as a -wanderer has vision, and yonder, down at Kames, was the camp of his clan! -</p> -<p> -Betty his daughter left Macvicar's Land in the morning and went to be -captain's wife, with a seat in the kirk and callers from the castle -itself. -</p> -<p> -“Wait, wait,” said old Craignure, when the tale reached him, “you'll see -the fox come out on her ere long.” - </p> -<p> -But the fox was not there; it was skipping a day, as the fox will do -sometimes when the day before has been good hunting. All went well with -the woman till the worst that might have been the best happened, and she -died with her first child. It was the year of the stunted oats, that -brought poverty to Inneraora and black bread to the captain's board; but -black bread and brochan would have been the blithest of meat for him if -Betty was left to share it. He took to the bottle, and left the boy to -women who had no skill of wild youth. -</p> -<p> -And the child grew like a fir-tree, straight and tall, full of hot blood, -swung about by whim and the moment's fancy. For him it was ever the horse -and gun, a snatched dinner and hearty, and off to the wood or hill. He got -to know the inner ways of the beasts that hide in the coarse grasses and -the whin; at a whistle he could coax flapping birds to come to heel. A -loose vest and a naked neck for ever were marring his gentility, and his -closest friends were countrymen with hard hands and the loud ready laugh. -</p> -<p> -One day it came to the captain's mind that something must be made of this -young blade, and he sent for him. -</p> -<p> -“Boy,” said he, “are you at your books?” - </p> -<p> -“No, but—but I ken a short way with the badgers,” the lad made -answer. -</p> -<p> -“Did you have a lesson this morning?” - </p> -<p> -“Never a lesson,” said the lad; “I was too busy living.” - </p> -<p> -“Living, said ye?” - </p> -<p> -“Living. I was at the swimming at the Creags, and beaking in the sun on -the braes above the Garron beside the march wall where the hedgehogs -creep, and I am new from the shinty,” and he shook the shinty-stick in his -hand. -</p> -<p> -The captain took to pondering, his chin on his hand and his elbows on the -table, where a bottle and glass lay beside him. -</p> -<p> -After a bit he said, “Look ye, my son, what are ye meaning to be?” - </p> -<p> -“I'm for the sword-work,” the lad said, in a flash, his face twitching. -</p> -<p> -“I would sooner see you in hell first!” cried the captain, thumping the -board till the glass rang. He had seen foreign wars himself and had a hack -on the groin. -</p> -<p> -That was the first of the feud between them. They fought it dour and they -fought it hard, the father for the crafts of peace and the lad for his own -way, and at last one day the captain said— -</p> -<p> -“To the door, brat, and your lair with the Boboons you belong to! Faith, -and your grandfather was right when he said there was never a lapdog in a -fox's litter.” - </p> -<p> -Who he came of, the lad had no notion, for the swart Macdonalds never came -near the town after Boboon left it for the last time; but he put on his -bonnet, and went out of the house and on to the highroad. -</p> -<p> -It was well on to winter, a brawling day, with the leaves of the Duke's -trees swishing thick and high over the thatch and through the streets of -the Duke's town. Snug stood the gables, friendly and warm, and the -window-lozens winked with the light of big peat-fires within. Over the -breast the seabirds yelped and crows craked without a stop, stirring about -in the branches behind Macvicar's Land. And the salt wind! It blew in from -the low bay at one end of the town and through it to the other, and before -it went a lad into the wide world that starts at the factor's corner. -</p> -<p> -“By the shore-side to the low country, or by the woods to the hills?” the -lad asked himself. He had the <i>caman</i> still in his hand, and he -tossed it in the air. “Bas for the highway, <i>cas</i> for the low,” said -he. The shinty fell <i>bos</i>, and our hero took to it for the highway to -the north. He swithered at the Arches, and looked back on the front of the -town and the quay with the oil-lights on it. He was half in the humour to -bide, but he put the notion behind him and stretched to the brae, -whistling a piper's march. At the head of the brae the town houses were -lost to him, and this so soon he could not put up with, so he went down on -a way to the right a little and stood on the grass of the Winterton field. -</p> -<p> -Fast and dark the night was falling, a heavy smirr of rain was drooking -the grass, and the trees on every hand shook the water in blobs from the -branches. Through them the lights of the finest town in the world shone -damp and woe-begone. -</p> -<p> -“There are good folk in't, and bad folk in't,” said the lad to himself; -“but somehow 'twas never the place for me!” - </p> -<p> -He turned and went into the road through the wood, savage at heart, -without a thought of where his sleep would be. When he came to -Kennachregan, there was the scad of a fire above the trees beside the -roaring river, and he went down and looked over a march dyke at a band of -wanderers under the trees. Young and old, men and women, they lay steaming -on soft beds of springy spruce-branches with their toes to the crackling -logs, snoring as snore sound sleepers, sheltered from the rain by the -thick branches, the side of the hill, and here and there a canvas -covering. There was but one of them up—a long old man with lank jaws -and black eyes—John Fine Macdonald. He was stirring up the logs with -the shod of a crutch and humming a Perth song, and before the hottest of -the fire a plucked bird was roasting. -</p> -<p> -The smell of the meat and the wood-fire rose to the dykeside where the lad -stood shivering in his wet clothes, and the comfort of the camp was -something he could not pass by. -</p> -<p> -He took a jump over the dyke and went out in the light of the fire, -wondering what would be his welcome. Old Boboon looked up with his hand -over his eyes, then rose on his crutches and put a hand on the young -fellow's shoulder. -</p> -<p> -“You're from Inneraora town?” said he. -</p> -<p> -“I am,” said the lad; “but it's Inneraora no more for me.” - </p> -<p> -“Ho! ho!” laughed the old wanderer. “Sit ye down, ye scamp, and take your -fingers to a pick of your grandfather's hen. Boboon's children may be slow -and far, but home's aye home to them!” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -THE FELL SERGEANT. -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T is ill enough to have to die in Glenaora at any season, but to get the -word for travelling from it on yon trip in the spring of the year is hard -indeed. The gug-gug will halloo in your ears to bid you bide a wee and see -the red of the heather creep on Tom-an-dearc; the soft and sap-scented -winds will come in at the open door, and you will mind, maybe, of a day -long-off and lost when you pulled the copper leaves of the bursting oak -and tossed them among a girl's hair. Oh! the long days and the strong -days! They will come back to you like the curious bit in a tune that is -vexatious and sweet, and not for words or a set thought. You will think of -the lambs on the slopes, of the birds tearing through the thousand ways in -the woods, of the magic hollows in below the thick-sown pines, of the -burns, deep at the bottom of <i>eas</i> and corri, spilling like gold on a -stair. And then, it may be, Solomon Carrier's cart goes by to the town, -the first time since the drifts went off the high road; you hear the -clatter of the iron shoes, and your mind will go with him to the throng -street where the folks are so kind and so free. -</p> -<p> -But to turn your back for the last at that time on Lecknamban must come -sorest of all. For Lecknamban has seven sheilings hidden in its hills, -where the grass is long and juicy, and five burns that are aye on the -giggle like girls at a wedding, and the Aora daunders down in front of the -knowe, full of fish for the Duke alone, but bonny for earl or caird. -</p> -<p> -It was in this same glen, in this same Lecknamban, in the spring of a -year, a woman was at her end. She was a woman up in years but not old, a -black Bana-Mhuileach who had seen pleasant things and trials like all who -come to this queer market-place; but now when the time was come to take -the long road with no convoy, only the good times were in her -recollection. And though Glenaora was not her calf-country (for she came -but a year ago to bide with a friend), she was swear't to turn heel on a -place so cosy. -</p> -<p> -She sat propped up in a box-bed, on pillows, with her face to the open -door, and the friendly airs of the country-side came in to stir her hair. -With them came scents of the red earth and the grass, birch-tree and -myrtle, from the moor. But more than all they brought her who was at her -end a keen craving for one more summer of the grand world. Strong in her -make and dour at the giving-in, she kept talking of the world's affairs -and foolishness to the folk about her who were waiting the Almighty's will -and the coming of the stretching-board. Her fingers picked without a stop -at the woolly bits of the blankets, and her eyes were on as much of the -knowe below the house as she could see out at the open door. It was yellow -at the foot with flowers, and here and there was a spot of blue from the -cuckoo-brogue. -</p> -<p> -“Women, women,” she said with short breaths, “I'm thinking aye, when I see -the flowers, of a man that came from these parts to Duart. He sang 'Mo -Nighean Dubh' in a style was never heard before in our place, and he once -brought me the scented cuckoo-brogues from Aora.” - </p> -<p> -Said the goodwife, “Aoirig, poor woman, it is not the hour for ancient old -<i>sgeuls</i>; be thinking of a canny going.” - </p> -<p> -“Going! it was aye going with me,” said the woman in the bed. “And it was -aye going when things were at their best and I was the keener for them.” - </p> -<p> -“It's the way of God, my dear, <i>ochanie!</i>” said one of the two -Tullich sisters, putting a little salt in a plate for-the coming business. -</p> -<p> -“O God! it's the hard way, indeed. And I'm not so old as you by two or -three clippings.” - </p> -<p> -“Peace, Aoirig, heart; you had your own merry times, and that's as much as -most of us have claim to.” - </p> -<p> -“Merry times! merry times!” said Aoirig, humped among the bedding, her -mind wandering. -</p> -<p> -Curls of the peat-reek coiled from the floor among the <i>cabars</i> or -through the hole in the roof; a lamb ran by the door bleating for its -mother, and the whistling of an <i>uiseag</i> high over the grass where -his nest lay ran out to a thin thread of song. The sound of it troubled -the dying woman, and she asked her friends to shut the door. Now and again -Maisie would put a wet cloth to her lips and dry the death-sweat from her -face. The goodwife was throng among chests and presses looking for sheets, -shrouds, and dead-caps. -</p> -<p> -“It's a pity,” said she, “you brought no grave-clothes with you from Mull, -my dear.” - </p> -<p> -“Are you grudging me yours?” asked Aoirig, coming round from wandering. -</p> -<p> -“No, nor grudging; fine ye ken it, cousin. But I know ye have them, and -it's a pity you should be dressed in another's spinning than your own.” - </p> -<p> -“Ay, they're yonder sure enough: clean and ready. And there's more than -that beside them. The linen I should have brought to a man's home.” - </p> -<p> -“You and your man's home! Is it Duart, my dear, among your own folk, or -down to Inishail, you would have us take you?” Aoirig coughed till the red -froth was at her lips. -</p> -<p> -“Duart is homely and Inishail is holy, sure enough, but I would have it -Kilmalieu. They tell me it's a fine kirkyard; but I never had the luck to -see it.” - </p> -<p> -“It's well enough, I'll not deny, and it would not be so far to take you. -Our folk have a space of their own among the MacVicars, below the parson.” - </p> -<p> -The woman in the bed signed for a sip of water, and they had it fast at -her lips. -</p> -<p> -“Could you be putting me near the Macnicols?” she asked in a weakening -voice. “The one I speak of was a Macnicol.” - </p> -<p> -“Ay, ay,” said the goodwife; “they were aye gallant among the girls.” - </p> -<p> -“Gallant he was,” said the one among the blankets. “I see him now. The -best man ever I saw. It was at a wedding——” - </p> -<p> -The woman's breast racked and the spume spattered over the home-spun -blankets. -</p> -<p> -Maisie was heating a death-shift at the peat-fire, turning it over in her -hands, letting the dry airs into every seam and corner. -</p> -<p> -Looking at her preparation, the dying woman caught back her breath to ask -why such trouble with a dead-shift. -</p> -<p> -“Ye would not have it on damp and cold,” said Maisie, settling the -business. “I doubt it'll be long in the sleeves, woman, for the goodwife -has a lengthy reach.” - </p> -<p> -“It was at a marriage in Glenurchy,” said Aoirig in a haver, the pillows -slipping down behind her back. “Yonder he is. A slim straight lad. Ronnal, -O Ronnal my hero! What a dancer! not his match in Mull. Aye so——” - </p> -<p> -A foot could be heard on the road, and one of the two sisters ran out, for -she knew whom it would be. They had sent word to the town by Solomon in -the morning for Macnicol the wright to come up with the stretching-board, -thinking there was but an hour more for poor Macnicol's were the -footsteps, and there he was with the stretching-board under his arm—a -good piece of larch rubbed smooth by sheet and shroud, and a little hollow -worn at the head. He was a fat man, rolling a bit to one side on a short -leg, gross and flabby at the jowl, and thick-lipped; but he might have -been a swanky lad in his day, and there was a bit of good-humour in the -corner of his eye, where you will never see it when one has been born with -the uneasy mind. He was humming to himself as he came up the brae a -Badenoch ditty they have in these parts on the winter nights, gossiping -round the fire. Whom he was going to stretch he had no notion, except that -it was a woman and a stranger to the glen. -</p> -<p> -The sister took him round to the corner of the house and in at the byre -door, and told him to wait. “It'll not be long now,” she said. -</p> -<p> -“Then she's still to the fore,” said the wright. “I might have waited on -the paymaster's dram at Three Bridges if I had ken't. Women are aye thrawn -about dying. They'll put it off to the last, when a man would be glad to -be taking the road. Who is she, poor woman?” - </p> -<p> -“A cousin-german of Nanny's,” said the sister, putting a bottle before -him, and whipping out for some bannock and cheese. He sat down on a -shearing-stool, facing the door, half open, between the byre he was in and -the kitchen where Aoirig was at the dying. The stretching-board leaned -against the wall outside. -</p> -<p> -“Aye so gentle, so kind,” the woman in the bed was saying in her last -dover. “He kissed me first on a day like this. And the blue flowers from -Aora?” - </p> -<p> -In the byre the wright was preeing the drink and paying little heed to -food. It was the good warm stuff they brew on the side of Lochow, the -heart of the very heart of the barley-fields, with the taste of gall and -peat, and he mellowed with every quaich, and took to the soft lilting of -Niall Ban's song:— -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“'I am the Sergeant fell but kind -(Ho! ho! heroes, agus ho-e-ro! ); -I only lift but the deaf and blind, -The wearied-out and the rest-inclined. -Many a booty I drive before, -Through the glens, through the glens.' -said the Sergeant Mor.” - </pre> -<p> -Ben the house the goodwife was saying the prayers for the dying woman the -woman should have said for herself while she had the wind for it, but -Aoirig harped on her love-tale. She was going fast, and the sisters, -putting their hands to her feet, could feel that they were cold as the -rocks. Maisie's arms were round her, and she seemed to have the notion -that here was the grip of death, for she pushed her back. -</p> -<p> -“I am not so old—so old. There is Seana, my neighbour at Duart—long -past the fourscore and still spinning—I am not so old—God of -grace—so old—and the flowers——” - </p> -<p> -A grey shiver went over her face; her breast heaved and fell in; her voice -stopped with a gluck in the throat. -</p> -<p> -The women stirred round fast in the kitchen. Out on the clay floor the two -sisters pushed the table and laid a sheet on it, the goodwife put aside -the pillows and let Aoirig's head fall back on the bed. Maisie put her -hand to the clock and stopped it. -</p> -<p> -“Open the door, open the door!” cried the goodwife, turning round in a -hurry and seeing the door still shut. -</p> -<p> -One of the sisters put a finger below the sneck and did as she was told, -to let out the dead one's ghost. -</p> -<p> -Outside, taking the air, to get the stir of the strong waters out of his -head, was the wright. -</p> -<p> -He knew what the opening of the door meant, and he lifted his board and -went in with it under his arm. A wafting of the spring smells came in at -his back, and he stood with his bonnet in his hand. -</p> -<p> -“So this is the end o't?” he said in a soft way, stamping out the fire on -the floor. -</p> -<p> -He had but said it when Eurig sat up with a start in the bed, and the -women cried out. She opened her eyes and looked at the man, with his fat -face, his round back, and ill-made clothes, and the death-deal under his -oxter, and then she fell back on the bed with her face stiffening. -</p> -<p> -“Here's the board for ye,” said the wright, his face spotted white and his -eyes staring. “I'll go out a bit and take a look about me. I once knew a -woman who was terribly like you, and she came from Mull.” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -BLACK MURDO -</h2> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“Mas breug uam e is breug thugam e.” - -—Gaelic Proverb. -</pre> -<h3> -I. -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>LACK MURDO'S wife was heavy, and 'twas the time the little brown nats -were pattering in Stronbuie wood. Stronbuie spreads out its greenness to -the sun from the slope of Cladich. It is, in its season, full of the -piping of birds and the hurry of wings, and the winds of it have the smell -of a fat soil. The Diarmaids were the cunning folk to steal it; for if -Stronshira is good, Stronbuie is better; and though the loops of Aora -tangle themselves in the gardens of the Red Duke, Lochow has enchantment -for the galley of a king. Fraoch Eilean, Innis Chonell, and Innis Chonain—they -cluster on the bend of it like the gems on a brooch, Inishail of the Monks -makes it holy, and Cruachan-ben, who lords it over Lorn, keeps the cold -north wind from the shore. They may talk of Glenaora, but Stronbuie comes -close, close to the heart! -</p> -<p> -For all that, 'twas on a time a poor enough place for a woman in yon -plight; for the rest of the clan crowded down on Innistiynich, all -fighters and coarse men of the sword, and a skilly woman or a -stretching-board was no nearer than a day's tramp over the hill and down -Aora glen to the walls of Inneraora. If one died on Cladich-side then—and -'twas a dying time, for the Athol dogs were for ever at the harrying—it -was but a rough burying, with no corranach and no mort-cloth; if a child -came, it found but cold water and a cold world, whatever hearts might be. -But for seven years no child came for Black Murdo. -</p> -<p> -They say, in the Gaelic old-word, that a stolen bitch will never throw -clean pups nor a home-sick woman giants. Murdo recked nothing of that when -he went wooing in a time of truce to Croit-bhile, the honey-croft that -makes a red patch on the edge of Creag Dubh. He brought Silis home to the -dull place at Stronbuie, and she baked his bannocks and ploughed his bit -of soil, but her heart never left salt Finne-side. In the morning she -would go to the hill to look through the blurred glen, and she would have -made bargains with the ugliest crow that could flap on feathers for a -day's use of his wings. She could have walked it right often and gaily to -her people's place, but Black Murdo was of Clan Artair, and Artairich had -not yet come under the <i>bratach</i> of Diarmaid, and bloody knives made -a march-dyke between the two tartans. -</p> -<p> -Seven years and seven days went by, and Black Murdo, coming in on an -evening after a hard day at the deer, found Silis making the curious wee -clothes. He looked at her keen, questioning, and she bleached to the lips. -</p> -<p> -“So!” said he. -</p> -<p> -“Just so,” said she, breaking a thread with her teeth, and bending till -the peat-flame dyed her neck like wine. -</p> -<p> -“God, and I'm the stout fellow!” said he, and out he went, down all the -way to Portinsherrich, and lusty he was with the ale among the pretty men -there. -</p> -<p> -Weeks chased each other like sheep in a fank, and Silis grew sick at the -heart. There's a time for a woman when the word of a woman is sweeter than -a harp; but there were only foolish girls at Innistrynich, and coarse men -of the sword. So Murdo stayed in from the roes when the time crept close. -To see him do the heavy work of the house and carrying in the peats was a -sorry sight. -</p> -<p> -Silis kept dreaming of Finne-side, where she had heard the long wave in -the spring of the year when she had gone home on a password to a woman's -wedding with Long Coll. The same Long Coll had brothers, and one had put a -man's foolish sayings in her ears before ever she met Murdo, she a thin -girl like a saugh-wand and not eighteen till Beltane. They called him—no -matter—and he had the way with the women. Faith, it's the strange -art! It is not looks, nor dancing, nor the good heart, nor wit, but some -soft fire of the eye and maybe a song to the bargain. Whatever it was, it -had Silis, for all that her goodman Murdo had a man's qualities and -honesty extra. -</p> -<p> -They say, “<i>Cnuic is sluic is Alpeinich, ach cuin a thàinig Artharaich?</i>”(1) -in the by-word; but Artharaich had age enough for a <i>taibhsear</i> -whatever, for Black Murdo had the Sight. -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -1 The hills and hollows and Clan Alpine came together, but -when arose Clan Artair? -</pre> -<p> -It's the curious thing to say of a man with all his parts that he should -be <i>taibhsear</i> and see visions; for a <i>taibhsear</i>, by all the -laws, should be an old fellow with little use for swords or shinny-sticks. -But Murdo missed being a full taibhsear by an ell, so the fit had him -seldom. He was the seventh son of a mother who died with the brand of a -cross on her brow, and she was kin to the Glenurchy Woman. And something -crept over him with the days, that put a mist in his eyes when he looked -at Silis; but “I'm no real <i>taibhsear</i>,” he said to himself, “and I -swear by the black stones it is no cloth. A man with all the Gift might -call it a shroud high on her breast, but——” - </p> -<p> -“Silis, <i>a bhean!</i> shall it be the Skilly Dame of Inneraora?” - </p> -<p> -A light leaped to the woman's eyes, for the very thing was in her mind. -</p> -<p> -“If it could be,” she said, slowly; “but it's not easy to get her, for -black's your name on Aoraside.” - </p> -<p> -“Black or white, Murdo stands in his own shoes. He has been at the gate of -Inneraora when Strong Colin the warder had little thought of it.” - </p> -<p> -“Then, oh heart! it must be soon—tomorrow—but——” - </p> -<p> -The mouth of day found Silis worse, and Murdo on his way to Inneraora. -</p> -<p> -He stepped it down Glenaora like Coll Mor in the story, or the man with -the fairy shoes. A cloud was over Tullich and a wet wind whistled on -Kennachregan. The man's target played dunt on his back, so hasty was he, -for all that the outposts of Big Colin had hawk's eyes on the pass. He had -got the length of Alt Shelechan when a Diarmaid came out on him from the -bracken with a curse on his mouth. He was a big Diarmaid, high-breasted -and stark, for there's no denying there was breed in the pigs. -</p> -<p> -“Ho, ho, lad!” said he, crousely, “it's risking it you are this day!” - </p> -<p> -Black Murdo's hands went to his sides, where a ready man's should ready -be; but he had sight of Silis. He could see her in Stronbuie in the bothy, -on the wee creepy-stool beside the peats, and he knew she was saying the -Wise Woman's Wish that Diarmaid mothers have so often need of. Length is -length, and it's a far cry to Lochow sure enough; but even half a <i>taibhsear</i> -takes no count of miles and time. -</p> -<p> -He spoke softly. “I go to Inneraora for the Skilly Woman. My wife is a -daughter of your folks, and she'll have none but the dame who brought -herself home.” - </p> -<p> -“Death or life?” asked the Diarmaid, a freckled hand still on the -basket-hilt. He put the question roughly, for nobody likes to lose a ploy. -</p> -<p> -“Life it is, my lad. It's not to dress corpses but to wash weans she's -wanted.” - </p> -<p> -“Ho-chutt!” went the blade back against the brass of the scabbard (for he -was <i>duin-uasal</i> who carried it), and the man's face changed. -</p> -<p> -“Pass!” he said. “I would not stand in a bairn's way to life. Had it been -shrouds instead of sweelers, we could have had it out, for a corpse is in -no great hurry. But troth it's yourself is the tight one, and I would have -liked a bit of the old game.” - </p> -<p> -“No more than Murdo, red fellow!” - </p> -<p> -“Murdo! So be't; yet Murdo will give me his dirk for gate-pay, or they'll -be saying farther down that Calum, as good a man, kept out of his way.” - </p> -<p> -The <i>biodag</i> went flying into the grass at Calum's feet, and Murdo -went leaping down the glen. It was like stalking deer for the Diarmaids. -Here and there he had to go into the river or among the hazel-switches, or -crawl on his stomach among the gall. -</p> -<p> -From Kilmune to Uchdan-barracaldine the red fellows were passing, or -playing with the <i>clachneart</i> or the <i>cabar,</i> or watching their -women toiling in the little fields. -</p> -<p> -“Thorns in their sides!” he said to himself, furious at last, when another -keen-eyed Diarmaid caught sight of his tartan and his black beard among -some whins. It was a stripling with only a dirk, but he could gather fifty -men on the crook of his finger. -</p> -<p> -“Stand!” cried the Diarmaid, flashing the dirk out. “What want ye so far -over this way?” - </p> -<p> -Murdo, even in the rage, saw Silis, a limp creature, sweating in her -pains, her black eyes (like the sloe) keen on the door. So close, so sure, -so sorrowful! He could have touched her on the shoulder and whispered in -her ear. -</p> -<p> -“I am Black Murdo,” he told the lad. “I am for Inneraora for the Skilly -Woman for my wife, child of your own clan.” - </p> -<p> -“Death or life?” - </p> -<p> -“Life.” - </p> -<p> -“'Tis a bonny targe ye have, man; it might be doing for toll.” - </p> -<p> -The lad got it, and Murdo went on his way. He found the Skilly Woman, who -put before him sour milk and brose. But he would not have drink or sup, so -back through the Diarmaids they went without question (for the woman's -trade was as good as the chief's convoy), till they came to Tom-an-dearc. -Out upon them there a fellow red and pretty. -</p> -<p> -“Hold!” he said, as if it had been dogs. “What's the name of ye, black -fellow?” Murdo cursed in his beard. “My name's honest man, but I have not -time to prove it.” - </p> -<p> -“Troth that's a pity. But seeing there's the <i>caüleach</i> with you, you -must e'en go your way. There's aye some of you folk on the -stretching-board. Ye want heart, and ye die with a flaff of wind. Lend me -your sword, <i>'ille!</i>'' -</p> -<p> -“Squint-mouth!” cried Murdo, “your greedy clan took too much off me this -day already for me to part with the sweetest blade Gow-an-aora ever beat -on iron. I took it from one of your cowards at Carnus, and if it's back it -goes, it's not with my will.” - </p> -<p> -“Then it's the better man must have it,” said the red fellow, and, Lord, -he was the neat-built one! They took off their coats, and for lack of -bucklers rolled them round their arms, both calm and canny. The Diarmaid -was first ready with his brand out, and Murdo put to his point. For a -little the two men stood, spread out, hard-drawn behind the knees, with -the cords of the neck like thongs, then at it with a clatter of steel. -</p> -<p> -The Skilly Woman, with the plaid pulled tight over her grey hair, sat with -sunk eyes on a stone and waited without wonder. She had sons who had died -in brawls at Kilmichael market, or in the long foray far in Kintail; and -her man, foster-brother to a chief, got death in the strange foreign wars, -where the pay was not hide and horn but round gold. -</p> -<p> -A smoky soft smirr of rain filled all the gap between the hills, though -Sithean Sluaidhe and Dunchuach had tips of brass from a sun dropping -behind the Salachary hills. The grass and the gall lost their glitter and -became grey and dull; the hill of Lecknamban, where five burns are born, -coaxed the mist down on its breast like a lover. It was wet, wet, but -never a drop made a rush bend or a leaf fall. Below the foot the ground -was greasy, as it is in a fold at the dippingtime; but the two men pulled -themselves up with a leap on it as if it might be dry sand, and the -brogues made no error on the soil. -</p> -<p> -First the Diarmaid pressed, for he had it over the other man in youth, and -youth is but tame when it's slow or slack. Murdo waited, all eyes that -never blinked, with the basket well up, and kept on his toes. “Splank, -sp-ll-ank, sp-ll-ank—<i>siod e</i>!” said the blades, and the -Diarmaid's for a time made the most of the music, but he never got inside -the black fellow's guard. Then Murdo took up the story with a snap of the -teeth, skelping hard at the red one till the hands dirled in the basket -like a bag of pins. The smirr gathered thicker, and went to rain that fell -solid, the brogues grew like steeped bladders on the feet, a scatter of -crows made a noisy homing to the trees at Tullich, and Aora gobbled like -swine in a baron's trough. -</p> -<p> -“Haste ye, heroes,” said the old woman, cowering on the wet stone; “haste -ye, dears; it's mighty long ye are about it.” - </p> -<p> -The Diarmaid turned the edge twice on the coated arm, and Murdo wasted his -wind to curse. Then he gave the stroke that's worth fifty head of kyloes -(fine they know that same all below Cladichl), and a red seam jumped to -the Diarmaid's face. All his heart went to stiffen his slacking heavy arm, -and he poured on Murdo till Murdo felt it like a rain of spears. One hot -wandering stroke he got on the bonnet, and for want of the bowl of brose -at Inneraora, the wind that should go to help him went inside, and turned -his stomach. Sweat, hot and salt, stung his eyes, his ears filled with a -great booming, he fell in a weary dream of a far-off fight on a witched -shore, with the waves rolling, and some one else at the fencing, and -caring nought, but holding guard with the best blade Gow-an-aora ever took -from flame. Back stepped the Diarmaid, sudden, and sweep went his steel at -the shaking knees. -</p> -<p> -A bairn's cry struck Murdo's ear through the booming and sent him full -awake. He drew back the stretched foot fast, and round the red one's sword -hissed through air. “Foil! foil!” said Murdo, and he slashed him on the -groin. -</p> -<p> -“That'll do, man; no more,” said the Skilly Woman, quickly, -</p> -<p> -“I may as well finish him; it's lame he'll be all his days any way, and -little use is a man with a halt in a healthy clan.” - </p> -<p> -“Halt or no halt, let him be; he's my second cousin's son.” - </p> -<p> -Murdo looked for a bit at the bloody thing before him, but the woman -craved again with bony fingers on his wrist; so he spat on the dirty green -tartan and went. The smoke rose from him and hung about with a smell of -wearied flesh, the grey of the mist was black at Carnus. When the pair -came over against Lochow, where one can see the holy isle when it is day, -the night was deep and cold; but the woman bent at the cross with a “<i>Mhoire -Mhathair</i>,” and so did the man, picking the clotted blood from his ear. -They dropped down the brae on the house at last. -</p> -<p> -For a little Black Murdo's finger hung on the sneck, and when he heard a -sound he pushed in the door. -</p> -<p> -All about the house the peat-reek swung like mist on the mountain. Wind -and rain fought it out on Cladich brae, and when it was not the wind that -came bold through the smoke-hole in the roof, 'twas the rain, a beady -slant that hissed on the peats like roasting herrings. The woman lay slack -on the bed, her eyes glossed over with the glass that folks see the great -sights through, and her fingers making love over the face and breast of a -new-born boy that cried thinly at her knees. A lighted cruisie spluttered -with heavy smell at the end of a string on a rafter. -</p> -<p> -“O Skilly Woman, Skilly Woman, it's late we are,” said Black Murdo. -</p> -<p> -“Late enough, as ye say, just man. Had ye bartered an old sword for twenty -minutes on the Tom-an-dearc, I was here before danger.” - </p> -<p> -Then the Skilly Woman set him on the wet windy side of the door, and went -about with busy hands. -</p> -<p> -The man, with the ragged edge of his kilt scraping his knees and the rain -bubbling in his brogues, leaned against the wattled door and smeared the -blood from his brow. A cold wind gulped down from Glenurchy and ghosts -were over Inishail. The blast whirled about and whirled about, and swung -the rowan like a fern, and whistled in the gall, and tore the thatch, all -to drown a child's cry. The blackness crowded close round like a wall, and -flapped above like a plaid—Stronbuie was in a tent and out of the -world. Murdo strained to hear a voice, but the wind had the better of him. -He went round to the gable, thinking to listen at the window, but the -board on the inside shut the wind and him out. The strange emptiness of -grief was in his belly. -</p> -<p> -Inside, the Skilly One went like a witch, beak-nosed and half-blind. There -was clatter of pans and the dash of water, the greeting of the child and -the moan of the mother. What else is no man's business. For all she was -skilly the old dame had no thought of the woman sinking. -</p> -<p> -“You'll have blithe-meat in the morning,” she said, cheerily, from the -fireside. -</p> -<p> -Silis made worse moan than before. -</p> -<p> -“Such a boy, white love! And hair like the copper! His hide is mottled -like a trout's back; calf of my heart!” - </p> -<p> -Silis, on her side, put out white craving arms. “Give it to me, wife; give -it to me.” - </p> -<p> -“Wheesht! rest ye, dear, rest ye,” said the Skilly Dame. -</p> -<p> -But she put the bairn in its mother's arms. Silis, when she had it on her -breast, sobbed till the bed shook. -</p> -<p> -“Is not he the hero, darling?” said the Skilly Woman. “It's easy seen he's -off Clan Diarmaid on one side, for all that yoar hair is black as the -sloe. Look at the colour of him!” - </p> -<p> -Fright was in the mother's face. “Come close, come close till I tell you,” - she said, her long hair damp on her milky shoulders. -</p> -<p> -The Skilly Woman put down her head and listened with wonder. -</p> -<p> -“Me-the-day! Was I not the blind one to miss it? His name, white love? No -one shall ken it from me, not even Murdo.” - </p> -<p> -A man's name took up the last breath of Silis; she gave a little shiver, -and choked with a sound that the old crone had heard too often not to -know. -</p> -<p> -She looked, helpless, for a little at the bed, then felt the mother's -feet. They were as cold as stone. -</p> -<p> -A cry caught Murdo's ear against the wattles, and he drove in the door -with his shoulder, heeding no sneck nor bar. -</p> -<p> -“Am not I the blind fool?” said the crone. -</p> -<p> -“There's your wife gone, cheap enough at the price of a yard of steel.” - </p> -<p> -They stood and looked at the bed together, the bairn crying without -notice. -</p> -<p> -“I knew it,” said the man, heaving; “<i>taibhsear</i> half or whole, I -could see the shroud on her neck!” - </p> -<p> -The grey light was drifting in from Cladich. The fir-trees put stretched -fingers up against the day, and Murdo was placing a platter of salt on a -bosom as cold and as white as the snow. -</p> -<p> -“You're feeding him on the wrong cloth,” said he, seeing the crone give -suck to the child from a rag of Diarmaid tartan dipped in goat's milk. -</p> -<h3> -II. -</h3> -<p> -The boy grew like a tree in a dream, that is seed, sapling, and giant in -one turn on the side. Stronbuie's wattled bothy, old and ugly, quivered -with his laughing, and the young heather crept closer round the door. The -Spotted Death filled Inishail with the well-fed and the warm-happed; but -the little one, wild on the brae, forgotten, sucking the whey from rags -and robbing the bush of its berries, gathered sap and sinew like the child -of kings. It is the shrewd way of God! There was bloody enough work forby, -for never a sheiling passed but the brosey folks came pouring down -Glenstrae, scythe, sword, and spear, and went back with the cattle before -them, and redness and smoke behind. But no raider put hand on Black Murdo, -for now he was <i>taibhsear</i> indeed, and the <i>taibhsear</i> has magic -against dub or steel. How he became <i>taibhsear</i> who can be telling? -When he buried Silis out on the isle, his heart grew heavy, gloom seized -him, the cut of the Diarmaid's sword gave a quirk to his brain that -spoiled him for the world's use. He took to the hills no more in sport, he -carried Gow-an-aora's sword no more in battle, for all that it cost him so -dear. A poor man's rig was his at the harvest because of his Gift, and the -cailzie cock or the salmon never refused his lure. -</p> -<p> -Skill of the daymore, the seven cuts, and yon ready slash worth fifty head -of kyloes, he gave to the boy, and then the quick cunning parry, and the -use of the foot and knee that makes half a swordsman. -</p> -<p> -But never a spot of crimson would he have on Rory's steel. -</p> -<p> -“First dip in the blood of the man with the halt, and then farewell to -ye!” he said, wearying for the day when the boy should avenge his mother. -</p> -<p> -Folks—far-wandered ones—brought him news of the man with the -halt that was his giving, the Diarmaid whose bargain for a sword on -Tom-an-dearc cost Silis her life. He passed it on to the boy, and he -filled him with old men's tales. He weaved the cunning stories of the pigs -of Inneraora, for all that the boy's mother came from their loins, and he -made them—what there may well be doubts of—cowards and weak. -</p> -<p> -“They killed your mother, Rory: her with the eyes like the sloe and the -neck like snow. Swear by the Holy Iron that the man with the halt we ken -of gets his pay for it.” - </p> -<p> -Rory swore on the iron. It is an easy thing for one when the blood is -strong and the <i>biodag</i> still untried. He lay awake at night, -thinking of his mother's murderer till the sweat poured. He would have -been on the track of him before ever he had won his man's bonnet by -lifting the <i>clach-cuid-fear</i>, but Murdo said, “Let us be sure. You -are young yet, and I have one other trick of fencing worth while biding -for.” - </p> -<p> -At last, upon a time, Murdo found the boy could match himself, and he -said, “Now let us to this affair.” - </p> -<p> -He took the boy, as it were, by the hand, and they ran up the hills and -down the hills, and through the wet glens, to wherever a Diarmaid might -be; and where were they not where strokes were going? The hoodie-crow was -no surer on the scent of war. Blar-na-leine took them over the six valleys -and the six mountains; Cowal saw them on the day the Lamonts got their -bellyful; a knock came on them on the night when the Stewarts took their -best from Appin and flung themselves on Inneraora, and they went out -without a word and marched with that high race. -</p> -<p> -But luck was with the man with the halt they sought for. At muster for -raid, or at market, he was there, swank man and pretty but for the -lameness he had found on an ill day on Tom-an-dearc. He sang songs round -the ale with the sweetness of the bird, and his stories came ready enough -off the tongue. Black Murdo and the boy were often close enough on his -heel, but he was off and away like the corp-candle before they were any -nigher. If he had magic, it could have happened no stranger. -</p> -<p> -Once, a caird who went round the world with the jingle of cans on his back -and a sheaf of withies in his oxter, told them that a lame Diarmaid was -bragging at Kilmichael fair that he would play single-stick for three days -against the country-side. They sped down to Ford, and over the way; but -nothing came of it, for the second day had found no one to come to the -challenge, and the man with the halt was home again. -</p> -<p> -Black Murdo grew sick of the chase, and the cub too tired of it. For his -father's fancy he was losing the good times—many a fine exploit -among the Atholmen and the brosey folks of Glenstrae; and when he went -down to Innistrynich to see the lads go out with belt and plaid, he would -give gold to be with them. -</p> -<p> -One day, “I have dreamed a dream,” said Murdo, “Our time is come: what we -want will be on the edge of the sea, and it will be the third man after -dawn. Come, son, let us make for Inneraora.” - </p> -<p> -Inneraora lies now between the bays, sleeping day and night, for the old -times are forgot and the nettle's on Dunchuach. Before the plaid of -MacCailein Mor was spread from Cowal to Cruachan, it was the stirring -place; high and dry on the bank of Slochd-a-chubair, and the dogs -themselves fed on buck-flesh from the mountains, so rowth the times! One -we ken of has a right to this place or that place yonder that shall not be -named, and should hold his head as high on Aora as any chief of the boar's -snout; but <i>mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!</i> the black bed of Macartair is -in the Castle itself, and Macartair is without soil or shield. How -Diarmaid got the old place is a sennachie's tale. “As much of the land as -a heifer's hide will cover,” said the foolish writing, and MacCailein had -the guile to make the place his own. He cut the hide of a long-backed -heifer into thin thongs, and stretched it round Stronbuie. There is day -about to be seen with his race for that! Over to Inneraora then went -Murdo, and Rory clad for fighting, bearing with him the keen old sword. -'Twas a different time going down the glen then from what it was on the -misty day Murdo fetched the Skilly Dame; for the Diarmaids he met by the -way said, “'Tis the Lochow <i>taibhsear</i> and his tail,” and let them by -without a word, or maybe with a salute. They went to the Skilly Dame's -house, and she gave them the Gael's welcome, with bannocks and crowdie, <i>marag-dkubh</i> -and ale. But she asked them not their business, for that is the way of the -churl. She made them soft-scented beds of white hay in a dirty black -corner, where they slept till cockcrow with sweet weariness in their -bones. -</p> -<p> -The morning was a grey day with frost and snow. Jumping John's bay below -the house was asleep with a soft smoke like a blanket over it. Lean deer -from behind the wood came down trotting along the shore, sniffing the -saltness, and wondering where the meat was. With luck and a good <i>sgian-dubh</i> -a quick lad could do some gralloching. The tide was far out from Ard -Rannoch to the Gallows-tree, and first there was the brown wrack, and then -there was the dun sand, and on the edge of the sand a bird went stalking. -The old man and the young one stood at the gable and looked at it all. -</p> -<p> -It was a short cut from below the castle to the point of Ard Rannoch, if -the tide was out, to go over the sand. “What we wait on,” said Murdo, -softly, “goes across there. There will be two men, and them ye shall not -heed, but the third is him ye ken of. Ye'll trap him between the whin-bush -and the sea, and there can be no escaping unless he takes to the swimming -for it.” - </p> -<p> -Rory plucked his belts tight, took out the good blade wondrous quiet, -breathing fast and heavy. The rich blood raced up his back, and tingled -hot against his ruddy neck. -</p> -<p> -“What seest thou, my son?” said Murdo at last. -</p> -<p> -“A man with a quick step and no limp,” quoth the lad. -</p> -<p> -“Let him pass.” - </p> -<p> -Then again said the old man, “What seest thou?” - </p> -<p> -“A <i>bodach</i> frail and bent, with a net on his shoulder,” said Rory. -</p> -<p> -“Let him pass.” - </p> -<p> -The sun went high over Ben Ime, and struck the snow till the eyes were -blinded. Rory rubbed the sweat from his drenched palm on the pleat of his -kilt, and caught the basket-hand tighter. Over Aora mouth reek went up -from a fishing-skiff, and a black spot stood out against the snow. -</p> -<p> -“What seest thou now, lad?” asked Murdo. -</p> -<p> -“The man with the halt,” answered the lad. -</p> -<p> -“Then your time has come, child. The stroke worth the fifty head, and pith -on your arm!” - </p> -<p> -Rory left the old man's side, and went down through a patch of shelisters, -his mouth dry as a peat and his heart leaping. He was across the wrack and -below the pools before the coming man had noticed him. But the coming man -thought nothing wrong, and if he did, it was but one man at any rate, and -one man could use but one sword, if swords were going. Rory stepped on the -edge of the sand, and tagged the bonnet down on his brow, while the man -limped on between him and the sea. Then he stepped out briskly and said, -“Stop, pig!” He said it strangely soft, and with, as it were, no heart in -the business; for though the lame man was strong, deepbreasted, supple, -and all sound above the belt, there was a look about him that made the -young fellow have little keenness for the work. -</p> -<p> -“Pig?” said the Diarmaid, putting back his shoulders and looking under his -heavy brows. “You are the Lochow lad who has been seeking for me?” - </p> -<p> -“Ho, ho! red fellow; ye kent of it, then?” - </p> -<p> -“Red fellow! It's red enough you are yourself, I'm thinking. I have no -great heed to draw steel on a lad of your colour, so I'll just go my way.” - And the man looked with queer wistful eyes over his shoulder at the lad, -who, with blade-point on the sand, would have let him pass. -</p> -<p> -But up-by at the house the <i>taibhsear</i> watched the meeting. The quiet -turn it took was beyond his reading, for he had thought it would be but -the rush, and the fast fall-to, and no waste of time, for the tide was -coming in. -</p> -<p> -“White love, give him it!” he cried out, making for the shore. “He looks -lame, but the pig's worth a man's first fencing.” - </p> -<p> -Up went the boy's steel against the grey cloud, and he was at the throat -of the Diarmaid like a beast. “Malison on your black heart, murderer!” he -roared, still gripping his broadsword. The Diarmaid flung him off like a -child, and put up his guard against the whisking of his blade. -</p> -<p> -“Oh, foolish boy!” he panted wofully as the lad pressed, and the grey -light spread over sea and over shore. The quiet tide crawled in about -their feet; birds wheeled on white feathers with mocking screams; the old -man leaned on his staff and cheered the boy. The Diarmaid had all the -coolness and more of art, and he could have ended the play as he wanted. -But he only fended, and at last the slash worth fifty head found his neck. -He fell on his side, with a queer twisted laugh on his face, saying, -“Little hero, ye fence—ye fence——” - </p> -<p> -“Haste ye, son! finish the thing!” said the <i>taibhsear,</i> all shaking, -and the lad did as he was told, hocking at the spurt the blood made. He -was pushing his dirk in the sand to clean it, when his eye fell on the -Skilly Woman hirpling nimbly down to the shore. She was making a loud cry. -</p> -<p> -“God I God! it's the great pity about this,” said she, looking at Murdo -cutting the silver buttons off the corpse's jacket. “Ken ye the man that's -there dripping?” - </p> -<p> -“The man's no more,” said Rory, cool enough. “He has gone travelling, and -we forgot to ask his name.” - </p> -<p> -“Then if happy you would be, go home to Lochow, and ask it not, nor aught -about him, if you wouldn't rue long. You sucked your first from a Diarmaid -rag, and it was not for nothing.” - </p> -<p> -Murdo drew back with a clumsy start from the dead man's side and looked -down on his face, then at the boy's, queerly. “I am for off,” said he at -last with a sudden hurry. “You can follow if you like, red young one.” And -he tossed the dead man's buttons in Rory's face! -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -THE SEA-FAIRY OF FRENCH FORELAND. -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>NCE I saw a fairy King, and it was in the Castle up-by. The Castle took -fire, and a fine blaze it made at the foot of Dunchaach. A boy, I ran with -the rest to carry out the MacCailein's rich gear, and behold! I wandered -and lost my way in that large place where is a window for every day in the -year. Up the long stairs and through the far passages, and over the -shining sounding floors went I, barefoot, with a feared eye on every hole -and corner. At every door it was, “Surely now I'm with the folks at the -fire”; but every door was a way into a quieter quietness, and the Castle -was my own. I sat at last on a black chair that had a curious twisted -back, and the tears went raining on the lap of my kilt. -</p> -<p> -Long, long I sat, and sore I grat, my mind full, not so much of my way -lost, but of the bigness of things, and the notion of what it would be to -have to live in a castle at night, with doors on every hand for ghosts to -rap at, and crooked passages without end for gowsty winds to moan in. -Thinks I, “The smallest hut in the town for me, with all plain before me, -with the one door shut and my face to it, and the candlelight seeking into -every crack and cranny!” - </p> -<p> -It was then that the fairy King came on me out of the sewed cloth hanging -on the wall. -</p> -<p> -He was a dainty wee man, in our own tartan, with a steel plate on his -breast baronly-style, and strange long curly hair. I ran my wet eyes down -seven silver buttons the shape of salmon on the front of his vest before I -let myself go, but go I must, so I put fast heels on my fright. I galloped -with a frozen tongue through miles of the Duke's castle till a door -brought me out on the grass of Cairnban, in front of the friendly bleeze -that my own folks were pouring the stoups of water on. -</p> -<p> -That was the only time the quiet folk and I came to a meeting, though our -family was always gleg at seeing things. A cousin-german once saw the -fairy bull that puts up in Loch Steallaire-bhan behind the town. It came -on a jaunt to the glen in the guise of a rich maiden, and my cousin, the -son of the house, made love to her. One night—in a way that I need -not mention—he found himself in her room combing down her yellow -hair, and what was among her hair but fine sand that told the whole story? -“You are a <i>gruagach</i> of the lake!” cried the lad, letting the comb -drop on the floor, with his face white, and the thing tarned to its own -shape and went bellowing to the shore. -</p> -<p> -And there was a man—blessings with him! for he's here no more—who -would always be going up on Sithean Sluaidhe to have troke with the wee -people on that fine knowe. He would bring them tastings of honey and -butter to put them in a good key, and there they would dance by the hour -for his diversion to the piping of a piper who played on drones of grass -with reeds made of the midge's thrapple. -</p> -<p> -Still, in all my time I know but one body who could find the way to the -den of the Sea-Fairies, and she was a lass whose folks were in Ceannmor at -the time the French traffickers were coming here to swap casks of claret -wine for the finest herrings in the wide world. -</p> -<p> -It was her custom to go down on the hot days to the shore at the -Water-foot when the tide was far out, and the sand was crusting with salt -in the sun, and the wrack-balls burst with the heat, and the water lay -flat like oil, and lazy, for want of a breath of wind. Sometimes it would -be the French Foreland she would seek, and sometimes Dalchenna; but when -the Frenchmen were at the Foreland she kept clear of it by the counsel of -a cautious father. -</p> -<p> -Up the loch they would sail, the Frenchmen, in their gabberts, and hove-to -with their casks to change for the cured herrings. A curious people they -were, not much like our own good Gaels in many a way, but black-avised and -slim; still with some of the Gael's notions about them too, such as the -humour of fighting and drinking and scouring the countryside for girls. -</p> -<p> -But it happened that one year they left behind them only a wine of -six-waters, and did some other dirty tricks forbye, and there was for long -a feud, so that the Frenchmen behooved to keep to their boats and bargain -with the curers over the gun'le. -</p> -<p> -On a day at that time, Marseli that I speak of had been bathing at the -Ceannmor rocks—having a crave for salt water the Ceannmor folks -nowadays are not very namely for. When she had her gown on again, she went -round to Dalchenna sands and out far to the edge of the tide, where she -sat on a stone and took to the redding of her hair, that rolled in copper -waves before the comb—rich, thick, and splendid. -</p> -<p> -Before her, the tide was on the turn so slow and soft that the edge of it -lifted the dry sand like meal. All about on the weedy stones the -tailor-tartans leaped like grasshoppers, the spout-fish stuck far out of -the sand and took a fresh gloss on their shells from the sun. -</p> -<p> -You might seek from shire to shire for a handsomer maid. She was at the -age that's a father's heartbreak, rounding out at the bosom and mellowing -at the eyes; her skin was like milk, and the sigh was at her lips as often -as the song. But though she sighed, it was not for the Ceannmor fishermen, -coarse-bearded, and rough in their courting; for she had vanity, from her -mother's side, and queer notions. The mother's family had been rich in -their day, with bards and thoughtful people among them. -</p> -<p> -“If a sea-fairy could see me now,” said Marseli, “it might put him in the -notion to come this way again,” and she started to sing the child-song— -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“Little folk, little folk, come to me, -From the lobbies that lie below the sea.” - </pre> -<p> -“<i>So agad el</i>” cried a gull at her back, so plainly that she tamed -fast to look, and there was the fairy before her! -</p> -<p> -Up got Marseli, all shaking and ready to fly, but the fairy-man looked -harmless enough as he bowed low to her, and she stayed to put her hair -behind her ears and draw her gown closer. -</p> -<p> -He was a little delicate man the smallest of Marseli's brothers could have -put in his oxter, with close curled hair, and eyes as black as Ridir -Lochiel's waistcoat. His clothes were the finest of the fine, -knee-breeches with silk hose, buckled brogues, a laced jacket, and a -dagger at his belt—no more like a fairy of the knowe than the green -tree's like the gall. -</p> -<p> -“You're quick enough to take a girl at her word,” said Marseli, cunning -one, thinking to hide from him the times and times she had cried over the -sands for the little sea-folks to come in with the tide. -</p> -<p> -The fairy-man said something in his own tongue that had no sense for the -girl, and he bowed low again, with his bonnet waving in his hand, in the -style of Charlie Munn the dancer. -</p> -<p> -“You must speak in the Gaelic,” said Marseli, still a bit put about; “or -if you have not the Gaelic, I might be doing with the English, though -little I care for it.” - </p> -<p> -“Faith,” said the fairy-man, “I have not the Gaelic, more's the pity, but -I know enough English to say you're the prettiest girl ever I set eyes on -since I left my own place.” - </p> -<p> -(Ho! hoi was he not the cunning one? The fairies for me for gallantry!) -</p> -<p> -“One of such judgment can hardly be uncanny,” thought Marseli, so she -stayed and cracked with him in the English tongue. -</p> -<p> -The two of them walked up over the sand to the birch-trees, and under the -birches the little fellow asked Marseli to sit down. -</p> -<p> -“You are bigger than I looked for in a sea-fairy,” said she when the crack -was a little bit on. -</p> -<p> -“A fairy?” said the little fellow, looking at her in the flash of an eye. -</p> -<p> -“Yes! Though I said just now that you took one fast at her word, the truth -to tell is, that always when the tide went out I sang at your back-doors -the song you heard to-day for the first time. I learned it from Beann -Francie in the Horse Park.” - </p> -<p> -The stranger had a merry laugh—not the roar of a Finne fisherman—and -a curions way of hitching the shoulders, and the laugh and the -shoulder-hitch were his answer for Marseli. -</p> -<p> -“You'll be a king in the sea—in your own place—or a prince -maybe,” said the girl, twisting rushes in her hand. -</p> -<p> -The man gave a little start and got red at the face. -</p> -<p> -“Who in God's name said so?” asked he, looking over her shoulder deep into -the little birch-wood, and then uneasy round about him. -</p> -<p> -“I guessed it,” said Marseli. “The kings of the land-fairies are -by-ordinar big, and the dagger is ever on their hips.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, indeed,” said the little fellow, “to say I was king were a bravado, -but I would not be just denying that I might be Prince.” - </p> -<p> -And that way their friendship began. -</p> -<p> -At the mouth of many nights when the fishing-boats were off at the -fishing, or sometimes even by day when her father and her two brothers -were chasing the signs of sea-pig and scart far down on Tarbert, Marseli -would meet her fairy friend in a cunning place at the Black-water-foot, -where the sea puts its arms well around a dainty waist of lost land. Here -one can see Loch Finne from Ardno to Strathlachlan: in front lift the long -lazy Cowal hills, and behind is Auchnabreac wood full of deer and birds. -Nowadays the Duke has his road round about this cunning fine place, but -then it lay forgotten among whins that never wanted bloom, and thick, -soft, salty grass. Two plantings of tall trees kept the wind off, and the -centre of it beaked in warm suns. It was like a garden standing out upon -the sea, cut off from the throng road at all tides by a cluster of salt -pools and an elbow of the Duglas Water. -</p> -<p> -Here the Sea-Fairy was always waiting for the girl, walking up and down in -one or other of the tree clumps. He had doffed his fine clothes after -their first meeting for plain ones, and came douce and soberly, but aye -with a small sword on his thigh. -</p> -<p> -The girl knew the folly of it; but tomorrow was always to be the last of -it, and every day brought new wonders to her. He fetched her rings once, -of cunning make, studded with, stones that tickled the eye in a way the -cairngorm and the Cromalt pearl could never come up to. -</p> -<p> -She would finger them as if they were the first blaeberries of a season -and she was feared to spoil their bloom, and in a rapture the Sea-Fairy -would watch the sparkle of eyes that were far before the jewels. -</p> -<p> -“Do your folk wear these?” she asked. -</p> -<p> -“Now and then,” he would say, “now and then. Ours is a strange family: -to-day we may have the best and the richest that is going, to-morrow who -so poor, without a dud to our backs and a mob crying for our heads?” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Ochanorie!</i> They are the lovely rings any way.” - </p> -<p> -“They might be better; they would need to be much better, my dear, to be -good enough for you.” - </p> -<p> -“For me!” - </p> -<p> -“They're yours—for a kiss or two,” and he put out an arm to wind -round the girl's waist. -</p> -<p> -Marseli drew back and put up her chin and down her brows. -</p> -<p> -“'<i>Stad!</i>” she cried. “We ken the worth of fairy gifts in these -parts. Your rings are, likely enough, but chuckie-stones if I could but -see them. Take them back, I must be going home.” - </p> -<p> -The little man took the jewels with a hot face and a laugh. -</p> -<p> -“Troth,” he said, “and the same fal-fals have done a lover's business with -more credit to them before this. There are dames in France who would give -their souls for them—and the one they belong to.” - </p> -<p> -“You have travelled?” said Marseli. “Of course a sea-fairy-” - </p> -<p> -“Can travel as he likes. You are not far wrong, my dear. Well, well, I ken -France! O France, France! round and about the cold world, where's your -equal?” - </p> -<p> -His eyes filled with tears, and the broad-cloth on his breast heaved -stormily, and Marseli saw that here was some sad thinking. -</p> -<p> -“Tell me of Fairydom,” said she, to change him off so dull a key. -</p> -<p> -“'Tis the same, the same. France and fairyland, 'tis the same, self-same, -madame,” said the sea-prince, with a hand on his heart and a bow. -</p> -<p> -He started to tell her of rich and rolling fields, flat and juicy, waving -to the wind; of country houses lost and drowned among flowers. “And all -the roads lead one way,” said he, “to a great and sparkling town. Rain or -shine, there is comfort, and there is the happy heart! The windows open on -the laughing lanes, and the girls lean out and look after us, who prance -by on our horses. There is the hollow hearty hoof-beat on the causey -stones; in the halls the tables gleam with silver and gold; the round red -apples roll over the platter among the slim-stemmed wine-beakers. It is -the time of soft talk and the head full of gallant thoughts. Then there -are the nights warm and soft, when the open doors let out the laughing and -the gliding of silk-shooned feet, and the airs come in heavy with the -scent of breckan and tree!” - </p> -<p> -“On my word,” said Marseli, “but it's like a girl's dream!” - </p> -<p> -“You may say it, black-eyes, <i>mo chridhe!</i> The wonder is that folk -can be found to live so far astray from it. Let me tell you of the -castles.” And he told Marseli of women sighing at the harp for -far-wandered ones, or sewing banners of gold. Trumpets and drums and the -tall chevaliers going briskly by with the jingle of sword on heel on the -highway to wars, every chevalier his love and a girl's hands warm upon his -heart. -</p> -<p> -That night Marseli went early abed to wander in fairydom. -</p> -<p> -Next day the sea-gentleman had with him a curious harp that was not -altogether a harp, and was hung over the neck by a ribbon. -</p> -<p> -“What hast here?” asked Marseli. -</p> -<p> -“A salve for a sore heart, lass! I can play on it some old tunes, and by -the magic of it I'm back in my father's home and unafeared.” - </p> -<p> -He drew his white fingers over the strings and made a thin twittering of -music sweeter than comes from the <i>clarsach</i>-strings, but foreign and -uncanny. To Marseli it brought notions of far-off affairs, half sweet, -half sad, like the edges of dreams and the moods that come on one in -loneliness and strange places, and one tune he played was a tune she had -heard the French traffickers sing in the bay in the slack seasons. -</p> -<p> -“Let me sing you a song,” said he, “all for yourself.” - </p> -<p> -“You are bard?” she said, with a pleased face. -</p> -<p> -He said nothing, but touched on the curious harp, and sang to the girl's -eyes, to the spark of them and the dance of them and the deep thought -lurking in their corners, to her lips crimson like the rowan and curled -with pride, to the set of breast and shoulder, and the voice melting on -the tongue. -</p> -<p> -It was all in the tune and the player's looks, for the words were fairy to -the girl, but so plain the story, her face burned, and her eyes filled -with a rare confusion. -</p> -<p> -“'Tis the enchantment of fairydom,” said she. “Am not I the <i>oinseach</i> -to listen? I'll warrant yon have sung the same to many a poor girl in all -airts of the world?” - </p> -<p> -The little one laughed and up with the shoulders. “On my sword,” quo' he, -“I could be content to sing to you and France for all my time. Wilt come -with a poor Prince on a Prince's honour?” - </p> -<p> -He kissed her with hot lips; his breath was in her hair; enchantment fell -on her like a plaid, but she tore herself away and ran home, his craving -following at her heels. -</p> -<p> -That night Marseli's brothers came to knives with the French traffickers, -and the morning saw the black-avised ones sailing out over-sea for home. -Back to French Foreland they came no more, and Finne-side took to its own -brewing for lack of the red wine of France. -</p> -<p> -That, too, was the last of the Sea-Fairy. -</p> -<p> -Marseli went to the Water-foot and waited, high tide and low; she cried -the old child tune and she redded her hair, but never again the little man -with the dainty clothes, and the sword upon his thigh. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -SHUDDERMAN SOLDIER -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>EYOND the Beannan is the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, and a stone-put farther -is the knowe where Shudderman Soldier died in the snow. He was a half-wit -who was wise enough in one thing, for he knew the heart of a maid, and the -proof of it came in the poor year, when the glen gathered its com in -boats, and the potato-shaws were black when they burst the ground, and the -catechist's horse came home by Dhuloch-side to a widow that reckoned on no -empty saddle. And this is the story. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Ho, ho, suas e!</i>” said the nor' wind, and the snow, and the black -frost, as they galloped down Glenaora like a leash of strong dogs. It was -there was the pretty business! The Salachary hills lost their sink and -swell in the great drifts that swirled on them in the night; the dumb -white swathes made a cold harvest on the flats of Kilmune; the frost -gripped tight at the throats of the burns, and turned the Salmon-Leap to a -stack of silver lances. A cold world it was, sure enough, at the mouth of -day! The bloodshot sun looked over Ben Ime for a little, and that was the -last of him. The sheep lay in the shoulder of the hill with the drift many -a crook's-length above them, and the cock-of-the-mountain and the white -grouse, driven on the blast, met death with a blind shock against the edge -of the larch-wood. -</p> -<p> -Up from Lochow, where Kames looks over to Cruachan, and Cruachan cocks his -grey cap against Lorn, a foolish lad came that day for a tryst that was -made by a wanton maid unthinking. Half-way over the hill he slipped on the -edge of a drift, and a sore wound in the side he got against a splinter of -the blue stone of the Quey's Rock; but he pushed on, with the blood oozing -through his cut vest. Yet, in spite of himself, he slept beyond the Bog of -the Fairy-Maid. <i>Mo-thruaigh! mo-thruaigh!</i> -</p> -<p> -The Fairy-Maid came and covered him up close and warm with a white blanket -that needs no posting, and sang the soft tune a man hears but once, and -kissed him on the beard as he slept in the drift—and his name had -been Ellar Ban. -</p> -<p> -Round by the king's good highroad came Solomon the carrier with his cart, -and many a time he thought of turning between Carnus and Kilmune. But he -was of the stuff of Clan Coll, and his mare was Proud Maisie. He had a -boll of meal from Portinsherrich, from the son of a widow woman who was -hungry in Inneraora and waiting for that same. -</p> -<p> -“No Ellar here yet!” he said at Kilmune when he asked, and they told him. -“Then there's a story to tell, for if he's not here, he's not at Karnes, -and his grave's on the grey mountain.” - </p> -<p> -Later came Luath, the collie of Ellar, slinking through the snow wet and -weary, and without wind enough for barking. 'Twas as good as the man's -ghost. -</p> -<p> -The shepherds came in from the fanks, and over from the curling at -Carlonan, to go on a search. -</p> -<p> -Long Duncan of Drimfem, the slim swarthy champion, was there before them. -He was a pretty man—the like never tied a shoe in Glenaora—and -he was the real one who had Mairi's eye, which the dead fellow thought had -the laugh only for him. But, lord! a young man with a good name with the -shinty and the <i>clachneart</i> has other things to think of than the -whims of women, and Donacha never noticed. -</p> -<p> -“We'll go up and see about it—about him at once, Main,” he said, -sick-sorry for the girl. All the rest stood round pitying, because her -kists were said to be full of her own spinning for the day that was not to -be. -</p> -<p> -Mairi took him to the other side of the peat-stack, and spoke with a red -face. -</p> -<p> -“Is it any use your going till the snow's off the hill, Drimfem?” she -said, biting at the corner of her brattie, and not looking the man in the -face. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Dhia gleiih sinn!</i> it's who knows when the white'll be off the -snouts of these hills, and we can't wait till—— I thought it -would ease your mind.” And Donacha looked at the maid stupid enough. For a -woman with her heart on the hill, cold, she was mighty queer on it. -</p> -<p> -“Yes, yes; but it's dangerous for you to go up, and the showers so heavy -yet. It's not twenty finger-lengths you can see in front of you, and you -might go into the bog.” - </p> -<p> -“Is't the bog I would be thinking of, Main? It's little fear there is of -that, for here is the man that has been on Salachary when the mist was -like smoke, as well as when the spittle froze in my mouth. Oh, I'm not the -one to talk; but where's the other like me?” - </p> -<p> -Mairi choked. “But, Dona—— but, Drimfem, it's dead Ellar must -be; and—and—you have a widow mother to mind.” Donacha looked -blank at the maid. She had the sweet face, yon curve of the lip, and the -soft turn of the neck of all Arthur's children, ripe of the cheek, with -tossed hair like a fairy of the lake, and the quirk of the eye that never -left a plain man at ease if he was under the threescore. There were knives -out in the glen for many a worse one. -</p> -<p> -It was the lee of the peat-stack they stood in, and the falling flakes -left for a while without a shroud a drop of crimson at the girl's feet. -She was gripping tight at her left wrist under the cover of her apron till -the nails cut the flesh. There was the stress of a dumb bard's sorrow in -her face; her heart was in her eyes, if there had been a woman to see it; -but Drimfern missed it, for he had no mind of the dance at the last Old -New Year, or the ploy at the sheep-dipping, or the nuts they cracked on -the hot peats at Hallowe'en. -</p> -<p> -The girl saw he was bound to go. He was as restless as if the snow was a -swarm of <i>seangans</i>. She had not two drops of blood in her lips, but -she tried to laugh as she took something out from a pocket and half held -it out to him. He did not understand at first, for if he was smart on the -<i>caman</i> ball, 'twas slow in the ways of women he was. -</p> -<p> -“It's daft I am. I don't know what it is, Donacha, but I had a dream that -wasn't canny last night, and I'm afraid, I'm afraid,” said the poor girl. -“I was going to give you——” - </p> -<p> -Drimfern could not get the meaning of the laugh, strained as it was. He -thought the maid's reason was wandering. -</p> -<p> -She had, whatever it was—a square piece of cloth of a woman's sewing—into -the man's hand before he knew what she would be after; and when his -fingers closed on it, she would have given a king's gold to get it back. -But the Tullich lads, and the Paymaster's shepherd from Lecknamban, with -Dol' Splendid and Francie Ro, in their plaids, and with their crooks, came -round the gable-end. Luath, who knew Glenaora as well as he knew Creag -Cranda, was with them, and away they went for the hill. All that Donacha -the blind one said, as he put the sewing in his pocket to look at again, -was, “Blessing with thee!” for all the world like a man for the fair. -</p> -<p> -Still the nor' wind, and the snow, and the dark frost said “<i>Suas e!</i>” - running down the glen like the strong dogs on the peching deer; and the -men were not a hundred yards away from the potato-pit when they were -ghosts that went out altogether, without a sound, like Drimendorran's Grey -Dame in the Red Forester's story. -</p> -<p> -A white face on a plump neck stood the sting of the storm dourly, though -the goodwife said it would kill her out there, and the father cried -“Shame!” on her sorrow, and her a maiden. “Where's the decency of you?” - says he, fierce-like; “if it was a widow you were this day you couldn't -show your heart more.” And into the house he went and supped two cogies of -brose, and swore at the <i>sgalag</i> for noticing that his cheeks were -wet. -</p> -<p> -When the searchers would be high on the hill Shudderman came on the maid. -He was a wizened, daft old one, always in a tinker Fencible's tartan trews -and scarlet doublet. He would pucker his bare brown face like a foreign -Italian, and whistle continually. The whistle was on his face when he came -on the girl standing behind the byre, looking up with a corpse's whiteness -where the Beannan should be. -</p> -<p> -“Te-he! Lord! but we're cunning,” said the soldier. “It's a pity about -Ellar, is it not, white darling?” - </p> -<p> -Mairi saw nothing, but swallowed a sob. Was this thing to know her secret, -when the wise old women of the glen never guessed it? There was something -that troubled her in his look. -</p> -<p> -The wee creature put his shoulder against the peats, and shoved each hand -up the other sleeve of his doublet, while he whistled soft, and cunningly -looked at the maid. The cords of her neck were working, and her breast -heaved sore, but she kept her teeth tight together. -</p> -<p> -“Ay, ay, it's an awful thing, and him so fond, too,” he went on; and his -face was nothing but a handful of wrinkles and peat-smoke. It was a bigger -ploy for the fool than a good dinner. -</p> -<p> -“What—who—who are you talking about, you poor <i>amadan?</i>” - cried Mairi, desperately. -</p> -<p> -“Och, it's yourself that'll know. They're saying over at Tullich and upbye -at Miss Jean's, Accurach, that it's a bonny pair you would make, you and -Ellar. Yonnat Yalla says he was the first Lochow man ever she saw that -would go a mile out of his way for a lass, and I saw him once come the -roundabout road by Cladich because it was too easy to meet you coming the -short cut over the hill. Oh! there's no doubt he was fond, fond, and-” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Amadan!</i>” cried the maid, with no canny light in her eyes. -</p> -<p> -“Hoots! You're not angry with me, darling. I ken, I ken. Of course -Drimfern's the swanky lad too, but it's not very safe this night on yon -same hill. There's the Bog of the Fairy-Maid that never was frozen yet, -and there's the Quey's Rock, and—te-he! I wouldn't give much for -some of them not coming back any more than poor Ellar. It's namely that -Drimfem got the bad eye from the Glenurchy woman come Martinmas next -because of his taking up with her cousin-german's girl, Morag Callum.” - </p> -<p> -“Yon <i>spàgachd</i> doll, indeed!” - </p> -<p> -“God, I do not know about that! but they're telling me he had her up at -all the reels at Baldy Geepie's wedding, whatever, and it's a Maclean -tartan frock she got for the same—I saw it with my own eyes.” - </p> -<p> -“Lies, lies, lies,” said the girl to herself her lips dry, her hands and -feet restless to do some crazy thing to kill the pain in her heart. -</p> -<p> -She was a little helpless bird in the hands of the silly one. -</p> -<p> -He was bursting himself inside with laughing, that couldn't be seen for -the snow and the cracks on his face. -</p> -<p> -“But it's not marriages nor tartan you'll be thinking on, Mairi, with your -own lad up there stiff. Let Morag have Drimfem——” - </p> -<p> -“You and your Morag! Shudderman, if it was not the crazy one you were, you -would see that a man like Donacha Drimfern would have no dealings with the -breed of MacCallum, tinker children of the sixty fools.” - </p> -<p> -“Fools here or fools there, look at them in the castle at Duntroon! And -Drimfern is——” - </p> -<p> -“Drimfern again! Who's thinking of Drimfern, the mother's big pet, the -soft, soft creature, the poor thing that's daft about the shinty and the -games—and—and—— Go inbye, haverer, and——oh, -my heart, my heart!” - </p> -<p> -“Cripple Callum,” whistled the daft wee one; and faith it was the great -sport he was having! The flame sparkled in the lass's eyes; she stamped -furiously in the snow. She could have gone into the house, but the -Shudderman would follow, and the devil was in him, and she might just as -well tell her story at the cross-roads as risk. So she stayed. -</p> -<p> -“Come in this minute, O foolish one!” her mother came to the door and -craved; but no. -</p> -<p> -The wee <i>bodach</i> took a wee pipe from his big poke and started at the -smoking. When his match went out the dark was almost flat on the glen, and -a night-hag complained with a wean's cry in the planting beyond the burn. -At each draw of the pipe the eyes of the soldier glinted like a ferret's, -and like any ferret's they were watching. He put in a word between-while -that stabbed the poor thing's heart, about the shame of love in maids -uncourted, and the cruelty of maids that cast love-looks for mischief. -There were some old havers about himself here and there among the words: -of a woman who changed her mind and went to another man's bed and board; -of sport up the glen, and burials beyond; and Ellar Ban's widow mother, -and the carry-on of Drimfem and the Glenurchy woman's cousin-german's -girl. And it was all ravelled, like the old story Loch Finne comes up on -the shore to tell when the moon's on Sithean Sluaidhe. -</p> -<p> -The girl was sobbing sore. “Man!” she said at last, “give me the peace of -a night till we know what is.” The <i>amadan</i> laughed at her, and went -shauchling down to the cotter's, and Mairi went in out of the darkness. -</p> -<p> -The hours passed and passed, and the same leash of strong dogs were -scouring like fury down Glenaora, and the moon looked a little through a -hole, and was sickly at the sight, and went by in a hurry. A collie's bark -in the night came to the house where the people waited round the peats, -and “Oh, my heart!” said poor Mairi. -</p> -<p> -The father took the tin lantern with the holes in it, and they all went -out to the house-end. The lantern-light stuck long needles in the night as -it swung on the goodman's finger, and the byre and the shed and the -peat-stack danced into the world and out of it, and the clouds were only -an arm's-length overhead. -</p> -<p> -The men were coming down the brae in the smother of snow, carrying -something in a plaid. The dog was done with its barking, and there was no -more sound from the coming ones than if they were ghosts. Like enough to -ghosts they looked. No one said a word till the goodman spoke. -</p> -<p> -“You have him there?” he said. -</p> -<p> -“Ay, <i>beatmachi leis!</i> all that there is of him,” said the -Paymaster's man; and they took it but an' ben, where Mairi's mother had -the white dambrod cloth she had meant for herself, when her own time came, -on the table. -</p> -<p> -“It's poor Ellar, indeed,” said the goodman, noticing the fair beard. -</p> -<p> -“Where's Donacha? where's Drimfern?” cried Mairi, who had pulled herself -together and come in from the byre-end, where she had waited to see if -there was none of the watchers behind. -</p> -<p> -The Paymaster's man was leaning against the press-door, with a face like -the clay; Dol' Splendid was putting a story in the <i>sgalag's</i> ear; -the Tullich men were very busy on it taking the snow off their boots. -Outside the wind had the sorry song of the curlew. -</p> -<p> -“Me-the-day! it's the story of this there is to tell,” at last said -Francie Ro, with a shake of the head. “Poor Drimfern——” - </p> -<p> -“Drimfem—ay, where's Drimfem in all the world?” said the goodman, -with a start. He was standing before his girl to keep her from seeing the -thing on the table till the wife had the boots covered. It was the face of -a <i>cailleach</i> of threescore Mairi had. -</p> -<p> -“It's God knows! We were taking Ellar there down, turn about resting. It -was a cruel business, for the drifts. There's blood on his side where he -fell somewhere, and Drimfern had to put a clout on it to keep the blood -off his plaid. That's Drimfern's plaid. When Donacha's second turn was -over up at the bog, we couldn't get a bit of him. He's as lost as the deer -the Duke shot, and we looked and whistled for hours.” The maid gave a wee -turn to the door, shivered, and fell like a clod at her mother's feet. -</p> -<p> -“Look at yon, now! Am not I the poor father altogether?” said the old man -with a soft lip to his friends. “Who would think, and her so healthy, and -not married to Ellar, that she would be so much put about? You'll excuse -it in her, lads, I know, for she's not twenty till the dipping-time, and -the mother maybe spoiled her.” - </p> -<p> -“Och, well,” said the Splendid one, twisting his bonnet uneasy in his -hands, “I've seen them daft enough over a living lad, and it's no great -wonder when this one's dead.” They took the maid beyond to the big room by -the kitchen, and a good mother's morning for Drimfern was set by the men. -They had a glass before going home, and when they were gone the <i>bochdans</i> -came in the deep hollow of the night and rattled the windows and shook the -door-sneck; but what cared yon long white thing on the goodwife's dambrod -tablecloth? -</p> -<p> -At the mouth of day there was one woman with a gnawing breast looking -about the glen-foot among the snow for the Shudder-man soldier. She found -him snedding the shaft of a shinny-stick at the Stronmagachan Gate, and -whistling as if it was six weeks south of Whitsunday and the woods piping -in the heat. -</p> -<p> -“I ken all about it, my white little lamb,” he said with a soft speech. -“All about them finding Ellar, and losing a better man, redding put her to -rights. A search in the maybe, but any way one that some will miss more.” - </p> -<p> -“God's heavy, heavy on a woman!” said the poor child. “I gave Donacha a -sampler with something sewn on it yesterday, and the men, when they go up -the hill to look for him to-day, will get it on him—and—it -would——” - </p> -<p> -“Ay, ay, ay! I ken, my dear. We'll put that right, or I'm no soldier.” And -the little man cocked his bonnet on his head like a piper. Then he was -sorry for the pride of it, and he pulled it down on his face, and whistled -to stop his nose from jagging. -</p> -<p> -“My heart! my bruised heart! they're saying sorry things of Ellar, and -Donacha dead. The cotter's wife was talking this morning, and it'll send -me daft!” - </p> -<p> -“Blind, blind,” quo' the soldier; “but you'll not be shamed, if the <i>amadan</i> -can help it.” - </p> -<p> -“But what can you do, my poor Shudderman? And yet—and yet—there's -no one between Carnus and Croit-bhile I can speak to of it.” - </p> -<p> -“Go home, white love, and I'll make it right,” said the daft one, and -faith he looked like meaning it. -</p> -<p> -“Who knows?” thought the girl. Shudderman was chief enough with the -Glenurchy woman, and the Glenurchy woman sometimes gave her spells to her -friends. So Mairi went home half comforted. -</p> -<p> -A cogie of brose and a bit braxy in his belly, and a farl of cake in his -poke, and out stepped the Shudderman with never a word to any one about -the end of his journey. Dol' Splendid had told him the story of the night -before, and whereabout Drimfern was lost, close beyond the Beannan. He -would find the body and the sampler, he promised himself as he plunged up -the brae at Taravh-dubh. The dogs were nearly as furious as the night -before, and the day's eye was blear. Hours passed, and the flats of -Kilmune were far below. -</p> -<p> -There was nothing in all the world but whiteness, and a silly old <i>bodach</i> -with a red coat trailing across it. Shudderman Soldier sank his head -between his shoulders as he pushed himself up with his hazel crook, his -tartan trews in rags about his ankles, his doublet letting in the teeth of -the wind here and there, and at the best grudging sore its too tight -shelter for his shrunk body. He had not the wind to whistle, but he gasped -bits of “Faill-il-o,” and between he swore terribly at the white hares -that jerked across in front of him with the ill-luck of a lifetime on -their backs. -</p> -<p> -If it was the earth that was white, the sky was not far behind it; if they -were paper, it would take schooling to write on them straight, for there -wasn't a line between them. The long sweep of Balantyre itself was lost, -and the Beannan stone was buried. The creature's brogues were clods of -snow, ugly, big, without a shape: his feet were lumps of ice; his knees -shook under his frail skinful of bones; but, by the black stones, 'twas -the man's heart he had! -</p> -<p> -When the snow made a paste on his win'ard cheek, he had it off with a jerk -of the head, and one of the jerks put off his bonnet. Its frozen ribbons -had been whipping his eyes, and he left it where it fell, with never a -glance over his shoulder. His hair clogged with flakes that kept the frost -even after they fell. It was a peching effort for the foot of the Beannan -brae. -</p> -<p> -“Poor lamb, poor Mairi, calf of my heart!” gasped the soldier to himself. -He was staggering half blind through the smother of snow, now and then -with a leg failing below him, and plunging him right or left. Once his -knees shut like a gardener's gully, and he made a crazy heap in the drift. -His tired wrists could hardly bring him up, and the corpse of the world -swung in his eyes when he was on his feet again and trying to steady -himself. -</p> -<p> -There's a green knoll beside the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, where the wee -folks dance reels when the moon's on it, and there the old fellow -struggled to. He thought if he was up there he would see some sign of what -he wanted. Up he pushed, with the hazel <i>cromag</i> bending behind him, -and his brogues slipping on the round snow-soles. Up he went, with the -pluck of a whole man, let alone a poor silly object; up he went till he -got his foot on the top, and then his heart failed, for he saw nothing of -what he sought. -</p> -<p> -“I'll look again when I'm out of this foolish sleep,—I'll see better -when I waken,” said the poor <i>amadan;</i> and behold the dogs were on -him! and he was a man who was. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<p> -For all that, the story tells, Drimfern was no ghost. When he was lost he -found Kames, where the Callum girl was that came to his fire-end later and -suckled his clan. And Ellar's mother, dressing her son's corpse in the -house at Kilmune, found on his wound a sampler that went with him to his -long home in green Inishail. Its letters, sewn in the folly of a woman, -told her story:— -</p> -<p> -“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than -wine.” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -WAR. -</h2> -<h3> -I. -</h3> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T was the pause of the morning, when time stands, and night and day -breathe hard ere they get to grips. A cock with a foggy throat started at -the crowing, down at Slochd-a-Chubair. Over from Stron a shrewd thin wind -came to make stir among the trees in the Duke's big garden, and the crows -rasped their beaks on the beech-branches, for they knew that here was the -day's forerunner. Still and on the town slept, stretched full out, dour -set on the business. Its quirky lanes and closes were as black as the pit. -There was only one light in all the place, and a big town and a bonny it -is, house and house with high outside stairs and glass windows, so that -the wonder is the King himself does not take thought to stay in it, even -if it were only for the comfort of it and the company of the MacCailein -Mor. Only one light, and that was splashing, yellow, and mixed with a -thick peat-reek, out of Jean Rob's open door, facing the bay, on the left, -on the Lowlands road. Now and then Jean would come to the door and stand, -a blob of darkness in the yellow light, to see if the day was afoot on Ben -Ime, or to throw a look at the front of the town for signs of folk -stirring. -</p> -<p> -“Not a peep, not a peep! Sleep! sleep! Few of them part with a man to-day -with so sore a heart as Jean Rob.” - </p> -<p> -Then back to her Culross girdle, for she was at the baking of bannocks to -go in her husband's <i>dorlach</i> for the wars. -</p> -<p> -She had not shut an eye all night. Rob snored at her side slow and heavy -while she lay on her back on a bed of white hay, staring up at the black -larch joists glinting with the red scad of the peats. She was a Crarae -woman, and that same people were given to be throng with the head, and she -kept thinking, thinking even on. At last she could bide it no longer, so -she up with a leap on the floor to face a new day and all the luck of it. -</p> -<p> -About the luck being good or ill there might be little doubt. It was the -year after they started at the building of the Castle, a laggard spring at -the hind-end of a cruel winter, with not a fin in all the seas for the -poor fishermen, and black mutton at six Saxon shillings the side. And what -the wars were about Jean Rob or her like little knew or cared. Very -little, like enough, as is the way with wars, but any way wars there were: -the Duke and his House would have it that their people must up and on with -belt and target, and away on the weary road like their fathers before -them. Some said it was the old game with the Inverlochy dogs (rive them -and seize them!); others, that some bastard was at variance with the Duke -about the Papist Stewarts—a silly lad called Tearlach with a pack of -wild Irishers and daddy Macleans and Macdonalds and Camerons from the -Isles and the North at his back. -</p> -<p> -“Bundle and Go” it was any way in Campbell country from Cruachan to Cowal, -from Cantyre to the march of Keppochan, and that's the fine rolling land -of sappy grasses and thick woods. In the heart and midst of it Duke Archie -played dirl on the boss of his shield on a cold March day, and before -night swords were at the sharping from shore to shore. That's war for ye— -</p> -<p> -quicker than flame, surer than word of mouth, and poor's the man who says -“What for?” to his chief. -</p> -<p> -Rob Donn, for all that, was vassal to no man; for he was come of the -swordsmiths of the glen, and they had paper to show that their rigs were -held for no service other than beating out good fighting steel on the -anvil. Poor, as he was, he could wear one feather in his bonnet if his -fancy was on feathers, and no one bragged more of his forefolk. But -Elrigmor—a thin old man with little stomach for quarrels—offered -twenty pounds English for a man to take his place with the Campbells; and -Rob took the money and the loan of Elrigmor's sword, half for the sake of -the money and half for the sake of a bit play with Sir Claymore. -</p> -<p> -Said he to his wife, jingling the Geordies in his hand on the day he got -them, “Here's the price of a hero; and troth it's little enough for a good -armsmith's blood!” - </p> -<p> -“Don't say it, Rob,” said Jean. -</p> -<p> -“Och! I am but laughing at thee, good-wife. Brave dogs would they be that -would face the tusks of the Diarmaid boars. Like the wind on the chaff—troosh!—we'll -scatter them! In a week I'll be home.” - </p> -<p> -“In a week?” - </p> -<p> -“To be sure, Jean. I'll buy with the money a stot or two on the road to -bring back with me, for there's little lifting in the Duke's corps, more's -the pity! My grandfather seldom came back from the wars without a few head -of cattle before him.” - </p> -<p> -So the money went in Rob Donn's sporran, and Jean would have bit her -tongue out before she would crave for part o't from a man going among -strangers and swords. -</p> -<p> -The bairn had but one word for her father from then till he started, and -that was “Cockade.” What it was the little one never knew, but that it was -something braw and costly, a plaything for a father to go far off for. -</p> -<p> -“Two or three of them, my white love!” would Rob Donn say, fond and -hearty. “They'll be as thick as nuts on the ground when we're done of the -gentry that wear them on their bonnets.” And he had a soft wet eye for the -child, a weakling, white and thin, never quite the better of the snell -winds of winter. If cockades, indeed, were to be had for the fighting of a -fortnight without sleep, Rob Donn would have them for her. -</p> -<p> -So now was the morning to put on fighting gear and go on the foray for -white cockades. -</p> -<p> -By-and-by a cruisie-light crept out at the gables of the town, and the -darkness filled with the smell of new peat burning. Aora, spluttering past -Jean Rob's door with a gulp into the Cooper's Pool, made, within the -house, the only sound of the morning. -</p> -<p> -Jean scraped the meal off her hands and went again to the door to look -about and listen. -</p> -<p> -“Ay, ay! up at last,” she said to herself. -</p> -<p> -“There's the Major's light, and Kate Mhor up for the making of his -breakfast, and a lowe in the weaver's shed. The Provost's is dark—poor -man!—it's little his lady is caring!” - </p> -<p> -She was going to turn about and in, when the squeal of a bagpipe came from -the town-head, and the player started to put his drones in order. “Ochan! -ochan!” said poor Jean, for here, indeed, was the end of her hopes; there -was no putting back from the Duke's errand. She listened a little to the -tuning as if it was the finest of <i>piobaireachds</i>, and it brought a -curious notion to her mind of the first reel she danced with her man to -the squeezing of that same sheepskin. Then the reeds roared into the air -of “Baile Inneraora.” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Och a Dhé! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob!”</i> she cried in to the -man among the blankets, but there was no need for the summons. The -gathering rang far ben in the chambers of sleep, and Rob was stark awake, -with a grasp at his hip for the claymore. -</p> -<p> -“Troth! I thought it was the camp! and them on us,” he laughed foolishly -in his beard. -</p> -<p> -Up and down the street went Dol' Dubh, the Duke's second piper, the same -who learned the art of music right well from the Macruimens of Boreraig, -and he had as sweet a finger on the chanter as Padruig himself, with the -nerve to go round the world. Fine, fine it was for him, be sure, to be the -summoner to battle! Lights jumped to the little lozens of the windows and -made streaks on the cracks of the doors, and the Major's man came from his -loft ganting with a mouth like the glee'd gun, a lantern swinging on a -finger, making for the stable to saddle his master's horse. A garret -window went up with a bang, and Peter MacIntyre, wright, pat out a towsy -head and snuffed the air. It was low tide in the two bays, and the town -was smelling less of peat-reek than of sea-wrack and saltness. One star -hung in the north over Dunchuach. -</p> -<p> -“They have the good day for starting the jaunt, whatever,” said the -wright. “If I was a stone or two lighter, and had one to look after the -shop, it's off on this ploy I would be too.” He took in his head, the top -nodding briskly on his Kilmarnock bonnet, and wakened the wife to help him -on with his clothes. -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“Aora, Aora, Baile Inneraora, -I got a bidding to Baile Inneraora; -I got the bidding, but little they gave me, -Aora, Aora, Baile Chailein Mhoir!” - </pre> -<p> -Dol' Dubh was up at the Cross, swelled out like a net-bow, blasting -furiously, his heart athump with the piper's zest. Doors drummed, windows -screeched in their cases, women's voices went from land to land, and the -laugh and cry of bairns new roused from the hot toss of dreams. Far up the -highroad a horse's hoofs were dunting hollow and hearty on the stones, and -by-and-by through the Arches trotted the Cornal, his tall body straight -and black against the dun of the gables. He had a voice like a rutting -deer. “Master Piper,” he roared to Dol' Dubh, tugging his beast back on -its haunches, “stop that braggart air and give us 'Bundle and Go,' and God -help the Campbell that's not on the Cadger's Quay before the sun's over -Stron Point!” - </p> -<p> -“Where is the air like it?” said Dol' to himself, slacking a reed with a -thumb-nail. “Well they ken it where little they love it with its -vaunting!” But he up with his drones on his shoulder and into the tune -that had the Cornal's fancy. Beside him the Cornal stood at his horse's -stirrup in the grey-brown of the morning, his head still light with the -bottle of claret wine his lady in Lecknamban had put before him ere he had -boot over saddle. -</p> -<p> -Then the town stirred to its affairs. The Major's horse went clattering -over the cobblestones to his door-end, the arm-room door opened, and old -Nanny Bheag, who kept the key, was lifted off her feet and in, on the rush -of young lads making for the new guns Lome Clerk had up from the Low -Country. On the belts of the older men, loth to leave the fire-end, -mothers and wives were hanging bags with thick farls of cake, and cheese, -and the old Aora salve for swordcuts. -</p> -<p> -If they had their way of it, these <i>caille-achan</i>, the fighting gear -would be all kebbucks of cheese and dry hose, and no powder and ball. The -men blustered, high-breasted, with big words in their beards, and no name -too dirty for the crew they were off to scatter—praising themselves -and making the fine prophecies, as their folks did before them with better -rights when the town was more in the way of going to wars. Or they roundly -scolded the weans for making noise, though their eyes were learning every -twist of the copper hair and every trick of the last moment, to think on -when long and dreary would be the road before them. -</p> -<p> -There was a break in Dol' Dubh's music, and high over the big town rang -the Cornal's voice, starting the bairns in their sleep and setting them up -and screaming. -</p> -<p> -“Laggards! laggards! O lazy ones! Out! out! Campbells before were never so -swear't to be marching. It is time to be steeping the withies!” - </p> -<p> -Hard back went the stout doors on the walls, and out ran the folk. The -brogues skliffed and hammered; men with muskets, swords, dirks, and targes -ran down the street, and women and children behind them. A tumult filled -the town from side to side and end to end, and the lanes and closes were -streaming with the light from gaping doors. -</p> -<p> -Old and young, the boy and the snooded girl, women with bairn at breast, -<i>bodach</i> and <i>cailleach</i>, took to the Cross muster, leaving the -houses open to the wind and to the world. The cats thrummed by the fires, -and the smell of the sea-wrack came in beside them. -</p> -<p> -“I have you here at last,” said the Cornal, dour and dark, throwing his -keen eyes along the row of men. “Little credit are ye to my clan and -chief, and here's to the Lowlands low, and would to God I was there now -among the true soldados with stomachs for slaughter and the right skill of -fence and musketoon! A short tulzie, and a tow at the thrapple of bastard -Chevalier would there be in that case. Here's but a wheen herds, weavers, -and gillies holding Brown Betty like a kail-runt!” - </p> -<p> -He was one of the Craignish Campbells, the Cornal—Dugald, brother of -Lachan who got death at a place called Fontenoy in the summer before—very -sib to the Duke, and it behoved the town-men to say nothing. But they -cursed his eyes to each other on the corners of their mouths, and if he -knew it he had sense enough to say nothing. -</p> -<p> -The women and bairns and the old folks stood in a great crowd behind the -Cornal's horse. The Major's mare with him in the sell was dancing an -uncanny spring near the Arches, full of freshness and fine feeding as a -battle-horse should be, but overly much that way for a man sixteen -finger-lengths round the belly and full of fish and ale. From Glen Beag -came the slow morning, gusty and stinging; Stob-an-Eas stood black against -the grey of it; the tide stretched from shore to shore unfriendly and -forlorn. -</p> -<p> -Jean Rob, with the bairn at her brattie-string, was with the other women -seeing her man away, stupid with two sorrows—one because he was -going, and the other because he had twenty pounds in his sporran that he -might well be doing without; for he was leaving the woman without a groat, -and only a boll of meal in the girnel and a wee firkin of salted fish. -</p> -<p> -The steady breeze came yet from Stron, and sat snug in the sails of the -six boats that carried the Duke's men over to Cowal. Brog-and-Turk's skiff -put out first, himself at the helm in his tarry jacket; the others, deep -down, followed close on her heels. One by one they fell off from the quay. -The men waved their bonnets and cried cheerily and vaunting, as was aye -the good grace of Clan Diarmaid at the first and the last of forays. -</p> -<p> -“Blessings with ye!” cried the folk left behind, wet-eyed; and even the -Provost's wife took a grief at her inside to see her man with a shaking -lip look round the sail of the hin'most boat. Cheering and weeping, -singing and <i>ochain!</i> there they were on the quay and on the sea, our -own folk, our dear folk; and who were ever like them when it came to the -bit, and stout hearts or kind hearts were wanted? -</p> -<p> -“Stand back, kindred!” cried the Cornal, putting spurs to his horse, and -he pranced up the town-head, a pretty man, to join the Major and gallop -round the loch-head to join the corps at Cairn-dubh. -</p> -<p> -Dol' Dubh stopped his playing at the bow of Brog-an-Turk's skiff when she -gulped the first quaich of brine, and the men in all the boats started to -sing the old boat-song of “Aora Mo Chridhe tha mi seoladh”— -</p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -“Aora, my heart, I am sailing, sailing, -Far to the South on the slope of the sea; -Aora <i>mo chridhe</i>, it is cold is the far land, -Bitter the stranger with wands on his doorway. -Aora Mochree!” - </pre> -<p> -It came back on the wind with a sorrow to break hearts, sinking and -swelling as the wind took the fancy, and the long-necked herons stood on -the fringe of the tide with their heads high to listen. The sails got -scattered and shrunk, and the tune got thin and low, and lost at last in -the swish of the waves on the shore, and the ears of those who listened -heard the curlew piping cursedly loud over the Cooper's Pool. A grey cold -day with rain on the tail of it. High Creag Dubh with its firs and alders -and rowans stark and careless over the hollow town. Broad day and -brightness, and the cruisies and candles burning the ghosts of flame in -the empty houses, with doors wide to the empty street and the lanes and -closes! -</p> -<h3> -II. -</h3> -<p> -The wanderer has ever the best of it, and wae wae are the hearts behind I -Is it for war or sport, or for the red gold, that a man turns heel on his -home and takes the world for his pillow? In his pack is the salve for care -as well as for sword-cuts, for ever and always are new things happening. -The road crooks through the curious glens; the beasts trot among the grass -and fern and into the woods; the girls (the dear ones, the red-lipped -ones!) come from the milking of the white-shouldered cattle and look with -soft black eyes as he passes, and there is a new tale at the corner of -every change-house fire. All that may befall a packman; but better's the -lot of the fighter with steel at his haunch, fire at his heart, and every -halt a day closer to them he would be seeking. -</p> -<p> -But the folks behind in the old place! <i>Mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!</i> -Daybreak, and hot sun, and the creeping in of the night, when the door -must be snecked on the rover; the same place, and still with a want in it, -and only guessing at where and how is the loved one out on strange ways on -the broad world. -</p> -<p> -Far up the long Highlands the Campbells were on their way. Loch Sloy and -Glen Falloch, Rannoch's bleakness and Ben Alder's steepness, and each -morning its own wet grass and misty brae, and each night its dreams on the -springy heather. -</p> -<p> -A woman was weeping on Achadunan because that her man was gone and her -chimney stone was cold, and Rob Donn's sporran was emptied at her feet, -though he knew not so much as the name of her. But he took a thought and -said, “I'll keep the half, for long's the way before us, and ill is -travelling among strangers without a round-piece in the purse.” That was -but a day's march from Jean Rob, and she was making a supper of crowdie -that was the first meal of the day. -</p> -<p> -On Spey-side was the camp of the Argylls, and card-play round the fires, -with the muskets shining, and the pipes playing sweeter for slumber than -for rouse. -</p> -<p> -“I will put my watch on this turn,” said a black Lowlander in the heat of -the game. -</p> -<p> -“Rob Donn's watch is the sun on Toman-uardar,” said our hero, “but here -are ten yellow Geordies,” and out went his fortune among the roots of the -gall. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Troosh! beannachd leat!</i>” and the coin was a jingle in the other -one's pouch. -</p> -<p> -“I have plenty more where it came from, and cattle enough forbye,” said -our braggart, and he turned on his elbow whistling “Crodh Chailein.” - </p> -<p> -But let them follow the drum who will, for us the story's beside the -hearth. It is not a clatter of steel and the tulzies of Chevaliers, but -the death of an only bairn. -</p> -<p> -In her house on the Lowlands road Jean Rob starved with the true Highland -pride, that sets a face content against the world at kirk or market. -Between her and a craving stomach lay but shell-fish and herbs, for she -had not a plack to spend, and the little one got all the milk that came -from Mally, the dappled one, drying up for calving. Break of day would see -the woman, white, thin, keen-eyed, out on the ebb before the fishing-boats -were in, splashing in the pools in the sand for partans and clabbie-doos, -or with two ready fingers piercing the sand to pull the long spout-fish -from his hiding. Or she would put little stakes in the sand, and between -them a taut line with baited hooks to coax the fish at high tide. But ill -was her luck, indeed, for few were the fish that came to the lure to be -lifted again at ebb. -</p> -<p> -Above Kilmalieu on the sea side of Dunchu-ach, in the tangle and dark of -the trees, among the soft splashing soil, the wild leeks gave a scent to -the air. These would Jean gather, and the nettle too, and turn them to -thin broth; but that same was no fare for a Crarae stomach. -</p> -<p> -At night when the wee one slept, the mother would have her plaid on her -head, and through the town, barefoot, in the darkness, passing the folk at -the close-mouths quickly for fear they would speak to her, and her heart -would crave for share of the noble supper that made steam from the door of -her cousin the rich merchant. -</p> -<p> -Like a ghost sometimes, wandering about the Cadger's Quay or the -gutting-stools, where she would be looking for a dropped giley or a bake -from the nets, she would come on a young woman. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Dhe!</i> Jean Rob! is it thyself that is here?” - </p> -<p> -“Just Jean, my darling, for a little turn, because of the stir in the -town, and the smell of the barking nets. Well I like the smell of the -bark, and the wind takes little of it up the Lowlands road.” - </p> -<p> -“Thou art not coming out much since the men went to the North. Art well at -the house—the little one, now, bless her?” - </p> -<p> -“Splendid, splendid, <i>m' eudail</i>. Faith, it is too fat we will be -getting on the fortune Rob got from Elrigmor.” - </p> -<p> -“Indeed, yes, Jean, it was the great luck! When a poor person comes——” - </p> -<p> -“Hut tut! Poor nor rich, my people had their own place on Lochowside, and -little did my Rob need MacNicol's dirty money; but he was aye fond of a -'horo-yally,' and that's the way of his being among them.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, well, if that's the way, our own people were good enough on a time; -but a pedigree, thou wilt allow, is a poor plaster for a pain in the -stomach. For me, I would have a good shaking of herring and money in the -town. It was but black brochan for our one meal to-day, and my mother -poorly.” - </p> -<p> -“My dear! <i>och</i>, my dear! and I to brag of plenty! Little enough, in -truth, is on my own board; but I have a boiling of meal if you come for it -in the morning.” - </p> -<p> -“Kindly, kindly, thou good dame. It would be but a loan.” - </p> -<p> -“Yes, indeed, one will be running out of the wherewithal now and again, -and 'twas aye 'Mine is yours and yours is mine' in Gaeldom. But I must be -stepping.” - </p> -<p> -And while Jean Rob starved, there was never a word from the best and -bravest off at the wars, or how they fared, only now and then a half tale -from a travelling caird or a Low-Country carrier about gatherings and -skirling pipes and hard knocks. His Grace himself kept a horse or two and -a good rider on the other side of the Rest, to gallop hot-hoof into the -Castle with the first news of how his clan won; but weary was the waiting. -</p> -<p> -The town took to its old appearance, the aged men clack-clacking with the -shuttle, the boys scattering seed over the rig-and-fur of the ploughed -fields, the women minding their houses. And that, too, is war for ye! The -dirk is out, the brogues trail over the hills and through the glens, the -clans meet and clash, the full heart belches blood, the grass soaks, the -world and the chance of it is put on the luck of a swinging stroke at yon -one's neck. War! war! red and lusty—the jar of it fills the land! -But oh, <i>mo chridhe!</i> home in Glen Shie are women and bairns living -their own day's life, and the crack will be blithe in the sheilings to -come, for all your quarrels. Where is Hector, and where is -Gilean-of-the-Axe, and where is Diarmaid of the boar's snout? They are all -gone but for an old song at the sheiling-fire, and life, love, and the -Fell Sergeant still come and go in the place the warriors made such stir -in! A stranger would think there was little amiss in the Duke's town. The -women sang their long songs of love and yore as they span about the wheel -and carded the wool; the bairns guddled in Jumping John's burn, and tore -their kilts among the whins, and came home with the crows, redfaced and -hungry-warned. At the ale-house there was traffic by day, and heavy -drovers and gaugers stamped their feet to the choruses at night. The day -lengthened, and comforting winds came from the two bonny black glens; the -bracken put on new growths, like the crook of St Molach that's up-by in -the Castle; Easachosain reeled to the piping of birds. -</p> -<p> -There might be an eye many times a-day on the Stron Point to see if a -horseman was rounding it, and the cruisies were kept burning a little -longer at night in case the news would come in the darkness like the Athol -thieves. But patience was ever the gift of the Gael, and few lost heart. -</p> -<p> -And at last the news came of Culloden Moor. -</p> -<p> -It was on a Sunday—a dry clear day—and all the folk were at -the church, with old Colin the minister sweating at it for the good of the -Ceannloch fishermen in the loft. He was in the middle of his prayer when a -noise came over the town, a dunting of hoofs on the causey of the -Provost's house-front. -</p> -<p> -“Amen!” said the cunning Colin, quick as could be, and then, “Friends, -here is news for us,” and down the pulpit steps he ran briskly like a lad -of twenty. -</p> -<p> -Peter MacIntyre set back the bolt from the door with a bang, and past him -the people made rush. The Duke's rider from over the Rest was there in the -saddle of a grey garron foaming at the mouth and its hurdies in a tremble. -</p> -<p> -“Your tidings, your tidings, good man!” cried the people. -</p> -<p> -The lad sat stark in the saddle, with his eyes wet and his nose pricking -with the Gaelic pride. -</p> -<p> -“I have been at the Castle, and-” - </p> -<p> -“Your news, just man.” - </p> -<p> -“I have been at the Castle, and Mac-Cailein Mor, who said I rode well from -the Rest, said I might come in-by and carry my budget to you.” - </p> -<p> -“Out with it, Paruig, little hero. Is't good or ill?” - </p> -<p> -“What would it be, my heroes, with our own lads, but good? Where's the -beat of them? It's 'The Glen is Mine' Dol' Dubh will be playing this day -on Culloden, for ours is the battle. They scattered the dirty Northmen and -the Irishers like chaff, and Cailein Mor himself gave me a horn of ale -from his own hands on the head o't.” - </p> -<p> -A roar went up that stirred the crows on Scaurnoch, and there was a Sunday -spoiled for you; for the ale went free and merry in the change-house at -the Duke's charge till the moon was over Ben Ime. -</p> -<p> -But there were five houses with the clocks stopped (for the ghosts take no -heed of time); five houses with the glasses turned face to the wall (for -who dare look in glass to see a wraith at the back of the shoulder?); -there were four widows and five mothers wet faced, keening for five fine -men who had been, and whose names were now writ on paper on the church -door. -</p> -<h3> -III. -</h3> -<p> -Day followed day, and still home came no Campbells. They were far to the -dreary North, plying sword and fire among the bad clans, harrying for the -glory of Mac-Cailein Mor. -</p> -<p> -And at last on a day the sea-pigs rolled and blew off Stron Point, and the -scarts dived like arrows from the sun's eye, deep into a loch boiling with -fish. Night found the brown sails bellying out on the scudding smacks, and -the snouts of skiff and galley tearing the waves to get among the spoil. -Bow-to-back, the nets spotted Finne mile on mile; the kind herrings -crowded thick into them; the old luck was back, and the quays in the -morning heard the fine tune of the cadger's clinking silver. In a hurry of -hurries the fleet came up to the mouth of Shira—Tarbert men, -Strathlachlan men, Minard men, black fellows from MacCallum country, and -the wine-traffickers from French Foreland to swap sour claret for the -sweet fat fish. -</p> -<p> -It was ho-rol and spill the bicker in yon town, for all that the best of -its men were away and afar at the killing. The smoke was black from the -fires in the Cooper's Pool, the good healthy smell of the gut-pots sought -up to the Castle door. Little doubt his Grace (<i>beannachd leis!</i>) -would come out to the door-step and curse because it made him bock his -breakfast, dainty man! -</p> -<p> -Throng though the town was, round about the little house on the left of -the Lowlands Road crept a queer quietness. The cow had dried, and the dull -weather kept the spout fish too deep down in the sand for the ready -fingers to reach them. So the household of Rob Donn starved to the bone. -</p> -<p> -“To-morrow—they will be home tomorrow,” said Jean to herself every -day to keep up her heart; but the days went by, and though it was -something to know that Rob was not among the killed at Culloden, it was -not something to stay the stomach. A stone-throw off were the best and -kindest hearts in the world: the woman's cousin, the rich merchant, would -give all he had on his board if he knew her trouble, and friends without -number would share the last bite with her. But to ask it would be to say -she was at the lowest, and to tell that Rob had left her nothing, and she -would sooner die in her pride. -</p> -<p> -Such people as passed her way—and some of them old gossips—would -have gone in, but the withie was aye across the door, and that's the sign -that business is doing within no one dare disturb. The withie was ever -there except at night, when Jean was scouring the countryside for -something to eat. -</p> -<p> -The bairn dwined so fast that even the mother (and blind indeed's the -mother at that bit) saw a little of it. There was no longer the -creepie-stool at the back of the house, in the sun, and the bairn on it, -watching the birds; her shanks grew thin like spirtles; her eyes sank far -ben in her face, and she would not go the length of the door. She sat at -the fireside and laughed her poor cold laugh less every day, till one long -thought came to her that kept her busy at the thinking from morning till -night with a face like a <i>cailleach</i> of eighty. -</p> -<p> -“White love, white love,” Jean would be saying, “your father is on the -road with stots and a pouch of cockades.” - </p> -<p> -At that the bairn would come back from her roaming; but soon she was off -again into the deeps of mind, her wide eyes like the windows of an empty -house for all that could be seen through them. -</p> -<p> -“Oh! but it will be the fine cockade,” poor Jean would press—“what -am I saying?—the pack of your father will be full of them. Not the -white ones of silk only, but the red and the grassy green, my little calf. -You'll be wearing them when you will.” - </p> -<p> -No heeding in the bairn's face. -</p> -<p> -Then Jean would go out and pull the tansy at the door, and give it to the -little one to get the fine scent. The curious shells from the shore, too, -would she gather, and lay in rings about the chair, and call her the Queen -in her castle. For ever would there be a song at her lips, even if the -drops would be in her eyes—old daft songs from fairs and weddings, -and fairy rhyming and cheery stories about the Good People up on Sithean -Sluaidhe. Her fingers were for ever soft about the bairn, her flesh and -blood, stroking in the hair, softening the cushion, petting her in every -hand's-turn. She made a treat to herself by asking her, now and then, -something that had to be answered “Yes” or “No,” and “Mother” was so sweet -in her ears that she would be content to hear no more in all her lifetime. -</p> -<p> -All the day the bairn crouched up in a hoop-chair with her neck slack and -her chin on her breast. Jean was loth to leave her in her bed in the -mornings, for she had a notion that to get her out of the blankets and to -put her in the clothes of the busy world would be to keep her in the trim -for living on. -</p> -<p> -Still there was no sign of the men returning. Often was Jean's foot at the -door and her hand over her eyes to see if there was no stir at Stron or -Kilachatrine, and but for good stuff, her heart failed five-score times -a-day. -</p> -<p> -At last, on a day of days, the bairn could not be stirred to notice -anything. The tansy fell out of her fingers, and she picked at the wool of -the plaid that wrapped her; the shells had no charm for her eye. -</p> -<p> -Jean made the pack of the coming father as routh as a magic cave. “That -father of yours, darling, what a many wonderful things he will bring! I -see him on the road. Stots, and cows with milk brimming from the udders, -and a pet sheep for his <i>caileag bheag</i>; pretty gold and silver -things, and brooches and shining stuff. That father of yours! Hurry, -father, hurry! Jingling things, and wee fairy-men, and bells to ring for -you, m' eudail; pretty glasses and dishes to play with, and—O my -darling! my darling!” - </p> -<p> -The bairn's face lost the deep red spots; her little mouth slacked and -fell; her eyes shut on the sight of the fine things her poor mother made -for her out of a rich and willing mind. -</p> -<p> -Jean lifted her and put her on the bed, and ran with a gutting-knife to -where Mally the dappled one lay at the back. -</p> -<p> -“I must be doing it!” said the woman, and she bled the brute as they do in -the poor years in Lorn, and took the cogie of blood into the house to make -a pudding of. The last handful of meal in the girael went into the pot -with the warm blood, and she was stirring it with a spoon over the fire -when the child cluttered at the throat. -</p> -<p> -Jean turned about with a cry, and at the minute a bagpipe's lilting came -over the glassy bay from Stron Point. -</p> -<p> -It was Clan Campbell back from the wars, the heroes! clouted about the -heads and with stains on their red waistcoats that were thicker than wine -makes. Dol' Dubh played the old port, sweet and jaunty, at the head of -them; the Cornal and the Major snuffed the herrings and said, “Here's our -own place, sure enough! See the smoke from our own peats! And the fine -cock of the cap on Dunchuach!” - </p> -<p> -On the Lowlands road the town emptied itself, and the folks ran fast and -furious—the boys first, the young women next, and the old folks -peching behind. But if the town was up on the warriors soon, the Duke -himself was before it. He saw the first of the Company from the Castle, -and he was in the saddle for all his threescore, like a boy, and down like -the wind to Boshang Gate. -</p> -<p> -“Halt!” cried the Cornal to his men, and Dol' Dubh's bag emptied itself -with a grant. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Tha sibh an sol!</i> You are here, cousin,” said the Duke. “Proud am I -to see you and our good lads. They did the old trick well!” - </p> -<p> -“They did that, MacCailein. The stuff's aye to the fore.” - </p> -<p> -“It's in the blood, man. We have't in us, high or low. I have but one -thing to vex me.” - </p> -<p> -“Name it, cousin.” - </p> -<p> -“Well ye ken, Cornai. It's that I had not been with you to see the last -crushing Clan Campbell may need to give to an asp's head.” - </p> -<p> -“It was a good ploy missed, I'll not deny.” - </p> -<p> -“What about the Tearlach one? Well plucked, they are telling me?” - </p> -<p> -“As foolish a lad as ever put tartan on hip, my lord! Frenchy, Frenchy, -MacCailein! all outside and no cognisance. Yourself or any of your -forebears at the head of his clans could have scoured all Albainn of -Geordie's Low-Country red-coats, and yet there were only six thousand true -Gaels in all the fellow's corps.” - </p> -<p> -“To read my letters, you would think the whole North was on fire!” - </p> -<p> -“A bantam's crow, cousin. Clan Campbell itself could have thrawed the neck -of it at any time up to Dunedin.” - </p> -<p> -“They made a fair stand, did they not? -</p> -<p> -“Uch! Poor eno'—indeed it was not what you would call a coward's -tulzie either.” - </p> -<p> -“Well, well, that's over, lads I I am proud of my clan and town. <i>Slochd -a Chubair gu bragh!</i> Stack your guns in the arm-room, see your wives -and bairns, and come up-by to the Castle for the heroes' bite and sup. -Who's that with the white cockade in his bonnet? Is't Rob Donn?” - </p> -<p> -“It is Rob Donn, cousin, with a bit of the ribbon contrivance for the -diversion of his bairn. He tore it from the bonnet of the seventh man he -put an end to.” - </p> -<p> -“There's luck in the number, any way, though it was a dear plaything. -March!” Down the road, with their friends hanging about them, and the boys -carrying guns and knapsacks, went the men for the town, and Rob Donn left -the company as it passed near his own door. -</p> -<p> -“Faith! 'tis a poor enough home-coming, without wife or bairn to meet -one,” said he, as he pushed in the door. -</p> -<p> -“Wife! wife!” he cried ben among the peat-reek, “there's never a stot, but -here's the cockade for the little one!” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -A FINE PAIR OF SHOES -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE beginnings of things are to be well considered—we have all a -little of that art; but to end well and wisely is the gift of few. Hunters -and herds on the corri and the hill—they are at the simple end of -life, and ken the need for the task complete. The stag must be gralloched -ere ye brag of him, the drove must be at the market ere ye say anything of -the honesty of the glens ye pass through. -</p> -<p> -And what I like best about our own Gaels is their habit of bringing the -work of a day or the work of a lifetime to what (in their own notions) is -an end round and polished. -</p> -<p> -When our women die, they do it with something of a daintiness. Their -dead-clothes are in the awmrie; I have seen them with the cakes toasted -and the board set for their funerals. Travelling wide on unfriendly -foreign roads, living by sword or wit, you know that our men, the poorest -among them, with an empty sporran, kept the buttons of their duds of good -silver, to pay, if need be, for something more than a gangrel's burial. I -like to think of him in story who, at his end in bed, made the folk trick -him out in gallant style with tartan, targe, brogue, and bonnet, and the -sword in his hand. -</p> -<p> -“A Gaelic gentleman,” said he, “should come to his journey's end somewhat -snod and well-put-on.” And his son played “Cha till mi tuilidh” (“I return -no more”) on the bag-pipe by his firm command. -</p> -<p> -It is not even in this unco undertaking of Death that the polish must be -put on the task (though poor's the creature who dies clumsily); it should -be the same with every task of a day. -</p> -<p> -And so Baldi Crom, making a fine pair of shoes on a day in Carnus, put the -best skill of his fingers to every stitch. He had been working at them -since the command came in the morning, and now it was the mouth of night, -and on one of them the finest of the fine sewing was still to do. About -the place there was nobody but the old man, for he was the last, in a way, -of the old stock of Carnus (now a <i>larach</i> of low lintels, and the -nettle over all); and he was without woman to put <i>caschrom</i> to his -soil or hip to a creel of peats. And so he lived on the brae of Camus—that -same far up and lonely in the long glen. -</p> -<p> -“They'll be the best I ever put brog in,” said he, looking fondly at the -fine work, the yellow thread standing out on the toes, patterned like a -leaf of the whortleberry, set about with the serpent-work of the old -crosses. Bite nor sap, kail nor crowdie, did he taste all day. Working in -the light of his open door, he could see, if he had the notion, the whole -glen rolled out before him, brimming with sun, crossed in the heat of the -day by deer from Dalavich seeking for the woods of Loch Finne; the blue -reek of the townships at the far end might have cheered him with the -thought that life was in sight though his house was lonely. But crouped -over the lap-stone, he made love to his work, heeding nothing else but the -sewing of the fine pair of shoes. -</p> -<p> -It was the night before the town market. Droves of bellowing cattle—heifers, -stots, and stirks—were going down the glen from Port Sonachan, -cropping hurried mouthfuls by the way as they went and as the dogs would -let them. And three Benderloch drovers came off the road and into Baldi -Crom's house, after the night was down on the glen and he had the cruisie -lighted. They sat them down round the fire in the middle of the floor and -ate bannocks and cheese. -</p> -<p> -“How's thy family, 'Illeasbuig?” said a drover, stirring up the peat as if -he were at his own door-end. Down on the roadside the cattle, black and -yellow, crushed the sappy grass and mourned in bellows for their lost -fields. -</p> -<p> -“Splendid! splendid!” said the old man, double over his shoes, fondling -them with the fingers of a mother on a first baby. The light was low in -the cruisie, for the oil was well down, and the fire and the cruisie made -a ring of light that could scarcely slip over the backs of the men sitting -round the peats. A goat scratched his head but-and-ben against the -wattles; in corners the darkness was brown and thick. -</p> -<p> -“I hear Cailen's in the Low-country, but what has come of Tormaid?” said -one, with knee-breeches, and hose of coarse worsted. -</p> -<p> -The old man gave a quick start, and the lapstone fell from his knees, the -shoe he was at with it. He bent over and felt like a blind man for them on -the floor before he made answer. -</p> -<p> -“Tormaid, my gallant son! Ye have not heard of him lately, then?” - </p> -<p> -“Never a word, 'Illeasbuig. People on the going foot, like drovers, hear -all the world's gossip but the <i>sgeuls</i> of their own <i>sgireachd</i>. -We have been far North since Martinmas: for us there must be many a story -to tell 'twixt here and Inneraora. A stout lad and pretty, Tormaid too, as -ever went to the beginning of fortune! Where might he be enow?” - </p> -<p> -“Here and there, friend, here and there! A restless scamp, a wanderer, but -with parts. Had he not the smart style at the game of <i>camanachi?</i> He -was namely for it in many places.” - </p> -<p> -“As neat a player as ever took shinty in hand, master! I have the name of -a fair player myself, but that much I'll allow your lad. Is he to the West -side, or farther off?” - </p> -<p> -“Farther off, friend. The pipes now—have you heard him as a player -on the chanter?” - </p> -<p> -“As a piper, 'Illeasbuig! His like was not in three shires. I have heard -him at reel and march, but these were not his fancy: for him the <i>piobaireachds</i> -that scholarly ones play!” - </p> -<p> -“My gallant boy!” said Baldi Crom, rubbing soft on the shoe with the palm -of a hand. -</p> -<p> -“Once upon a time,” said the drover, “we were on our way to a Lowland -Tryst. Down Glen Falloch a Soccach man and I heard him fill the nightfall -with the 'Bhoilich' of Morar, with the brag of a whole clan in his -warbling. He knew piping, the fellow with me, and the tear came to his -cheek, thinking of the old days and the old ploys among the dirks and <i>sgians</i>.” - </p> -<p> -“There was never the beat of him,” said the shoemaker. -</p> -<p> -“Throughither a bit—” - </p> -<p> -“But good, good at heart, man! With a better chance of fortune he might be -holding his head to-day as high as the best of them.” The drovers looked -at each other with a meaning that was not for the eyes of the old man; but -he had small chance of seeing it, for he was throng at his fine pair of -shoes. -</p> -<p> -“He had a name for many arts,” said the man with coarse hose, “but they -were not the arts that give a lad settlement and put money in his purse.” - </p> -<p> -“The hot young head, man! He would have cured,” said the old man, sewing -hard. “Think of it,” said he: “was ever a more humoursome fellow to walk a -glen with? His songs, his stories, his fast jump at one's meaning, and his -trick of leaving all about him in a good key with themselves and him. Did -ever one ask a Saxon shilling from his purse that it was not a cheery gift -if the purse held it?” - </p> -<p> -“True, indeed!” said the drovers, eating bannocks and cheese. -</p> -<p> -“'Twixt heaven and hell,” said the fellow with the coarse hose, “is but a -spang. It's so easy for some folk to deserve the one gate—so many -their gifts—that the cock-sureness leaves them careless, and they -wander into the wrong place.” - </p> -<p> -“You were speaking?” said Baldi, a little angry, though he heard but half. -</p> -<p> -“I said thy son was a fellow of many gifts,” answered the drover, in a -confusion. -</p> -<p> -“He had no unfriends that I ken of,” said the old man, busy at the shoes; -“young or old, man or woman.” - </p> -<p> -“Especially woman,” put in another drover, wrinkling at the eyes. -</p> -<p> -“I've had five sons: three in the King's service, and one in the -Low-country; here's my young wanderer, and he was—he is—the -jewel of them all!” - </p> -<p> -“You hear of him sometimes?” - </p> -<p> -“I heard of him and from him this very day,” said Baldi, busy at the -brogues, white and drawn at the face and shaking at the lips. “I have -worked at these shoes since morning, and little time is there to put bye -on them, for at Inneraora town must they be before breakfast. Solomon -Carrier, passing at three, gives me a cry and takes them.” - </p> -<p> -“They're a fine pair of shoes.” - </p> -<p> -“Fine indeed; the finest of the fine! They're for a particular one.” - </p> -<p> -“Duke John himself, perhaps?” - </p> -<p> -“No, man; a particular one, and were they not his in time a sorry man was -I. They're the best Baldi Crom ever put leather on.” - </p> -<p> -Till the turn of the night the drovers slept in their plaids, their cattle -steaming out-by in the dark, munching the coarse grass selvedge, breathing -heavy. And when the men and their beasts went in the darkness of the -morning, Baldi Crom was still throng at his fine pair of shoes. -</p> -<p> -“I'm late, I'm surely late,” said he, toiling hard, but with no -sloven-work, at his task. -</p> -<p> -The rain had come with the morning, and was threshing out-by on peat and -thatch. Inside, the fire died, and the cruisie gave warnings that its oil -was low, but Baldi Crom was too throng on the end of his task to notice. -And at last his house dropped into darkness. -</p> -<p> -“Tormaid! Tormaid! my little hero—I'm sore feared you'll die without -shoes after all,” cried the old man, staggering to the door for daylight. -He had the door but opened when he fell, a helpless lump, on the clay -floor. The rain slanted on his grey hairs and spat on a fine shoe. -</p> -<p> -Far down the good long glen the drovers were tramping after their cattle, -and the dun morning was just before them when they got to the gate of -Inneraora. Here there was a great to-do, for the kind gallows stood stark -before the Arches. Round about it were the townspeople waiting for a -hanging. -</p> -<p> -“Who is't, and what is't for?” asked the drover with the knee-breeches and -the coarse hose, pushing into the crowd. -</p> -<p> -“Tormaid, the son of the Carnus cobbler,” said a woman with a plaid over -her head. “He killed a man in a brawl at Braleckan and raped his purse. -Little enough to put tow to a pretty lad's neck for, sure enough!” “Stand -clear there!” cried a sharp voice, and the hangman and his friend came to -the scaffold's foot with a lad in front of them, his hands shackled behind -his back. He was a strong straight lad, if anything overly dour in the -look, and he wore a good coat and tiews, but neither boot nor bonnet. -Under the beam he put back his shoulders with a jerk and looked at the -folk below, then over at Dunchuach with the mist above the fort like -smoke. -</p> -<p> -“They might have given him a pair of old baucbels, if no better, to die -in,” said the drover in the woman's ear. -</p> -<p> -“<i>Ochanoch!</i> and they might!” she said. “The darling! He lost his -shoes in swimming Duglas Water to get clear, and they say he sent -yesterday to his father for a pair, but they're not come. Queer, indeed, -is that, for 'twas the brag of the folks he came of that they aye died -with a good pair of shoon on their feet!” - </p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -CASTLE DARK. -</h2> -<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>OU know Castle Dark, women? -</p> -<p> -“Well, we know the same, just man and blind!” - </p> -<p> -And you, my lads? -</p> -<p> -“None better, Paruig Dali; morning and night, in the moon and in the full -white day!” - </p> -<p> -Then of Castle Dark is my story. Is the cruisie alight on the rafter? More -peats, little one, on the fire. -</p> -<p> -Once upon a time Castle Dark was a place of gentility and stirring days. -You have heard it,—you know it; now it is like a deer's skull in -Wood Mamore, empty, eyeless, sounding to the whistling wind, but blackened -instead of bleached in the threshing rains. When the day shines and the -sun coaxes the drowsy mists from the levels by the river, that noble house -that was brisks up and grey-whitens, minding maybe of merry times; the -softest smirr of rain—and the scowl comes to corbie-stone and gable; -black, black grow the stones of old ancient Castle Dark! Little one, <i>m' -eudail</i>, put the door to, and the sneck down. -</p> -<p> -“True for you, Paruig Dali; you know the place as if you had seen it.” - </p> -<p> -With eyes Paruig Dali has never seen it. But my friends tell me what they -know, and beyond I have learned of myself. Up the river-side, many a time -I pass to the place and over its low dykes, dry-stone, broken and -crumbling to the heel. The moss is soft on the little roads, so narrow and -so without end, winding round the land; the nettle cocks him right -braggardly over the old home of bush and flower, poisoning the air. Where -the lady dozed in her shady seat below the alder-tree, looking out between -half-shut eyes at the proud Highlands—loch, glen, and mountain—is -but a root rotten, and hacked by the woodman's whittle. A tangle of wild -wood, bracken, and weed smothers the rich gardens of Castle Dark. -</p> -<p> -“It is so, it is so, Paruig Dali, blind man, prince among splendid pipers -and storied men!” - </p> -<p> -And to stand on the broad clanging steps that lifted from the hunting-road -to the great door—that is a thinking man's trial. To me, then, will -be coming graveyard airs, yellow and vexatious, searching eager through my -bones for this old man's last weakness. “Thou sturdy dog!” will they be -saying, “some day, some day! Look at this strong tower!” With an ear to -the gap on the side of the empty ditch, I can hear the hollowness of the -house rumbling with pains, racked at <i>cabar</i> and corner-stone, the -thought and the song gone clean away. There is no window, then, that has -not a complaint of its own; no loop-hole, no vent, no grassy chimney that -the blind fellow cannot hear the pipe of. Straight into the heart's core -of Castle Dark looks the sun; the deep tolbooth of the old reivers and the -bed-chamber of the maid are open wide to the night and to the star! -</p> -<p> -“<i>Ochan! ochan!</i>” - </p> -<p> -You that only ken the castle in common day or night and plain man's -weather have but little notion of its wonders. It was there, and black and -hollow, ere ever you were born, or Paruig Dali. To see Castle Dark one -must take the Blue Barge and venture on two trips. -</p> -<p> -“The Blue Barge, just man?” - </p> -<p> -That same. The <i>birlinn ghorm</i>, the galley of fairy Lorn. It lies in -the sunlight on the bay, or the moonlight in certain weathers, and twelve -of the handsomest sit on the seats with the oars in their hands, the red -shirt bulging over the kilt-belt. At the stem of the barge is the chair of -the visitor. Gentle or semple, 'tis the same boat and crew, and the same -cushioned chair, for all that make the jaunt to Castle Dark. My story is -of two trips a man made by Barge Blue up the river to the white stairs. -</p> -<p> -He roved round the Lowlands road on a fine summer day, and out on the -sands among the running salt threads of ebb tide. Among the shells, his -eyes (as it might be) fell on the castle, and he had a notion to make the -trip to it by a new road. Loudly he piped to sea. If loudly he piped, keen -was the hearing, for yonder came the galley of fairy Lorn, the twelve -red-shirts swinging merry at the oars and chanting a Skye <i>iorram</i>. -</p> -<p> -“Here's an exploit!” said the man of my story. “There's dignity in yon -craft, or less than red-shirts was the wearing of the scamps who row her.” - </p> -<p> -The loch curled like a feather before her and frothed far behind, and soon -her nose ran high on the sand. No word was said, but the first pair of -rowers let out a carved plank, and the fellow of my story went over it and -behind to the chair with the cushioned seat. -</p> -<p> -“To the castle?” asked the captain (as it might be), in the way of one who -speaks a master, and Adventurer said, “Castle be it.” The barge was pushed -off the sand, the oars fell on the water, and she curved into the -river-mouth. -</p> -<p> -When Adventurer reached the bridge, it was before the time of war, and the -country from end to end sat quiet, free, and honest. Our folks lived the -clean out-by life of shepherds and early risers. Round these hills, the -woods—the big green woods—were trembling with bird and beast, -and the two glens were crowded with warm homes—every door open, and -the cattle untethered on the hill. Summer found the folks like ourselves -here, far up on sappy levels among the hills, but their sheilings more -their own than ours are, with never a reiver nor a broken clan in all the -land. Good stout roads and dry went down the passes to Castle Dark from -all airts of Albainn—roads for knight and horse, but free and safe -for the gentlest girl ever so lonely. By sea came gabberts of far France -with wine and drink; by land the carriers brought rich cloths, spices, and -Italian swords such as never were before or since. I made a small <i>piobaireachd</i> -once on such a blade; if you put me over my pipes, I— -</p> -<p> -“Later the pipes, Paruig Dali, the best player in the world! to thy story -this time.” Is the cup to my right or left? Blessings! The Castle and -Barge were my story. -</p> -<p> -Up and on, then, under the bridge, went Adventurer and his company of -twelve, and he trailed white fingers over the low side of the boat, the -tide warm like new milk. Under the long arch he held up his head and -whooped gaily, like the boy he was in another dream, and Mactallamh -laughed back from behind the smell of lime-drop and <i>crotal</i> hanging -to the stones. Then into the sun again, on the wide flat river, with the -fields sloping down on each hand, nodding to the lip with rush and flower. -</p> -<p> -“Faith and here's fortune!” said Adventurer. “Such a day for sailing and -sights was never before.” - </p> -<p> -And the Blue Barge met nor stone nor stay, but ever the twelve fine lads -swinging cheerily at the oars, till they came to the white stairs. -</p> -<p> -Off the boat and up the clanging steps went Adventurer as bold as Eachan, -and the bushes waving soft on every side. The gravel crunched to his foot—the -white round gravel of Cantyre; kennelled hounds cried warning from the -ditch-side; round him were the scenting flowers and the feeling of the -little roads winding so without end all about the garden. -</p> -<p> -“Queer is this!” said he, feeling the grass-edge with his feet and -fingering the leaves. “Here, surely, is weed nor nettle, but the trim bush -and the swinging rose. The gardeners have been busy in the gardens of old -ancient Castle Dark!” - </p> -<p> -When he came to the ditch, the drawbrig was down. To the warm airs of the -day the windows, high and low, were open; a look of throng life was over -the house, and in-by some one plucked angrily at the strings of a harp. -Reek rose lazy and blue over the chimneys, the smell of roasting meats and -rich broths hung on the air. -</p> -<p> -Under a tree got Adventurer and deep in thought. And soon the harping came -to an end. A girl stepped to the bridge and over into the garden. She took -to the left by the butter-house and into My Lady's Canter, lined with -foreign trees. Along the wide far road came a man to meet her, -good-shaped, in fine clothes, tartan trews fitting close on leg and -haunch, and a leather jacket held at the middle by a <i>crioslach</i>. -</p> -<p> -Under his tree stood Adventurer as they passed back, and close beside him -the courtier pushed the hilt of a small-sword to his back and took the -woman in his arms. -</p> -<p> -“Then if ye must ken,” said he, shamefacedly, “I am for the road -to-morrow.” - </p> -<p> -The girl—ripe and full, not over-tall, well balanced, her hair waved -back from over brown eyes, gathered in a knot and breaking to a curl on -the nape of the neck like a wave on the shell-white shore—got hot at -the skin, and a foot drummed the gravel in an ill temper. -</p> -<p> -“For yon silly cause again?” she asked, her lips thinning over her teeth. -</p> -<p> -“For the old cause,” said he; “my father's, my dead brothers', my clan's, -ours for a hundred years. Do not lightly the cause, my dear; it may be -your children's yet.” - </p> -<p> -“You never go with my will,” quo' the girl again. “Here am I, far from a -household of cheery sisters, so lonely, so lonely! Oh! Morag and Aoirig, -and the young ones! were I back among them from this brave tomb!” - </p> -<p> -“Tomb, sweet!” - </p> -<p> -“Tomb said I, and tomb is it!” cried the woman, in a storm. “Who is here -to sing with me and comfort me in the misty mornings, to hearten me when -you are at wood or hill? The dreary woods, the dreary, dreary shore—they -give me the gloom! My God, what a grey day!” - </p> -<p> -(And yet, by my troth, 'twas a sunny day by the feel of it, and the birds -were chirming on every tree!) -</p> -<p> -The gentleman put his hands on the girl's shoulder and looked deep in her -eyes, thinking hard for a wee, and biting at his low lip in a nervous way. -</p> -<p> -“At night,” said he, “I speak to you of chase and the country-side's -gossip. We have sometimes neighbours in our house as now,—old -Askaig's goodwife and the Nun from Inishail—a good woman and pious.” - </p> -<p> -Up went the lady's head, and she laughed bitter and long. -</p> -<p> -“My good husband,” she said, in a weary way, “you are like all that wear -trews; you have never trained your tracking but to woodcraft, or else you -had found the wild-kit in a woman's heart.” - </p> -<p> -“There's my love, girl, and I think you love—” - </p> -<p> -“Tuts, man! I talked not of that. Love is—love, while it lasts, and -ye brag of Askaig's wife and the Nun (good Lord!), and the old harridans -your cousins from Lochow!” - </p> -<p> -“'Tis but a tirrivie of yours, my dear,” said the man, kindly, kissing her -on the teeth, and she with her hands behind her back. “Tomorrow the -saddle, Sir Claymore, and the south country! Hark ye, sweet, I'll fetch -back the most darling thing woman ever dreamt of.” - </p> -<p> -“What might his name be?” asked the girl, laughing, but still with a -bitterness, and the two went round to the ditch-brig and in-by. -</p> -<p> -Adventurer heard the little fine airs coming from the west, coiling, full -of sap-smell, crooning in turret and among the grassy gable-tops, and -piping into the empty windows. -</p> -<p> -'Twas a summer's end when he went on the next jaunt, a hot night and hung -with dripping stars. The loch crawled in from a black waste of sorrow and -strange hills, and swished on the shore, trailing among the wreck with the -hiss of fingers through ribbons of silk. My dears, my dears! the gloom of -hidden seas in night and lonely places! 'Tis that dauntens me. I will be -standing sometimes at the night's down-fall over above the bay, and -hearkening to the grinding of the salt wash on rock and gravel, and never -a sound of hope or merriment in all that weary song. You that have seeing -may ken the meaning of it; never for Paruig Dali but wonder and the heavy -heart! -</p> -<p> -“'Tis our thought a thousand times, just man; we are the stour that wind -and water make the clod of! You spoke of a second jaunt?” - </p> -<p> -As ye say. It was in winter; and the morning— -</p> -<p> -“Winter, said ye, Paruig Dali? 'Twas summer and night before.” - </p> -<p> -Winter I said, and winter it was, before <i>faoilteach</i>, and the edge -of the morning. The fellow of my <i>sgeul</i>, more than a twelvemonth -older, went to the breast wall and cried on Barge Blue that's ever waiting -for the sailor who's for sailing on fairy seas. -</p> -<p> -In she came, with her twelve red-shirts tugging bravely at the oars, and -the nose of her ripping the salt bree. Out, too, the carved plank, made, -I'll warrant, by the Norwegian fellow who fashioned the Black Bed of -MacArtair, and over it to the cushioned seat Adventurer! -</p> -<p> -The little waves blobbed and bubbled at the boat's shoulders; she put -under the arch and up the cold river to the white stairs. -</p> -<p> -It was the middle and bloodiest time of all our wars. The glens behind -were harried, and their cattle were bellowing in strange fields. Widows -grat on the brae-sides and starved with their bairns for the bere and oat -that were burned. But Adventurer found a castle full of company, the rich -scum of water-side lairds and Lowland gentry, dicing and drinking in the -best hall of Castle Dark. Their lands were black, their homes levelled, or -their way out of the country—if they were Lowland—was barred -by jealous clans. So there they were, drinking the reddest and eating the -fattest—a wanton crew, among them George Mor, namely for women and -wine and gentlemanly sword-play. -</p> -<p> -They had been at the cartes after supper. Wine lay on the table in rings -and rivers. The curtains were across the window, and the candles guttered -in the sconces. Debauched airs flaffed abroad in the room. At the head of -the board, with her hair falling out of the knot, the lady of the house -dovered in her chair, her head against George Mor's shoulder, and him -sleeping fast with his chin on his vest. Two company girls from the house -in the forest slept forward on the table, their heads on the thick of -their arms, and on either hand of them the lairds and foreigners. Of the -company but two were awake, playing at <i>bord-dubh</i>, small eyed, -oozing with drink. But they slept by-and-by like the lave, and sleep had a -hold of Castle Dark through and through. -</p> -<p> -Adventurer heard the cock crow away at the gean-tree park. -</p> -<p> -One of the girls, stirring in her sleep, touched a glass with her elbow, -and it fell on its side, the dark wine splashing over the table, crawling -to the edge, thudding in heavy drops on the shoe of the mistress of the -house, who drew back her foot without waking. But her moving started up -the man at her ear. He looked at her face, kissed her on the hair, and got -to his feet with no noise. A sour smile curdled his face when he looked -about the room, drunken and yellow-sick in the guttering candlelight. -</p> -<p> -Stretching himself, he made for the window and pulled back the curtain. -</p> -<p> -The mountain looked in on the wastrel company, with a black and blaming -scowl—the mountain set in blackness at the foot, but its brow -touching the first of a cold day. -</p> -<p> -Tree and bush stood like wraiths all about the garden, the river cried -high and snell. George Mor turned and looked at the room and its sleeping -company like corpses propped in chairs, in the light of candle and -daybreak. -</p> -<p> -The smell of the drunken chamber fogged at the back of his throat. He -laughed in a kind of bitter way, the lace shaking at his neck and -wrist-bands: then his humour changed, and he rued the night and his merry -life. -</p> -<p> -“I wish I was yont this cursed country,” said he to himself, shivering -with cold. “'Tis these folk lead me a pretty spring, and had George Mor -better luck of his company he was a decent man. And yet—and yet—who's -George Mor to be better than his neighbours? As grow the fir-trees, some -of them crooked and some of them straight, and we are the way the winds -would have us!” - </p> -<p> -He was standing in the window yet, deep in the morning's grief, running -his fingers among his curls. -</p> -<p> -Without warning the door of the room opened, and a man took one step in, -soft, without noise, white-faced, and expecting no less than he found, by -the look in his eyes. It was the goodwife's husband, still with the mud on -his shoes and the sword on his belt. He beckoned on the fellow at the -window, and went before him (the company still in their sleep), making for -the big door, and George Mor as he followed lifted a sword from a pin. -</p> -<p> -Close by Adventurer the two men stopped. It was on a level round of old -moss, damp but springy, hid from the house by some saugh-trees. -</p> -<p> -The master of the house spoke first. Said he, “It's no great surprise; -they told me at the ferry over-by that strange carry-on and George Mor -were keeping up the wife's heart in Castle Dark.” - </p> -<p> -“She's as honest a wife as ever—” - </p> -<p> -“Fairly, fairly, I'll allow—when the wind's in that airt. It's been -a dull place this for her, and I have small skill of entertainment; but, -man, I thought of her often, away in the camp!” - </p> -<p> -He was taking off his jacket as he spoke, and looking past George Mor's -shoulder and in between the trees at the loch. And now the day was fairly -on the country. -</p> -<p> -“A bit foolish is your wife—just a girl, I'm not denying; but true -at the core.” - </p> -<p> -“Young, young, as ye say, man! She'll make, maybe, all the more taking a -widow woman. She'll need looks and gaiety indeed, for my poor cause is -lost for good and all.” - </p> -<p> -“We saved the castle for you, at any rate. But for my friends in-by and -myself the flambeau was at the root o't.” - </p> -<p> -“So, my hero? In another key I might be having a glass with you over such -friendship, but the day spreads and here's our business before us.” - </p> -<p> -“I've small stomach for this. It's a fool's quarrel.” - </p> -<p> -“<i>Thoir an aire!</i>—Guard, George Mor!” - </p> -<p> -They fought warmly on the mossy grass, and the tinkle of the thin blades -set the birds chirping in the bushes, but it could not be that that -wakened my lady dovering in her chair in the room of guttering candles. -</p> -<p> -She started up in a dream, and found George Mor gone, and the mark of -muddy brogues near the door fitted in with her dream. She wakened none of -her drugged company, but hurried to the garden and in between the foreign -trees to the summons of the playing swords. -</p> -<p> -“Stop, stop, husband!” she cried before she saw who was at the fighting; -but only George Mor heard, and he half turned his head. -</p> -<p> -She was a little late. Her man, with a forefinger, was feeling the way to -the scabbard, and a gout of blood was gathering at the point of his sword, -when she got through the trees. -</p> -<p> -“Madame,” said he, cool enough but short in the breath, and bloody a -little at the mouth, “here's your gallant. He had maybe skill at -diversion, but I've seen better at the small-sword. To-night my un-friends -are coming back to harry Castle Dark, and I'm in little humour to stop -them. Fare ye weel!” - </p> -<p> -A blash of rain threshed in Adventurer's face; the tide crept at his feet, -the fall of the oars on Barge Blue sank low and travelled far off. It was -the broad day. Over above the river, Castle Dark grew black, but the -fellow of my story could not see it. -</p> -<p> -“And the woman, Paruig Dali? What came of the woman?” - </p> -<p> -Another peat on the fire, little one. So! <i>That</i> the fellow of my -story would need another trip to see. But Barge Blue is the ferry for all, -high tide or low, in the calm and in the storm. -</p> -<p> -<br /><br /> -</p> -<hr /> -<p> -<a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a> -</p> -<div style="height: 4em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> -<h2> -A GAELIC GLOSSARY. -</h2> -<p> -A bhean! O wife! -</p> -<p> -A pheasain! O brat! -</p> -<p> -Amadant fool. Amadaitt dhoill! O blind fool! -</p> -<p> -Bas, the haft of a shinty in this case. -</p> -<p> -Bàs, death. Bàs Dhiarmaid, death to Diarmaid! Beannachd, blessing. -Beannachdlets! blessing with him! -</p> -<p> -Beannachd leat! blessing with thee, farewell! Biodag, a dirk. -</p> -<p> -Btrlinn ghorm, blue barge. -</p> -<p> -Bochdan, a ghost. -</p> -<p> -Bodach, an old man. -</p> -<p> -Bord-dubh, black-board, the game of draughts. -</p> -<p> -Bratach, a banner. -</p> -<p> -Cabar, a rafter, a log of wood for throwing in Highland sports. -</p> -<p> -Caileag bkeag, a little girl. -</p> -<p> -Cailleach, old woman. Cailleachan, old women. -</p> -<p> -Camatty, club used in the game of shinty. Camanachd, the game of shinty. -</p> -<p> -Cas, foot. Cas-chrom, a primitive hand-plough. Choillich-dhuibh, O -black-cock! -</p> -<p> -Clach-cuid-fear, a lifting-stone for testing a man's strength. -</p> -<p> -Clackneart, putting-stone. -</p> -<p> -Clarsack, harp. -</p> -<p> -Cothrom na Feinne, the fair-play of Finne; man to man. Crioslach, belt, -girdle. -</p> -<p> -Cromag, a shepherd's crook. -</p> -<p> -Crotal, lichen. -</p> -<p> -Crunluadh, a movement in piping. Crunluadh breabach, a smarter movement -Crunluadh mack, the quickest part of a piobaireachd. -</p> -<p> -Dhé! O God! Dia, God. Dhia gleidh sinn! God keep us! -</p> -<p> -Dorlach, a knapsack. -</p> -<p> -Duitn'-nasal, gentleman. -</p> -<p> -Eas, waterfall or cataract. -</p> -<p> -Faoiltcach, the short season of stormy days at the end of January. -</p> -<p> -Feadan, the chanter or pipe on which pipers practise tunes before playing -them on the bagpipes. Fuarag, hasty-pudding, a mixture of oatmeal and cold -water, or oatmeal and milk or cream. -</p> -<p> -Gruagach, a sea-maiden in this case. -</p> -<p> -'Ille! lad! 'Illean! lads! -</p> -<p> -Iolair, eagle lorram, a boat-song. -</p> -<p> -Laochain! hero! comrade! -</p> -<p> -Larach, site of a ruined building. -</p> -<p> -Londubh, blackbird. -</p> -<p> -Mallachd ort! malediction on thee! -</p> -<p> -Marag-dkubh, a black pudding, made with blood and suet. -</p> -<p> -M' eudail, my darling, my treasure. -</p> -<p> -Mhoire Mkathair, an ave, “Mary Mother.” - </p> -<p> -Mo chridhe! my heart! -</p> -<p> -Mo thruaigh! alas, my trouble! -</p> -<p> -Och! ochan! ochanoch! ochanie! ochanorie! exclamations of sorrow, alas! -Och a Dhé! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob—O God! yonder it is now! -Rise, rise, Rob! -</p> -<p> -Oinseach, a female fool. -</p> -<p> -Piobaireachd, the symphony of bagpipe music, usually a lament, salute, or -gathering Piob-mhor, the great Highland bagpipe. -</p> -<p> -Seangan, an ant. -</p> -<p> -Sgalag, a male farm-servant. -</p> -<p> -Sgeul, a tale, narrative. -</p> -<p> -Sgiati-dubh, black knife, worn in the Highlander's stocking. -</p> -<p> -Sgireachd, parish. -</p> -<p> -Siod e! there it is! -</p> -<p> -Siubhal, allegro of the piobaireachd music. -</p> -<p> -Slochd-a-chubair gu bragh! the rallying cry of the old Inneraora burghers, -“Slochd-a-chubair for ever!” - </p> -<p> -So! here! So agad e! here he is! -</p> -<p> -Spàgachd, club-footed, awkward at walking. -</p> -<p> -Spreidh, cattle of all sorts, a drove. -</p> -<p> -Stad! stop! -</p> -<p> -Suas e! up with it! A term of encouragement. -</p> -<p> -Taibhsear, a visionary; one with second-sight. -</p> -<p> -Tha sibk an so! you are here! -</p> -<p> -Thoir an aire! beware! look out! -</p> -<p> -Uiseag, the skylark. -</p> -<p> -Urlar, the ground-work, adagio, or simple melody of a piobaireachd. -</p> -<div style="height: 6em;"> -<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> -</div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Pibroch, by Neil Munro - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PIBROCH *** - -***** This file should be named 43729-h.htm or 43729-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/7/2/43729/ - -Produced by David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Lost Pibroch - And other Sheiling Stories - -Author: Neil Munro - -Release Date: September 15, 2013 [EBook #43729] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PIBROCH *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - - -THE LOST PIBROCH - -AND OTHER SHEILING STORIES - -By Neil Munro - - - - -THE LOST PIBROCH - -TO the make of a piper go seven years of his own learning and seven -generations before. If it is in, it will out, as the Gaelic old-word -says; if not, let him take to the net or sword. At the end of his seven -years one born to it will stand at the start of knowledge, and leaning a -fond ear to the drone, he may have parley with old folks of old affairs. -Playing the tune of the "Fairy Harp," he can hear his forefolks, plaided -in skins, towsy-headed and terrible, grunting at the oars and snoring in -the caves; he has his whittle and club in the "Desperate Battle" (my own -tune, my darling!), where the white-haired sea-rovers are on the shore, -and a stain's on the edge of the tide; or, trying his art on Laments, -he can stand by the cairn of kings, ken the colour of Fingal's hair, and -see the moon-glint on the hook of the Druids! - -To-day there are but three pipers in the wide world, from the Sound of -Sleat to the Wall of France. Who they are, and what their tartan, it is -not for one to tell who has no heed for a thousand dirks in his doublet, -but they may be known by the lucky ones who hear them. Namely players -tickle the chanter and take out but the sound; the three give a tune -the charm that I mention--a long thought and a bard's thought, and they -bring the notes from the deeps of time, and the tale from the heart of -the man who made it. - -But not of the three best in Albainn today is my story, for they have -not the Lost Pibroch. It is of the three best, who were not bad, in a -place I ken--Half Town that stands in the wood. - -You may rove for a thousand years on league-long brogues, or hurry on -fairy wings from isle to isle and deep to deep, and find no equal to -that same Half Town. It is not the splendour of it, nor the riches of -its folk; it is not any great routh of field or sheep-fank, but the -scented winds of it, and the comfort of the pine-trees round and about -it on every hand. My mother used to be saying (when I had the notion of -fairy tales), that once on a time, when the woods were young and -thin, there was a road through them, and the pick of children of a -country-side wandered among them into this place to play at sheilings. -Up grew the trees, fast and tall, and shut the little folks in so that -the way out they could not get if they had the mind for it. But never an -out they wished for. They grew with the firs and alders, a quiet clan in -the heart of the big wood, clear of the world out-by. - -But now and then wanderers would come to Half Town, through the gloomy -coves, under the tall trees. There were packmen with tales of the -out-world. There were broken men flying from rope or hatchet. And -once on a day of days came two pipers--Gilian, of Clan Lachlan of -Strathlachlan, and Rory Ban, of the Macnaghtons of Dundarave. - -They had seen Half Town from the sea--smoking to the clear air on the -hillside; and through the weary woods they came, and the dead quiet of -them, and they stood on the edge of the fir-belt. - -Before them was what might be a township in a dream, and to be seen at -the one look, for it stood on the rising hill that goes back on Lochow. - -The dogs barked, and out from the houses and in from the fields came the -quiet clan to see who could be here. Biggest of all the men, one they -named Coll, cried on the strangers to come forward; so out they went -from the wood-edge, neither coy nor crouse, but the equal of friend or -foe, and they passed the word of day. - -"Hunting," they said, "in Easachosain, we found the roe come this way." - -"If this way she came, she's at Duglas Water by now, so you may bide and -eat. Few, indeed, come calling on us in Half Town; but whoever they are, -here's the open door, and the horn spoon, and the stool by the fire." - -He took them in and he fed them, nor asked their names nor calling, but -when they had eaten well he said to Rory, "You have skill of the pipes; -I know by the drum of your fingers on the horn spoon." - -"I have tried them," said Rory, with a laugh, "a bit--a bit. My friend -here is a player." - -"You have the art?" asked Coll. - -"Well, not what yoo might call the whole art," said Gilian, "but I can -play--oh yes!I can play two or three ports." - -"You can that!" said Rory. - -"No better than yourself, Rory." - -"Well, maybe not, but--anyway, not all tunes; I allow you do 'Mackay's -Banner' in a pretty style." - -"Pipers," said Coll, with a quick eye to a coming quarrel, "I will take -you to one of your own trade in this place--Paruig Dali, who is namely -for music." - -"It's a name that's new to me," said Rory, short and sharp, but up they -rose and followed Big Coll. - -He took them to a bothy behind the Half Town, a place with turf -walls and never a window, where a blind man sat winding pirns for the -weaver-folks. - -"This," said Coll, showing the strangers in at the door, "is a piper -of parts, or I'm no judge, and he has as rare a stand of great pipes as -ever my eyes sat on." - -"I have that same," said the blind man, with his face to the door. "Your -friends, Coll?" - -"Two pipers of the neighbourhood," Rory made answer. "It was for no -piping we came here, but by the accident of the chase. Still and on, if -pipes are here, piping there might be." - -"So be it," cried Coll; "but I must go back to my cattle till night -comes. Get you to the playing with Paruig Dali, and I'll find you here -when I come back." And with that he turned about and went off. - -Parig put down the ale and cake before the two men, and "Welcome you -are," said he. - -They ate the stranger's bite, and lipped the stranger's cup, and then, -"Whistle 'The Macraes' March,' my fair fellow," said the blind man. - -"How ken you I'm fair?" asked Rory. - -"Your tongue tells that. A fair man has aye a soft bit in his speech, -like the lapping of milk in a cogie; and a black one, like your friend -there, has the sharp ring of a thin burn in frost running into an iron -pot. 'The Macraes' March,' _laochain_." - -Rory put a pucker on his mouth and played a little of the fine tune. - -"So!" said the blind man, with his head to a side, "you had your lesson. -And you, my Strathlachlan boy without beard, do you ken 'Muinntir a' -Ghlinne so'?" - -"How ken ye I'm Strathlachlan and beardless?" asked Gilian. - -"Strathlachlan by the smell of herring-scale from your side of the house -(for they told me yesterday the gannets were flying down Strathlachlan -way, and that means fishing), and you have no beard I know, but in what -way I know I do not know." Gilian had the _siubhal_ of the pibroch but -begun when the blind man stopped him. - -"You have it," he said, "you have it in a way, the Macarthur's way, and -that's not my way. But, no matter, let us to our piping." - -The three men sat them down on three stools on the clay floor, and the -blind man's pipes passed round between them. - -"First," said Paruig (being the man of the house, and to get the vein -of his own pipes)--"first I'll put on them 'The Vaunting.'" He stood to -his shanks, a lean old man and straight, and the big drone came nigh on -the black rafters. He filled the bag at a breath and swung a lover's arm -round about it. To those who know not the pipes, the feel of the bag -in the oxter is a gaiety lost. The sweet round curve is like a girl's -waist; it is friendly and warm in the crook of the elbow and against a -man's side, and to press it is to bring laughing or tears. - -The bothy roared with the tuning, and then the air came melting and -sweet from the chanter. Eight steps up, four, to the turn, and eight -down went Paruig, and the _piobaireachd_ rolled to his fingers like -a man's rhyming. The two men sat on, the stools, with their elbows on -their knees, and listened. - -He played but the _urlar_, and the _crunluadh_ to save time, and he -played them well. - -"Good indeed! Splendid, my old fellow!" cried the two; and said Gilian, -"You have a way of it in the _crunluadh_ not my way, but as good as ever -I heard." - -"It is the way of Padruig Og," said Rory. - -"Well I know it! There are tunes and tunes, and 'The Vaunting' is not -bad in its way, but give me 'The Macraes' March.'" - -He jumped to his feet and took the pipes from the old man's hands, and -over his shoulder with the drones. - -"Stand back, lad!" he cried to Gilian, and Gilian went nearer the door. - -The march came fast to the chanter--the old tune, the fine tune that -Kintail has heard before, when the wild men in their red tartan came -over hill and moor; the tune with the river in it, the fast river and -the courageous that kens not stop nor tarry, that runs round rock and -over fall with a good humour, yet no mood for anything but the way -before it. The tune of the heroes, the tune of the pinelands and the -broad straths, the tune that the eagles of Loch Duich crack their beaks -together when they hear, and the crows of that country-side would as -soon listen to as the squeal of their babies. - -"Well! mighty well!" said Paruig Dali. "You have the tartan of the clan -in it." - -"Not bad, I'll allow," said Gilian. "Let me try." - -He put his fingers on the holes, and his heart took a leap back over two -generations, and yonder was Glencoe! The grey day crawled on the white -hills and the Mack roofs smoked below. Snow choked the pass, _eas_ and -corn filled with drift and flatted to the brae-face; the wind tossed -quirky and and in the little bashes and among the smooring lintels and -joists; the Mood of old and young lappered on the hearthstone, and the -bairn, with a knifed throat, had an icy lip on a frozen teat. Out of the -place went the tramped path of the Campbell butchers--far on their -way to Glenlyon and the towns of paper and ink and liars--"Muinntir -a' ghlinne so, muinntir a' ghlinne so!--People, people, people of this -glen, this glen, this glen!" - -"Dogs! dogs! O God of grace--dogs and cowards!" cried Rory. "I could be -dirking a Diarmaid or two if by luck they were near me." - -"It is piping that is to be here," said Paruig, "and it is not piping -for an hour nor piping for an evening, but the piping of Dunvegan that -stops for sleep nor supper." - -So the three stayed in the bothy and played tune about while time went -by the door. The birds flew home to the branches, the longnecked beasts -flapped off to the shore to spear their flat fish; the rutting deers -bellowed with loud throats in the deeps of the wood that stands round -Half Town, and the scents of the moist night came gusty round the -door. Over the back of Auchnabreac the sun trailed his plaid of red -and yellow, and the loch stretched salt and dark from Cairn Dubh to -Creaggans. - -In from the hill the men and the women came, weary-legged, and the -bairns nodded at their heels. Sleepiness was on the land, but the -pipers, piping in the bothy, kept the world awake. - -"We will go to bed in good time," said the folks, eating their suppers -at their doors; "in good time when this tune is ended." But tune came on -tane, and every tune better than its neighbour, and they waited. - -A cruisie-light was set alowe in the blind man's bothy, and the three -men played old tunes and new tunes--salute and lament and brisk dances -and marches that coax tired brogues on the long roads. - -"Here's 'Tulloch Ard' for you, and tell me who made it," said Rory. - -"Who kens that? Here's 'Raasay's Lament,' the best port Padruig Mor ever -put together." - -"Tunes and tunes. I'm for 'A Kiss o' the King's Hand.'" - - "Thug mi pog 'us pog 'us pog, - Thug mi pog do lamh an righ, - Cha do chuir gaoth an craicionn caorach, - Fear a fhuair an fhaoilt ach mi!" - -Then a quietness came on Half Town, for the piping stopped, and the -people at their doors heard but their blood thumping and the night-hags -in the dark of the firwood. - -"A little longer and maybe there will be more," they said to each other, -and they waited; but no more music came from the drones, so they went in -to bed. - -There was quiet over Half Town, for the three pipers talked about the -Lost Tune. - -"A man my father knew," said Gilian, "heard a bit of it once in -Moideart. A terrible fine tune he said it was, but sore on the mind." - -"It would be the tripling," said the Macnaghton, stroking a reed with a -fond hand. - -"Maybe. Tripling is ill enough, but what is tripling? There is more in -piping than brisk fingers. Am I not right, Paruig?" "Right, oh! right. -The Lost _Piobaireachd_ asks for skilly tripling, but Macruimen himself -could not get at the core of it for all his art." - -"You have heard it then!" cried Gilian. - -The blind man stood up and filled out his breast. - -"Heard it!" he said; "I heard it, and I play it--on the _feadan_, but -not on the full set. To play the tune I mention on the full set is what -I have not done since I came to Half Town." - -"I have ten round pieces in my sporran, and a bonnet-brooch it would -take much to part me from; but they're there for the man who'll play me -the Lost _Piobaireachd_" said Gilian, with the words tripping each other -to the tip of his tongue. - -"And here's a Macnaghton's fortune on the top of the round pieces," -cried Rory, emptying his purse on the table. - -The old man's face got hot and angry. "I am not," he said, "a tinker's -minstrel, to give my tuning for bawbees and a quaich of ale. The king -himself could not buy the tune I ken if he had but a whim for it. But -when pipers ask it they can have it, and it's yours without a fee. Still -if you think to learn the tune by my piping once, poor's the delusion. -It is not a port to be picked up like a cockle on the sand, for it takes -the schooling of years and blindness forbye." - -"Blindness?" - -"Blindness indeed. The thought of it is only for the dark eye." - -"If we could hear it on the full set!" - -"Come out, then, on the grass, and you'll hear it, if Half Town should -sleep no sleep this night." - -They went out of the bothy to the wet short grass. Ragged mists shook -o'er Cowal, and on Ben Ime sat a horned moon like a galley of Lorn. - -"I heard this tune from the Moideart man--the last in Albainn who knew -it then, and he's in the clods," said the blind fellow. - -He had the mouthpiece at his lip, and his hand was coaxing the bag, when -a bairn's cry came from a house in the Half Town--a suckling's whimper, -that, heard in the night, sets a man's mind busy on the sorrows that -folks are born to. The drones clattered together on the piper's elbow -and he stayed. - -"I have a notion," he said to the two men. "I did not tell you that the -Lost _Piobaireachd_ is the _piobaireachd_ of good-byes. It is the -tune of broken clans, that sets the men on the foray and makes cold -hearth-stones. It was played in Glenshira when Gilleasbuig Gruamach -could stretch stout swordsmen from Boshang to Ben Bhuidhe, and where are -the folks of Glenshira this day? I saw a cheery night in Carnus that's -over Lochow, and song and story busy about the fire, and the Moideart -man played it for a wager. In the morning the weans were without -fathers, and Carnus men were scattered about the wide world." - -"It must be the magic tune, sure enough," said Gilian. - -"Magic indeed, _laochain!_ It is the tune that puts men on the open -road, that makes restless lads and seeking women. Here's a Half Town of -dreamers and men fattening for want of men's work. They forget the world -is wide and round about their fir-trees, and I can make them crave for -something they cannot name." - -"Good or bad, out with it," said Rory, "if you know it at all." - -"Maybe no', maybe no'. I am old and done. Perhaps I have lost the right -skill of the tune, for it's long since I put it on the great pipe. -There's in me the strong notion to try it whatever may come of it, and -here's for it." - -He put his pipe up again, filled the bag at a breath, brought the -booming to the drones, and then the chanter-reed cried sharp and high. - -"He's on it," said Rory in Gilian's ear. - -The groundwork of the tune was a drumming on the deep notes where the -sorrows lie--"Come, come, come, my children, rain on the brae and the -wind blowing." - -"It is a salute." said Rory. - -"It's the strange tune anyway," said Gilian; "listen to the time of -yon!" - -The tune searched through Half Town and into the gloomy pine-wood; it -put an end to the whoop of the night-hag and rang to Ben Bhreac. Boatmen -deep and far on the loch could hear it, and Half Town folks sat up to -listen. - -It's story was the story that's ill to tell--something of the heart's -longing and the curious chances of life. It bound up all the tales of -all the clans, and made one tale of the Gaels' past. Dirk nor sword -against the tartan, but the tartan against all else, and the Gaels' -target fending the hill-land and the juicy straths from the pock-pitted -little black men. The winters and the summers passing fast and furious, -day and night roaring in the ears, and then again the clans at variance, -and warders on every pass and on every parish. - -Then the tune changed. - -"Folks," said the reeds, coaxing. "Wide's the world and merry the road. -Here's but the old story and the women we kissed before. Come, come to -the flat-lands rich and full, where the wonderful new things happen and -the women's lips are still to try!" - -"To-morrow," said Gilian in his friend's ear--"to-morrow I will go -jaunting to the North. It has been in my mind since Beltane." - -"One might be doing worse," said Rory, "and I have the notion to try a -trip with my cousin to the foreign wars." - -The blind piper put up his shoulder higher and rolled the air into -the _crunluadh breabach_ that comes prancing with variations. Pride -stiffened him from heel to hip, and hip to head, and set his sinews like -steel. - -He was telling of the gold to get for the searching and the bucks that -may be had for the hunting. "What," said the reeds, "are your poor -crops, slashed by the constant rain and rotting, all for a scart in -the bottom of a pot? What are your stots and heifers--black, dun, and -yellow--to milch-cows and horses? Here's but the same for ever--toil -and sleep, sleep and toil even on, no feud nor foray nor castles to -harry--only the starved field and the sleeping moss. Let us to a -brisker place! Over yonder are the long straths and the deep rivers and -townships strewn thick as your corn-rigs; over yonder's the place of the -packmen's tales and the packmen's wares: steep we the withies and go!" - -The two men stood with heads full of bravery and dreaming--men in a -carouse. "This," said they, "is the notion we had, but had no words for. -It's a poor trade piping and eating and making amusement when one might -be wandering up and down the world. We must be packing the haversacks." - -Then the _crunluadh mach_ came fast and furious on the chanter, and Half -Town shook with it. It buzzed in the ear like the flowers in the Honey -Croft, and made commotion among the birds rocking on their eggs in the -wood. - -"So! so!" barked the _iolair_ on Craig-an-eas. - -"I have heard before it was an ill thing to be satisfied; in the morning -I'll try the kids on Maam-side, for the hares here are wersh and tough." - -"Hearken, dear," said the _londubh_, "I know now why my beak is gold; it -is because I once ate richer berries than the whortle, and in season -I'll look for them on the braes of Glenfinne." - -"Honk-unk," said the fox, the cunning red fellow, "am not I the fool to -be staying on this little brae when I know so many roads elsewhere?" - -And the people sitting up in their beds in Half Town moaned for -something new. "Paruig Dall is putting the strange tune on her there," -said they. "What the meaning of it is we must ask in the morning, but, -_ochanoch!_ it leaves one hungry at the heart." And then gusty winds -came snell from the north, and where the dark crept first, the day made -his first showing, so that Ben Ime rose black against a grey sky. - -"That's the Lost _Piobaireachd_," said Paruig Dali when the bag sunk on -his arm. - -And the two men looked at him in a daze. - -Sometimes in the spring of the year the winds from Lorn have it their -own way with the Highlands. They will come tearing furious over -the hundred hills, spurred the faster by the prongs of Cruachan and -Dunchuach, and the large woods of home toss before them like corn before -the hook. Up come the poor roots and over on their broken arms go the -tall trees, and in the morning the deer will trot through new lanes cut -in the forest. - -A wind of that sort came on the full of the day when the two pipers were -leaving Half Town. - -"Stay till the storm is over," said the kind folks; and "Your bed and -board are here for the pipers forty days," said Paruig Dali. But "No" -said the two; "we have business that your _piobaireachd_ put us in mind -of." - -"I'm hoping that I did not play yon with too much skill," said the old -man. - -"Skill or no skill," said Gilian, "the like of yon I never heard. You -played a port that makes poor enough all ports ever one listened to, and -piping's no more for us wanderers." - -"Blessings with thee!" said the folks all, and the two men went down -into the black wood among the cracking trees. - -Six lads looked after them, and one said, "It is an ill day for a body -to take the world for his pillow, but what say you to following the -pipers?" - -"It might," said one, "be the beginning of fortune. I am weary enough -of this poor place, with nothing about it but wood and water and tufty -grass. If we went now, there might be gold and girls at the other end." - -They took crooks and bonnets and went after the two pipers. And when -they were gone half a day, six women said to their men, "Where can the -lads be?" - -"We do not know that," said the men, with hot faces, "but we might be -looking." They kissed their children and went, with _cromags_ in their -hands, and the road they took was the road the King of Errin rides, and -that is the road to the end of days. - -A weary season fell on Half Town, and the very bairns dwined at the -breast for a change of fortune. The women lost their strength, and said, -"To-day my back is weak, tomorrow I will put things to right," and they -looked slack-mouthed and heedless-eyed at the sun wheeling round the -trees. Every week a man or two would go to seek something--a lost heifer -or a wounded roe that was never brought back--and a new trade came to -the place, the selling of herds. Far away in the low country, where the -winds are warm and the poorest have money, black-cattle were wanted, so -the men of Half Town made up long droves and took them round Glen Beag -and the Rest. - -Wherever they went they stayed, or the clans on the roadside put them to -steel, for Half Town saw them no more. And a day came when all that was -left in that fine place were but women and children and a blind piper. - -"Am I the only man here?" asked Paruig Dali when it came to the bit, and -they told him he was. - -"Then here's another for fortune!" said he, and he went down through the -woods with his pipes in his oxter. - - - - -RED HAND - - -THE smell of wet larch was in the air, and Glenaora was aburst to -the coaxing of Spring. Paruig Dali the piper--son of the son of Iain -Mor--filled his broad chest with two men's wind, and flung the drones -over his shoulder. They dangled a little till the bag swelled out, and -the first blast rang in the ear of the morning. Rough and noisy, the -reeds cried each other down till a master's hand held them in check, and -the long soft singing of the _piobaireachd_ floated out among the tartan -ribbons. The grey peak of Drimfern heard the music; the rock that wards -the mouth of Carnus let it pass through the gap and over the hill and -down to the isles below; Dun Corr-bhile and Dunchuach, proud Kilmune, -the Paps of Salachary, and a hundred other braes around, leaned over to -listen to the vaunting notes that filled the valley. "The Glen, the -Glen is mine!" sang the blithe chanter; and, by Finne's sword, Macruimen -himself could not have fingered it better! - -It was before Paruig Dali left for Halt Town; before the wars that -scorched the glens; and Clan Campbell could cock its bonnet in the face -of all Albainn. Paruig was old, and Paruig was blind, as the name of him -tells, but he swung with a king's port up and down on the short grass, -his foot firm to every beat of the tune, his kilt tossing from side to -side like a bard's song, his sporran leaping gaily on his brown -knees. Two score of lilting steps to the bumside, a slow wheel on a -brogue-heel, and then back with the sun-glint on the buckles of his -belt. - -The men, tossing the caber and hurling the _clachncart_ against the -sun beyond the peat-bog, paused in their stride at the chanter's boast, -jerked the tartan tight on their loins, and came over to listen; the -women, posting blankets for the coming sheiling, stopped their splashing -in the little linn, and hummed in a dream; and men and women had mind -of the days that were, when the Glen was soft with the blood of men, for -the Stewarts were over the way from Appin. - -"God's splendour! but he can play too," said the piper's son, with his -head areel to the fine tripling. - -Then Paruig pushed the bag further into his oxter, and the tune changed. -He laid the ground of "Bodaich nam Briogais," and such as knew the story -saw the "carles with the breeks" broken and flying before Glenurchy's -thirsty swords, far north of Morven, long days of weary march through -spoiled glens. - -"It's fine playing, I'll allow," said the blind man's son, standing -below a saugh-tree with the bag of his bannered pipes in the crook of -his arm. He wore the dull tartan of the Diarmaids, and he had a sprig -of gall in his bonnet, for he was in Black Duncan's tail. "Son of Paruig -Dali," said the Chief seven years ago come Martinmas, "if you're to play -like your father, there's but Dunvegan for you, and the schooling of -Patrick Macruimen." So Tearlach went to Skye--cold isle of knives and -caves--and in the college of Macruimen he learned the _piob-mhor_. -Morning and evening, and all day between, he fingered the _feadan_ or -the full set--gathering and march, massacre and moaning, and the stately -salute. Where the lusty breeze comes in salt from Vatemish across Loch -Vegan, and the purple loom of Uist breaks the sunset's golden bars, -he stood on the braes over against Borearaig and charmed the grumbling -tide. And there came a day that he played "The Lament of the Harp-Tree," -with the old years of sturdy fight and strong men all in the strain of -it, and Patrick Macruimen said, "No more, lad; go home: Lochow never -heard another like you." As a cock with its comb uncut, came the -stripling from Skye. - -"Father," he had said, "you play not ill for a blind man, but you miss -the look on the men's faces, and that's half the music. Forbye, you are -old, and your fingers are slow on the grace-notes. Here's your own flesh -and blood can show you fingering there was never the like of anywhere -east the Isles." - -The stepmother heard the brag. "_A pheasain!_" she snapped, with hate in -her peat-smoked face. "Your father's a man, and you are but a boy with -no heart for a long day. A place in Black Duncan's tail, with a gillie -to carry your pipes and knapsack, is not, mind ye, all that's to the -making of a piper." - -Tearlach laughed in her face. "Boy or man," said he, "look at me! north, -east, south, and west, where is the one to beat me? Macruimen has the -name, but there were pipers before Macruimen, and pipers will come after -him." - -"It's maybe as you say," said Paruig. "The stuff's in you, and what -is in must out; but give me _cothrom na Feinne_, and old as I am, with -Finne's chance, and that's fair play, I can maybe make you crow less -crouse. Are ye for trying?" - -"I am at the training of a new chanter-reed," said Tearlach; "but let it -be when you will." - -They fixed a day, and went out to play against each other for glory, and -so it befell that on this day Paruig Dali was playing "The Glen is Mine" -and "Bodaich nam Briogais" in a way to make stounding hearts. - -Giorsal snapped her fingers in her stepson's face when her husband -closed the _crunluadh_ of his _piobaireachd._ - -"Can you better it, bastard?" snarled she. - -"Here goes for it, whatever!" said Tear-lach, and over his back went the -banner with its boar's head sewn on gold. A pretty lad, by the cross! -clean-cut of limb and light of foot, supple of loin, with the toss of -the shoulder that never a decent piper lacked. The women who had been -at the linn leaned on each other all in the soft larch-scented day, and -looked at him out of deep eyes; the men on the heather arose and stood -nigher. - -A little tuning, and then - - "Is comadh leam's comadh leam, cogadh na sithe, - Marbhar 'sa chogadh na crochar's an t-sith mi." - -"Peace or war!" cried Giorsal, choking in anger, to her man--"peace or -war! the black braggart! it's an asp ye have for a son, goodman!" - -The lad's fingers danced merry on the chanter, and the shiver of -something to come fell on all the folk around. The old hills sported -with the prancing tune; Dun Corrbhile tossed it to Drimfem, and -Drimfern sent it leaping across the flats of Kilmune to the green -corries of Lecknamban. "Love, love, the old tune; come and get flesh!" -rasped a crow to his mate far off on misty Ben Bhreac, and the heavy -black wings flapped east. The friendly wind forgot to dally with the -pine-tuft and the twanging bog-myrtle, the plash of Aora in its brown -linn was the tinkle of wine in a goblet. "Peace or war, peace or war; -come which will, we care not," sang the pipe-reeds, and there was the -muster and the march, hot-foot rush over the rotting rain-wet moor, the -jingle of iron, the dunt of pike and targe, the choked roar of hate and -hunger, batter and slash and fall, and behind, the old, old feud with -Appin! - -Leaning forward, lost in a dream, stood the swank lads of Aora. They -felt at their hips, where were only empty belts, and one said to his -child, "White love, get me yon long knife with the nicks on it, and the -basket-hand, for I am sick of shepherding." The bairn took a look at his -face and went home crying. - -And the music still poured on. 'Twas "I got a Kiss o' the King's Hand" -and "The Pretty Dirk," and every air better than another. The fairy pipe -of the Wee Folk's Knowe never made a sweeter fever of sound, yet it hurt -the ears of the women, who had reason to know the payment of pipers' -springs. - -"Stop, stop, O Tearlach og!" they cried; "enough of war: have ye not a -reel in your budget?" - -"There was never a reel in Boreraig," said the lad, and he into -"Duniveg's Warning," the tune Coll Ciotach heard his piper play in the -west on a day when a black bitch from Dunstaffnage lay panting for him, -and his barge put nose about in time to save his skin. - -"There's the very word itself in it," said Paruig, forgetting the -taunting of Giorsal and all but a father's pride. - -'Twas in the middle of the "Warning" Black Duncan, his toe on the -stirrup, came up from Castle Inneraora, with a gillie-wet-foot behind, -on his way to Lochow. - -"It's down yonder you should be, Sir Piper, and not blasting here for -drink," said he, switching his trews with his whip and scowling under -black brows at the people. "My wife is sick of the _clarsach_ and wants -the pipes." - -"I'm no woman's piper, Lochow; your wife can listen to the hum of her -spinning-wheel if she's weary of her harp," said the lad; and away -rode the Chief, and back to the linn went the women, and the men to -the _cabar_ and the stone, and Tearlach, with an extra feather in his -bonnet, home to Inneraora, leafing a gibe as he went, for his father. - -Paruig Dali cursed till the evening at the son he never saw, and his -wife poisoned his mind. - -"The Glen laughs at you, man, from Carnus to Croit-bhile. It's a black, -burning day of shame for you, Paruig Dall!" - -"Lord, it's a black enough day for me at the best!" said the blind man. - -"It's disgraced by your own ill-got son you are, by a boy with no blood -on his _biodag_, and the pride to crow over you." - -And Paruig cursed anew, by the Cross and the Dogs of Lorn, and the White -Glaive of Light the giants wear, and the Seven Witches of Cothmar. He -was bad though he was blind, and he went back to the start of time for -his language. "But _Dhe!_ the boy can play!" he said at the last. - -"Oh, _amadain dhoill_" cried the woman; "if it was I, a claw was off the -cub before the mouth of day." - -"Witless woman, men have played the pipes before now, lacking a finger: -look at Alasdair Corrag!" - -"Allowing; but a hand's as easy to cut as a finger for a man who has -gralloched deer with a keen _sgian-dubh_. Will ye do't or no'?" - -Parig would hearken no more, and took to his pillow. - -Rain came with the gloaming. Aora, the splendid river, roared up the -dark glen from the Salmon Leap; the hills gathered thick and heavy round -about the scattered townships, the green new tips of fir and the copper -leaves of the young oaks moaned in the wind. Then salt airs came tearing -up from the sea, grinding branch on branch, and the whole land smoked -with the drumming of rain that slanted on it hot and fast. - -Giorsal arose, her clothes still on her, put a plaid on her black head, -and the thick door banged back on the bed as she dived into the storm. -Her heavy feet sogged through the boggy grass, the heather clutched at -her draggled coat-tails to make her stay, but she filled her heart with -one thought, and that was hate, and behold! she was on the slope of -the Black Bull before her blind husband guessed her meaning. Castle -Inneraora lay at the foot of the woody dun, dozing to the music of the -salt loch that made tumult and spume north and south in the hollow of -the mountains. Now and then the moon took a look at things, now and then -a night-hag in the dripping wood hooted as the rain whipped her breast -feathers; a roe leaped out of the gloom and into it with a feared -hoof-plunge above Carlonan; a thunderbolt struck in the dark against the -brow of Ben Ime and rocked the world. - -In the cold hour before the mouth of day the woman was in the piper's -room at the gate of Inneraora, where never a door was barred against the -night while Strong Colin the warder could see from the Fort of Dunchuach -to Cladich. Tearlach the piper lay on his back, with the glow of a -half-dead peat on his face and hands. "Paruig, Paruig!" said the woman -to herself, as she softly tramped out the peat-fire and turned to the -bed. And lo! it was over. Her husband's little black knife made a fast -sweep on the sleeper's wrist, and her hand was drenched with the hot -blood of her husband's son. - -Tearlach leaped up with a roar in the dark and felt for his foe; but the -house was empty, for Giorsal was running like a hind across the soaked -stretch of Caimban. The lightning struck at Glenaora in jagged fury and -confusion; the thunder drummed hollow on Creag - -Dubh: in a turn of the pass at the Three Bridges the woman met her -husband. - -"Daughter of hell!" said he, "is't done? and was't death?" - -"Darling," said she, with a fond laugh, "'twas only a brat's hand. You -can give us 'The Glen is Mine!' in the morning." - - - - -THE SECRET OF THE HEATHER-ALE - - -DOWN Glenaora threescore and ten of Diarmaid's stout fellows took the -road on a fine day. They were men from Carnus, with more of Clan Artair -than Campbell in them; but they wore Gilleasbuig Gruamach's tartan,. -and if they were not on Gilleasbuig Gruamach's errand, it makes little -difference on our story. It was about the time Antrim and his dirty -Irishers came scouring through our glens with flambeaux, dirk and sword -and other arms invasive, and the country was back at its old trade of -fighting, with not a sheiling from end to end, except on the slopes of -Shira Glen, where a clan kept free of battle and drank the finest of -heather-ale that the world envied the secret of. - -"Lift we and go, for the Cattle's before!" said Alasdair Piobaire on the -chanter of a Dunvegan great-pipe--a neat tune that roared gallant and -far from Carnus to Bara-caldine; so there they were, the pick of swank -fellows on the road! - -At the head of them was Niall Mor a' Chamais--the same gentleman namely -in story for many an art and the slaughter of the strongest man in the -world, as you'll find in the writings of my Lord Archie. "God! look at -us!" said he, when his lads came over the hill in the grey mouth of day. -"Are not we the splendid men? Fleas will there be this day in the hose -of the Glenshira folk." And he sent his targe in the air in a bravado, -catching it by the prong in its navel, smart and clean, when it whirled -back. - -Hawks yelped as they passed; far up on Tullich there was barking of -eagles; the brogues met the road as light as the stagslot; laughing, -singing, roaring; sword-heads and pikes dunting on wooden targets--and -only once they looked back at their women high on the brae-face. - -The nuts were thick on the roadside, hanging heavy from swinging -branches, and some of the men pulled them off as they passed, stayed for -more, straggled, and sang bits of rough songs they ken over many of on -Lochowside to this day. So Niall Mor glunched at his corps from under -his bonnet and showed his teeth. - -"Gather in, gather in," said he; "ye march like a drove of low-country -cattle. Alasdair, put 'Baile Inneraora' on her!" - -Alasdair changed his tune, and the good march of Clan Diarmaid went -swinging down the glen. - -The time passed; the sun stood high and hot; clucking from the -fir-plantings came woodcock and cailzie; the two rivers were crossed, -and the Diarmaids slockened their thirst at the water of Altan Aluinn, -whose birth is somewhere in the bogs beside tall Bhuidhe Ben. - -Where the clans met was at the Foal's Gap, past Maam. A score of the -MacKellars ran out in a line from the bushes, and stotted back from the -solid weight of Diarmaid moving in a lump and close-shouldered in the -style Niall Mor got from the Italian soldier. Some fell, hacked on the -head by the heavy slash of the dry sword; some gripped too late at the -pikes that kittled them cruelly; and one--Iver-of-the-Oars--tripped on -a root of heather, and fell with his breast on the point of a Diarmaid's -dirk. - -To the hills went a fast summons, and soon at the mouth of the gap came -twoscore of the MacKellars. They took a new plan, and close together -faced the green tartan, keeping it back at the point of steel, though -the pick of Glenaora wore it, and the brogues slipped on the brae-face. -It was fast cut and drive, quick flash of the dirk, with the palm up and -the hand low to find the groin, and a long reach with the short black -knife. The choked breath hissed at teeth and nose, the salt smell of new -blood brought a shiver to birch-leaf and gall. But ever the green tartan -had the best of it. - -"_Bas, bas, Dhiarmaid!_" cried Calum Dubh, coming up on the back of his -breaking two-score with fresh lads from Elerigmor, bed-naked to the -hide, and a new fury fell on the two clans tearing at it in the narrow -hollow in between the rocky hills. So close they were, there was small -room for the whirl of the basket-hilt, and "Mind Tom-a-Phubaill and the -shortened steel!" cried Niall Mor, smashing a pretty man's face with a -blow from the iron guard of his Ferrara sword. The halberts, snapped at -the haft to make whittles, hammered on the target-hides like stones on -a coffin, or rang on the bosses; the tartan ripped when the stuck one -rolled on his side before the steel could be twisted out; below the foot -the grass felt warm and greasy, and the reason was not ill to seek. - -Once it looked like the last of Calum Dubh. He was facing Niall Mor, -sword and targe, and Niall Mor changed the sword to the other hand, -pulled the _sgian-dubh_ from his garter, and with snapping teeth pushed -like a lightning fork below MacKellar's target. An Elerigmor man ran in -between; the little black knife sunk into his belly with a moist plunge, -and the blood spouted on the deer-horn haft. - -"_Mallachd ort!_ I meant yon for a better man," cried Niall Mor; "but -it's well as it is, for the secret's to the fore," and he stood up dour -and tall against a new front of Mac-Kellar's men. - -Then the sky changed, and a thin smirr of warm rains fell on the glen -like smoke; some black-cattle bellowed at the ford in a wonder at where -their herds could be, and the herds--stuck, slashed, and cudgelled--lay -stiffening on the torn grass between the gap and Mac-Kellar's house. -From end to end of the glen there was no man left but was at the -fighting. The hook was tossed among the corn; the man hot-foot behind -the roe, turned when he had his knife at its throat, to go to war; a -lover left his lass among the heather; and all, with tightened belts, -were at the old game with Clan Diarmaid, while their women, far up on -the sappy levels between the hill-tops and beside the moor-lochs, -span at the wheel or carded wool, singing songs with light hearts and -thinking no danger. - -Back went MacKellar's men before Niall - -Mor and his sturdy lads from Camus, the breeder of soldiers--back -through the gap and down on the brae to the walls of Calum Dubh. - -"'Illean, 'illean!" cried Calum; "lads, lads! they have us, sure enough. -Oh! pigs and thieves! squint mouths and sons of liars!" - -The cry gathered up the strength of all that was left of his clan, Art -and Uileam, the Maam lads, the brothers from Drimlea and two from over -Stron hill, and they stood up together against the Carnus men--a gallant -madness! They died fast and hard, and soon but Calum and his two sons -were left fencing, till a rush of Diarmaids sent them through the door -of the house and tossed among the peats. - -"Give in and your lives are your own," said Niall Mor, wiping his sword -on his shirtsleeve, and with all that were left of his Diarmaids behind -his back. - -To their feet stood the three MacKellars. - -Calum looked at the folk in front of him, and had mind of other ends to -battles. "To die in a house like a rat were no great credit," said he, -and he threw his sword on the floor, where the blades of Art and Uileam -soon joined it. - -With tied arms the father and his sons were taken outside, where the air -was full of the scents of birch and gall new-washed. The glen, clearing -fast of mist, lay green and sweet for mile and mile, and far at its -mouth the fat Blaranbuie woods chuckled in the sun. - -"I have you now," said Niall Mor. "Ye ken what we seek. It's the old -ploy--the secret of the ale." - -Calum laughed in his face, and the two sons said things that cut like -knives. - -"Man! I'm feared ye'll rue this," said Niall Mor, calm enough. "Ye may -laugh, but--what would ye call a gentleman's death?" - -"With the sword or the dagger in the hand, and a Diarmaid or two before -me," cried Calum. - -"Well, there might be worse ways of travelling yont--indeed there could -ill be better; but if the secret of the ale is not to be ours for the -asking, ye'll die a less well-bred death." - -"Name it, man, name it," said Calum. "Might it be tow at the throat and -a fir-branch." - -"Troth," said Niall Mor, "and that were too gentle a travelling. The -Scaurnoch's on our way, and the crows at the foot of it might relish a -Glen Shira carcass." - -Uileam whitened at the notion of so ugly an end, but Calum only said, -"Die we must any way," and Art whistled a bit of a pipe-tune, grinding -his heel on the moss. - -Niall Mor made to strike the father on the face, but stayed his hand and -ordered the three in-by, with a few of his corps to guard them. Up and -down Glen Shira went the Diarmaids, seeking the brewing-cave, giving hut -and home to the flame, and making black hearths and low lintels for the -women away in the sheilings. They buried their dead at Kilblaan, and, -with no secret the better, set out for Scaurnoch with Calum and his -sons. - -The MacKellars were before, like a _spreidh_ of stolen cattle, and the -lot of the driven herd was theirs. They were laughed at and spat on, -and dirk-hilts and _cromags_ hammered on their shoulders, and through -Blaranbuie wood they went to the bosky elbow of Dun Corr-bhile and round -to the Dun beyond. - -Calum, for all his weariness, stepped like a man with a lifetime's plans -before his mind; Art looked about him in the fashion of one with an eye -to woodcraft; Uileam slouched with a heavy foot, white at the jaw and -wild of eye. - -The wood opened, the hunting-road bent about the hill-face to give a -level that the eye might catch the country spread below. Loch Finne -stretched far, from Ardno to French Foreland, a glassy field, specked -with one sail off Creaggans. When the company came to a stand, Calum -Dubh tossed his head to send the hair from his eyes, and looked at what -lay below. The Scaurnoch broke at his feet, the grey rock-face falling -to a depth so deep that weary mists still hung upon the sides, jagged -here and there by the top of a fir-tree. The sun, behind the Dun, -gave the last of her glory to the Cowal Hills; Hell's Glen filled with -wheeling mists; Ben Ime, Ben Vane, and Ben Arthur crept together and -held princely converse on the other side of the sea. - -All in a daze of weariness and thinking the Diarmaids stood, and looked -and listened, and the curlews were crying bitter on the shore. - -"Oh, haste ye, lads, or it's not Carnus for us to-night," cried Niall -Mor. "We have business before us, and long's the march to follow. The -secret, black fellow!" - -Calum Dubh laughed, and spat in a bravado over the edge of the rock. - -"Come, fool; if we have not the word from you before the sun's off -Sithean Sluaidhe, your sleep this night is yonder," and he pointed at -the pit below. - -Calum laughed the more. "If it was hell itself," said he, "I would not -save my soul from it." - -"Look, man, look! the Sithean Sluaidhe's getting black, and any one of -ye can save the three yet. I swear it on the cross of my knife." - -Behind the brothers, one, John-Without-Asking, stood, with a gash on his -face, eager to give them to the crows below. - -A shiver came to Uileam's lips; he looked at his father with a -questioning face, and then stepped back a bit from the edge, making to -speak to the tall man of Chamis. - -Calum saw the meaning, and spoke fast and thick. - -"Stop, stop," said he; "it's a trifle of a secret, after all, and to -save life ye can have it." - -Art took but a little look at his father's face, then turned round on -Shira Glen and looked on the hills where the hunting had many a time -been sweet. "Maam no more," said he to himself; "but here's death in the -hero's style!" - -"I thought you would tell it," laughed Niall Mor. "There was never one -of your clan but had a tight grip of his little life." - -"Ay!" said Calum Dubh; "but it's _my_ secret. I had it from one who made -me swear on the holy steel to keep it; but take me to Carnus, and I'll -make you the heather-ale." - -"So be't, and----" - -"But there's this in it, I can look no clansmen nor kin in the face -after telling it, so Art and Uileam must be out of the way first." - -"Death, MacKellar?" - -"That same." - -Uileam shook like a leaf, and Art laughed, with his face still to Shira, -for he had guessed his father's mind. - -"Faith!" said Niall Mor, "and that's an easy thing enough," and he -nodded to John-Without-Asking. - -The man made stay nor tarry. He put a hand on each son's back and -pushed them over the edge to their death below. One cry came up to the -listening Diarmaids, one cry and no more--the last gasp of a craven. - -"Now we'll take you to Camus, and you'll make us the ale, the fine ale, -the cream of rich heather-ale," said Niall Mor, putting a knife to the -thongs that tied MacKellar's arms to his side. - -With a laugh and a fast leap Calum Dubh stood back on the edge of the -rock again. - -"Crook-mouths, fools, pigs' sons! did ye think it?" he cried. "Come with -me and my sons and ye'll get ale, ay, and death's black wine, at the -foot of Scaurnoch." He caught fast and firm at John-Without-Asking, and -threw himself over the rock-face. They fell as the scart dives, straight -to the dim sea of mist and pine-tip, and the Diarmaids threw themselves -on their breasts to look over. There was nothing to see of life but -the crows swinging on black feathers; there was nothing to hear but the -crows scolding. - -Niall Mor put the bonnet on his head and said his first and last -friendly thing of a foe. - -"Yon," said he, "had the heart of a man!" - - - - -BOBOON'S CHILDREN - - -FROM Knapdale to Lorn three wandering clans share the country between -them, and of the three the oldest and the greatest are the swart -Macdonalds, children of the Old Boboon. - -You will come on them on Wade's roads,--jaunty fellows, a bit dour in -the look, and braggart; or girls with sloe-eyes, tall and supple, not -with a flat slouching foot on the soil, but high in the instep, -bounding and stag-sure. At their head will be a long lean old man on -crutches--John Fine Macdonald-- - -Old Boboon, the father and head of the noblest of wandering tribes. - -"Sir," will Boboon say to you, "I am the fellow you read of in books as -the teller of Fingalian tales; wilt hear one of them for a poor Saxon -shilling, or wilt buy my lures for the fish? Or perhaps a display of -scholarly piping by my daughter's son--the gallant scamp!--who has -carried arms for his king?" - -If one must have the truth, the piping is bad piping, but the fish-lures -and the tales are the best in the world. You will find some of the tales -in the writings of Iain Og of Isla--such as "The Brown Bear of the Green -Glen"; but the best are to hear as Boboon minds them when he sits with -you on the roadside or on the heather beside the evening fire, when -the brown fluffy eagles bark at the mist on Braevallach. Listen well to -them, for this person has the gift. He had it from his father, who had -it from _his_ father, who had it from a mother, who, in deep trouble -and disease, lay awake through long nights gathering thoughts as healthy -folks gather nuts--a sweet thing enough from a sour husk. - -And if time were your property (as it should be the portion of every -wiselike man), you might hear many tales from Old Boboon, but never the -tale of his own three chances. - -It happened once upon a time that the captain in the town took a notion -to make Boboon into a tame house-man instead of a creature of the woods -and highways. He took him first by himself and clapped him into a kilt -of his own tartan eight yards round the buttocks, full pleated, with -hose of fine worsted, and a coat with silver buttons. He put a pickle -money in his sporran, and gave him a place a little way down his table. -The feeding was high and the work was to a wanderer's fancy; for it -was but whistling to a dog now and then, chanting a stave, or telling a -story, or roaming through the garden behind the house. - -"Ho, ho!" said Boboon, "am not I the sturdy fellow come to his own?" and -about the place he would go with a piper's swagger, switching the -grass and shrubs with a withie as he went, in the way gentlemen use -riding-sticks. - -But when Inneraora town lay in the dark of the winter night, and the -captain's household slept, Boboon would hear his clan calling on him -outside the wall. - -"Boboon! oh, Boboon! old hero! come and collogue with your children." - -He would go to the wall, which was lower on the inside than the out -(and is, indeed, the wall of old Quinten, where a corps of Campbells, -slaughtered by Inverlochy dogs, lie under a Latin stone), and he would -look down at his friends running about like pole-cats in the darkness, -in their ragged kilts and trews, their stringy hair tossing in the wind. -The women themselves would be there, with the bairns whining on their -backs. - -"Ay! ay! this is you, my hearty folk!" he would say; "glad am I to see -you and smell the wood-fire reek off you. How is it on the road?" - -"From here we have not moved since you left us, John Fine. We are camped -in the Blue Quarry, and you never came near your children and friends." - -"God! and here's the one that's sorry for that same. But over the walls -they will not let me. 'If gentleman you would be,' says the captain, -'you must keep out of woods and off the highway.'" - -"And you like it, Boboon?" - -"Like it, heroes! But for the honour and ease of it, give me a fir-root -fire in Glen Croe and a dinner of _fuarag_. It is not the day so much -as the night. Lying in-by there on a posted-bed, I choke for the want of -air, though the windows and doors are open wide." - -"Come away with us, Boboon; we have little lack with the fish, and few -are our stories since you took to the town." - -"No, no, dears. Conan's curse, and I tell you no! In this place there is -comfort, and every day its own bellyful." - -"But the freedom outbye, John, old hero! Last night we had the bravest -of fires; the sparks flew like birds among the Duke's birches, the -ground was snug and dry, and-" - -"Begone! I tell ye no!" - -"Listen! To-day we were among the white hares beyond the Beannan, -thwacking the big fat fellows with our clubs. Such sport was not in all -Albainn!" - -"White hares!" - -"White hares, old John! And Alasdair Beag has some new tunes since you -left us--a _piobaireachd_ he picked up from a Mull man." - -"Would it be 'Failte an Roich '?" - -"Better than that by far; a masterly tune! Come out and hear him." - -But Old Boboon leaned with his arms on the wall and made no move to be -off with his children. - -"Come and stravaig," said the girls, and his daughter Betty put a foot -in a cranny and pulled herself up beside him to put coaxing arms round -his neck. - -"Calf of my heart!" said Boboon, stroking her hair, soft handed. - -"We have the fine feeding," said the girl in his ear. "Yesterday it was -plotted trout in the morning and tunnag's eggs; dinner was a collop off -a fat hind." - -"A grailoched hind?" - -"No, nor grailoched! That is a fool's fashion and the spoiling of good -meat. But come with us, father. Think of the burns bubbling, and the -stars through the branches, and the fresh airs of the morning!" - -"Down, down, you bitch! Would ye tempt me?" cried Boboon, pushing the -girl from the wall and hurrying back with shaking knees to the Latin -stone. The night was deep black, and for all he could tell by eyesight, -he might have been in the middle of breezy Moor Rannoch, but the town -gables crowded 'thick and solid round his heart. He missed the free -flowing winds; there was a smell of peat and coal from dead house-fires, -and he spat the dust of lime from his throat. - -Over the wall the clan scraped and skurried as weasels do. They dared -make no noise for fear the town should waken, but in hoarse voices they -called all together-- - -"Boboon, Boboon, oh! come home to the wood, Boboon!" - -"Am not I the poor caged one?" said Boboon to himself, and he ran in -that he might hear no more. - -It was the same the next night and the next, and it looked like going on -without end. Ever the wanderers coming at night to the wall and -craving their head to come out. And one night they threw over a winged -black-cock, that fell with beating feathers at Boboon's feet as he stood -in the dark listening to the swart Macdonalds whining outbye. - -He picked up the bird and ran kind fingers through its feathers. The -heat coursed in its breast and burned to a fever in its wounded oxter. -Its little heart beat on Boboon's thumb like a drumstick. - -"Poor bird!" said he; "well I ken where ye came from, and the merry -times ye had. Ye hatched in the braes of Ben Bhuidhe, and clucked on the -reedy places round about the side of that tall hill. Before your keen -eyes in the morning was the Dubh Loch, and the Shira--winding like a -silver belt. Sure am I ye took wing for it with the day, and over Stuc -Scardan to Aora Glen to make merry among your mates in the heather and -the fern. Oh! _choillich-dhuibh, choillich-dhuibh_, hard's our fate with -broken wings and the heart still strong!" - -He thrawed the bird's neck, and then went over the wall to join his -clan. - -His second chance ended no better. He was back in a new kilt and jacket -a twelvemonth later, and this time the captain tried the trick of a -dog's freedom--oat on the road as he liked by day, but kennel at night. - -One day Boboon was on his master's errand round Stron. It was the spring -of the year. The shore, at the half-ebb, was clean and sweet, and the -tide lapped at the edge as soft as a cat at milk. - -Going round Stron on the hard yellow road, he got to think of the sea's -good fortune,--of the many bays it wandered into by night or day; of its -friendship with far-out forelands, and its brisk quarrels with the black -rocks. Here was no dyke at any time, but all freedom, the restlessness -and the roaming, sleep or song as the mood had it, and the ploys with -galleys and gabberts; the cheery halloo of the winds and the waving of -branches on foreign isles to welcome one. - -The road opened before him in short swatches--the sort of road a -wanderer likes, with not too much of it to be seen at one look. In the -hazel-wood by the way the bark of the young trees glistened like brass; -thin new switches shot out straight as shelisters. - -John Fine, with the sun heating his back, started at the singing of -Donnacha Ban's "Coire Cheathaich":-- - - "O 'twas gladsome to go a-hunting - Out in the dew of the sunny mom! - For the great red stag was never wanting, - Nor the fawn, nor the doe with never a horn. - My beauteous corri, my misty corri! - What light feet trod thee in joy and pride! - What strong hand gathered thy precious treasures, - What great hearts leaped on thy craggy side!" - -Rounding Dundarave, the road lay straight before him till it thinned in -the distance to a needle-point pricking the trees, and at the end of it -was a cloud of dust. - -"What have I here?" said Boboon to himself, stretching out with long -steps, the kilt flapping against the back of his knees. - -The cloud came close, and lo! here was his own clan on the march, -draggled and stoury, rambling, scattered like crows, along the road. - -"Boboon! Boboon!" they cried, and they hung about him, fingering his -fine clothes. - -He looked at their brown flesh, he saw the yellow soil in the crannies -of their brogues, the men loose and blackguardly, the women red-cheeked, -ripe, and big-breasted, with bold eyes, and all had enchantment for him! -A stir set up in his heart that he could not put down. - -"Where were you yesterday?" he asked. - -"On the side of the Rest in Glen Croe, with dry beds of white hay and no -hurry." - -"Where are you for?" - -"Have you forgotten the wanderer's ways, Boboon? Where does this road go -to?" - -"Well ye ken, my heroes! It goes to the end of a man's will. If the man' -says, 'I bide here,' it's the end of the road; but if he has the notion, -it will take him to the end of days. That, by my soul! is the charm of -all roads that are not in towns; and now that I think of it, let the -captain whistle on his errand, for I'm Boboon and sick of the causey -stones." - -So night found Boboon and his clan far in at the back of Auchnabreac, -town-muir and bonny place, where some we ken would sooner be than -wandering o'er the world. - -And the days passed, and at Martinmas the captain was at Kilmichael -Market, and he came on Boboon with his people on the edge of the -market-place. Boboon in those days was as straight as a young -saugh-wand, sharp and thin, all thong at the joints, and as supple as a -wild cat. He was giving a display with the _sgian-dubh_, stabbing it on -the ground at the back of his left heel and twisting his right arm round -the leg to get the blade out of the ground without bending the knee. It -was a trick to take the eye, but neither bardic nor soldierly, yet -there was a throng of drovers about him. Along with him was his daughter -Betty, who took after him for looks, but had her dead mother's dainty -tongue, and from her mother a little book-schooling John Fine had never -the need of. - -The eye of the captain fell on the two of them as they stood there, with -their forty clan-folk going about the market, and he was gripped by a -new notion to give Boboon the third and the last chance. - -"Boboon!" he said, "come back to the town this once, and I'll put you -and your daughter up together in a house of your own." - -Before a week was out the thing was as he wanted. Boboon and Betty got a -room in Macvicar's Land, with a wooden floor, and a fire on the side -of the wall with a built-in chimney, and other gentilities beside. They -stayed for months, and they stayed for years, and the clan craved them -in vain to come home. Betty was put to the books and the arts of ladydom -by the captain's mother and sister, and she took to them like a Ridir's -daughter. She lost the twang of the road-folk; she put her errant hair -in leash; she grew to the habit of snodding and redding, until for grace -and good looks she was the match of them that taught her. - -One day the captain, walking in his garden in deep cogitation, fell in -the way of the girl as she roamed among the bushes. He got for the first -time the true glance of her (for one may look at a person for years and -not see the reality till a scale falls from the eyes), and behold! here -was a woman who set his heart drumming. - -It was that very night Boboon put an end to his last chance. - -The strong sun of the day left the night hot and clammy, and a haze -hung on the country such as one sees in these parts in keenest frost. -Macvicar's Land was full of smells--of sweating flesh and dirty water, -of fish and the rotting airs of sunless holes--and the dainty nose of -Macdonald took a disgust. He flung open door and window, and leaned out -at the window with his neck bared and his mouth stretched wide gasping -to the air. The bairns in the back-land looked up and laughed. - -"Look at Boboon, Boboon, Boboon, the father of Lady Betty!" they cried, -and John Fine shook his fist and cursed their families. - -But there was no ease from the trouble in this fashion, so he got up and -went behind the town, and threw himself under the large trees with an -ear to the ground. Beside him the cattle crunched the sappy grass in so -sweet and hearty mouthfuls that he could well wish he had the taste of -nature himself, and they breathed great breaths of content. His keen -ears could catch the hopping of beasts on the grass and the scratching -of claws in the wood, he could hear the patter of little feet, and the -birds above him scraping on the bark when they turned in their sleep. -A townman would think the world slept, so great was the booming of -quietness; but Boboon heard the song of the night, the bustle of the -half world that thrives in shade and starshine. - -Leaning now on an elbow, he let his eyes rove among the beeches, into -the bossy tops, solemn and sedate, and the deep recesses that might -be full of the little folk of fairy-land at their cantrips. And then -farther back and above all was Dunchuach the stately, lifting its face, -wood-bearded, to the stars! - -"If a wind was here it was all I wanted," said Boboon, and when he -said it the wind came--a salty air from the sea. The whole country-side -cooled and gave out fresh scents of grass and earth. - -"O God! O God!" cried the wanderer, "here we are out-by, the beasts and -the birds and the best of Boboon together! Here is the place for ease -and the full heart." - -He up and ran into the town, and up to the captain's gate and in. - -"Master," he cried, 'it's the old story,--I must be taking the road for -it; here's no rest for John Fine Macdonald!" - -"But you'll leave the girl," said the captain, who saw the old fever in -the man's eyes; "I have taken a notion of her, and--" - -"So be it! let her bide." - -"I'll marry her before the morn's out." - -"Marry!" cried Boboon, putting back his hair from his face with a -nervous hand. "You would marry a wanderer's child?" - -"Well, they'll talk, no doubt; but she has gifts to make them forget, -and she's good enough to make a king's woman." - -"Sir," said Boboon, "I have but one thing to say, and that's our -own Gaelic old-word, 'There are few lapdogs in a fox's litter.'" The -captain's face got as red as his vest, and he had a ready hand up for an -answer to Boboon, but he had mind the man was the girl's father. - -"I'll risk it," he said, "and you can go your wandering ways, for Betty -is willing." - -"No doubt, no doubt," said Boboon, and he went. In the hollow of the -night he was hooting back like a boy at the hoolets on the slopes of -Coillevraid, and at the mouth of day, in a silver wet light, he was -standing on the edge of the hills that look on two lochs, his head high -like a scenting deer's. He turned him round about to all airts with his -eyes from Cruachan to Cowal, and as far between Knapdale and Lorn as -a wanderer has vision, and yonder, down at Kames, was the camp of his -clan! - -Betty his daughter left Macvicar's Land in the morning and went to be -captain's wife, with a seat in the kirk and callers from the castle -itself. - -"Wait, wait," said old Craignure, when the tale reached him, "you'll see -the fox come out on her ere long." - -But the fox was not there; it was skipping a day, as the fox will do -sometimes when the day before has been good hunting. All went well with -the woman till the worst that might have been the best happened, and -she died with her first child. It was the year of the stunted oats, that -brought poverty to Inneraora and black bread to the captain's board; but -black bread and brochan would have been the blithest of meat for him if -Betty was left to share it. He took to the bottle, and left the boy to -women who had no skill of wild youth. - -And the child grew like a fir-tree, straight and tall, full of hot -blood, swung about by whim and the moment's fancy. For him it was ever -the horse and gun, a snatched dinner and hearty, and off to the wood -or hill. He got to know the inner ways of the beasts that hide in the -coarse grasses and the whin; at a whistle he could coax flapping birds -to come to heel. A loose vest and a naked neck for ever were marring his -gentility, and his closest friends were countrymen with hard hands and -the loud ready laugh. - -One day it came to the captain's mind that something must be made of -this young blade, and he sent for him. - -"Boy," said he, "are you at your books?" - -"No, but--but I ken a short way with the badgers," the lad made answer. - -"Did you have a lesson this morning?" - -"Never a lesson," said the lad; "I was too busy living." - -"Living, said ye?" - -"Living. I was at the swimming at the Creags, and beaking in the sun -on the braes above the Garron beside the march wall where the hedgehogs -creep, and I am new from the shinty," and he shook the shinty-stick in -his hand. - -The captain took to pondering, his chin on his hand and his elbows on -the table, where a bottle and glass lay beside him. - -After a bit he said, "Look ye, my son, what are ye meaning to be?" - -"I'm for the sword-work," the lad said, in a flash, his face twitching. - -"I would sooner see you in hell first!" cried the captain, thumping the -board till the glass rang. He had seen foreign wars himself and had a -hack on the groin. - -That was the first of the feud between them. They fought it dour and -they fought it hard, the father for the crafts of peace and the lad for -his own way, and at last one day the captain said-- - -"To the door, brat, and your lair with the Boboons you belong to! Faith, -and your grandfather was right when he said there was never a lapdog in -a fox's litter." - -Who he came of, the lad had no notion, for the swart Macdonalds never -came near the town after Boboon left it for the last time; but he put on -his bonnet, and went out of the house and on to the highroad. - -It was well on to winter, a brawling day, with the leaves of the Duke's -trees swishing thick and high over the thatch and through the streets -of the Duke's town. Snug stood the gables, friendly and warm, and the -window-lozens winked with the light of big peat-fires within. Over the -breast the seabirds yelped and crows craked without a stop, stirring -about in the branches behind Macvicar's Land. And the salt wind! It blew -in from the low bay at one end of the town and through it to the other, -and before it went a lad into the wide world that starts at the factor's -corner. - -"By the shore-side to the low country, or by the woods to the hills?" -the lad asked himself. He had the _caman_ still in his hand, and he -tossed it in the air. "Bas for the highway, _cas_ for the low," said he. -The shinty fell _bos_, and our hero took to it for the highway to the -north. He swithered at the Arches, and looked back on the front of the -town and the quay with the oil-lights on it. He was half in the humour -to bide, but he put the notion behind him and stretched to the brae, -whistling a piper's march. At the head of the brae the town houses were -lost to him, and this so soon he could not put up with, so he went down -on a way to the right a little and stood on the grass of the Winterton -field. - -Fast and dark the night was falling, a heavy smirr of rain was drooking -the grass, and the trees on every hand shook the water in blobs from the -branches. Through them the lights of the finest town in the world shone -damp and woe-begone. - -"There are good folk in't, and bad folk in't," said the lad to himself; -"but somehow 'twas never the place for me!" - -He turned and went into the road through the wood, savage at heart, -without a thought of where his sleep would be. When he came to -Kennachregan, there was the scad of a fire above the trees beside the -roaring river, and he went down and looked over a march dyke at a band -of wanderers under the trees. Young and old, men and women, they lay -steaming on soft beds of springy spruce-branches with their toes to the -crackling logs, snoring as snore sound sleepers, sheltered from the rain -by the thick branches, the side of the hill, and here and there a canvas -covering. There was but one of them up--a long old man with lank jaws -and black eyes--John Fine Macdonald. He was stirring up the logs with -the shod of a crutch and humming a Perth song, and before the hottest of -the fire a plucked bird was roasting. - -The smell of the meat and the wood-fire rose to the dykeside where the -lad stood shivering in his wet clothes, and the comfort of the camp was -something he could not pass by. - -He took a jump over the dyke and went out in the light of the fire, -wondering what would be his welcome. Old Boboon looked up with his hand -over his eyes, then rose on his crutches and put a hand on the young -fellow's shoulder. - -"You're from Inneraora town?" said he. - -"I am," said the lad; "but it's Inneraora no more for me." - -"Ho! ho!" laughed the old wanderer. "Sit ye down, ye scamp, and take -your fingers to a pick of your grandfather's hen. Boboon's children may -be slow and far, but home's aye home to them!" - - - - -THE FELL SERGEANT. - - -IT is ill enough to have to die in Glenaora at any season, but to get -the word for travelling from it on yon trip in the spring of the year is -hard indeed. The gug-gug will halloo in your ears to bid you bide a -wee and see the red of the heather creep on Tom-an-dearc; the soft and -sap-scented winds will come in at the open door, and you will mind, -maybe, of a day long-off and lost when you pulled the copper leaves of -the bursting oak and tossed them among a girl's hair. Oh! the long days -and the strong days! They will come back to you like the curious bit in -a tune that is vexatious and sweet, and not for words or a set thought. -You will think of the lambs on the slopes, of the birds tearing through -the thousand ways in the woods, of the magic hollows in below the -thick-sown pines, of the burns, deep at the bottom of _eas_ and corri, -spilling like gold on a stair. And then, it may be, Solomon Carrier's -cart goes by to the town, the first time since the drifts went off the -high road; you hear the clatter of the iron shoes, and your mind will go -with him to the throng street where the folks are so kind and so free. - -But to turn your back for the last at that time on Lecknamban must come -sorest of all. For Lecknamban has seven sheilings hidden in its hills, -where the grass is long and juicy, and five burns that are aye on the -giggle like girls at a wedding, and the Aora daunders down in front of -the knowe, full of fish for the Duke alone, but bonny for earl or caird. - -It was in this same glen, in this same Lecknamban, in the spring of a -year, a woman was at her end. She was a woman up in years but not old, -a black Bana-Mhuileach who had seen pleasant things and trials like all -who come to this queer market-place; but now when the time was come -to take the long road with no convoy, only the good times were in her -recollection. And though Glenaora was not her calf-country (for she came -but a year ago to bide with a friend), she was swear't to turn heel on a -place so cosy. - -She sat propped up in a box-bed, on pillows, with her face to the open -door, and the friendly airs of the country-side came in to stir her -hair. With them came scents of the red earth and the grass, birch-tree -and myrtle, from the moor. But more than all they brought her who was at -her end a keen craving for one more summer of the grand world. Strong -in her make and dour at the giving-in, she kept talking of the world's -affairs and foolishness to the folk about her who were waiting the -Almighty's will and the coming of the stretching-board. Her fingers -picked without a stop at the woolly bits of the blankets, and her eyes -were on as much of the knowe below the house as she could see out at the -open door. It was yellow at the foot with flowers, and here and there -was a spot of blue from the cuckoo-brogue. - -"Women, women," she said with short breaths, "I'm thinking aye, when I -see the flowers, of a man that came from these parts to Duart. He sang -'Mo Nighean Dubh' in a style was never heard before in our place, and he -once brought me the scented cuckoo-brogues from Aora." - -Said the goodwife, "Aoirig, poor woman, it is not the hour for ancient -old _sgeuls_; be thinking of a canny going." - -"Going! it was aye going with me," said the woman in the bed. "And it -was aye going when things were at their best and I was the keener for -them." - -"It's the way of God, my dear, _ochanie!_" said one of the two Tullich -sisters, putting a little salt in a plate for-the coming business. - -"O God! it's the hard way, indeed. And I'm not so old as you by two or -three clippings." - -"Peace, Aoirig, heart; you had your own merry times, and that's as much -as most of us have claim to." - -"Merry times! merry times!" said Aoirig, humped among the bedding, her -mind wandering. - -Curls of the peat-reek coiled from the floor among the _cabars_ or -through the hole in the roof; a lamb ran by the door bleating for its -mother, and the whistling of an _uiseag_ high over the grass where his -nest lay ran out to a thin thread of song. The sound of it troubled the -dying woman, and she asked her friends to shut the door. Now and again -Maisie would put a wet cloth to her lips and dry the death-sweat from -her face. The goodwife was throng among chests and presses looking for -sheets, shrouds, and dead-caps. - -"It's a pity," said she, "you brought no grave-clothes with you from -Mull, my dear." - -"Are you grudging me yours?" asked Aoirig, coming round from wandering. - -"No, nor grudging; fine ye ken it, cousin. But I know ye have them, and -it's a pity you should be dressed in another's spinning than your own." - -"Ay, they're yonder sure enough: clean and ready. And there's more than -that beside them. The linen I should have brought to a man's home." - -"You and your man's home! Is it Duart, my dear, among your own folk, or -down to Inishail, you would have us take you?" Aoirig coughed till the -red froth was at her lips. - -"Duart is homely and Inishail is holy, sure enough, but I would have it -Kilmalieu. They tell me it's a fine kirkyard; but I never had the luck -to see it." - -"It's well enough, I'll not deny, and it would not be so far to take -you. Our folk have a space of their own among the MacVicars, below the -parson." - -The woman in the bed signed for a sip of water, and they had it fast at -her lips. - -"Could you be putting me near the Macnicols?" she asked in a weakening -voice. "The one I speak of was a Macnicol." - -"Ay, ay," said the goodwife; "they were aye gallant among the girls." - -"Gallant he was," said the one among the blankets. "I see him now. The -best man ever I saw. It was at a wedding----" - -The woman's breast racked and the spume spattered over the home-spun -blankets. - -Maisie was heating a death-shift at the peat-fire, turning it over in -her hands, letting the dry airs into every seam and corner. - -Looking at her preparation, the dying woman caught back her breath to -ask why such trouble with a dead-shift. - -"Ye would not have it on damp and cold," said Maisie, settling the -business. "I doubt it'll be long in the sleeves, woman, for the goodwife -has a lengthy reach." - -"It was at a marriage in Glenurchy," said Aoirig in a haver, the pillows -slipping down behind her back. "Yonder he is. A slim straight lad. -Ronnal, O Ronnal my hero! What a dancer! not his match in Mull. Aye -so----" - -A foot could be heard on the road, and one of the two sisters ran out, -for she knew whom it would be. They had sent word to the town by -Solomon in the morning for Macnicol the wright to come up with -the stretching-board, thinking there was but an hour more for -poor Macnicol's were the footsteps, and there he was with the -stretching-board under his arm--a good piece of larch rubbed smooth -by sheet and shroud, and a little hollow worn at the head. He was a fat -man, rolling a bit to one side on a short leg, gross and flabby at the -jowl, and thick-lipped; but he might have been a swanky lad in his day, -and there was a bit of good-humour in the corner of his eye, where you -will never see it when one has been born with the uneasy mind. He was -humming to himself as he came up the brae a Badenoch ditty they have in -these parts on the winter nights, gossiping round the fire. Whom he -was going to stretch he had no notion, except that it was a woman and a -stranger to the glen. - -The sister took him round to the corner of the house and in at the byre -door, and told him to wait. "It'll not be long now," she said. - -"Then she's still to the fore," said the wright. "I might have waited -on the paymaster's dram at Three Bridges if I had ken't. Women are aye -thrawn about dying. They'll put it off to the last, when a man would be -glad to be taking the road. Who is she, poor woman?" - -"A cousin-german of Nanny's," said the sister, putting a bottle before -him, and whipping out for some bannock and cheese. He sat down on a -shearing-stool, facing the door, half open, between the byre he was -in and the kitchen where Aoirig was at the dying. The stretching-board -leaned against the wall outside. - -"Aye so gentle, so kind," the woman in the bed was saying in her last -dover. "He kissed me first on a day like this. And the blue flowers from -Aora?" - -In the byre the wright was preeing the drink and paying little heed to -food. It was the good warm stuff they brew on the side of Lochow, the -heart of the very heart of the barley-fields, with the taste of gall and -peat, and he mellowed with every quaich, and took to the soft lilting of -Niall Ban's song:-- - - "'I am the Sergeant fell but kind - (Ho! ho! heroes, agus ho-e-ro! ); - I only lift but the deaf and blind, - The wearied-out and the rest-inclined. - Many a booty I drive before, - Through the glens, through the glens.' - said the Sergeant Mor." - -Ben the house the goodwife was saying the prayers for the dying woman -the woman should have said for herself while she had the wind for it, -but Aoirig harped on her love-tale. She was going fast, and the sisters, -putting their hands to her feet, could feel that they were cold as the -rocks. Maisie's arms were round her, and she seemed to have the notion -that here was the grip of death, for she pushed her back. - -"I am not so old--so old. There is Seana, my neighbour at Duart--long -past the fourscore and still spinning--I am not so old--God of grace--so -old--and the flowers----" - -A grey shiver went over her face; her breast heaved and fell in; her -voice stopped with a gluck in the throat. - -The women stirred round fast in the kitchen. Out on the clay floor the -two sisters pushed the table and laid a sheet on it, the goodwife put -aside the pillows and let Aoirig's head fall back on the bed. Maisie put -her hand to the clock and stopped it. - -"Open the door, open the door!" cried the goodwife, turning round in a -hurry and seeing the door still shut. - -One of the sisters put a finger below the sneck and did as she was told, -to let out the dead one's ghost. - -Outside, taking the air, to get the stir of the strong waters out of his -head, was the wright. - -He knew what the opening of the door meant, and he lifted his board and -went in with it under his arm. A wafting of the spring smells came in at -his back, and he stood with his bonnet in his hand. - -"So this is the end o't?" he said in a soft way, stamping out the fire -on the floor. - -He had but said it when Eurig sat up with a start in the bed, and the -women cried out. She opened her eyes and looked at the man, with his fat -face, his round back, and ill-made clothes, and the death-deal under his -oxter, and then she fell back on the bed with her face stiffening. - -"Here's the board for ye," said the wright, his face spotted white and -his eyes staring. "I'll go out a bit and take a look about me. I once -knew a woman who was terribly like you, and she came from Mull." - - - - -BLACK MURDO - - - "Mas breug uam e is breug thugam e." - - --Gaelic Proverb. - - -I. - -BLACK MURDO'S wife was heavy, and 'twas the time the little brown nats -were pattering in Stronbuie wood. Stronbuie spreads out its greenness -to the sun from the slope of Cladich. It is, in its season, full of the -piping of birds and the hurry of wings, and the winds of it have the -smell of a fat soil. The Diarmaids were the cunning folk to steal it; -for if Stronshira is good, Stronbuie is better; and though the loops -of Aora tangle themselves in the gardens of the Red Duke, Lochow has -enchantment for the galley of a king. Fraoch Eilean, Innis Chonell, and -Innis Chonain--they cluster on the bend of it like the gems on a brooch, -Inishail of the Monks makes it holy, and Cruachan-ben, who lords it -over Lorn, keeps the cold north wind from the shore. They may talk of -Glenaora, but Stronbuie comes close, close to the heart! - -For all that, 'twas on a time a poor enough place for a woman in yon -plight; for the rest of the clan crowded down on Innistiynich, -all fighters and coarse men of the sword, and a skilly woman or a -stretching-board was no nearer than a day's tramp over the hill and -down Aora glen to the walls of Inneraora. If one died on Cladich-side -then--and 'twas a dying time, for the Athol dogs were for ever at -the harrying--it was but a rough burying, with no corranach and no -mort-cloth; if a child came, it found but cold water and a cold world, -whatever hearts might be. But for seven years no child came for Black -Murdo. - -They say, in the Gaelic old-word, that a stolen bitch will never throw -clean pups nor a home-sick woman giants. Murdo recked nothing of that -when he went wooing in a time of truce to Croit-bhile, the honey-croft -that makes a red patch on the edge of Creag Dubh. He brought Silis home -to the dull place at Stronbuie, and she baked his bannocks and ploughed -his bit of soil, but her heart never left salt Finne-side. In the -morning she would go to the hill to look through the blurred glen, and -she would have made bargains with the ugliest crow that could flap on -feathers for a day's use of his wings. She could have walked it right -often and gaily to her people's place, but Black Murdo was of Clan -Artair, and Artairich had not yet come under the _bratach_ of Diarmaid, -and bloody knives made a march-dyke between the two tartans. - -Seven years and seven days went by, and Black Murdo, coming in on an -evening after a hard day at the deer, found Silis making the curious -wee clothes. He looked at her keen, questioning, and she bleached to the -lips. - -"So!" said he. - -"Just so," said she, breaking a thread with her teeth, and bending till -the peat-flame dyed her neck like wine. - -"God, and I'm the stout fellow!" said he, and out he went, down all the -way to Portinsherrich, and lusty he was with the ale among the pretty -men there. - -Weeks chased each other like sheep in a fank, and Silis grew sick at the -heart. There's a time for a woman when the word of a woman is sweeter -than a harp; but there were only foolish girls at Innistrynich, and -coarse men of the sword. So Murdo stayed in from the roes when the time -crept close. To see him do the heavy work of the house and carrying in -the peats was a sorry sight. - -Silis kept dreaming of Finne-side, where she had heard the long wave in -the spring of the year when she had gone home on a password to a woman's -wedding with Long Coll. The same Long Coll had brothers, and one had -put a man's foolish sayings in her ears before ever she met Murdo, she -a thin girl like a saugh-wand and not eighteen till Beltane. They called -him--no matter--and he had the way with the women. Faith, it's the -strange art! It is not looks, nor dancing, nor the good heart, nor wit, -but some soft fire of the eye and maybe a song to the bargain. Whatever -it was, it had Silis, for all that her goodman Murdo had a man's -qualities and honesty extra. - -They say, "_Cnuic is sluic is Alpeinich, ach cuin a thainig -Artharaich?_"(1) in the by-word; but Artharaich had age enough for a -_taibhsear_ whatever, for Black Murdo had the Sight. - - 1 The hills and hollows and Clan Alpine came together, but - when arose Clan Artair? - -It's the curious thing to say of a man with all his parts that he should -be _taibhsear_ and see visions; for a _taibhsear_, by all the laws, -should be an old fellow with little use for swords or shinny-sticks. -But Murdo missed being a full taibhsear by an ell, so the fit had him -seldom. He was the seventh son of a mother who died with the brand of a -cross on her brow, and she was kin to the Glenurchy Woman. And something -crept over him with the days, that put a mist in his eyes when he looked -at Silis; but "I'm no real _taibhsear_," he said to himself, "and I -swear by the black stones it is no cloth. A man with all the Gift might -call it a shroud high on her breast, but----" - -"Silis, _a bhean!_ shall it be the Skilly Dame of Inneraora?" - -A light leaped to the woman's eyes, for the very thing was in her mind. - -"If it could be," she said, slowly; "but it's not easy to get her, for -black's your name on Aoraside." - -"Black or white, Murdo stands in his own shoes. He has been at the gate -of Inneraora when Strong Colin the warder had little thought of it." - -"Then, oh heart! it must be soon--tomorrow--but----" - -The mouth of day found Silis worse, and Murdo on his way to Inneraora. - -He stepped it down Glenaora like Coll Mor in the story, or the man with -the fairy shoes. A cloud was over Tullich and a wet wind whistled on -Kennachregan. The man's target played dunt on his back, so hasty was he, -for all that the outposts of Big Colin had hawk's eyes on the pass. He -had got the length of Alt Shelechan when a Diarmaid came out on him -from the bracken with a curse on his mouth. He was a big Diarmaid, -high-breasted and stark, for there's no denying there was breed in the -pigs. - -"Ho, ho, lad!" said he, crousely, "it's risking it you are this day!" - -Black Murdo's hands went to his sides, where a ready man's should ready -be; but he had sight of Silis. He could see her in Stronbuie in the -bothy, on the wee creepy-stool beside the peats, and he knew she was -saying the Wise Woman's Wish that Diarmaid mothers have so often need -of. Length is length, and it's a far cry to Lochow sure enough; but even -half a _taibhsear_ takes no count of miles and time. - -He spoke softly. "I go to Inneraora for the Skilly Woman. My wife is a -daughter of your folks, and she'll have none but the dame who brought -herself home." - -"Death or life?" asked the Diarmaid, a freckled hand still on the -basket-hilt. He put the question roughly, for nobody likes to lose a -ploy. - -"Life it is, my lad. It's not to dress corpses but to wash weans she's -wanted." - -"Ho-chutt!" went the blade back against the brass of the scabbard (for -he was _duin-uasal_ who carried it), and the man's face changed. - -"Pass!" he said. "I would not stand in a bairn's way to life. Had it -been shrouds instead of sweelers, we could have had it out, for a corpse -is in no great hurry. But troth it's yourself is the tight one, and I -would have liked a bit of the old game." - -"No more than Murdo, red fellow!" - -"Murdo! So be't; yet Murdo will give me his dirk for gate-pay, or -they'll be saying farther down that Calum, as good a man, kept out of -his way." - -The _biodag_ went flying into the grass at Calum's feet, and Murdo went -leaping down the glen. It was like stalking deer for the Diarmaids. Here -and there he had to go into the river or among the hazel-switches, or -crawl on his stomach among the gall. - -From Kilmune to Uchdan-barracaldine the red fellows were passing, or -playing with the _clachneart_ or the _cabar,_ or watching their women -toiling in the little fields. - -"Thorns in their sides!" he said to himself, furious at last, when -another keen-eyed Diarmaid caught sight of his tartan and his black -beard among some whins. It was a stripling with only a dirk, but he -could gather fifty men on the crook of his finger. - -"Stand!" cried the Diarmaid, flashing the dirk out. "What want ye so far -over this way?" - -Murdo, even in the rage, saw Silis, a limp creature, sweating in her -pains, her black eyes (like the sloe) keen on the door. So close, -so sure, so sorrowful! He could have touched her on the shoulder and -whispered in her ear. - -"I am Black Murdo," he told the lad. "I am for Inneraora for the Skilly -Woman for my wife, child of your own clan." - -"Death or life?" - -"Life." - -"'Tis a bonny targe ye have, man; it might be doing for toll." - -The lad got it, and Murdo went on his way. He found the Skilly Woman, -who put before him sour milk and brose. But he would not have drink or -sup, so back through the Diarmaids they went without question (for the -woman's trade was as good as the chief's convoy), till they came to -Tom-an-dearc. Out upon them there a fellow red and pretty. - -"Hold!" he said, as if it had been dogs. "What's the name of ye, black -fellow?" Murdo cursed in his beard. "My name's honest man, but I have -not time to prove it." - -"Troth that's a pity. But seeing there's the _caueleach_ with you, -you must e'en go your way. There's aye some of you folk on the -stretching-board. Ye want heart, and ye die with a flaff of wind. Lend -me your sword, _'ille!_'' - -"Squint-mouth!" cried Murdo, "your greedy clan took too much off me this -day already for me to part with the sweetest blade Gow-an-aora ever beat -on iron. I took it from one of your cowards at Carnus, and if it's back -it goes, it's not with my will." - -"Then it's the better man must have it," said the red fellow, and, Lord, -he was the neat-built one! They took off their coats, and for lack of -bucklers rolled them round their arms, both calm and canny. The Diarmaid -was first ready with his brand out, and Murdo put to his point. For a -little the two men stood, spread out, hard-drawn behind the knees, with -the cords of the neck like thongs, then at it with a clatter of steel. - -The Skilly Woman, with the plaid pulled tight over her grey hair, sat -with sunk eyes on a stone and waited without wonder. She had sons who -had died in brawls at Kilmichael market, or in the long foray far -in Kintail; and her man, foster-brother to a chief, got death in the -strange foreign wars, where the pay was not hide and horn but round -gold. - -A smoky soft smirr of rain filled all the gap between the hills, though -Sithean Sluaidhe and Dunchuach had tips of brass from a sun dropping -behind the Salachary hills. The grass and the gall lost their glitter -and became grey and dull; the hill of Lecknamban, where five burns are -born, coaxed the mist down on its breast like a lover. It was wet, wet, -but never a drop made a rush bend or a leaf fall. Below the foot the -ground was greasy, as it is in a fold at the dippingtime; but the two -men pulled themselves up with a leap on it as if it might be dry sand, -and the brogues made no error on the soil. - -First the Diarmaid pressed, for he had it over the other man in youth, -and youth is but tame when it's slow or slack. Murdo waited, all eyes -that never blinked, with the basket well up, and kept on his toes. -"Splank, sp-ll-ank, sp-ll-ank--_siod e_!" said the blades, and the -Diarmaid's for a time made the most of the music, but he never got -inside the black fellow's guard. Then Murdo took up the story with a -snap of the teeth, skelping hard at the red one till the hands dirled in -the basket like a bag of pins. The smirr gathered thicker, and went -to rain that fell solid, the brogues grew like steeped bladders on the -feet, a scatter of crows made a noisy homing to the trees at Tullich, -and Aora gobbled like swine in a baron's trough. - -"Haste ye, heroes," said the old woman, cowering on the wet stone; -"haste ye, dears; it's mighty long ye are about it." - -The Diarmaid turned the edge twice on the coated arm, and Murdo wasted -his wind to curse. Then he gave the stroke that's worth fifty head of -kyloes (fine they know that same all below Cladichl), and a red seam -jumped to the Diarmaid's face. All his heart went to stiffen his -slacking heavy arm, and he poured on Murdo till Murdo felt it like a -rain of spears. One hot wandering stroke he got on the bonnet, and for -want of the bowl of brose at Inneraora, the wind that should go to help -him went inside, and turned his stomach. Sweat, hot and salt, stung his -eyes, his ears filled with a great booming, he fell in a weary dream of -a far-off fight on a witched shore, with the waves rolling, and some one -else at the fencing, and caring nought, but holding guard with the -best blade Gow-an-aora ever took from flame. Back stepped the Diarmaid, -sudden, and sweep went his steel at the shaking knees. - -A bairn's cry struck Murdo's ear through the booming and sent him full -awake. He drew back the stretched foot fast, and round the red one's -sword hissed through air. "Foil! foil!" said Murdo, and he slashed him -on the groin. - -"That'll do, man; no more," said the Skilly Woman, quickly, - -"I may as well finish him; it's lame he'll be all his days any way, and -little use is a man with a halt in a healthy clan." - -"Halt or no halt, let him be; he's my second cousin's son." - -Murdo looked for a bit at the bloody thing before him, but the woman -craved again with bony fingers on his wrist; so he spat on the dirty -green tartan and went. The smoke rose from him and hung about with a -smell of wearied flesh, the grey of the mist was black at Carnus. When -the pair came over against Lochow, where one can see the holy isle when -it is day, the night was deep and cold; but the woman bent at the cross -with a "_Mhoire Mhathair_," and so did the man, picking the clotted -blood from his ear. They dropped down the brae on the house at last. - -For a little Black Murdo's finger hung on the sneck, and when he heard a -sound he pushed in the door. - -All about the house the peat-reek swung like mist on the mountain. Wind -and rain fought it out on Cladich brae, and when it was not the wind -that came bold through the smoke-hole in the roof, 'twas the rain, a -beady slant that hissed on the peats like roasting herrings. The woman -lay slack on the bed, her eyes glossed over with the glass that folks -see the great sights through, and her fingers making love over the face -and breast of a new-born boy that cried thinly at her knees. A lighted -cruisie spluttered with heavy smell at the end of a string on a rafter. - -"O Skilly Woman, Skilly Woman, it's late we are," said Black Murdo. - -"Late enough, as ye say, just man. Had ye bartered an old sword for -twenty minutes on the Tom-an-dearc, I was here before danger." - -Then the Skilly Woman set him on the wet windy side of the door, and -went about with busy hands. - -The man, with the ragged edge of his kilt scraping his knees and the -rain bubbling in his brogues, leaned against the wattled door and -smeared the blood from his brow. A cold wind gulped down from Glenurchy -and ghosts were over Inishail. The blast whirled about and whirled -about, and swung the rowan like a fern, and whistled in the gall, and -tore the thatch, all to drown a child's cry. The blackness crowded close -round like a wall, and flapped above like a plaid--Stronbuie was in a -tent and out of the world. Murdo strained to hear a voice, but the wind -had the better of him. He went round to the gable, thinking to listen at -the window, but the board on the inside shut the wind and him out. The -strange emptiness of grief was in his belly. - -Inside, the Skilly One went like a witch, beak-nosed and half-blind. -There was clatter of pans and the dash of water, the greeting of the -child and the moan of the mother. What else is no man's business. For -all she was skilly the old dame had no thought of the woman sinking. - -"You'll have blithe-meat in the morning," she said, cheerily, from the -fireside. - -Silis made worse moan than before. - -"Such a boy, white love! And hair like the copper! His hide is mottled -like a trout's back; calf of my heart!" - -Silis, on her side, put out white craving arms. "Give it to me, wife; -give it to me." - -"Wheesht! rest ye, dear, rest ye," said the Skilly Dame. - -But she put the bairn in its mother's arms. Silis, when she had it on -her breast, sobbed till the bed shook. - -"Is not he the hero, darling?" said the Skilly Woman. "It's easy seen -he's off Clan Diarmaid on one side, for all that yoar hair is black as -the sloe. Look at the colour of him!" - -Fright was in the mother's face. "Come close, come close till I tell -you," she said, her long hair damp on her milky shoulders. - -The Skilly Woman put down her head and listened with wonder. - -"Me-the-day! Was I not the blind one to miss it? His name, white love? -No one shall ken it from me, not even Murdo." - -A man's name took up the last breath of Silis; she gave a little shiver, -and choked with a sound that the old crone had heard too often not to -know. - -She looked, helpless, for a little at the bed, then felt the mother's -feet. They were as cold as stone. - -A cry caught Murdo's ear against the wattles, and he drove in the door -with his shoulder, heeding no sneck nor bar. - -"Am not I the blind fool?" said the crone. - -"There's your wife gone, cheap enough at the price of a yard of steel." - -They stood and looked at the bed together, the bairn crying without -notice. - -"I knew it," said the man, heaving; "_taibhsear_ half or whole, I could -see the shroud on her neck!" - -The grey light was drifting in from Cladich. The fir-trees put stretched -fingers up against the day, and Murdo was placing a platter of salt on a -bosom as cold and as white as the snow. - -"You're feeding him on the wrong cloth," said he, seeing the crone give -suck to the child from a rag of Diarmaid tartan dipped in goat's milk. - - -II. - -The boy grew like a tree in a dream, that is seed, sapling, and giant in -one turn on the side. Stronbuie's wattled bothy, old and ugly, quivered -with his laughing, and the young heather crept closer round the door. -The Spotted Death filled Inishail with the well-fed and the warm-happed; -but the little one, wild on the brae, forgotten, sucking the whey from -rags and robbing the bush of its berries, gathered sap and sinew like -the child of kings. It is the shrewd way of God! There was bloody -enough work forby, for never a sheiling passed but the brosey folks came -pouring down Glenstrae, scythe, sword, and spear, and went back with the -cattle before them, and redness and smoke behind. But no raider put hand -on Black Murdo, for now he was _taibhsear_ indeed, and the _taibhsear_ -has magic against dub or steel. How he became _taibhsear_ who can be -telling? When he buried Silis out on the isle, his heart grew heavy, -gloom seized him, the cut of the Diarmaid's sword gave a quirk to his -brain that spoiled him for the world's use. He took to the hills no more -in sport, he carried Gow-an-aora's sword no more in battle, for all that -it cost him so dear. A poor man's rig was his at the harvest because of -his Gift, and the cailzie cock or the salmon never refused his lure. - -Skill of the daymore, the seven cuts, and yon ready slash worth fifty -head of kyloes, he gave to the boy, and then the quick cunning parry, -and the use of the foot and knee that makes half a swordsman. - -But never a spot of crimson would he have on Rory's steel. - -"First dip in the blood of the man with the halt, and then farewell -to ye!" he said, wearying for the day when the boy should avenge his -mother. - -Folks--far-wandered ones--brought him news of the man with the halt that -was his giving, the Diarmaid whose bargain for a sword on Tom-an-dearc -cost Silis her life. He passed it on to the boy, and he filled him with -old men's tales. He weaved the cunning stories of the pigs of Inneraora, -for all that the boy's mother came from their loins, and he made -them--what there may well be doubts of--cowards and weak. - -"They killed your mother, Rory: her with the eyes like the sloe and the -neck like snow. Swear by the Holy Iron that the man with the halt we ken -of gets his pay for it." - -Rory swore on the iron. It is an easy thing for one when the blood is -strong and the _biodag_ still untried. He lay awake at night, thinking -of his mother's murderer till the sweat poured. He would have been on -the track of him before ever he had won his man's bonnet by lifting the -_clach-cuid-fear_, but Murdo said, "Let us be sure. You are young yet, -and I have one other trick of fencing worth while biding for." - -At last, upon a time, Murdo found the boy could match himself, and he -said, "Now let us to this affair." - -He took the boy, as it were, by the hand, and they ran up the hills and -down the hills, and through the wet glens, to wherever a Diarmaid might -be; and where were they not where strokes were going? The hoodie-crow -was no surer on the scent of war. Blar-na-leine took them over the six -valleys and the six mountains; Cowal saw them on the day the Lamonts got -their bellyful; a knock came on them on the night when the Stewarts took -their best from Appin and flung themselves on Inneraora, and they went -out without a word and marched with that high race. - -But luck was with the man with the halt they sought for. At muster -for raid, or at market, he was there, swank man and pretty but for the -lameness he had found on an ill day on Tom-an-dearc. He sang songs -round the ale with the sweetness of the bird, and his stories came ready -enough off the tongue. Black Murdo and the boy were often close enough -on his heel, but he was off and away like the corp-candle before they -were any nigher. If he had magic, it could have happened no stranger. - -Once, a caird who went round the world with the jingle of cans on his -back and a sheaf of withies in his oxter, told them that a lame Diarmaid -was bragging at Kilmichael fair that he would play single-stick for -three days against the country-side. They sped down to Ford, and over -the way; but nothing came of it, for the second day had found no one to -come to the challenge, and the man with the halt was home again. - -Black Murdo grew sick of the chase, and the cub too tired of it. For his -father's fancy he was losing the good times--many a fine exploit among -the Atholmen and the brosey folks of Glenstrae; and when he went down to -Innistrynich to see the lads go out with belt and plaid, he would give -gold to be with them. - -One day, "I have dreamed a dream," said Murdo, "Our time is come: what -we want will be on the edge of the sea, and it will be the third man -after dawn. Come, son, let us make for Inneraora." - -Inneraora lies now between the bays, sleeping day and night, for the -old times are forgot and the nettle's on Dunchuach. Before the plaid of -MacCailein Mor was spread from Cowal to Cruachan, it was the stirring -place; high and dry on the bank of Slochd-a-chubair, and the dogs -themselves fed on buck-flesh from the mountains, so rowth the times! One -we ken of has a right to this place or that place yonder that shall not -be named, and should hold his head as high on Aora as any chief of the -boar's snout; but _mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!_ the black bed of Macartair -is in the Castle itself, and Macartair is without soil or shield. How -Diarmaid got the old place is a sennachie's tale. "As much of the land -as a heifer's hide will cover," said the foolish writing, and -MacCailein had the guile to make the place his own. He cut the hide of -a long-backed heifer into thin thongs, and stretched it round Stronbuie. -There is day about to be seen with his race for that! Over to Inneraora -then went Murdo, and Rory clad for fighting, bearing with him the keen -old sword. 'Twas a different time going down the glen then from what it -was on the misty day Murdo fetched the Skilly Dame; for the Diarmaids he -met by the way said, "'Tis the Lochow _taibhsear_ and his tail," and let -them by without a word, or maybe with a salute. They went to the Skilly -Dame's house, and she gave them the Gael's welcome, with bannocks and -crowdie, _marag-dkubh_ and ale. But she asked them not their business, -for that is the way of the churl. She made them soft-scented beds of -white hay in a dirty black corner, where they slept till cockcrow with -sweet weariness in their bones. - -The morning was a grey day with frost and snow. Jumping John's bay below -the house was asleep with a soft smoke like a blanket over it. Lean deer -from behind the wood came down trotting along the shore, sniffing -the saltness, and wondering where the meat was. With luck and a good -_sgian-dubh_ a quick lad could do some gralloching. The tide was far -out from Ard Rannoch to the Gallows-tree, and first there was the brown -wrack, and then there was the dun sand, and on the edge of the sand a -bird went stalking. The old man and the young one stood at the gable and -looked at it all. - -It was a short cut from below the castle to the point of Ard Rannoch, -if the tide was out, to go over the sand. "What we wait on," said Murdo, -softly, "goes across there. There will be two men, and them ye shall -not heed, but the third is him ye ken of. Ye'll trap him between the -whin-bush and the sea, and there can be no escaping unless he takes to -the swimming for it." - -Rory plucked his belts tight, took out the good blade wondrous quiet, -breathing fast and heavy. The rich blood raced up his back, and tingled -hot against his ruddy neck. - -"What seest thou, my son?" said Murdo at last. - -"A man with a quick step and no limp," quoth the lad. - -"Let him pass." - -Then again said the old man, "What seest thou?" - -"A _bodach_ frail and bent, with a net on his shoulder," said Rory. - -"Let him pass." - -The sun went high over Ben Ime, and struck the snow till the eyes were -blinded. Rory rubbed the sweat from his drenched palm on the pleat of -his kilt, and caught the basket-hand tighter. Over Aora mouth reek went -up from a fishing-skiff, and a black spot stood out against the snow. - -"What seest thou now, lad?" asked Murdo. - -"The man with the halt," answered the lad. - -"Then your time has come, child. The stroke worth the fifty head, and -pith on your arm!" - -Rory left the old man's side, and went down through a patch of -shelisters, his mouth dry as a peat and his heart leaping. He was across -the wrack and below the pools before the coming man had noticed him. But -the coming man thought nothing wrong, and if he did, it was but one man -at any rate, and one man could use but one sword, if swords were going. -Rory stepped on the edge of the sand, and tagged the bonnet down on his -brow, while the man limped on between him and the sea. Then he stepped -out briskly and said, "Stop, pig!" He said it strangely soft, and -with, as it were, no heart in the business; for though the lame man was -strong, deepbreasted, supple, and all sound above the belt, there was a -look about him that made the young fellow have little keenness for the -work. - -"Pig?" said the Diarmaid, putting back his shoulders and looking under -his heavy brows. "You are the Lochow lad who has been seeking for -me?" - -"Ho, ho! red fellow; ye kent of it, then?" - -"Red fellow! It's red enough you are yourself, I'm thinking. I have no -great heed to draw steel on a lad of your colour, so I'll just go my -way." And the man looked with queer wistful eyes over his shoulder at -the lad, who, with blade-point on the sand, would have let him pass. - -But up-by at the house the _taibhsear_ watched the meeting. The quiet -turn it took was beyond his reading, for he had thought it would be but -the rush, and the fast fall-to, and no waste of time, for the tide was -coming in. - -"White love, give him it!" he cried out, making for the shore. "He looks -lame, but the pig's worth a man's first fencing." - -Up went the boy's steel against the grey cloud, and he was at the throat -of the Diarmaid like a beast. "Malison on your black heart, murderer!" -he roared, still gripping his broadsword. The Diarmaid flung him off -like a child, and put up his guard against the whisking of his blade. - -"Oh, foolish boy!" he panted wofully as the lad pressed, and the grey -light spread over sea and over shore. The quiet tide crawled in about -their feet; birds wheeled on white feathers with mocking screams; the -old man leaned on his staff and cheered the boy. The Diarmaid had all -the coolness and more of art, and he could have ended the play as he -wanted. But he only fended, and at last the slash worth fifty head found -his neck. He fell on his side, with a queer twisted laugh on his face, -saying, "Little hero, ye fence--ye fence----" - -"Haste ye, son! finish the thing!" said the _taibhsear,_ all shaking, -and the lad did as he was told, hocking at the spurt the blood made. He -was pushing his dirk in the sand to clean it, when his eye fell on the -Skilly Woman hirpling nimbly down to the shore. She was making a loud -cry. - -"God I God! it's the great pity about this," said she, looking at Murdo -cutting the silver buttons off the corpse's jacket. "Ken ye the man -that's there dripping?" - -"The man's no more," said Rory, cool enough. "He has gone travelling, -and we forgot to ask his name." - -"Then if happy you would be, go home to Lochow, and ask it not, nor -aught about him, if you wouldn't rue long. You sucked your first from a -Diarmaid rag, and it was not for nothing." - -Murdo drew back with a clumsy start from the dead man's side and looked -down on his face, then at the boy's, queerly. "I am for off," said he at -last with a sudden hurry. "You can follow if you like, red young one." -And he tossed the dead man's buttons in Rory's face! - - - - -THE SEA-FAIRY OF FRENCH FORELAND. - - -ONCE I saw a fairy King, and it was in the Castle up-by. The Castle took -fire, and a fine blaze it made at the foot of Dunchaach. A boy, I ran -with the rest to carry out the MacCailein's rich gear, and behold! I -wandered and lost my way in that large place where is a window for every -day in the year. Up the long stairs and through the far passages, and -over the shining sounding floors went I, barefoot, with a feared eye on -every hole and corner. At every door it was, "Surely now I'm with the -folks at the fire"; but every door was a way into a quieter quietness, -and the Castle was my own. I sat at last on a black chair that had a -curious twisted back, and the tears went raining on the lap of my kilt. - -Long, long I sat, and sore I grat, my mind full, not so much of my way -lost, but of the bigness of things, and the notion of what it would -be to have to live in a castle at night, with doors on every hand for -ghosts to rap at, and crooked passages without end for gowsty winds to -moan in. Thinks I, "The smallest hut in the town for me, with all plain -before me, with the one door shut and my face to it, and the candlelight -seeking into every crack and cranny!" - -It was then that the fairy King came on me out of the sewed cloth -hanging on the wall. - -He was a dainty wee man, in our own tartan, with a steel plate on his -breast baronly-style, and strange long curly hair. I ran my wet eyes -down seven silver buttons the shape of salmon on the front of his vest -before I let myself go, but go I must, so I put fast heels on my fright. -I galloped with a frozen tongue through miles of the Duke's castle till -a door brought me out on the grass of Cairnban, in front of the friendly -bleeze that my own folks were pouring the stoups of water on. - -That was the only time the quiet folk and I came to a meeting, though -our family was always gleg at seeing things. A cousin-german once saw -the fairy bull that puts up in Loch Steallaire-bhan behind the town. -It came on a jaunt to the glen in the guise of a rich maiden, and my -cousin, the son of the house, made love to her. One night--in a way that -I need not mention--he found himself in her room combing down her yellow -hair, and what was among her hair but fine sand that told the whole -story? "You are a _gruagach_ of the lake!" cried the lad, letting the -comb drop on the floor, with his face white, and the thing tarned to its -own shape and went bellowing to the shore. - -And there was a man--blessings with him! for he's here no more--who -would always be going up on Sithean Sluaidhe to have troke with the wee -people on that fine knowe. He would bring them tastings of honey and -butter to put them in a good key, and there they would dance by the hour -for his diversion to the piping of a piper who played on drones of grass -with reeds made of the midge's thrapple. - -Still, in all my time I know but one body who could find the way to the -den of the Sea-Fairies, and she was a lass whose folks were in Ceannmor -at the time the French traffickers were coming here to swap casks of -claret wine for the finest herrings in the wide world. - -It was her custom to go down on the hot days to the shore at the -Water-foot when the tide was far out, and the sand was crusting with -salt in the sun, and the wrack-balls burst with the heat, and the water -lay flat like oil, and lazy, for want of a breath of wind. Sometimes it -would be the French Foreland she would seek, and sometimes Dalchenna; -but when the Frenchmen were at the Foreland she kept clear of it by the -counsel of a cautious father. - -Up the loch they would sail, the Frenchmen, in their gabberts, and -hove-to with their casks to change for the cured herrings. A curious -people they were, not much like our own good Gaels in many a way, but -black-avised and slim; still with some of the Gael's notions about -them too, such as the humour of fighting and drinking and scouring the -countryside for girls. - -But it happened that one year they left behind them only a wine of -six-waters, and did some other dirty tricks forbye, and there was for -long a feud, so that the Frenchmen behooved to keep to their boats and -bargain with the curers over the gun'le. - -On a day at that time, Marseli that I speak of had been bathing at -the Ceannmor rocks--having a crave for salt water the Ceannmor folks -nowadays are not very namely for. When she had her gown on again, she -went round to Dalchenna sands and out far to the edge of the tide, where -she sat on a stone and took to the redding of her hair, that rolled in -copper waves before the comb--rich, thick, and splendid. - -Before her, the tide was on the turn so slow and soft that the edge -of it lifted the dry sand like meal. All about on the weedy stones the -tailor-tartans leaped like grasshoppers, the spout-fish stuck far out of -the sand and took a fresh gloss on their shells from the sun. - -You might seek from shire to shire for a handsomer maid. She was at -the age that's a father's heartbreak, rounding out at the bosom and -mellowing at the eyes; her skin was like milk, and the sigh was at her -lips as often as the song. But though she sighed, it was not for the -Ceannmor fishermen, coarse-bearded, and rough in their courting; for -she had vanity, from her mother's side, and queer notions. The mother's -family had been rich in their day, with bards and thoughtful people -among them. - -"If a sea-fairy could see me now," said Marseli, "it might put him -in the notion to come this way again," and she started to sing the -child-song-- - - "Little folk, little folk, come to me, - From the lobbies that lie below the sea." - -"_So agad el_" cried a gull at her back, so plainly that she tamed fast -to look, and there was the fairy before her! - -Up got Marseli, all shaking and ready to fly, but the fairy-man looked -harmless enough as he bowed low to her, and she stayed to put her hair -behind her ears and draw her gown closer. - -He was a little delicate man the smallest of Marseli's brothers could -have put in his oxter, with close curled hair, and eyes as black as -Ridir Lochiel's waistcoat. His clothes were the finest of the fine, -knee-breeches with silk hose, buckled brogues, a laced jacket, and a -dagger at his belt--no more like a fairy of the knowe than the green -tree's like the gall. - -"You're quick enough to take a girl at her word," said Marseli, cunning -one, thinking to hide from him the times and times she had cried over -the sands for the little sea-folks to come in with the tide. - -The fairy-man said something in his own tongue that had no sense for the -girl, and he bowed low again, with his bonnet waving in his hand, in the -style of Charlie Munn the dancer. - -"You must speak in the Gaelic," said Marseli, still a bit put about; "or -if you have not the Gaelic, I might be doing with the English, though -little I care for it." - -"Faith," said the fairy-man, "I have not the Gaelic, more's the pity, -but I know enough English to say you're the prettiest girl ever I set -eyes on since I left my own place." - -(Ho! hoi was he not the cunning one? The fairies for me for gallantry!) - -"One of such judgment can hardly be uncanny," thought Marseli, so she -stayed and cracked with him in the English tongue. - -The two of them walked up over the sand to the birch-trees, and under -the birches the little fellow asked Marseli to sit down. - -"You are bigger than I looked for in a sea-fairy," said she when the -crack was a little bit on. - -"A fairy?" said the little fellow, looking at her in the flash of an -eye. - -"Yes! Though I said just now that you took one fast at her word, the -truth to tell is, that always when the tide went out I sang at your -back-doors the song you heard to-day for the first time. I learned it -from Beann Francie in the Horse Park." - -The stranger had a merry laugh--not the roar of a Finne fisherman--and -a curions way of hitching the shoulders, and the laugh and the -shoulder-hitch were his answer for Marseli. - -"You'll be a king in the sea--in your own place--or a prince maybe," -said the girl, twisting rushes in her hand. - -The man gave a little start and got red at the face. - -"Who in God's name said so?" asked he, looking over her shoulder deep -into the little birch-wood, and then uneasy round about him. - -"I guessed it," said Marseli. "The kings of the land-fairies are -by-ordinar big, and the dagger is ever on their hips." - -"Well, indeed," said the little fellow, "to say I was king were a -bravado, but I would not be just denying that I might be Prince." - -And that way their friendship began. - -At the mouth of many nights when the fishing-boats were off at the -fishing, or sometimes even by day when her father and her two brothers -were chasing the signs of sea-pig and scart far down on Tarbert, Marseli -would meet her fairy friend in a cunning place at the Black-water-foot, -where the sea puts its arms well around a dainty waist of lost land. -Here one can see Loch Finne from Ardno to Strathlachlan: in front lift -the long lazy Cowal hills, and behind is Auchnabreac wood full of deer -and birds. Nowadays the Duke has his road round about this cunning fine -place, but then it lay forgotten among whins that never wanted bloom, -and thick, soft, salty grass. Two plantings of tall trees kept the wind -off, and the centre of it beaked in warm suns. It was like a garden -standing out upon the sea, cut off from the throng road at all tides by -a cluster of salt pools and an elbow of the Duglas Water. - -Here the Sea-Fairy was always waiting for the girl, walking up and down -in one or other of the tree clumps. He had doffed his fine clothes after -their first meeting for plain ones, and came douce and soberly, but aye -with a small sword on his thigh. - -The girl knew the folly of it; but tomorrow was always to be the last of -it, and every day brought new wonders to her. He fetched her rings once, -of cunning make, studded with, stones that tickled the eye in a way the -cairngorm and the Cromalt pearl could never come up to. - -She would finger them as if they were the first blaeberries of a season -and she was feared to spoil their bloom, and in a rapture the Sea-Fairy -would watch the sparkle of eyes that were far before the jewels. - -"Do your folk wear these?" she asked. - -"Now and then," he would say, "now and then. Ours is a strange family: -to-day we may have the best and the richest that is going, to-morrow who -so poor, without a dud to our backs and a mob crying for our heads?" - -"_Ochanorie!_ They are the lovely rings any way." - -"They might be better; they would need to be much better, my dear, to be -good enough for you." - -"For me!" - -"They're yours--for a kiss or two," and he put out an arm to wind round -the girl's waist. - -Marseli drew back and put up her chin and down her brows. - -"'_Stad!_" she cried. "We ken the worth of fairy gifts in these parts. -Your rings are, likely enough, but chuckie-stones if I could but see -them. Take them back, I must be going home." - -The little man took the jewels with a hot face and a laugh. - -"Troth," he said, "and the same fal-fals have done a lover's business -with more credit to them before this. There are dames in France who -would give their souls for them--and the one they belong to." - -"You have travelled?" said Marseli. "Of course a sea-fairy-" - -"Can travel as he likes. You are not far wrong, my dear. Well, well, I -ken France! O France, France! round and about the cold world, where's -your equal?" - -His eyes filled with tears, and the broad-cloth on his breast heaved -stormily, and Marseli saw that here was some sad thinking. - -"Tell me of Fairydom," said she, to change him off so dull a key. - -"'Tis the same, the same. France and fairyland, 'tis the same, -self-same, madame," said the sea-prince, with a hand on his heart and a -bow. - -He started to tell her of rich and rolling fields, flat and juicy, -waving to the wind; of country houses lost and drowned among flowers. -"And all the roads lead one way," said he, "to a great and sparkling -town. Rain or shine, there is comfort, and there is the happy heart! -The windows open on the laughing lanes, and the girls lean out and -look after us, who prance by on our horses. There is the hollow hearty -hoof-beat on the causey stones; in the halls the tables gleam with -silver and gold; the round red apples roll over the platter among the -slim-stemmed wine-beakers. It is the time of soft talk and the head full -of gallant thoughts. Then there are the nights warm and soft, when the -open doors let out the laughing and the gliding of silk-shooned feet, -and the airs come in heavy with the scent of breckan and tree!" - -"On my word," said Marseli, "but it's like a girl's dream!" - -"You may say it, black-eyes, _mo chridhe!_ The wonder is that folk can -be found to live so far astray from it. Let me tell you of the castles." -And he told Marseli of women sighing at the harp for far-wandered ones, -or sewing banners of gold. Trumpets and drums and the tall chevaliers -going briskly by with the jingle of sword on heel on the highway to -wars, every chevalier his love and a girl's hands warm upon his heart. - -That night Marseli went early abed to wander in fairydom. - -Next day the sea-gentleman had with him a curious harp that was not -altogether a harp, and was hung over the neck by a ribbon. - -"What hast here?" asked Marseli. - -"A salve for a sore heart, lass! I can play on it some old tunes, and by -the magic of it I'm back in my father's home and unafeared." - -He drew his white fingers over the strings and made a thin twittering -of music sweeter than comes from the _clarsach_-strings, but foreign and -uncanny. To Marseli it brought notions of far-off affairs, half sweet, -half sad, like the edges of dreams and the moods that come on one in -loneliness and strange places, and one tune he played was a tune she had -heard the French traffickers sing in the bay in the slack seasons. - -"Let me sing you a song," said he, "all for yourself." - -"You are bard?" she said, with a pleased face. - -He said nothing, but touched on the curious harp, and sang to the girl's -eyes, to the spark of them and the dance of them and the deep thought -lurking in their corners, to her lips crimson like the rowan and curled -with pride, to the set of breast and shoulder, and the voice melting on -the tongue. - -It was all in the tune and the player's looks, for the words were fairy -to the girl, but so plain the story, her face burned, and her eyes -filled with a rare confusion. - -"'Tis the enchantment of fairydom," said she. "Am not I the _oinseach_ -to listen? I'll warrant yon have sung the same to many a poor girl in -all airts of the world?" - -The little one laughed and up with the shoulders. "On my sword," quo' -he, "I could be content to sing to you and France for all my time. Wilt -come with a poor Prince on a Prince's honour?" - -He kissed her with hot lips; his breath was in her hair; enchantment -fell on her like a plaid, but she tore herself away and ran home, his -craving following at her heels. - -That night Marseli's brothers came to knives with the French -traffickers, and the morning saw the black-avised ones sailing out -over-sea for home. Back to French Foreland they came no more, and -Finne-side took to its own brewing for lack of the red wine of France. - -That, too, was the last of the Sea-Fairy. - -Marseli went to the Water-foot and waited, high tide and low; she cried -the old child tune and she redded her hair, but never again the little -man with the dainty clothes, and the sword upon his thigh. - - - - -SHUDDERMAN SOLDIER - - -BEYOND the Beannan is the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, and a stone-put -farther is the knowe where Shudderman Soldier died in the snow. He was -a half-wit who was wise enough in one thing, for he knew the heart of a -maid, and the proof of it came in the poor year, when the glen gathered -its com in boats, and the potato-shaws were black when they burst the -ground, and the catechist's horse came home by Dhuloch-side to a widow -that reckoned on no empty saddle. And this is the story. - -"_Ho, ho, suas e!_" said the nor' wind, and the snow, and the black -frost, as they galloped down Glenaora like a leash of strong dogs. It -was there was the pretty business! The Salachary hills lost their sink -and swell in the great drifts that swirled on them in the night; the -dumb white swathes made a cold harvest on the flats of Kilmune; -the frost gripped tight at the throats of the burns, and turned the -Salmon-Leap to a stack of silver lances. A cold world it was, sure -enough, at the mouth of day! The bloodshot sun looked over Ben Ime for -a little, and that was the last of him. The sheep lay in the shoulder -of the hill with the drift many a crook's-length above them, and the -cock-of-the-mountain and the white grouse, driven on the blast, met -death with a blind shock against the edge of the larch-wood. - -Up from Lochow, where Kames looks over to Cruachan, and Cruachan cocks -his grey cap against Lorn, a foolish lad came that day for a tryst that -was made by a wanton maid unthinking. Half-way over the hill he slipped -on the edge of a drift, and a sore wound in the side he got against a -splinter of the blue stone of the Quey's Rock; but he pushed on, with -the blood oozing through his cut vest. Yet, in spite of himself, he -slept beyond the Bog of the Fairy-Maid. _Mo-thruaigh! mo-thruaigh!_ - -The Fairy-Maid came and covered him up close and warm with a white -blanket that needs no posting, and sang the soft tune a man hears but -once, and kissed him on the beard as he slept in the drift--and his name -had been Ellar Ban. - -Round by the king's good highroad came Solomon the carrier with his -cart, and many a time he thought of turning between Carnus and Kilmune. -But he was of the stuff of Clan Coll, and his mare was Proud Maisie. He -had a boll of meal from Portinsherrich, from the son of a widow woman -who was hungry in Inneraora and waiting for that same. - -"No Ellar here yet!" he said at Kilmune when he asked, and they told -him. "Then there's a story to tell, for if he's not here, he's not at -Karnes, and his grave's on the grey mountain." - -Later came Luath, the collie of Ellar, slinking through the snow wet and -weary, and without wind enough for barking. 'Twas as good as the man's -ghost. - -The shepherds came in from the fanks, and over from the curling at -Carlonan, to go on a search. - -Long Duncan of Drimfem, the slim swarthy champion, was there before -them. He was a pretty man--the like never tied a shoe in Glenaora--and -he was the real one who had Mairi's eye, which the dead fellow thought -had the laugh only for him. But, lord! a young man with a good name with -the shinty and the _clachneart_ has other things to think of than the -whims of women, and Donacha never noticed. - -"We'll go up and see about it--about him at once, Main," he said, -sick-sorry for the girl. All the rest stood round pitying, because her -kists were said to be full of her own spinning for the day that was not -to be. - -Mairi took him to the other side of the peat-stack, and spoke with a red -face. - -"Is it any use your going till the snow's off the hill, Drimfem?" she -said, biting at the corner of her brattie, and not looking the man in -the face. - -"_Dhia gleiih sinn!_ it's who knows when the white'll be off the snouts -of these hills, and we can't wait till---- I thought it would ease your -mind." And Donacha looked at the maid stupid enough. For a woman with -her heart on the hill, cold, she was mighty queer on it. - -"Yes, yes; but it's dangerous for you to go up, and the showers so heavy -yet. It's not twenty finger-lengths you can see in front of you, and you -might go into the bog." - -"Is't the bog I would be thinking of, Main? It's little fear there is of -that, for here is the man that has been on Salachary when the mist was -like smoke, as well as when the spittle froze in my mouth. Oh, I'm not -the one to talk; but where's the other like me?" - -Mairi choked. "But, Dona---- but, Drimfem, it's dead Ellar must be; -and--and--you have a widow mother to mind." Donacha looked blank at the -maid. She had the sweet face, yon curve of the lip, and the soft turn of -the neck of all Arthur's children, ripe of the cheek, with tossed hair -like a fairy of the lake, and the quirk of the eye that never left a -plain man at ease if he was under the threescore. There were knives out -in the glen for many a worse one. - -It was the lee of the peat-stack they stood in, and the falling flakes -left for a while without a shroud a drop of crimson at the girl's feet. -She was gripping tight at her left wrist under the cover of her apron -till the nails cut the flesh. There was the stress of a dumb bard's -sorrow in her face; her heart was in her eyes, if there had been a woman -to see it; but Drimfern missed it, for he had no mind of the dance at -the last Old New Year, or the ploy at the sheep-dipping, or the nuts -they cracked on the hot peats at Hallowe'en. - -The girl saw he was bound to go. He was as restless as if the snow was a -swarm of _seangans_. She had not two drops of blood in her lips, but she -tried to laugh as she took something out from a pocket and half held it -out to him. He did not understand at first, for if he was smart on the -_caman_ ball, 'twas slow in the ways of women he was. - -"It's daft I am. I don't know what it is, Donacha, but I had a dream -that wasn't canny last night, and I'm afraid, I'm afraid," said the poor -girl. "I was going to give you----" - -Drimfern could not get the meaning of the laugh, strained as it was. He -thought the maid's reason was wandering. - -She had, whatever it was--a square piece of cloth of a woman's -sewing--into the man's hand before he knew what she would be after; and -when his fingers closed on it, she would have given a king's gold to -get it back. But the Tullich lads, and the Paymaster's shepherd from -Lecknamban, with Dol' Splendid and Francie Ro, in their plaids, and with -their crooks, came round the gable-end. Luath, who knew Glenaora as well -as he knew Creag Cranda, was with them, and away they went for the hill. -All that Donacha the blind one said, as he put the sewing in his pocket -to look at again, was, "Blessing with thee!" for all the world like a -man for the fair. - -Still the nor' wind, and the snow, and the dark frost said "_Suas e!_" -running down the glen like the strong dogs on the peching deer; and the -men were not a hundred yards away from the potato-pit when they were -ghosts that went out altogether, without a sound, like Drimendorran's -Grey Dame in the Red Forester's story. - -A white face on a plump neck stood the sting of the storm dourly, though -the goodwife said it would kill her out there, and the father cried -"Shame!" on her sorrow, and her a maiden. "Where's the decency of you?" -says he, fierce-like; "if it was a widow you were this day you couldn't -show your heart more." And into the house he went and supped two cogies -of brose, and swore at the _sgalag_ for noticing that his cheeks were -wet. - -When the searchers would be high on the hill Shudderman came on the -maid. He was a wizened, daft old one, always in a tinker Fencible's -tartan trews and scarlet doublet. He would pucker his bare brown face -like a foreign Italian, and whistle continually. The whistle was on his -face when he came on the girl standing behind the byre, looking up with -a corpse's whiteness where the Beannan should be. - -"Te-he! Lord! but we're cunning," said the soldier. "It's a pity about -Ellar, is it not, white darling?" - -Mairi saw nothing, but swallowed a sob. Was this thing to know her -secret, when the wise old women of the glen never guessed it? There was -something that troubled her in his look. - -The wee creature put his shoulder against the peats, and shoved each -hand up the other sleeve of his doublet, while he whistled soft, and -cunningly looked at the maid. The cords of her neck were working, and -her breast heaved sore, but she kept her teeth tight together. - -"Ay, ay, it's an awful thing, and him so fond, too," he went on; and -his face was nothing but a handful of wrinkles and peat-smoke. It was a -bigger ploy for the fool than a good dinner. - -"What--who--who are you talking about, you poor _amadan?_" cried Mairi, -desperately. - -"Och, it's yourself that'll know. They're saying over at Tullich and -upbye at Miss Jean's, Accurach, that it's a bonny pair you would make, -you and Ellar. Yonnat Yalla says he was the first Lochow man ever she -saw that would go a mile out of his way for a lass, and I saw him once -come the roundabout road by Cladich because it was too easy to meet you -coming the short cut over the hill. Oh! there's no doubt he was fond, -fond, and-" - -"_Amadan!_" cried the maid, with no canny light in her eyes. - -"Hoots! You're not angry with me, darling. I ken, I ken. Of course -Drimfern's the swanky lad too, but it's not very safe this night on yon -same hill. There's the Bog of the Fairy-Maid that never was frozen yet, -and there's the Quey's Rock, and--te-he! I wouldn't give much for some -of them not coming back any more than poor Ellar. It's namely that -Drimfem got the bad eye from the Glenurchy woman come Martinmas next -because of his taking up with her cousin-german's girl, Morag Callum." - -"Yon _spagachd_ doll, indeed!" - -"God, I do not know about that! but they're telling me he had her up at -all the reels at Baldy Geepie's wedding, whatever, and it's a Maclean -tartan frock she got for the same--I saw it with my own eyes." - -"Lies, lies, lies," said the girl to herself her lips dry, her hands and -feet restless to do some crazy thing to kill the pain in her heart. - -She was a little helpless bird in the hands of the silly one. - -He was bursting himself inside with laughing, that couldn't be seen for -the snow and the cracks on his face. - -"But it's not marriages nor tartan you'll be thinking on, Mairi, with -your own lad up there stiff. Let Morag have Drimfem----" - -"You and your Morag! Shudderman, if it was not the crazy one you were, -you would see that a man like Donacha Drimfern would have no dealings -with the breed of MacCallum, tinker children of the sixty fools." - -"Fools here or fools there, look at them in the castle at Duntroon! And -Drimfern is----" - -"Drimfern again! Who's thinking of Drimfern, the mother's big pet, the -soft, soft creature, the poor thing that's daft about the shinty and the -games--and--and---- Go inbye, haverer, and----oh, my heart, my heart!" - -"Cripple Callum," whistled the daft wee one; and faith it was the great -sport he was having! The flame sparkled in the lass's eyes; she stamped -furiously in the snow. She could have gone into the house, but the -Shudderman would follow, and the devil was in him, and she might just as -well tell her story at the cross-roads as risk. So she stayed. - -"Come in this minute, O foolish one!" her mother came to the door and -craved; but no. - -The wee _bodach_ took a wee pipe from his big poke and started at the -smoking. When his match went out the dark was almost flat on the glen, -and a night-hag complained with a wean's cry in the planting beyond the -burn. At each draw of the pipe the eyes of the soldier glinted like a -ferret's, and like any ferret's they were watching. He put in a word -between-while that stabbed the poor thing's heart, about the shame of -love in maids uncourted, and the cruelty of maids that cast love-looks -for mischief. There were some old havers about himself here and there -among the words: of a woman who changed her mind and went to another -man's bed and board; of sport up the glen, and burials beyond; and -Ellar Ban's widow mother, and the carry-on of Drimfem and the Glenurchy -woman's cousin-german's girl. And it was all ravelled, like the old -story Loch Finne comes up on the shore to tell when the moon's on -Sithean Sluaidhe. - -The girl was sobbing sore. "Man!" she said at last, "give me the peace -of a night till we know what is." The _amadan_ laughed at her, and went -shauchling down to the cotter's, and Mairi went in out of the darkness. - -The hours passed and passed, and the same leash of strong dogs were -scouring like fury down Glenaora, and the moon looked a little through -a hole, and was sickly at the sight, and went by in a hurry. A collie's -bark in the night came to the house where the people waited round the -peats, and "Oh, my heart!" said poor Mairi. - -The father took the tin lantern with the holes in it, and they all went -out to the house-end. The lantern-light stuck long needles in the night -as it swung on the goodman's finger, and the byre and the shed and the -peat-stack danced into the world and out of it, and the clouds were only -an arm's-length overhead. - -The men were coming down the brae in the smother of snow, carrying -something in a plaid. The dog was done with its barking, and there was -no more sound from the coming ones than if they were ghosts. Like enough -to ghosts they looked. No one said a word till the goodman spoke. - -"You have him there?" he said. - -"Ay, _beatmachi leis!_ all that there is of him," said the Paymaster's -man; and they took it but an' ben, where Mairi's mother had the white -dambrod cloth she had meant for herself, when her own time came, on the -table. - -"It's poor Ellar, indeed," said the goodman, noticing the fair beard. - -"Where's Donacha? where's Drimfern?" cried Mairi, who had pulled herself -together and come in from the byre-end, where she had waited to see if -there was none of the watchers behind. - -The Paymaster's man was leaning against the press-door, with a face like -the clay; Dol' Splendid was putting a story in the _sgalag's_ ear; -the Tullich men were very busy on it taking the snow off their boots. -Outside the wind had the sorry song of the curlew. - -"Me-the-day! it's the story of this there is to tell," at last said -Francie Ro, with a shake of the head. "Poor Drimfern----" - -"Drimfem--ay, where's Drimfem in all the world?" said the goodman, with -a start. He was standing before his girl to keep her from seeing the -thing on the table till the wife had the boots covered. It was the face -of a _cailleach_ of threescore Mairi had. - -"It's God knows! We were taking Ellar there down, turn about resting. It -was a cruel business, for the drifts. There's blood on his side where he -fell somewhere, and Drimfern had to put a clout on it to keep the blood -off his plaid. That's Drimfern's plaid. When Donacha's second turn was -over up at the bog, we couldn't get a bit of him. He's as lost as the -deer the Duke shot, and we looked and whistled for hours." The maid gave -a wee turn to the door, shivered, and fell like a clod at her mother's -feet. - -"Look at yon, now! Am not I the poor father altogether?" said the -old man with a soft lip to his friends. "Who would think, and her so -healthy, and not married to Ellar, that she would be so much put about? -You'll excuse it in her, lads, I know, for she's not twenty till the -dipping-time, and the mother maybe spoiled her." - -"Och, well," said the Splendid one, twisting his bonnet uneasy in his -hands, "I've seen them daft enough over a living lad, and it's no great -wonder when this one's dead." They took the maid beyond to the big room -by the kitchen, and a good mother's morning for Drimfern was set by the -men. They had a glass before going home, and when they were gone the -_bochdans_ came in the deep hollow of the night and rattled the windows -and shook the door-sneck; but what cared yon long white thing on the -goodwife's dambrod tablecloth? - -At the mouth of day there was one woman with a gnawing breast looking -about the glen-foot among the snow for the Shudder-man soldier. She -found him snedding the shaft of a shinny-stick at the Stronmagachan -Gate, and whistling as if it was six weeks south of Whitsunday and the -woods piping in the heat. - -"I ken all about it, my white little lamb," he said with a soft speech. -"All about them finding Ellar, and losing a better man, redding put her -to rights. A search in the maybe, but any way one that some will miss -more." - -"God's heavy, heavy on a woman!" said the poor child. "I gave Donacha a -sampler with something sewn on it yesterday, and the men, when they -go up the hill to look for him to-day, will get it on him--and--it -would----" - -"Ay, ay, ay! I ken, my dear. We'll put that right, or I'm no soldier." -And the little man cocked his bonnet on his head like a piper. Then he -was sorry for the pride of it, and he pulled it down on his face, and -whistled to stop his nose from jagging. - -"My heart! my bruised heart! they're saying sorry things of Ellar, and -Donacha dead. The cotter's wife was talking this morning, and it'll send -me daft!" - -"Blind, blind," quo' the soldier; "but you'll not be shamed, if the -_amadan_ can help it." - -"But what can you do, my poor Shudderman? And yet--and yet--there's no -one between Carnus and Croit-bhile I can speak to of it." - -"Go home, white love, and I'll make it right," said the daft one, and -faith he looked like meaning it. - -"Who knows?" thought the girl. Shudderman was chief enough with the -Glenurchy woman, and the Glenurchy woman sometimes gave her spells to -her friends. So Mairi went home half comforted. - -A cogie of brose and a bit braxy in his belly, and a farl of cake in his -poke, and out stepped the Shudderman with never a word to any one about -the end of his journey. Dol' Splendid had told him the story of the -night before, and whereabout Drimfern was lost, close beyond the -Beannan. He would find the body and the sampler, he promised himself as -he plunged up the brae at Taravh-dubh. The dogs were nearly as furious -as the night before, and the day's eye was blear. Hours passed, and the -flats of Kilmune were far below. - -There was nothing in all the world but whiteness, and a silly old -_bodach_ with a red coat trailing across it. Shudderman Soldier sank his -head between his shoulders as he pushed himself up with his hazel crook, -his tartan trews in rags about his ankles, his doublet letting in the -teeth of the wind here and there, and at the best grudging sore its too -tight shelter for his shrunk body. He had not the wind to whistle, but -he gasped bits of "Faill-il-o," and between he swore terribly at the -white hares that jerked across in front of him with the ill-luck of a -lifetime on their backs. - -If it was the earth that was white, the sky was not far behind it; if -they were paper, it would take schooling to write on them straight, for -there wasn't a line between them. The long sweep of Balantyre itself -was lost, and the Beannan stone was buried. The creature's brogues were -clods of snow, ugly, big, without a shape: his feet were lumps of ice; -his knees shook under his frail skinful of bones; but, by the black -stones, 'twas the man's heart he had! - -When the snow made a paste on his win'ard cheek, he had it off with a -jerk of the head, and one of the jerks put off his bonnet. Its frozen -ribbons had been whipping his eyes, and he left it where it fell, with -never a glance over his shoulder. His hair clogged with flakes that kept -the frost even after they fell. It was a peching effort for the foot of -the Beannan brae. - -"Poor lamb, poor Mairi, calf of my heart!" gasped the soldier to -himself. He was staggering half blind through the smother of snow, now -and then with a leg failing below him, and plunging him right or left. -Once his knees shut like a gardener's gully, and he made a crazy heap in -the drift. His tired wrists could hardly bring him up, and the corpse of -the world swung in his eyes when he was on his feet again and trying to -steady himself. - -There's a green knoll beside the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, where the -wee folks dance reels when the moon's on it, and there the old fellow -struggled to. He thought if he was up there he would see some sign of -what he wanted. Up he pushed, with the hazel _cromag_ bending behind -him, and his brogues slipping on the round snow-soles. Up he went, with -the pluck of a whole man, let alone a poor silly object; up he went -till he got his foot on the top, and then his heart failed, for he saw -nothing of what he sought. - -"I'll look again when I'm out of this foolish sleep,--I'll see better -when I waken," said the poor _amadan;_ and behold the dogs were on him! -and he was a man who was. - -***** - -For all that, the story tells, Drimfern was no ghost. When he was lost -he found Kames, where the Callum girl was that came to his fire-end -later and suckled his clan. And Ellar's mother, dressing her son's -corpse in the house at Kilmune, found on his wound a sampler that went -with him to his long home in green Inishail. Its letters, sewn in the -folly of a woman, told her story:-- - -"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better -than wine." - - - - -WAR. - - -I. - -IT was the pause of the morning, when time stands, and night and day -breathe hard ere they get to grips. A cock with a foggy throat started -at the crowing, down at Slochd-a-Chubair. Over from Stron a shrewd thin -wind came to make stir among the trees in the Duke's big garden, and the -crows rasped their beaks on the beech-branches, for they knew that here -was the day's forerunner. Still and on the town slept, stretched full -out, dour set on the business. Its quirky lanes and closes were as black -as the pit. There was only one light in all the place, and a big town -and a bonny it is, house and house with high outside stairs and glass -windows, so that the wonder is the King himself does not take thought to -stay in it, even if it were only for the comfort of it and the company -of the MacCailein Mor. Only one light, and that was splashing, yellow, -and mixed with a thick peat-reek, out of Jean Rob's open door, facing -the bay, on the left, on the Lowlands road. Now and then Jean would come -to the door and stand, a blob of darkness in the yellow light, to see -if the day was afoot on Ben Ime, or to throw a look at the front of the -town for signs of folk stirring. - -"Not a peep, not a peep! Sleep! sleep! Few of them part with a man -to-day with so sore a heart as Jean Rob." - -Then back to her Culross girdle, for she was at the baking of bannocks -to go in her husband's _dorlach_ for the wars. - -She had not shut an eye all night. Rob snored at her side slow and heavy -while she lay on her back on a bed of white hay, staring up at the black -larch joists glinting with the red scad of the peats. She was a Crarae -woman, and that same people were given to be throng with the head, -and she kept thinking, thinking even on. At last she could bide it no -longer, so she up with a leap on the floor to face a new day and all the -luck of it. - -About the luck being good or ill there might be little doubt. It was the -year after they started at the building of the Castle, a laggard spring -at the hind-end of a cruel winter, with not a fin in all the seas for -the poor fishermen, and black mutton at six Saxon shillings the side. -And what the wars were about Jean Rob or her like little knew or cared. -Very little, like enough, as is the way with wars, but any way wars -there were: the Duke and his House would have it that their people must -up and on with belt and target, and away on the weary road like their -fathers before them. Some said it was the old game with the Inverlochy -dogs (rive them and seize them!); others, that some bastard was at -variance with the Duke about the Papist Stewarts--a silly lad called -Tearlach with a pack of wild Irishers and daddy Macleans and Macdonalds -and Camerons from the Isles and the North at his back. - -"Bundle and Go" it was any way in Campbell country from Cruachan to -Cowal, from Cantyre to the march of Keppochan, and that's the fine -rolling land of sappy grasses and thick woods. In the heart and midst -of it Duke Archie played dirl on the boss of his shield on a cold March -day, and before night swords were at the sharping from shore to shore. -That's war for ye-- - -quicker than flame, surer than word of mouth, and poor's the man who -says "What for?" to his chief. - -Rob Donn, for all that, was vassal to no man; for he was come of the -swordsmiths of the glen, and they had paper to show that their rigs were -held for no service other than beating out good fighting steel on the -anvil. Poor, as he was, he could wear one feather in his bonnet if his -fancy was on feathers, and no one bragged more of his forefolk. But -Elrigmor--a thin old man with little stomach for quarrels--offered -twenty pounds English for a man to take his place with the Campbells; -and Rob took the money and the loan of Elrigmor's sword, half for the -sake of the money and half for the sake of a bit play with Sir Claymore. - -Said he to his wife, jingling the Geordies in his hand on the day he got -them, "Here's the price of a hero; and troth it's little enough for a -good armsmith's blood!" - -"Don't say it, Rob," said Jean. - -"Och! I am but laughing at thee, good-wife. Brave dogs would they be -that would face the tusks of the Diarmaid boars. Like the wind on the -chaff--troosh!--we'll scatter them! In a week I'll be home." - -"In a week?" - -"To be sure, Jean. I'll buy with the money a stot or two on the road -to bring back with me, for there's little lifting in the Duke's corps, -more's the pity! My grandfather seldom came back from the wars without a -few head of cattle before him." - -So the money went in Rob Donn's sporran, and Jean would have bit her -tongue out before she would crave for part o't from a man going among -strangers and swords. - -The bairn had but one word for her father from then till he started, and -that was "Cockade." What it was the little one never knew, but that it -was something braw and costly, a plaything for a father to go far off -for. - -"Two or three of them, my white love!" would Rob Donn say, fond and -hearty. "They'll be as thick as nuts on the ground when we're done of -the gentry that wear them on their bonnets." And he had a soft wet eye -for the child, a weakling, white and thin, never quite the better of -the snell winds of winter. If cockades, indeed, were to be had for the -fighting of a fortnight without sleep, Rob Donn would have them for her. - -So now was the morning to put on fighting gear and go on the foray for -white cockades. - -By-and-by a cruisie-light crept out at the gables of the town, and the -darkness filled with the smell of new peat burning. Aora, spluttering -past Jean Rob's door with a gulp into the Cooper's Pool, made, within -the house, the only sound of the morning. - -Jean scraped the meal off her hands and went again to the door to look -about and listen. - -"Ay, ay! up at last," she said to herself. - -"There's the Major's light, and Kate Mhor up for the making of his -breakfast, and a lowe in the weaver's shed. The Provost's is dark--poor -man!--it's little his lady is caring!" - -She was going to turn about and in, when the squeal of a bagpipe came -from the town-head, and the player started to put his drones in order. -"Ochan! ochan!" said poor Jean, for here, indeed, was the end of her -hopes; there was no putting back from the Duke's errand. She listened a -little to the tuning as if it was the finest of _piobaireachds_, and it -brought a curious notion to her mind of the first reel she danced with -her man to the squeezing of that same sheepskin. Then the reeds roared -into the air of "Baile Inneraora." - -"_Och a Dhe! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob!"_ she cried in to the man -among the blankets, but there was no need for the summons. The gathering -rang far ben in the chambers of sleep, and Rob was stark awake, with a -grasp at his hip for the claymore. - -"Troth! I thought it was the camp! and them on us," he laughed foolishly -in his beard. - -Up and down the street went Dol' Dubh, the Duke's second piper, the same -who learned the art of music right well from the Macruimens of Boreraig, -and he had as sweet a finger on the chanter as Padruig himself, with the -nerve to go round the world. Fine, fine it was for him, be sure, to -be the summoner to battle! Lights jumped to the little lozens of the -windows and made streaks on the cracks of the doors, and the Major's man -came from his loft ganting with a mouth like the glee'd gun, a lantern -swinging on a finger, making for the stable to saddle his master's -horse. A garret window went up with a bang, and Peter MacIntyre, wright, -pat out a towsy head and snuffed the air. It was low tide in the two -bays, and the town was smelling less of peat-reek than of sea-wrack and -saltness. One star hung in the north over Dunchuach. - -"They have the good day for starting the jaunt, whatever," said the -wright. "If I was a stone or two lighter, and had one to look after the -shop, it's off on this ploy I would be too." He took in his head, the -top nodding briskly on his Kilmarnock bonnet, and wakened the wife to -help him on with his clothes. - - "Aora, Aora, Baile Inneraora, - I got a bidding to Baile Inneraora; - I got the bidding, but little they gave me, - Aora, Aora, Baile Chailein Mhoir!" - -Dol' Dubh was up at the Cross, swelled out like a net-bow, blasting -furiously, his heart athump with the piper's zest. Doors drummed, -windows screeched in their cases, women's voices went from land to land, -and the laugh and cry of bairns new roused from the hot toss of dreams. -Far up the highroad a horse's hoofs were dunting hollow and hearty on -the stones, and by-and-by through the Arches trotted the Cornal, his -tall body straight and black against the dun of the gables. He had -a voice like a rutting deer. "Master Piper," he roared to Dol' Dubh, -tugging his beast back on its haunches, "stop that braggart air and give -us 'Bundle and Go,' and God help the Campbell that's not on the Cadger's -Quay before the sun's over Stron Point!" - -"Where is the air like it?" said Dol' to himself, slacking a reed with a -thumb-nail. "Well they ken it where little they love it with its -vaunting!" But he up with his drones on his shoulder and into the tune -that had the Cornal's fancy. Beside him the Cornal stood at his horse's -stirrup in the grey-brown of the morning, his head still light with the -bottle of claret wine his lady in Lecknamban had put before him ere he -had boot over saddle. - -Then the town stirred to its affairs. The Major's horse went clattering -over the cobblestones to his door-end, the arm-room door opened, and old -Nanny Bheag, who kept the key, was lifted off her feet and in, on the -rush of young lads making for the new guns Lome Clerk had up from the -Low Country. On the belts of the older men, loth to leave the fire-end, -mothers and wives were hanging bags with thick farls of cake, and -cheese, and the old Aora salve for swordcuts. - -If they had their way of it, these _caille-achan_, the fighting gear -would be all kebbucks of cheese and dry hose, and no powder and ball. -The men blustered, high-breasted, with big words in their beards, and -no name too dirty for the crew they were off to scatter--praising -themselves and making the fine prophecies, as their folks did before -them with better rights when the town was more in the way of going to -wars. Or they roundly scolded the weans for making noise, though their -eyes were learning every twist of the copper hair and every trick of the -last moment, to think on when long and dreary would be the road before -them. - -There was a break in Dol' Dubh's music, and high over the big town rang -the Cornal's voice, starting the bairns in their sleep and setting them -up and screaming. - -"Laggards! laggards! O lazy ones! Out! out! Campbells before were never -so swear't to be marching. It is time to be steeping the withies!" - -Hard back went the stout doors on the walls, and out ran the folk. The -brogues skliffed and hammered; men with muskets, swords, dirks, and -targes ran down the street, and women and children behind them. A tumult -filled the town from side to side and end to end, and the lanes and -closes were streaming with the light from gaping doors. - -Old and young, the boy and the snooded girl, women with bairn at breast, -_bodach_ and _cailleach_, took to the Cross muster, leaving the houses -open to the wind and to the world. The cats thrummed by the fires, and -the smell of the sea-wrack came in beside them. - -"I have you here at last," said the Cornal, dour and dark, throwing his -keen eyes along the row of men. "Little credit are ye to my clan and -chief, and here's to the Lowlands low, and would to God I was there now -among the true soldados with stomachs for slaughter and the right skill -of fence and musketoon! A short tulzie, and a tow at the thrapple of -bastard Chevalier would there be in that case. Here's but a wheen herds, -weavers, and gillies holding Brown Betty like a kail-runt!" - -He was one of the Craignish Campbells, the Cornal--Dugald, brother -of Lachan who got death at a place called Fontenoy in the summer -before--very sib to the Duke, and it behoved the town-men to say -nothing. But they cursed his eyes to each other on the corners of their -mouths, and if he knew it he had sense enough to say nothing. - -The women and bairns and the old folks stood in a great crowd behind -the Cornal's horse. The Major's mare with him in the sell was dancing an -uncanny spring near the Arches, full of freshness and fine feeding as -a battle-horse should be, but overly much that way for a man sixteen -finger-lengths round the belly and full of fish and ale. From Glen -Beag came the slow morning, gusty and stinging; Stob-an-Eas stood -black against the grey of it; the tide stretched from shore to shore -unfriendly and forlorn. - -Jean Rob, with the bairn at her brattie-string, was with the other women -seeing her man away, stupid with two sorrows--one because he was going, -and the other because he had twenty pounds in his sporran that he might -well be doing without; for he was leaving the woman without a groat, and -only a boll of meal in the girnel and a wee firkin of salted fish. - -The steady breeze came yet from Stron, and sat snug in the sails of the -six boats that carried the Duke's men over to Cowal. Brog-and-Turk's -skiff put out first, himself at the helm in his tarry jacket; the -others, deep down, followed close on her heels. One by one they fell -off from the quay. The men waved their bonnets and cried cheerily and -vaunting, as was aye the good grace of Clan Diarmaid at the first and -the last of forays. - -"Blessings with ye!" cried the folk left behind, wet-eyed; and even the -Provost's wife took a grief at her inside to see her man with a shaking -lip look round the sail of the hin'most boat. Cheering and weeping, -singing and _ochain!_ there they were on the quay and on the sea, our -own folk, our dear folk; and who were ever like them when it came to the -bit, and stout hearts or kind hearts were wanted? - -"Stand back, kindred!" cried the Cornal, putting spurs to his horse, and -he pranced up the town-head, a pretty man, to join the Major and gallop -round the loch-head to join the corps at Cairn-dubh. - -Dol' Dubh stopped his playing at the bow of Brog-an-Turk's skiff when -she gulped the first quaich of brine, and the men in all the boats -started to sing the old boat-song of "Aora Mo Chridhe tha mi seoladh"-- - - "Aora, my heart, I am sailing, sailing, - Far to the South on the slope of the sea; - Aora _mo chridhe_, it is cold is the far land, - Bitter the stranger with wands on his doorway. - Aora Mochree!" - -It came back on the wind with a sorrow to break hearts, sinking and -swelling as the wind took the fancy, and the long-necked herons stood -on the fringe of the tide with their heads high to listen. The sails got -scattered and shrunk, and the tune got thin and low, and lost at last in -the swish of the waves on the shore, and the ears of those who listened -heard the curlew piping cursedly loud over the Cooper's Pool. A grey -cold day with rain on the tail of it. High Creag Dubh with its firs and -alders and rowans stark and careless over the hollow town. Broad day and -brightness, and the cruisies and candles burning the ghosts of flame in -the empty houses, with doors wide to the empty street and the lanes and -closes! - - -II. - -The wanderer has ever the best of it, and wae wae are the hearts behind -I Is it for war or sport, or for the red gold, that a man turns heel on -his home and takes the world for his pillow? In his pack is the salve -for care as well as for sword-cuts, for ever and always are new things -happening. The road crooks through the curious glens; the beasts trot -among the grass and fern and into the woods; the girls (the dear ones, -the red-lipped ones!) come from the milking of the white-shouldered -cattle and look with soft black eyes as he passes, and there is a new -tale at the corner of every change-house fire. All that may befall a -packman; but better's the lot of the fighter with steel at his haunch, -fire at his heart, and every halt a day closer to them he would be -seeking. - -But the folks behind in the old place! _Mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!_ -Daybreak, and hot sun, and the creeping in of the night, when the door -must be snecked on the rover; the same place, and still with a want in -it, and only guessing at where and how is the loved one out on strange -ways on the broad world. - -Far up the long Highlands the Campbells were on their way. Loch Sloy and -Glen Falloch, Rannoch's bleakness and Ben Alder's steepness, and each -morning its own wet grass and misty brae, and each night its dreams on -the springy heather. - -A woman was weeping on Achadunan because that her man was gone and her -chimney stone was cold, and Rob Donn's sporran was emptied at her feet, -though he knew not so much as the name of her. But he took a thought -and said, "I'll keep the half, for long's the way before us, and ill is -travelling among strangers without a round-piece in the purse." That was -but a day's march from Jean Rob, and she was making a supper of crowdie -that was the first meal of the day. - -On Spey-side was the camp of the Argylls, and card-play round the fires, -with the muskets shining, and the pipes playing sweeter for slumber than -for rouse. - -"I will put my watch on this turn," said a black Lowlander in the heat -of the game. - -"Rob Donn's watch is the sun on Toman-uardar," said our hero, "but here -are ten yellow Geordies," and out went his fortune among the roots of -the gall. - -"_Troosh! beannachd leat!_" and the coin was a jingle in the other one's -pouch. - -"I have plenty more where it came from, and cattle enough forbye," said -our braggart, and he turned on his elbow whistling "Crodh Chailein." - -But let them follow the drum who will, for us the story's beside the -hearth. It is not a clatter of steel and the tulzies of Chevaliers, but -the death of an only bairn. - -In her house on the Lowlands road Jean Rob starved with the true -Highland pride, that sets a face content against the world at kirk or -market. Between her and a craving stomach lay but shell-fish and herbs, -for she had not a plack to spend, and the little one got all the milk -that came from Mally, the dappled one, drying up for calving. Break of -day would see the woman, white, thin, keen-eyed, out on the ebb before -the fishing-boats were in, splashing in the pools in the sand for -partans and clabbie-doos, or with two ready fingers piercing the sand to -pull the long spout-fish from his hiding. Or she would put little stakes -in the sand, and between them a taut line with baited hooks to coax the -fish at high tide. But ill was her luck, indeed, for few were the fish -that came to the lure to be lifted again at ebb. - -Above Kilmalieu on the sea side of Dunchu-ach, in the tangle and dark of -the trees, among the soft splashing soil, the wild leeks gave a scent to -the air. These would Jean gather, and the nettle too, and turn them to -thin broth; but that same was no fare for a Crarae stomach. - -At night when the wee one slept, the mother would have her plaid on her -head, and through the town, barefoot, in the darkness, passing the folk -at the close-mouths quickly for fear they would speak to her, and her -heart would crave for share of the noble supper that made steam from the -door of her cousin the rich merchant. - -Like a ghost sometimes, wandering about the Cadger's Quay or the -gutting-stools, where she would be looking for a dropped giley or a bake -from the nets, she would come on a young woman. - -"_Dhe!_ Jean Rob! is it thyself that is here?" - -"Just Jean, my darling, for a little turn, because of the stir in the -town, and the smell of the barking nets. Well I like the smell of the -bark, and the wind takes little of it up the Lowlands road." - -"Thou art not coming out much since the men went to the North. Art well -at the house--the little one, now, bless her?" - -"Splendid, splendid, _m' eudail_. Faith, it is too fat we will be -getting on the fortune Rob got from Elrigmor." - -"Indeed, yes, Jean, it was the great luck! When a poor person comes----" - -"Hut tut! Poor nor rich, my people had their own place on Lochowside, -and little did my Rob need MacNicol's dirty money; but he was aye fond -of a 'horo-yally,' and that's the way of his being among them." - -"Well, well, if that's the way, our own people were good enough on a -time; but a pedigree, thou wilt allow, is a poor plaster for a pain in -the stomach. For me, I would have a good shaking of herring and money -in the town. It was but black brochan for our one meal to-day, and my -mother poorly." - -"My dear! _och_, my dear! and I to brag of plenty! Little enough, in -truth, is on my own board; but I have a boiling of meal if you come for -it in the morning." - -"Kindly, kindly, thou good dame. It would be but a loan." - -"Yes, indeed, one will be running out of the wherewithal now and again, -and 'twas aye 'Mine is yours and yours is mine' in Gaeldom. But I must -be stepping." - -And while Jean Rob starved, there was never a word from the best and -bravest off at the wars, or how they fared, only now and then a half -tale from a travelling caird or a Low-Country carrier about gatherings -and skirling pipes and hard knocks. His Grace himself kept a horse or -two and a good rider on the other side of the Rest, to gallop hot-hoof -into the Castle with the first news of how his clan won; but weary was -the waiting. - -The town took to its old appearance, the aged men clack-clacking with -the shuttle, the boys scattering seed over the rig-and-fur of the -ploughed fields, the women minding their houses. And that, too, is war -for ye! The dirk is out, the brogues trail over the hills and through -the glens, the clans meet and clash, the full heart belches blood, the -grass soaks, the world and the chance of it is put on the luck of a -swinging stroke at yon one's neck. War! war! red and lusty--the jar of -it fills the land! But oh, _mo chridhe!_ home in Glen Shie are women and -bairns living their own day's life, and the crack will be blithe in the -sheilings to come, for all your quarrels. Where is Hector, and where is -Gilean-of-the-Axe, and where is Diarmaid of the boar's snout? They are -all gone but for an old song at the sheiling-fire, and life, love, and -the Fell Sergeant still come and go in the place the warriors made such -stir in! A stranger would think there was little amiss in the Duke's -town. The women sang their long songs of love and yore as they span -about the wheel and carded the wool; the bairns guddled in Jumping -John's burn, and tore their kilts among the whins, and came home with -the crows, redfaced and hungry-warned. At the ale-house there was traffic -by day, and heavy drovers and gaugers stamped their feet to the choruses -at night. The day lengthened, and comforting winds came from the two -bonny black glens; the bracken put on new growths, like the crook of St -Molach that's up-by in the Castle; Easachosain reeled to the piping of -birds. - -There might be an eye many times a-day on the Stron Point to see if a -horseman was rounding it, and the cruisies were kept burning a little -longer at night in case the news would come in the darkness like the -Athol thieves. But patience was ever the gift of the Gael, and few lost -heart. - -And at last the news came of Culloden Moor. - -It was on a Sunday--a dry clear day--and all the folk were at the -church, with old Colin the minister sweating at it for the good of the -Ceannloch fishermen in the loft. He was in the middle of his prayer -when a noise came over the town, a dunting of hoofs on the causey of the -Provost's house-front. - -"Amen!" said the cunning Colin, quick as could be, and then, "Friends, -here is news for us," and down the pulpit steps he ran briskly like a -lad of twenty. - -Peter MacIntyre set back the bolt from the door with a bang, and past -him the people made rush. The Duke's rider from over the Rest was there -in the saddle of a grey garron foaming at the mouth and its hurdies in a -tremble. - -"Your tidings, your tidings, good man!" cried the people. - -The lad sat stark in the saddle, with his eyes wet and his nose pricking -with the Gaelic pride. - -"I have been at the Castle, and-" - -"Your news, just man." - -"I have been at the Castle, and Mac-Cailein Mor, who said I rode well -from the Rest, said I might come in-by and carry my budget to you." - -"Out with it, Paruig, little hero. Is't good or ill?" - -"What would it be, my heroes, with our own lads, but good? Where's the -beat of them? It's 'The Glen is Mine' Dol' Dubh will be playing this day -on Culloden, for ours is the battle. They scattered the dirty Northmen -and the Irishers like chaff, and Cailein Mor himself gave me a horn of -ale from his own hands on the head o't." - -A roar went up that stirred the crows on Scaurnoch, and there was -a Sunday spoiled for you; for the ale went free and merry in the -change-house at the Duke's charge till the moon was over Ben Ime. - -But there were five houses with the clocks stopped (for the ghosts take -no heed of time); five houses with the glasses turned face to the -wall (for who dare look in glass to see a wraith at the back of the -shoulder?); there were four widows and five mothers wet faced, keening -for five fine men who had been, and whose names were now writ on paper -on the church door. - - -III. - -Day followed day, and still home came no Campbells. They were far to the -dreary North, plying sword and fire among the bad clans, harrying for -the glory of Mac-Cailein Mor. - -And at last on a day the sea-pigs rolled and blew off Stron Point, -and the scarts dived like arrows from the sun's eye, deep into a loch -boiling with fish. Night found the brown sails bellying out on the -scudding smacks, and the snouts of skiff and galley tearing the waves to -get among the spoil. Bow-to-back, the nets spotted Finne mile on mile; -the kind herrings crowded thick into them; the old luck was back, and -the quays in the morning heard the fine tune of the cadger's clinking -silver. In a hurry of hurries the fleet came up to the mouth of -Shira--Tarbert men, Strathlachlan men, Minard men, black fellows from -MacCallum country, and the wine-traffickers from French Foreland to swap -sour claret for the sweet fat fish. - -It was ho-rol and spill the bicker in yon town, for all that the best of -its men were away and afar at the killing. The smoke was black from -the fires in the Cooper's Pool, the good healthy smell of the gut-pots -sought up to the Castle door. Little doubt his Grace (_beannachd leis!_) -would come out to the door-step and curse because it made him bock his -breakfast, dainty man! - -Throng though the town was, round about the little house on the left of -the Lowlands Road crept a queer quietness. The cow had dried, and the -dull weather kept the spout fish too deep down in the sand for the ready -fingers to reach them. So the household of Rob Donn starved to the bone. - -"To-morrow--they will be home tomorrow," said Jean to herself every day -to keep up her heart; but the days went by, and though it was something -to know that Rob was not among the killed at Culloden, it was not -something to stay the stomach. A stone-throw off were the best and -kindest hearts in the world: the woman's cousin, the rich merchant, -would give all he had on his board if he knew her trouble, and friends -without number would share the last bite with her. But to ask it would -be to say she was at the lowest, and to tell that Rob had left her -nothing, and she would sooner die in her pride. - -Such people as passed her way--and some of them old gossips--would have -gone in, but the withie was aye across the door, and that's the sign -that business is doing within no one dare disturb. The withie was -ever there except at night, when Jean was scouring the countryside for -something to eat. - -The bairn dwined so fast that even the mother (and blind indeed's -the mother at that bit) saw a little of it. There was no longer the -creepie-stool at the back of the house, in the sun, and the bairn on it, -watching the birds; her shanks grew thin like spirtles; her eyes sank -far ben in her face, and she would not go the length of the door. She -sat at the fireside and laughed her poor cold laugh less every day, till -one long thought came to her that kept her busy at the thinking from -morning till night with a face like a _cailleach_ of eighty. - -"White love, white love," Jean would be saying, "your father is on the -road with stots and a pouch of cockades." - -At that the bairn would come back from her roaming; but soon she was off -again into the deeps of mind, her wide eyes like the windows of an empty -house for all that could be seen through them. - -"Oh! but it will be the fine cockade," poor Jean would press--"what am -I saying?--the pack of your father will be full of them. Not the white -ones of silk only, but the red and the grassy green, my little calf. -You'll be wearing them when you will." - -No heeding in the bairn's face. - -Then Jean would go out and pull the tansy at the door, and give it to -the little one to get the fine scent. The curious shells from the shore, -too, would she gather, and lay in rings about the chair, and call her -the Queen in her castle. For ever would there be a song at her lips, -even if the drops would be in her eyes--old daft songs from fairs and -weddings, and fairy rhyming and cheery stories about the Good People up -on Sithean Sluaidhe. Her fingers were for ever soft about the bairn, her -flesh and blood, stroking in the hair, softening the cushion, petting -her in every hand's-turn. She made a treat to herself by asking her, now -and then, something that had to be answered "Yes" or "No," and "Mother" -was so sweet in her ears that she would be content to hear no more in -all her lifetime. - -All the day the bairn crouched up in a hoop-chair with her neck slack -and her chin on her breast. Jean was loth to leave her in her bed in the -mornings, for she had a notion that to get her out of the blankets and -to put her in the clothes of the busy world would be to keep her in the -trim for living on. - -Still there was no sign of the men returning. Often was Jean's foot at -the door and her hand over her eyes to see if there was no stir at Stron -or Kilachatrine, and but for good stuff, her heart failed five-score -times a-day. - -At last, on a day of days, the bairn could not be stirred to notice -anything. The tansy fell out of her fingers, and she picked at the wool -of the plaid that wrapped her; the shells had no charm for her eye. - -Jean made the pack of the coming father as routh as a magic cave. "That -father of yours, darling, what a many wonderful things he will bring! I -see him on the road. Stots, and cows with milk brimming from the udders, -and a pet sheep for his _caileag bheag_; pretty gold and silver things, -and brooches and shining stuff. That father of yours! Hurry, father, -hurry! Jingling things, and wee fairy-men, and bells to ring for you, -m' eudail; pretty glasses and dishes to play with, and--O my darling! my -darling!" - -The bairn's face lost the deep red spots; her little mouth slacked and -fell; her eyes shut on the sight of the fine things her poor mother made -for her out of a rich and willing mind. - -Jean lifted her and put her on the bed, and ran with a gutting-knife to -where Mally the dappled one lay at the back. - -"I must be doing it!" said the woman, and she bled the brute as they do -in the poor years in Lorn, and took the cogie of blood into the house to -make a pudding of. The last handful of meal in the girael went into the -pot with the warm blood, and she was stirring it with a spoon over the -fire when the child cluttered at the throat. - -Jean turned about with a cry, and at the minute a bagpipe's lilting came -over the glassy bay from Stron Point. - -It was Clan Campbell back from the wars, the heroes! clouted about the -heads and with stains on their red waistcoats that were thicker than -wine makes. Dol' Dubh played the old port, sweet and jaunty, at the head -of them; the Cornal and the Major snuffed the herrings and said, "Here's -our own place, sure enough! See the smoke from our own peats! And the -fine cock of the cap on Dunchuach!" - -On the Lowlands road the town emptied itself, and the folks ran fast and -furious--the boys first, the young women next, and the old folks peching -behind. But if the town was up on the warriors soon, the Duke himself -was before it. He saw the first of the Company from the Castle, and he -was in the saddle for all his threescore, like a boy, and down like the -wind to Boshang Gate. - -"Halt!" cried the Cornal to his men, and Dol' Dubh's bag emptied itself -with a grant. - -"_Tha sibh an sol!_ You are here, cousin," said the Duke. "Proud am I -to see you and our good lads. They did the old trick well!" - -"They did that, MacCailein. The stuff's aye to the fore." - -"It's in the blood, man. We have't in us, high or low. I have but one -thing to vex me." - -"Name it, cousin." - -"Well ye ken, Cornai. It's that I had not been with you to see the last -crushing Clan Campbell may need to give to an asp's head." - -"It was a good ploy missed, I'll not deny." - -"What about the Tearlach one? Well plucked, they are telling me?" - -"As foolish a lad as ever put tartan on hip, my lord! Frenchy, Frenchy, -MacCailein! all outside and no cognisance. Yourself or any of your -forebears at the head of his clans could have scoured all Albainn of -Geordie's Low-Country red-coats, and yet there were only six thousand -true Gaels in all the fellow's corps." - -"To read my letters, you would think the whole North was on fire!" - -"A bantam's crow, cousin. Clan Campbell itself could have thrawed the -neck of it at any time up to Dunedin." - -"They made a fair stand, did they not? - -"Uch! Poor eno'--indeed it was not what you would call a coward's tulzie -either." - -"Well, well, that's over, lads I I am proud of my clan and town. _Slochd -a Chubair gu bragh!_ Stack your guns in the arm-room, see your wives and -bairns, and come up-by to the Castle for the heroes' bite and sup. Who's -that with the white cockade in his bonnet? Is't Rob Donn?" - -"It is Rob Donn, cousin, with a bit of the ribbon contrivance for the -diversion of his bairn. He tore it from the bonnet of the seventh man he -put an end to." - -"There's luck in the number, any way, though it was a dear plaything. -March!" Down the road, with their friends hanging about them, and the -boys carrying guns and knapsacks, went the men for the town, and Rob -Donn left the company as it passed near his own door. - -"Faith! 'tis a poor enough home-coming, without wife or bairn to meet -one," said he, as he pushed in the door. - -"Wife! wife!" he cried ben among the peat-reek, "there's never a stot, -but here's the cockade for the little one!" - - - - -A FINE PAIR OF SHOES - - -THE beginnings of things are to be well considered--we have all a little -of that art; but to end well and wisely is the gift of few. Hunters and -herds on the corri and the hill--they are at the simple end of life, and -ken the need for the task complete. The stag must be gralloched ere ye -brag of him, the drove must be at the market ere ye say anything of the -honesty of the glens ye pass through. - -And what I like best about our own Gaels is their habit of bringing the -work of a day or the work of a lifetime to what (in their own notions) -is an end round and polished. - -When our women die, they do it with something of a daintiness. Their -dead-clothes are in the awmrie; I have seen them with the cakes toasted -and the board set for their funerals. Travelling wide on unfriendly -foreign roads, living by sword or wit, you know that our men, the -poorest among them, with an empty sporran, kept the buttons of their -duds of good silver, to pay, if need be, for something more than a -gangrel's burial. I like to think of him in story who, at his end in -bed, made the folk trick him out in gallant style with tartan, targe, -brogue, and bonnet, and the sword in his hand. - -"A Gaelic gentleman," said he, "should come to his journey's end -somewhat snod and well-put-on." And his son played "Cha till mi tuilidh" -("I return no more") on the bag-pipe by his firm command. - -It is not even in this unco undertaking of Death that the polish must -be put on the task (though poor's the creature who dies clumsily); it -should be the same with every task of a day. - -And so Baldi Crom, making a fine pair of shoes on a day in Carnus, put -the best skill of his fingers to every stitch. He had been working at -them since the command came in the morning, and now it was the mouth of -night, and on one of them the finest of the fine sewing was still to do. -About the place there was nobody but the old man, for he was the last, -in a way, of the old stock of Carnus (now a _larach_ of low lintels, and -the nettle over all); and he was without woman to put _caschrom_ to -his soil or hip to a creel of peats. And so he lived on the brae of -Camus--that same far up and lonely in the long glen. - -"They'll be the best I ever put brog in," said he, looking fondly at the -fine work, the yellow thread standing out on the toes, patterned like -a leaf of the whortleberry, set about with the serpent-work of the old -crosses. Bite nor sap, kail nor crowdie, did he taste all day. Working -in the light of his open door, he could see, if he had the notion, the -whole glen rolled out before him, brimming with sun, crossed in the heat -of the day by deer from Dalavich seeking for the woods of Loch Finne; -the blue reek of the townships at the far end might have cheered him -with the thought that life was in sight though his house was lonely. But -crouped over the lap-stone, he made love to his work, heeding nothing -else but the sewing of the fine pair of shoes. - -It was the night before the town market. Droves of bellowing -cattle--heifers, stots, and stirks--were going down the glen from Port -Sonachan, cropping hurried mouthfuls by the way as they went and as the -dogs would let them. And three Benderloch drovers came off the road and -into Baldi Crom's house, after the night was down on the glen and he had -the cruisie lighted. They sat them down round the fire in the middle of -the floor and ate bannocks and cheese. - -"How's thy family, 'Illeasbuig?" said a drover, stirring up the peat as -if he were at his own door-end. Down on the roadside the cattle, black -and yellow, crushed the sappy grass and mourned in bellows for their -lost fields. - -"Splendid! splendid!" said the old man, double over his shoes, fondling -them with the fingers of a mother on a first baby. The light was low -in the cruisie, for the oil was well down, and the fire and the cruisie -made a ring of light that could scarcely slip over the backs of the men -sitting round the peats. A goat scratched his head but-and-ben against -the wattles; in corners the darkness was brown and thick. - -"I hear Cailen's in the Low-country, but what has come of Tormaid?" said -one, with knee-breeches, and hose of coarse worsted. - -The old man gave a quick start, and the lapstone fell from his knees, -the shoe he was at with it. He bent over and felt like a blind man for -them on the floor before he made answer. - -"Tormaid, my gallant son! Ye have not heard of him lately, then?" - -"Never a word, 'Illeasbuig. People on the going foot, like drovers, hear -all the world's gossip but the _sgeuls_ of their own _sgireachd_. We -have been far North since Martinmas: for us there must be many a story -to tell 'twixt here and Inneraora. A stout lad and pretty, Tormaid too, -as ever went to the beginning of fortune! Where might he be enow?" - -"Here and there, friend, here and there! A restless scamp, a wanderer, -but with parts. Had he not the smart style at the game of _camanachi?_ -He was namely for it in many places." - -"As neat a player as ever took shinty in hand, master! I have the name -of a fair player myself, but that much I'll allow your lad. Is he to the -West side, or farther off?" - -"Farther off, friend. The pipes now--have you heard him as a player on -the chanter?" - -"As a piper, 'Illeasbuig! His like was not in three shires. I have -heard him at reel and march, but these were not his fancy: for him the -_piobaireachds_ that scholarly ones play!" - -"My gallant boy!" said Baldi Crom, rubbing soft on the shoe with the -palm of a hand. - -"Once upon a time," said the drover, "we were on our way to a Lowland -Tryst. Down Glen Falloch a Soccach man and I heard him fill the -nightfall with the 'Bhoilich' of Morar, with the brag of a whole clan in -his warbling. He knew piping, the fellow with me, and the tear came to -his cheek, thinking of the old days and the old ploys among the dirks -and _sgians_." - -"There was never the beat of him," said the shoemaker. - -"Throughither a bit--" - -"But good, good at heart, man! With a better chance of fortune he might -be holding his head to-day as high as the best of them." The drovers -looked at each other with a meaning that was not for the eyes of the old -man; but he had small chance of seeing it, for he was throng at his fine -pair of shoes. - -"He had a name for many arts," said the man with coarse hose, "but -they were not the arts that give a lad settlement and put money in his -purse." - -"The hot young head, man! He would have cured," said the old man, sewing -hard. "Think of it," said he: "was ever a more humoursome fellow to walk -a glen with? His songs, his stories, his fast jump at one's meaning, -and his trick of leaving all about him in a good key with themselves and -him. Did ever one ask a Saxon shilling from his purse that it was not a -cheery gift if the purse held it?" - -"True, indeed!" said the drovers, eating bannocks and cheese. - -"'Twixt heaven and hell," said the fellow with the coarse hose, "is but -a spang. It's so easy for some folk to deserve the one gate--so many -their gifts--that the cock-sureness leaves them careless, and they -wander into the wrong place." - -"You were speaking?" said Baldi, a little angry, though he heard but -half. - -"I said thy son was a fellow of many gifts," answered the drover, in a -confusion. - -"He had no unfriends that I ken of," said the old man, busy at the -shoes; "young or old, man or woman." - -"Especially woman," put in another drover, wrinkling at the eyes. - -"I've had five sons: three in the King's service, and one in the -Low-country; here's my young wanderer, and he was--he is--the jewel of -them all!" - -"You hear of him sometimes?" - -"I heard of him and from him this very day," said Baldi, busy at the -brogues, white and drawn at the face and shaking at the lips. "I have -worked at these shoes since morning, and little time is there to put bye -on them, for at Inneraora town must they be before breakfast. Solomon -Carrier, passing at three, gives me a cry and takes them." - -"They're a fine pair of shoes." - -"Fine indeed; the finest of the fine! They're for a particular one." - -"Duke John himself, perhaps?" - -"No, man; a particular one, and were they not his in time a sorry man -was I. They're the best Baldi Crom ever put leather on." - -Till the turn of the night the drovers slept in their plaids, their -cattle steaming out-by in the dark, munching the coarse grass selvedge, -breathing heavy. And when the men and their beasts went in the darkness -of the morning, Baldi Crom was still throng at his fine pair of shoes. - -"I'm late, I'm surely late," said he, toiling hard, but with no -sloven-work, at his task. - -The rain had come with the morning, and was threshing out-by on peat and -thatch. Inside, the fire died, and the cruisie gave warnings that its -oil was low, but Baldi Crom was too throng on the end of his task to -notice. And at last his house dropped into darkness. - -"Tormaid! Tormaid! my little hero--I'm sore feared you'll die without -shoes after all," cried the old man, staggering to the door for -daylight. He had the door but opened when he fell, a helpless lump, on -the clay floor. The rain slanted on his grey hairs and spat on a fine -shoe. - -Far down the good long glen the drovers were tramping after their -cattle, and the dun morning was just before them when they got to the -gate of Inneraora. Here there was a great to-do, for the kind gallows -stood stark before the Arches. Round about it were the townspeople -waiting for a hanging. - -"Who is't, and what is't for?" asked the drover with the knee-breeches -and the coarse hose, pushing into the crowd. - -"Tormaid, the son of the Carnus cobbler," said a woman with a plaid over -her head. "He killed a man in a brawl at Braleckan and raped his purse. -Little enough to put tow to a pretty lad's neck for, sure enough!" -"Stand clear there!" cried a sharp voice, and the hangman and his friend -came to the scaffold's foot with a lad in front of them, his hands -shackled behind his back. He was a strong straight lad, if anything -overly dour in the look, and he wore a good coat and tiews, but neither -boot nor bonnet. Under the beam he put back his shoulders with a jerk -and looked at the folk below, then over at Dunchuach with the mist above -the fort like smoke. - -"They might have given him a pair of old baucbels, if no better, to die -in," said the drover in the woman's ear. - -"_Ochanoch!_ and they might!" she said. "The darling! He lost his shoes -in swimming Duglas Water to get clear, and they say he sent yesterday to -his father for a pair, but they're not come. Queer, indeed, is that, for -'twas the brag of the folks he came of that they aye died with a good -pair of shoon on their feet!" - - - - -CASTLE DARK. - - -YOU know Castle Dark, women? - -"Well, we know the same, just man and blind!" - -And you, my lads? - -"None better, Paruig Dali; morning and night, in the moon and in the -full white day!" - -Then of Castle Dark is my story. Is the cruisie alight on the rafter? -More peats, little one, on the fire. - -Once upon a time Castle Dark was a place of gentility and stirring days. -You have heard it,--you know it; now it is like a deer's skull in Wood -Mamore, empty, eyeless, sounding to the whistling wind, but blackened -instead of bleached in the threshing rains. When the day shines and the -sun coaxes the drowsy mists from the levels by the river, that noble -house that was brisks up and grey-whitens, minding maybe of merry times; -the softest smirr of rain--and the scowl comes to corbie-stone and -gable; black, black grow the stones of old ancient Castle Dark! Little -one, _m' eudail_, put the door to, and the sneck down. - -"True for you, Paruig Dali; you know the place as if you had seen it." - -With eyes Paruig Dali has never seen it. But my friends tell me what -they know, and beyond I have learned of myself. Up the river-side, many -a time I pass to the place and over its low dykes, dry-stone, broken and -crumbling to the heel. The moss is soft on the little roads, so narrow -and so without end, winding round the land; the nettle cocks him right -braggardly over the old home of bush and flower, poisoning the air. -Where the lady dozed in her shady seat below the alder-tree, looking -out between half-shut eyes at the proud Highlands--loch, glen, and -mountain--is but a root rotten, and hacked by the woodman's whittle. -A tangle of wild wood, bracken, and weed smothers the rich gardens of -Castle Dark. - -"It is so, it is so, Paruig Dali, blind man, prince among splendid -pipers and storied men!" - -And to stand on the broad clanging steps that lifted from the -hunting-road to the great door--that is a thinking man's trial. To me, -then, will be coming graveyard airs, yellow and vexatious, searching -eager through my bones for this old man's last weakness. "Thou sturdy -dog!" will they be saying, "some day, some day! Look at this strong -tower!" With an ear to the gap on the side of the empty ditch, I can -hear the hollowness of the house rumbling with pains, racked at _cabar_ -and corner-stone, the thought and the song gone clean away. There is -no window, then, that has not a complaint of its own; no loop-hole, no -vent, no grassy chimney that the blind fellow cannot hear the pipe of. -Straight into the heart's core of Castle Dark looks the sun; the deep -tolbooth of the old reivers and the bed-chamber of the maid are open -wide to the night and to the star! - -"_Ochan! ochan!_" - -You that only ken the castle in common day or night and plain man's -weather have but little notion of its wonders. It was there, and black -and hollow, ere ever you were born, or Paruig Dali. To see Castle Dark -one must take the Blue Barge and venture on two trips. - -"The Blue Barge, just man?" - -That same. The _birlinn ghorm_, the galley of fairy Lorn. It lies in the -sunlight on the bay, or the moonlight in certain weathers, and twelve -of the handsomest sit on the seats with the oars in their hands, the red -shirt bulging over the kilt-belt. At the stem of the barge is the chair -of the visitor. Gentle or semple, 'tis the same boat and crew, and the -same cushioned chair, for all that make the jaunt to Castle Dark. My -story is of two trips a man made by Barge Blue up the river to the white -stairs. - -He roved round the Lowlands road on a fine summer day, and out on the -sands among the running salt threads of ebb tide. Among the shells, his -eyes (as it might be) fell on the castle, and he had a notion to make -the trip to it by a new road. Loudly he piped to sea. If loudly he -piped, keen was the hearing, for yonder came the galley of fairy Lorn, -the twelve red-shirts swinging merry at the oars and chanting a Skye -_iorram_. - -"Here's an exploit!" said the man of my story. "There's dignity in yon -craft, or less than red-shirts was the wearing of the scamps who row -her." - -The loch curled like a feather before her and frothed far behind, and -soon her nose ran high on the sand. No word was said, but the first pair -of rowers let out a carved plank, and the fellow of my story went over -it and behind to the chair with the cushioned seat. - -"To the castle?" asked the captain (as it might be), in the way of one -who speaks a master, and Adventurer said, "Castle be it." The barge was -pushed off the sand, the oars fell on the water, and she curved into the -river-mouth. - -When Adventurer reached the bridge, it was before the time of war, and -the country from end to end sat quiet, free, and honest. Our folks lived -the clean out-by life of shepherds and early risers. Round these hills, -the woods--the big green woods--were trembling with bird and beast, -and the two glens were crowded with warm homes--every door open, and -the cattle untethered on the hill. Summer found the folks like ourselves -here, far up on sappy levels among the hills, but their sheilings more -their own than ours are, with never a reiver nor a broken clan in all -the land. Good stout roads and dry went down the passes to Castle Dark -from all airts of Albainn--roads for knight and horse, but free and -safe for the gentlest girl ever so lonely. By sea came gabberts of far -France with wine and drink; by land the carriers brought rich cloths, -spices, and Italian swords such as never were before or since. I made a -small _piobaireachd_ once on such a blade; if you put me over my pipes, -I-- - -"Later the pipes, Paruig Dali, the best player in the world! to thy -story this time." Is the cup to my right or left? Blessings! The Castle -and Barge were my story. - -Up and on, then, under the bridge, went Adventurer and his company of -twelve, and he trailed white fingers over the low side of the boat, the -tide warm like new milk. Under the long arch he held up his head and -whooped gaily, like the boy he was in another dream, and Mactallamh -laughed back from behind the smell of lime-drop and _crotal_ hanging to -the stones. Then into the sun again, on the wide flat river, with the -fields sloping down on each hand, nodding to the lip with rush and -flower. - -"Faith and here's fortune!" said Adventurer. "Such a day for sailing and -sights was never before." - -And the Blue Barge met nor stone nor stay, but ever the twelve fine lads -swinging cheerily at the oars, till they came to the white stairs. - -Off the boat and up the clanging steps went Adventurer as bold as -Eachan, and the bushes waving soft on every side. The gravel crunched -to his foot--the white round gravel of Cantyre; kennelled hounds cried -warning from the ditch-side; round him were the scenting flowers and the -feeling of the little roads winding so without end all about the garden. - -"Queer is this!" said he, feeling the grass-edge with his feet and -fingering the leaves. "Here, surely, is weed nor nettle, but the trim -bush and the swinging rose. The gardeners have been busy in the gardens -of old ancient Castle Dark!" - -When he came to the ditch, the drawbrig was down. To the warm airs of -the day the windows, high and low, were open; a look of throng life was -over the house, and in-by some one plucked angrily at the strings of a -harp. Reek rose lazy and blue over the chimneys, the smell of roasting -meats and rich broths hung on the air. - -Under a tree got Adventurer and deep in thought. And soon the harping -came to an end. A girl stepped to the bridge and over into the garden. -She took to the left by the butter-house and into My Lady's Canter, -lined with foreign trees. Along the wide far road came a man to meet -her, good-shaped, in fine clothes, tartan trews fitting close on leg and -haunch, and a leather jacket held at the middle by a _crioslach_. - -Under his tree stood Adventurer as they passed back, and close beside -him the courtier pushed the hilt of a small-sword to his back and took -the woman in his arms. - -"Then if ye must ken," said he, shamefacedly, "I am for the road -to-morrow." - -The girl--ripe and full, not over-tall, well balanced, her hair waved -back from over brown eyes, gathered in a knot and breaking to a curl on -the nape of the neck like a wave on the shell-white shore--got hot at -the skin, and a foot drummed the gravel in an ill temper. - -"For yon silly cause again?" she asked, her lips thinning over her -teeth. - -"For the old cause," said he; "my father's, my dead brothers', my -clan's, ours for a hundred years. Do not lightly the cause, my dear; it -may be your children's yet." - -"You never go with my will," quo' the girl again. "Here am I, far from a -household of cheery sisters, so lonely, so lonely! Oh! Morag and Aoirig, -and the young ones! were I back among them from this brave tomb!" - -"Tomb, sweet!" - -"Tomb said I, and tomb is it!" cried the woman, in a storm. "Who is here -to sing with me and comfort me in the misty mornings, to hearten me -when you are at wood or hill? The dreary woods, the dreary, dreary -shore--they give me the gloom! My God, what a grey day!" - -(And yet, by my troth, 'twas a sunny day by the feel of it, and the -birds were chirming on every tree!) - -The gentleman put his hands on the girl's shoulder and looked deep -in her eyes, thinking hard for a wee, and biting at his low lip in a -nervous way. - -"At night," said he, "I speak to you of chase and the country-side's -gossip. We have sometimes neighbours in our house as now,--old Askaig's -goodwife and the Nun from Inishail--a good woman and pious." - -Up went the lady's head, and she laughed bitter and long. - -"My good husband," she said, in a weary way, "you are like all that wear -trews; you have never trained your tracking but to woodcraft, or else -you had found the wild-kit in a woman's heart." - -"There's my love, girl, and I think you love--" - -"Tuts, man! I talked not of that. Love is--love, while it lasts, and ye -brag of Askaig's wife and the Nun (good Lord!), and the old harridans -your cousins from Lochow!" - -"'Tis but a tirrivie of yours, my dear," said the man, kindly, kissing -her on the teeth, and she with her hands behind her back. "Tomorrow the -saddle, Sir Claymore, and the south country! Hark ye, sweet, I'll fetch -back the most darling thing woman ever dreamt of." - -"What might his name be?" asked the girl, laughing, but still with a -bitterness, and the two went round to the ditch-brig and in-by. - -Adventurer heard the little fine airs coming from the west, coiling, -full of sap-smell, crooning in turret and among the grassy gable-tops, -and piping into the empty windows. - -'Twas a summer's end when he went on the next jaunt, a hot night and -hung with dripping stars. The loch crawled in from a black waste of -sorrow and strange hills, and swished on the shore, trailing among the -wreck with the hiss of fingers through ribbons of silk. My dears, my -dears! the gloom of hidden seas in night and lonely places! 'Tis that -dauntens me. I will be standing sometimes at the night's down-fall over -above the bay, and hearkening to the grinding of the salt wash on rock -and gravel, and never a sound of hope or merriment in all that weary -song. You that have seeing may ken the meaning of it; never for Paruig -Dali but wonder and the heavy heart! - -"'Tis our thought a thousand times, just man; we are the stour that wind -and water make the clod of! You spoke of a second jaunt?" - -As ye say. It was in winter; and the morning-- - -"Winter, said ye, Paruig Dali? 'Twas summer and night before." - -Winter I said, and winter it was, before _faoilteach_, and the edge of -the morning. The fellow of my _sgeul_, more than a twelvemonth older, -went to the breast wall and cried on Barge Blue that's ever waiting for -the sailor who's for sailing on fairy seas. - -In she came, with her twelve red-shirts tugging bravely at the oars, and -the nose of her ripping the salt bree. Out, too, the carved plank, made, -I'll warrant, by the Norwegian fellow who fashioned the Black Bed of -MacArtair, and over it to the cushioned seat Adventurer! - -The little waves blobbed and bubbled at the boat's shoulders; she put -under the arch and up the cold river to the white stairs. - -It was the middle and bloodiest time of all our wars. The glens behind -were harried, and their cattle were bellowing in strange fields. Widows -grat on the brae-sides and starved with their bairns for the bere and -oat that were burned. But Adventurer found a castle full of company, the -rich scum of water-side lairds and Lowland gentry, dicing and drinking -in the best hall of Castle Dark. Their lands were black, their homes -levelled, or their way out of the country--if they were Lowland--was -barred by jealous clans. So there they were, drinking the reddest and -eating the fattest--a wanton crew, among them George Mor, namely for -women and wine and gentlemanly sword-play. - -They had been at the cartes after supper. Wine lay on the table in -rings and rivers. The curtains were across the window, and the candles -guttered in the sconces. Debauched airs flaffed abroad in the room. At -the head of the board, with her hair falling out of the knot, the -lady of the house dovered in her chair, her head against George Mor's -shoulder, and him sleeping fast with his chin on his vest. Two company -girls from the house in the forest slept forward on the table, their -heads on the thick of their arms, and on either hand of them the -lairds and foreigners. Of the company but two were awake, playing at -_bord-dubh_, small eyed, oozing with drink. But they slept by-and-by -like the lave, and sleep had a hold of Castle Dark through and through. - -Adventurer heard the cock crow away at the gean-tree park. - -One of the girls, stirring in her sleep, touched a glass with her -elbow, and it fell on its side, the dark wine splashing over the -table, crawling to the edge, thudding in heavy drops on the shoe of the -mistress of the house, who drew back her foot without waking. But her -moving started up the man at her ear. He looked at her face, kissed her -on the hair, and got to his feet with no noise. A sour smile curdled -his face when he looked about the room, drunken and yellow-sick in the -guttering candlelight. - -Stretching himself, he made for the window and pulled back the curtain. - -The mountain looked in on the wastrel company, with a black and blaming -scowl--the mountain set in blackness at the foot, but its brow touching -the first of a cold day. - -Tree and bush stood like wraiths all about the garden, the river -cried high and snell. George Mor turned and looked at the room and its -sleeping company like corpses propped in chairs, in the light of candle -and daybreak. - -The smell of the drunken chamber fogged at the back of his throat. -He laughed in a kind of bitter way, the lace shaking at his neck and -wrist-bands: then his humour changed, and he rued the night and his -merry life. - -"I wish I was yont this cursed country," said he to himself, shivering -with cold. "'Tis these folk lead me a pretty spring, and had George Mor -better luck of his company he was a decent man. And yet--and yet--who's -George Mor to be better than his neighbours? As grow the fir-trees, some -of them crooked and some of them straight, and we are the way the winds -would have us!" - -He was standing in the window yet, deep in the morning's grief, running -his fingers among his curls. - -Without warning the door of the room opened, and a man took one step in, -soft, without noise, white-faced, and expecting no less than he found, -by the look in his eyes. It was the goodwife's husband, still with the -mud on his shoes and the sword on his belt. He beckoned on the fellow -at the window, and went before him (the company still in their sleep), -making for the big door, and George Mor as he followed lifted a sword -from a pin. - -Close by Adventurer the two men stopped. It was on a level round of old -moss, damp but springy, hid from the house by some saugh-trees. - -The master of the house spoke first. Said he, "It's no great surprise; -they told me at the ferry over-by that strange carry-on and George Mor -were keeping up the wife's heart in Castle Dark." - -"She's as honest a wife as ever--" - -"Fairly, fairly, I'll allow--when the wind's in that airt. It's been a -dull place this for her, and I have small skill of entertainment; but, -man, I thought of her often, away in the camp!" - -He was taking off his jacket as he spoke, and looking past George Mor's -shoulder and in between the trees at the loch. And now the day was -fairly on the country. - -"A bit foolish is your wife--just a girl, I'm not denying; but true at -the core." - -"Young, young, as ye say, man! She'll make, maybe, all the more taking -a widow woman. She'll need looks and gaiety indeed, for my poor cause is -lost for good and all." - -"We saved the castle for you, at any rate. But for my friends in-by and -myself the flambeau was at the root o't." - -"So, my hero? In another key I might be having a glass with you over -such friendship, but the day spreads and here's our business before us." - -"I've small stomach for this. It's a fool's quarrel." - -"_Thoir an aire!_--Guard, George Mor!" - -They fought warmly on the mossy grass, and the tinkle of the thin blades -set the birds chirping in the bushes, but it could not be that that -wakened my lady dovering in her chair in the room of guttering candles. - -She started up in a dream, and found George Mor gone, and the mark of -muddy brogues near the door fitted in with her dream. She wakened none -of her drugged company, but hurried to the garden and in between the -foreign trees to the summons of the playing swords. - -"Stop, stop, husband!" she cried before she saw who was at the fighting; -but only George Mor heard, and he half turned his head. - -She was a little late. Her man, with a forefinger, was feeling the way -to the scabbard, and a gout of blood was gathering at the point of his -sword, when she got through the trees. - -"Madame," said he, cool enough but short in the breath, and bloody -a little at the mouth, "here's your gallant. He had maybe skill -at diversion, but I've seen better at the small-sword. To-night my -un-friends are coming back to harry Castle Dark, and I'm in little -humour to stop them. Fare ye weel!" - -A blash of rain threshed in Adventurer's face; the tide crept at his -feet, the fall of the oars on Barge Blue sank low and travelled far off. -It was the broad day. Over above the river, Castle Dark grew black, but -the fellow of my story could not see it. - -"And the woman, Paruig Dali? What came of the woman?" - -Another peat on the fire, little one. So! _That_ the fellow of my story -would need another trip to see. But Barge Blue is the ferry for all, -high tide or low, in the calm and in the storm. - - - - -A GAELIC GLOSSARY. - - -A bhean! O wife! - -A pheasain! O brat! - -Amadant fool. Amadaitt dhoill! O blind fool! - -Bas, the haft of a shinty in this case. - -Bas, death. Bas Dhiarmaid, death to Diarmaid! Beannachd, blessing. -Beannachdlets! blessing with him! - -Beannachd leat! blessing with thee, farewell! Biodag, a dirk. - -Btrlinn ghorm, blue barge. - -Bochdan, a ghost. - -Bodach, an old man. - -Bord-dubh, black-board, the game of draughts. - -Bratach, a banner. - -Cabar, a rafter, a log of wood for throwing in Highland sports. - -Caileag bkeag, a little girl. - -Cailleach, old woman. Cailleachan, old women. - -Camatty, club used in the game of shinty. Camanachd, the game of shinty. - -Cas, foot. Cas-chrom, a primitive hand-plough. Choillich-dhuibh, O -black-cock! - -Clach-cuid-fear, a lifting-stone for testing a man's strength. - -Clackneart, putting-stone. - -Clarsack, harp. - -Cothrom na Feinne, the fair-play of Finne; man to man. Crioslach, belt, -girdle. - -Cromag, a shepherd's crook. - -Crotal, lichen. - -Crunluadh, a movement in piping. Crunluadh breabach, a smarter movement -Crunluadh mack, the quickest part of a piobaireachd. - -Dhe! O God! Dia, God. Dhia gleidh sinn! God keep us! - -Dorlach, a knapsack. - -Duitn'-nasal, gentleman. - -Eas, waterfall or cataract. - -Faoiltcach, the short season of stormy days at the end of January. - -Feadan, the chanter or pipe on which pipers practise tunes before -playing them on the bagpipes. Fuarag, hasty-pudding, a mixture of -oatmeal and cold water, or oatmeal and milk or cream. - -Gruagach, a sea-maiden in this case. - -'Ille! lad! 'Illean! lads! - -Iolair, eagle lorram, a boat-song. - -Laochain! hero! comrade! - -Larach, site of a ruined building. - -Londubh, blackbird. - -Mallachd ort! malediction on thee! - -Marag-dkubh, a black pudding, made with blood and suet. - -M' eudail, my darling, my treasure. - -Mhoire Mkathair, an ave, "Mary Mother." - -Mo chridhe! my heart! - -Mo thruaigh! alas, my trouble! - -Och! ochan! ochanoch! ochanie! ochanorie! exclamations of sorrow, alas! -Och a Dhe! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob--O God! yonder it is now! -Rise, rise, Rob! - -Oinseach, a female fool. - -Piobaireachd, the symphony of bagpipe music, usually a lament, salute, -or gathering Piob-mhor, the great Highland bagpipe. - -Seangan, an ant. - -Sgalag, a male farm-servant. - -Sgeul, a tale, narrative. - -Sgiati-dubh, black knife, worn in the Highlander's stocking. - -Sgireachd, parish. - -Siod e! there it is! - -Siubhal, allegro of the piobaireachd music. - -Slochd-a-chubair gu bragh! the rallying cry of the old Inneraora -burghers, "Slochd-a-chubair for ever!" - -So! here! So agad e! here he is! - -Spagachd, club-footed, awkward at walking. - -Spreidh, cattle of all sorts, a drove. - -Stad! stop! - -Suas e! up with it! A term of encouragement. - -Taibhsear, a visionary; one with second-sight. - -Tha sibk an so! you are here! - -Thoir an aire! beware! look out! - -Uiseag, the skylark. - -Urlar, the ground-work, adagio, or simple melody of a piobaireachd. - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lost Pibroch, by Neil Munro - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PIBROCH *** - -***** This file should be named 43729.txt or 43729.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/7/2/43729/ - -Produced by David Widger - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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-almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: The Lost Pibroch
-And other Sheiling Stories
-
-Author: Neil Munro
-
-Release Date: September 15, 2013 [EBook #43729]
-Last Updated: March 8, 2018
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LOST PIBROCH ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger
-
-
-
-
-
-</pre>
-
-<div style="height: 8em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h1>
-THE LOST PIBROCH
-</h1>
-<h3>
-AND OTHER SHEILING STORIES
-</h3>
-<p>
-<br />
-</p>
-<h2>
-By Neil Munro
-</h2>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<p>
-<b>CONTENTS</b>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0001"> THE LOST PIBROCH </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0002"> RED HAND </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0003"> THE SECRET OF THE HEATHER-ALE </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0004"> BOBOON'S CHILDREN </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE FELL SERGEANT. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0006"> BLACK MURDO </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0007"> THE SEA-FAIRY OF FRENCH FORELAND. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0008"> SHUDDERMAN SOLDIER </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0009"> WAR. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0010"> A FINE PAIR OF SHOES </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0011"> CASTLE DARK. </a>
-</p>
-<p class="toc">
-<a href="#link2H_4_0012"> A GAELIC GLOSSARY. </a>
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-THE LOST PIBROCH
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>O the make of a piper go seven years of his own learning and seven
-generations before. If it is in, it will out, as the Gaelic old-word says;
-if not, let him take to the net or sword. At the end of his seven years
-one born to it will stand at the start of knowledge, and leaning a fond
-ear to the drone, he may have parley with old folks of old affairs.
-Playing the tune of the “Fairy Harp,” he can hear his forefolks, plaided
-in skins, towsy-headed and terrible, grunting at the oars and snoring in
-the caves; he has his whittle and club in the “Desperate Battle” (my own
-tune, my darling!), where the white-haired sea-rovers are on the shore,
-and a stain's on the edge of the tide; or, trying his art on Laments, he
-can stand by the cairn of kings, ken the colour of Fingal's hair, and see
-the moon-glint on the hook of the Druids!
-</p>
-<p>
-To-day there are but three pipers in the wide world, from the Sound of
-Sleat to the Wall of France. Who they are, and what their tartan, it is
-not for one to tell who has no heed for a thousand dirks in his doublet,
-but they may be known by the lucky ones who hear them. Namely players
-tickle the chanter and take out but the sound; the three give a tune the
-charm that I mention—a long thought and a bard's thought, and they
-bring the notes from the deeps of time, and the tale from the heart of the
-man who made it.
-</p>
-<p>
-But not of the three best in Albainn today is my story, for they have not
-the Lost Pibroch. It is of the three best, who were not bad, in a place I
-ken—Half Town that stands in the wood.
-</p>
-<p>
-You may rove for a thousand years on league-long brogues, or hurry on
-fairy wings from isle to isle and deep to deep, and find no equal to that
-same Half Town. It is not the splendour of it, nor the riches of its folk;
-it is not any great routh of field or sheep-fank, but the scented winds of
-it, and the comfort of the pine-trees round and about it on every hand. My
-mother used to be saying (when I had the notion of fairy tales), that once
-on a time, when the woods were young and thin, there was a road through
-them, and the pick of children of a country-side wandered among them into
-this place to play at sheilings. Up grew the trees, fast and tall, and
-shut the little folks in so that the way out they could not get if they
-had the mind for it. But never an out they wished for. They grew with the
-firs and alders, a quiet clan in the heart of the big wood, clear of the
-world out-by.
-</p>
-<p>
-But now and then wanderers would come to Half Town, through the gloomy
-coves, under the tall trees. There were packmen with tales of the
-out-world. There were broken men flying from rope or hatchet. And once on
-a day of days came two pipers—Gilian, of Clan Lachlan of
-Strathlachlan, and Rory Ban, of the Macnaghtons of Dundarave.
-</p>
-<p>
-They had seen Half Town from the sea—smoking to the clear air on the
-hillside; and through the weary woods they came, and the dead quiet of
-them, and they stood on the edge of the fir-belt.
-</p>
-<p>
-Before them was what might be a township in a dream, and to be seen at the
-one look, for it stood on the rising hill that goes back on Lochow.
-</p>
-<p>
-The dogs barked, and out from the houses and in from the fields came the
-quiet clan to see who could be here. Biggest of all the men, one they
-named Coll, cried on the strangers to come forward; so out they went from
-the wood-edge, neither coy nor crouse, but the equal of friend or foe, and
-they passed the word of day.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Hunting,” they said, “in Easachosain, we found the roe come this way.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If this way she came, she's at Duglas Water by now, so you may bide and
-eat. Few, indeed, come calling on us in Half Town; but whoever they are,
-here's the open door, and the horn spoon, and the stool by the fire.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He took them in and he fed them, nor asked their names nor calling, but
-when they had eaten well he said to Rory, “You have skill of the pipes; I
-know by the drum of your fingers on the horn spoon.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I have tried them,” said Rory, with a laugh, “a bit—a bit. My
-friend here is a player.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You have the art?” asked Coll.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, not what yoo might call the whole art,” said Gilian, “but I can
-play—oh yes!I can play two or three ports.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You can that!” said Rory.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No better than yourself, Rory.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, maybe not, but—anyway, not all tunes; I allow you do
-'Mackay's Banner' in a pretty style.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Pipers,” said Coll, with a quick eye to a coming quarrel, “I will take
-you to one of your own trade in this place—Paruig Dali, who is
-namely for music.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's a name that's new to me,” said Rory, short and sharp, but up they
-rose and followed Big Coll.
-</p>
-<p>
-He took them to a bothy behind the Half Town, a place with turf walls and
-never a window, where a blind man sat winding pirns for the weaver-folks.
-</p>
-<p>
-“This,” said Coll, showing the strangers in at the door, “is a piper of
-parts, or I'm no judge, and he has as rare a stand of great pipes as ever
-my eyes sat on.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I have that same,” said the blind man, with his face to the door. “Your
-friends, Coll?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Two pipers of the neighbourhood,” Rory made answer. “It was for no piping
-we came here, but by the accident of the chase. Still and on, if pipes are
-here, piping there might be.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So be it,” cried Coll; “but I must go back to my cattle till night comes.
-Get you to the playing with Paruig Dali, and I'll find you here when I
-come back.” And with that he turned about and went off.
-</p>
-<p>
-Parig put down the ale and cake before the two men, and “Welcome you are,”
- said he.
-</p>
-<p>
-They ate the stranger's bite, and lipped the stranger's cup, and then,
-“Whistle 'The Macraes' March,' my fair fellow,” said the blind man.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How ken you I'm fair?” asked Rory.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Your tongue tells that. A fair man has aye a soft bit in his speech, like
-the lapping of milk in a cogie; and a black one, like your friend there,
-has the sharp ring of a thin burn in frost running into an iron pot. 'The
-Macraes' March,' <i>laochain</i>.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Rory put a pucker on his mouth and played a little of the fine tune.
-</p>
-<p>
-“So!” said the blind man, with his head to a side, “you had your lesson.
-And you, my Strathlachlan boy without beard, do you ken 'Muinntir a'
-Ghlinne so'?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“How ken ye I'm Strathlachlan and beardless?” asked Gilian.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Strathlachlan by the smell of herring-scale from your side of the house
-(for they told me yesterday the gannets were flying down Strathlachlan
-way, and that means fishing), and you have no beard I know, but in what
-way I know I do not know.” Gilian had the <i>siubhal</i> of the pibroch
-but begun when the blind man stopped him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You have it,” he said, “you have it in a way, the Macarthur's way, and
-that's not my way. But, no matter, let us to our piping.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The three men sat them down on three stools on the clay floor, and the
-blind man's pipes passed round between them.
-</p>
-<p>
-“First,” said Paruig (being the man of the house, and to get the vein of
-his own pipes)—“first I'll put on them 'The Vaunting.'” He stood to
-his shanks, a lean old man and straight, and the big drone came nigh on
-the black rafters. He filled the bag at a breath and swung a lover's arm
-round about it. To those who know not the pipes, the feel of the bag in
-the oxter is a gaiety lost. The sweet round curve is like a girl's waist;
-it is friendly and warm in the crook of the elbow and against a man's
-side, and to press it is to bring laughing or tears.
-</p>
-<p>
-The bothy roared with the tuning, and then the air came melting and sweet
-from the chanter. Eight steps up, four, to the turn, and eight down went
-Paruig, and the <i>piobaireachd</i> rolled to his fingers like a man's
-rhyming. The two men sat on, the stools, with their elbows on their knees,
-and listened.
-</p>
-<p>
-He played but the <i>urlar</i>, and the <i>crunluadh</i> to save time, and
-he played them well.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Good indeed! Splendid, my old fellow!” cried the two; and said Gilian,
-“You have a way of it in the <i>crunluadh</i> not my way, but as good as
-ever I heard.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is the way of Padruig Og,” said Rory.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well I know it! There are tunes and tunes, and 'The Vaunting' is not bad
-in its way, but give me 'The Macraes' March.'”
- </p>
-<p>
-He jumped to his feet and took the pipes from the old man's hands, and
-over his shoulder with the drones.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stand back, lad!” he cried to Gilian, and Gilian went nearer the door.
-</p>
-<p>
-The march came fast to the chanter—the old tune, the fine tune that
-Kintail has heard before, when the wild men in their red tartan came over
-hill and moor; the tune with the river in it, the fast river and the
-courageous that kens not stop nor tarry, that runs round rock and over
-fall with a good humour, yet no mood for anything but the way before it.
-The tune of the heroes, the tune of the pinelands and the broad straths,
-the tune that the eagles of Loch Duich crack their beaks together when
-they hear, and the crows of that country-side would as soon listen to as
-the squeal of their babies.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well! mighty well!” said Paruig Dali. “You have the tartan of the clan in
-it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Not bad, I'll allow,” said Gilian. “Let me try.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He put his fingers on the holes, and his heart took a leap back over two
-generations, and yonder was Glencoe! The grey day crawled on the white
-hills and the Mack roofs smoked below. Snow choked the pass, <i>eas</i>
-and corn filled with drift and flatted to the brae-face; the wind tossed
-quirky and and in the little bashes and among the smooring lintels and
-joists; the Mood of old and young lappered on the hearthstone, and the
-bairn, with a knifed throat, had an icy lip on a frozen teat. Out of the
-place went the tramped path of the Campbell butchers—far on their
-way to Glenlyon and the towns of paper and ink and liars—“Muinntir
-a' ghlinne so, muinntir a' ghlinne so!—People, people, people of
-this glen, this glen, this glen!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Dogs! dogs! O God of grace—dogs and cowards!” cried Rory. “I could
-be dirking a Diarmaid or two if by luck they were near me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is piping that is to be here,” said Paruig, “and it is not piping for
-an hour nor piping for an evening, but the piping of Dunvegan that stops
-for sleep nor supper.”
- </p>
-<p>
-So the three stayed in the bothy and played tune about while time went by
-the door. The birds flew home to the branches, the longnecked beasts
-flapped off to the shore to spear their flat fish; the rutting deers
-bellowed with loud throats in the deeps of the wood that stands round Half
-Town, and the scents of the moist night came gusty round the door. Over
-the back of Auchnabreac the sun trailed his plaid of red and yellow, and
-the loch stretched salt and dark from Cairn Dubh to Creaggans.
-</p>
-<p>
-In from the hill the men and the women came, weary-legged, and the bairns
-nodded at their heels. Sleepiness was on the land, but the pipers, piping
-in the bothy, kept the world awake.
-</p>
-<p>
-“We will go to bed in good time,” said the folks, eating their suppers at
-their doors; “in good time when this tune is ended.” But tune came on
-tane, and every tune better than its neighbour, and they waited.
-</p>
-<p>
-A cruisie-light was set alowe in the blind man's bothy, and the three men
-played old tunes and new tunes—salute and lament and brisk dances
-and marches that coax tired brogues on the long roads.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Here's 'Tulloch Ard' for you, and tell me who made it,” said Rory.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Who kens that? Here's 'Raasay's Lament,' the best port Padruig Mor ever
-put together.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Tunes and tunes. I'm for 'A Kiss o' the King's Hand.'”
- </p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Thug mi pòg 'us pòg 'us pòg,
-Thug mi pòg do làmh an righ,
-Cha do chuir gaoth an craicionn caorach,
-Fear a fhuair an fhaoilt ach mi!”
- </pre>
-<p>
-Then a quietness came on Half Town, for the piping stopped, and the people
-at their doors heard but their blood thumping and the night-hags in the
-dark of the firwood.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A little longer and maybe there will be more,” they said to each other,
-and they waited; but no more music came from the drones, so they went in
-to bed.
-</p>
-<p>
-There was quiet over Half Town, for the three pipers talked about the Lost
-Tune.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A man my father knew,” said Gilian, “heard a bit of it once in Moideart.
-A terrible fine tune he said it was, but sore on the mind.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It would be the tripling,” said the Macnaghton, stroking a reed with a
-fond hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Maybe. Tripling is ill enough, but what is tripling? There is more in
-piping than brisk fingers. Am I not right, Paruig?” “Right, oh! right. The
-Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i> asks for skilly tripling, but Macruimen himself
-could not get at the core of it for all his art.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You have heard it then!” cried Gilian.
-</p>
-<p>
-The blind man stood up and filled out his breast.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Heard it!” he said; “I heard it, and I play it—on the <i>feadan</i>,
-but not on the full set. To play the tune I mention on the full set is
-what I have not done since I came to Half Town.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I have ten round pieces in my sporran, and a bonnet-brooch it would take
-much to part me from; but they're there for the man who'll play me the
-Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i>” said Gilian, with the words tripping each other
-to the tip of his tongue.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And here's a Macnaghton's fortune on the top of the round pieces,” cried
-Rory, emptying his purse on the table.
-</p>
-<p>
-The old man's face got hot and angry. “I am not,” he said, “a tinker's
-minstrel, to give my tuning for bawbees and a quaich of ale. The king
-himself could not buy the tune I ken if he had but a whim for it. But when
-pipers ask it they can have it, and it's yours without a fee. Still if you
-think to learn the tune by my piping once, poor's the delusion. It is not
-a port to be picked up like a cockle on the sand, for it takes the
-schooling of years and blindness forbye.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Blindness?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Blindness indeed. The thought of it is only for the dark eye.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“If we could hear it on the full set!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Come out, then, on the grass, and you'll hear it, if Half Town should
-sleep no sleep this night.”
- </p>
-<p>
-They went out of the bothy to the wet short grass. Ragged mists shook o'er
-Cowal, and on Ben Ime sat a horned moon like a galley of Lorn.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I heard this tune from the Moideart man—the last in Albainn who
-knew it then, and he's in the clods,” said the blind fellow.
-</p>
-<p>
-He had the mouthpiece at his lip, and his hand was coaxing the bag, when a
-bairn's cry came from a house in the Half Town—a suckling's whimper,
-that, heard in the night, sets a man's mind busy on the sorrows that folks
-are born to. The drones clattered together on the piper's elbow and he
-stayed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I have a notion,” he said to the two men. “I did not tell you that the
-Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i> is the <i>piobaireachd</i> of good-byes. It is
-the tune of broken clans, that sets the men on the foray and makes cold
-hearth-stones. It was played in Glenshira when Gilleasbuig Gruamach could
-stretch stout swordsmen from Boshang to Ben Bhuidhe, and where are the
-folks of Glenshira this day? I saw a cheery night in Carnus that's over
-Lochow, and song and story busy about the fire, and the Moideart man
-played it for a wager. In the morning the weans were without fathers, and
-Carnus men were scattered about the wide world.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It must be the magic tune, sure enough,” said Gilian.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Magic indeed, <i>laochain!</i> It is the tune that puts men on the open
-road, that makes restless lads and seeking women. Here's a Half Town of
-dreamers and men fattening for want of men's work. They forget the world
-is wide and round about their fir-trees, and I can make them crave for
-something they cannot name.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Good or bad, out with it,” said Rory, “if you know it at all.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Maybe no', maybe no'. I am old and done. Perhaps I have lost the right
-skill of the tune, for it's long since I put it on the great pipe. There's
-in me the strong notion to try it whatever may come of it, and here's for
-it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He put his pipe up again, filled the bag at a breath, brought the booming
-to the drones, and then the chanter-reed cried sharp and high.
-</p>
-<p>
-“He's on it,” said Rory in Gilian's ear.
-</p>
-<p>
-The groundwork of the tune was a drumming on the deep notes where the
-sorrows lie—“Come, come, come, my children, rain on the brae and the
-wind blowing.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is a salute.” said Rory.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's the strange tune anyway,” said Gilian; “listen to the time of yon!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The tune searched through Half Town and into the gloomy pine-wood; it put
-an end to the whoop of the night-hag and rang to Ben Bhreac. Boatmen deep
-and far on the loch could hear it, and Half Town folks sat up to listen.
-</p>
-<p>
-It's story was the story that's ill to tell—something of the heart's
-longing and the curious chances of life. It bound up all the tales of all
-the clans, and made one tale of the Gaels' past. Dirk nor sword against
-the tartan, but the tartan against all else, and the Gaels' target fending
-the hill-land and the juicy straths from the pock-pitted little black men.
-The winters and the summers passing fast and furious, day and night
-roaring in the ears, and then again the clans at variance, and warders on
-every pass and on every parish.
-</p>
-<p>
-Then the tune changed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Folks,” said the reeds, coaxing. “Wide's the world and merry the road.
-Here's but the old story and the women we kissed before. Come, come to the
-flat-lands rich and full, where the wonderful new things happen and the
-women's lips are still to try!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To-morrow,” said Gilian in his friend's ear—“to-morrow I will go
-jaunting to the North. It has been in my mind since Beltane.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“One might be doing worse,” said Rory, “and I have the notion to try a
-trip with my cousin to the foreign wars.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The blind piper put up his shoulder higher and rolled the air into the <i>crunluadh
-breabach</i> that comes prancing with variations. Pride stiffened him from
-heel to hip, and hip to head, and set his sinews like steel.
-</p>
-<p>
-He was telling of the gold to get for the searching and the bucks that may
-be had for the hunting. “What,” said the reeds, “are your poor crops,
-slashed by the constant rain and rotting, all for a scart in the bottom of
-a pot? What are your stots and heifers—black, dun, and yellow—to
-milch-cows and horses? Here's but the same for ever—toil and sleep,
-sleep and toil even on, no feud nor foray nor castles to harry—only
-the starved field and the sleeping moss. Let us to a brisker place! Over
-yonder are the long straths and the deep rivers and townships strewn thick
-as your corn-rigs; over yonder's the place of the packmen's tales and the
-packmen's wares: steep we the withies and go!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The two men stood with heads full of bravery and dreaming—men in a
-carouse. “This,” said they, “is the notion we had, but had no words for.
-It's a poor trade piping and eating and making amusement when one might be
-wandering up and down the world. We must be packing the haversacks.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Then the <i>crunluadh mach</i> came fast and furious on the chanter, and
-Half Town shook with it. It buzzed in the ear like the flowers in the
-Honey Croft, and made commotion among the birds rocking on their eggs in
-the wood.
-</p>
-<p>
-“So! so!” barked the <i>iolair</i> on Craig-an-eas.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I have heard before it was an ill thing to be satisfied; in the morning
-I'll try the kids on Maam-side, for the hares here are wersh and tough.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Hearken, dear,” said the <i>londubh</i>, “I know now why my beak is gold;
-it is because I once ate richer berries than the whortle, and in season
-I'll look for them on the braes of Glenfinne.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Honk-unk,” said the fox, the cunning red fellow, “am not I the fool to be
-staying on this little brae when I know so many roads elsewhere?”
- </p>
-<p>
-And the people sitting up in their beds in Half Town moaned for something
-new. “Paruig Dall is putting the strange tune on her there,” said they.
-“What the meaning of it is we must ask in the morning, but, <i>ochanoch!</i>
-it leaves one hungry at the heart.” And then gusty winds came snell from
-the north, and where the dark crept first, the day made his first showing,
-so that Ben Ime rose black against a grey sky.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That's the Lost <i>Piobaireachd</i>,” said Paruig Dali when the bag sunk
-on his arm.
-</p>
-<p>
-And the two men looked at him in a daze.
-</p>
-<p>
-Sometimes in the spring of the year the winds from Lorn have it their own
-way with the Highlands. They will come tearing furious over the hundred
-hills, spurred the faster by the prongs of Cruachan and Dunchuach, and the
-large woods of home toss before them like corn before the hook. Up come
-the poor roots and over on their broken arms go the tall trees, and in the
-morning the deer will trot through new lanes cut in the forest.
-</p>
-<p>
-A wind of that sort came on the full of the day when the two pipers were
-leaving Half Town.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stay till the storm is over,” said the kind folks; and “Your bed and
-board are here for the pipers forty days,” said Paruig Dali. But “No” said
-the two; “we have business that your <i>piobaireachd</i> put us in mind
-of.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm hoping that I did not play yon with too much skill,” said the old
-man.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Skill or no skill,” said Gilian, “the like of yon I never heard. You
-played a port that makes poor enough all ports ever one listened to, and
-piping's no more for us wanderers.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Blessings with thee!” said the folks all, and the two men went down into
-the black wood among the cracking trees.
-</p>
-<p>
-Six lads looked after them, and one said, “It is an ill day for a body to
-take the world for his pillow, but what say you to following the pipers?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It might,” said one, “be the beginning of fortune. I am weary enough of
-this poor place, with nothing about it but wood and water and tufty grass.
-If we went now, there might be gold and girls at the other end.”
- </p>
-<p>
-They took crooks and bonnets and went after the two pipers. And when they
-were gone half a day, six women said to their men, “Where can the lads
-be?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“We do not know that,” said the men, with hot faces, “but we might be
-looking.” They kissed their children and went, with <i>cromags</i> in
-their hands, and the road they took was the road the King of Errin rides,
-and that is the road to the end of days.
-</p>
-<p>
-A weary season fell on Half Town, and the very bairns dwined at the breast
-for a change of fortune. The women lost their strength, and said, “To-day
-my back is weak, tomorrow I will put things to right,” and they looked
-slack-mouthed and heedless-eyed at the sun wheeling round the trees. Every
-week a man or two would go to seek something—a lost heifer or a
-wounded roe that was never brought back—and a new trade came to the
-place, the selling of herds. Far away in the low country, where the winds
-are warm and the poorest have money, black-cattle were wanted, so the men
-of Half Town made up long droves and took them round Glen Beag and the
-Rest.
-</p>
-<p>
-Wherever they went they stayed, or the clans on the roadside put them to
-steel, for Half Town saw them no more. And a day came when all that was
-left in that fine place were but women and children and a blind piper.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Am I the only man here?” asked Paruig Dali when it came to the bit, and
-they told him he was.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then here's another for fortune!” said he, and he went down through the
-woods with his pipes in his oxter.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-RED HAND
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE smell of wet larch was in the air, and Glenaora was aburst to the
-coaxing of Spring. Paruig Dali the piper—son of the son of Iain Mor—filled
-his broad chest with two men's wind, and flung the drones over his
-shoulder. They dangled a little till the bag swelled out, and the first
-blast rang in the ear of the morning. Rough and noisy, the reeds cried
-each other down till a master's hand held them in check, and the long soft
-singing of the <i>piobaireachd</i> floated out among the tartan ribbons.
-The grey peak of Drimfern heard the music; the rock that wards the mouth
-of Carnus let it pass through the gap and over the hill and down to the
-isles below; Dun Corr-bhile and Dunchuach, proud Kilmune, the Paps of
-Salachary, and a hundred other braes around, leaned over to listen to the
-vaunting notes that filled the valley. “The Glen, the Glen is mine!” sang
-the blithe chanter; and, by Finne's sword, Macruimen himself could not
-have fingered it better!
-</p>
-<p>
-It was before Paruig Dali left for Halt Town; before the wars that
-scorched the glens; and Clan Campbell could cock its bonnet in the face of
-all Albainn. Paruig was old, and Paruig was blind, as the name of him
-tells, but he swung with a king's port up and down on the short grass, his
-foot firm to every beat of the tune, his kilt tossing from side to side
-like a bard's song, his sporran leaping gaily on his brown knees. Two
-score of lilting steps to the bumside, a slow wheel on a brogue-heel, and
-then back with the sun-glint on the buckles of his belt.
-</p>
-<p>
-The men, tossing the caber and hurling the <i>clachncart</i> against the
-sun beyond the peat-bog, paused in their stride at the chanter's boast,
-jerked the tartan tight on their loins, and came over to listen; the
-women, posting blankets for the coming sheiling, stopped their splashing
-in the little linn, and hummed in a dream; and men and women had mind of
-the days that were, when the Glen was soft with the blood of men, for the
-Stewarts were over the way from Appin.
-</p>
-<p>
-“God's splendour! but he can play too,” said the piper's son, with his
-head areel to the fine tripling.
-</p>
-<p>
-Then Paruig pushed the bag further into his oxter, and the tune changed.
-He laid the ground of “Bodaich nam Briogais,” and such as knew the story
-saw the “carles with the breeks” broken and flying before Glenurchy's
-thirsty swords, far north of Morven, long days of weary march through
-spoiled glens.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's fine playing, I'll allow,” said the blind man's son, standing below
-a saugh-tree with the bag of his bannered pipes in the crook of his arm.
-He wore the dull tartan of the Diarmaids, and he had a sprig of gall in
-his bonnet, for he was in Black Duncan's tail. “Son of Paruig Dali,” said
-the Chief seven years ago come Martinmas, “if you're to play like your
-father, there's but Dunvegan for you, and the schooling of Patrick
-Macruimen.” So Tearlach went to Skye—cold isle of knives and caves—and
-in the college of Macruimen he learned the <i>piob-mhor</i>. Morning and
-evening, and all day between, he fingered the <i>feadan</i> or the full
-set—gathering and march, massacre and moaning, and the stately
-salute. Where the lusty breeze comes in salt from Vatemish across Loch
-Vegan, and the purple loom of Uist breaks the sunset's golden bars, he
-stood on the braes over against Borearaig and charmed the grumbling tide.
-And there came a day that he played “The Lament of the Harp-Tree,” with
-the old years of sturdy fight and strong men all in the strain of it, and
-Patrick Macruimen said, “No more, lad; go home: Lochow never heard another
-like you.” As a cock with its comb uncut, came the stripling from Skye.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Father,” he had said, “you play not ill for a blind man, but you miss the
-look on the men's faces, and that's half the music. Forbye, you are old,
-and your fingers are slow on the grace-notes. Here's your own flesh and
-blood can show you fingering there was never the like of anywhere east the
-Isles.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The stepmother heard the brag. “<i>A pheasain!</i>” she snapped, with hate
-in her peat-smoked face. “Your father's a man, and you are but a boy with
-no heart for a long day. A place in Black Duncan's tail, with a gillie to
-carry your pipes and knapsack, is not, mind ye, all that's to the making
-of a piper.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Tearlach laughed in her face. “Boy or man,” said he, “look at me! north,
-east, south, and west, where is the one to beat me? Macruimen has the
-name, but there were pipers before Macruimen, and pipers will come after
-him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's maybe as you say,” said Paruig. “The stuff's in you, and what is in
-must out; but give me <i>cothrom na Feinne</i>, and old as I am, with
-Finne's chance, and that's fair play, I can maybe make you crow less
-crouse. Are ye for trying?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I am at the training of a new chanter-reed,” said Tearlach; “but let it
-be when you will.”
- </p>
-<p>
-They fixed a day, and went out to play against each other for glory, and
-so it befell that on this day Paruig Dali was playing “The Glen is Mine”
- and “Bodaich nam Briogais” in a way to make stounding hearts.
-</p>
-<p>
-Giorsal snapped her fingers in her stepson's face when her husband closed
-the <i>crunluadh</i> of his <i>piobaireachd.</i>
-</p>
-<p>
-“Can you better it, bastard?” snarled she.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Here goes for it, whatever!” said Tear-lach, and over his back went the
-banner with its boar's head sewn on gold. A pretty lad, by the cross!
-clean-cut of limb and light of foot, supple of loin, with the toss of the
-shoulder that never a decent piper lacked. The women who had been at the
-linn leaned on each other all in the soft larch-scented day, and looked at
-him out of deep eyes; the men on the heather arose and stood nigher.
-</p>
-<p>
-A little tuning, and then
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Is comadh leam's comadh leam, cogadh na sithe,
-Marbhar 'sa chogadh na crochar's an t-sith mi.”
- </pre>
-<p>
-“Peace or war!” cried Giorsal, choking in anger, to her man—“peace
-or war! the black braggart! it's an asp ye have for a son, goodman!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The lad's fingers danced merry on the chanter, and the shiver of something
-to come fell on all the folk around. The old hills sported with the
-prancing tune; Dun Corrbhile tossed it to Drimfem, and Drimfern sent it
-leaping across the flats of Kilmune to the green corries of Lecknamban.
-“Love, love, the old tune; come and get flesh!” rasped a crow to his mate
-far off on misty Ben Bhreac, and the heavy black wings flapped east. The
-friendly wind forgot to dally with the pine-tuft and the twanging
-bog-myrtle, the plash of Aora in its brown linn was the tinkle of wine in
-a goblet. “Peace or war, peace or war; come which will, we care not,” sang
-the pipe-reeds, and there was the muster and the march, hot-foot rush over
-the rotting rain-wet moor, the jingle of iron, the dunt of pike and targe,
-the choked roar of hate and hunger, batter and slash and fall, and behind,
-the old, old feud with Appin!
-</p>
-<p>
-Leaning forward, lost in a dream, stood the swank lads of Aora. They felt
-at their hips, where were only empty belts, and one said to his child,
-“White love, get me yon long knife with the nicks on it, and the
-basket-hand, for I am sick of shepherding.” The bairn took a look at his
-face and went home crying.
-</p>
-<p>
-And the music still poured on. 'Twas “I got a Kiss o' the King's Hand” and
-“The Pretty Dirk,” and every air better than another. The fairy pipe of
-the Wee Folk's Knowe never made a sweeter fever of sound, yet it hurt the
-ears of the women, who had reason to know the payment of pipers' springs.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stop, stop, O Tearlach og!” they cried; “enough of war: have ye not a
-reel in your budget?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“There was never a reel in Boreraig,” said the lad, and he into “Duniveg's
-Warning,” the tune Coll Ciotach heard his piper play in the west on a day
-when a black bitch from Dunstaffnage lay panting for him, and his barge
-put nose about in time to save his skin.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There's the very word itself in it,” said Paruig, forgetting the taunting
-of Giorsal and all but a father's pride.
-</p>
-<p>
-'Twas in the middle of the “Warning” Black Duncan, his toe on the stirrup,
-came up from Castle Inneraora, with a gillie-wet-foot behind, on his way
-to Lochow.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's down yonder you should be, Sir Piper, and not blasting here for
-drink,” said he, switching his trews with his whip and scowling under
-black brows at the people. “My wife is sick of the <i>clarsach</i> and
-wants the pipes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm no woman's piper, Lochow; your wife can listen to the hum of her
-spinning-wheel if she's weary of her harp,” said the lad; and away rode
-the Chief, and back to the linn went the women, and the men to the <i>cabar</i>
-and the stone, and Tearlach, with an extra feather in his bonnet, home to
-Inneraora, leafing a gibe as he went, for his father.
-</p>
-<p>
-Paruig Dali cursed till the evening at the son he never saw, and his wife
-poisoned his mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-“The Glen laughs at you, man, from Carnus to Croit-bhile. It's a black,
-burning day of shame for you, Paruig Dall!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Lord, it's a black enough day for me at the best!” said the blind man.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's disgraced by your own ill-got son you are, by a boy with no blood on
-his <i>biodag</i>, and the pride to crow over you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-And Paruig cursed anew, by the Cross and the Dogs of Lorn, and the White
-Glaive of Light the giants wear, and the Seven Witches of Cothmar. He was
-bad though he was blind, and he went back to the start of time for his
-language. “But <i>Dhé!</i> the boy can play!” he said at the last.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, <i>amadain dhoill</i>” cried the woman; “if it was I, a claw was off
-the cub before the mouth of day.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Witless woman, men have played the pipes before now, lacking a finger:
-look at Alasdair Corrag!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Allowing; but a hand's as easy to cut as a finger for a man who has
-gralloched deer with a keen <i>sgian-dubh</i>. Will ye do't or no'?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Parig would hearken no more, and took to his pillow.
-</p>
-<p>
-Rain came with the gloaming. Aora, the splendid river, roared up the dark
-glen from the Salmon Leap; the hills gathered thick and heavy round about
-the scattered townships, the green new tips of fir and the copper leaves
-of the young oaks moaned in the wind. Then salt airs came tearing up from
-the sea, grinding branch on branch, and the whole land smoked with the
-drumming of rain that slanted on it hot and fast.
-</p>
-<p>
-Giorsal arose, her clothes still on her, put a plaid on her black head,
-and the thick door banged back on the bed as she dived into the storm. Her
-heavy feet sogged through the boggy grass, the heather clutched at her
-draggled coat-tails to make her stay, but she filled her heart with one
-thought, and that was hate, and behold! she was on the slope of the Black
-Bull before her blind husband guessed her meaning. Castle Inneraora lay at
-the foot of the woody dun, dozing to the music of the salt loch that made
-tumult and spume north and south in the hollow of the mountains. Now and
-then the moon took a look at things, now and then a night-hag in the
-dripping wood hooted as the rain whipped her breast feathers; a roe leaped
-out of the gloom and into it with a feared hoof-plunge above Carlonan; a
-thunderbolt struck in the dark against the brow of Ben Ime and rocked the
-world.
-</p>
-<p>
-In the cold hour before the mouth of day the woman was in the piper's room
-at the gate of Inneraora, where never a door was barred against the night
-while Strong Colin the warder could see from the Fort of Dunchuach to
-Cladich. Tearlach the piper lay on his back, with the glow of a half-dead
-peat on his face and hands. “Paruig, Paruig!” said the woman to herself,
-as she softly tramped out the peat-fire and turned to the bed. And lo! it
-was over. Her husband's little black knife made a fast sweep on the
-sleeper's wrist, and her hand was drenched with the hot blood of her
-husband's son.
-</p>
-<p>
-Tearlach leaped up with a roar in the dark and felt for his foe; but the
-house was empty, for Giorsal was running like a hind across the soaked
-stretch of Caimban. The lightning struck at Glenaora in jagged fury and
-confusion; the thunder drummed hollow on Creag
-</p>
-<p>
-Dubh: in a turn of the pass at the Three Bridges the woman met her
-husband.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Daughter of hell!” said he, “is't done? and was't death?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Darling,” said she, with a fond laugh, “'twas only a brat's hand. You can
-give us 'The Glen is Mine!' in the morning.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-THE SECRET OF THE HEATHER-ALE
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">D</span>OWN Glenaora threescore and ten of Diarmaid's stout fellows took the road
-on a fine day. They were men from Carnus, with more of Clan Artair than
-Campbell in them; but they wore Gilleasbuig Gruamach's tartan,. and if
-they were not on Gilleasbuig Gruamach's errand, it makes little difference
-on our story. It was about the time Antrim and his dirty Irishers came
-scouring through our glens with flambeaux, dirk and sword and other arms
-invasive, and the country was back at its old trade of fighting, with not
-a sheiling from end to end, except on the slopes of Shira Glen, where a
-clan kept free of battle and drank the finest of heather-ale that the
-world envied the secret of.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Lift we and go, for the Cattle's before!” said Alasdair Piobaire on the
-chanter of a Dunvegan great-pipe—a neat tune that roared gallant and
-far from Carnus to Bara-caldine; so there they were, the pick of swank
-fellows on the road!
-</p>
-<p>
-At the head of them was Niall Mor a' Chamais—the same gentleman
-namely in story for many an art and the slaughter of the strongest man in
-the world, as you'll find in the writings of my Lord Archie. “God! look at
-us!” said he, when his lads came over the hill in the grey mouth of day.
-“Are not we the splendid men? Fleas will there be this day in the hose of
-the Glenshira folk.” And he sent his targe in the air in a bravado,
-catching it by the prong in its navel, smart and clean, when it whirled
-back.
-</p>
-<p>
-Hawks yelped as they passed; far up on Tullich there was barking of
-eagles; the brogues met the road as light as the stagslot; laughing,
-singing, roaring; sword-heads and pikes dunting on wooden targets—and
-only once they looked back at their women high on the brae-face.
-</p>
-<p>
-The nuts were thick on the roadside, hanging heavy from swinging branches,
-and some of the men pulled them off as they passed, stayed for more,
-straggled, and sang bits of rough songs they ken over many of on
-Lochowside to this day. So Niall Mor glunched at his corps from under his
-bonnet and showed his teeth.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Gather in, gather in,” said he; “ye march like a drove of low-country
-cattle. Alasdair, put 'Baile Inneraora' on her!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Alasdair changed his tune, and the good march of Clan Diarmaid went
-swinging down the glen.
-</p>
-<p>
-The time passed; the sun stood high and hot; clucking from the
-fir-plantings came woodcock and cailzie; the two rivers were crossed, and
-the Diarmaids slockened their thirst at the water of Altan Aluinn, whose
-birth is somewhere in the bogs beside tall Bhuidhe Ben.
-</p>
-<p>
-Where the clans met was at the Foal's Gap, past Maam. A score of the
-MacKellars ran out in a line from the bushes, and stotted back from the
-solid weight of Diarmaid moving in a lump and close-shouldered in the
-style Niall Mor got from the Italian soldier. Some fell, hacked on the
-head by the heavy slash of the dry sword; some gripped too late at the
-pikes that kittled them cruelly; and one—Iver-of-the-Oars—tripped
-on a root of heather, and fell with his breast on the point of a
-Diarmaid's dirk.
-</p>
-<p>
-To the hills went a fast summons, and soon at the mouth of the gap came
-twoscore of the MacKellars. They took a new plan, and close together faced
-the green tartan, keeping it back at the point of steel, though the pick
-of Glenaora wore it, and the brogues slipped on the brae-face. It was fast
-cut and drive, quick flash of the dirk, with the palm up and the hand low
-to find the groin, and a long reach with the short black knife. The choked
-breath hissed at teeth and nose, the salt smell of new blood brought a
-shiver to birch-leaf and gall. But ever the green tartan had the best of
-it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Bas, bas, Dhiarmaid!</i>” cried Calum Dubh, coming up on the back of
-his breaking two-score with fresh lads from Elerigmor, bed-naked to the
-hide, and a new fury fell on the two clans tearing at it in the narrow
-hollow in between the rocky hills. So close they were, there was small
-room for the whirl of the basket-hilt, and “Mind Tom-a-Phubaill and the
-shortened steel!” cried Niall Mor, smashing a pretty man's face with a
-blow from the iron guard of his Ferrara sword. The halberts, snapped at
-the haft to make whittles, hammered on the target-hides like stones on a
-coffin, or rang on the bosses; the tartan ripped when the stuck one rolled
-on his side before the steel could be twisted out; below the foot the
-grass felt warm and greasy, and the reason was not ill to seek.
-</p>
-<p>
-Once it looked like the last of Calum Dubh. He was facing Niall Mor, sword
-and targe, and Niall Mor changed the sword to the other hand, pulled the
-<i>sgian-dubh</i> from his garter, and with snapping teeth pushed like a
-lightning fork below MacKellar's target. An Elerigmor man ran in between;
-the little black knife sunk into his belly with a moist plunge, and the
-blood spouted on the deer-horn haft.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Mallachd ort!</i> I meant yon for a better man,” cried Niall Mor; “but
-it's well as it is, for the secret's to the fore,” and he stood up dour
-and tall against a new front of Mac-Kellar's men.
-</p>
-<p>
-Then the sky changed, and a thin smirr of warm rains fell on the glen like
-smoke; some black-cattle bellowed at the ford in a wonder at where their
-herds could be, and the herds—stuck, slashed, and cudgelled—lay
-stiffening on the torn grass between the gap and Mac-Kellar's house. From
-end to end of the glen there was no man left but was at the fighting. The
-hook was tossed among the corn; the man hot-foot behind the roe, turned
-when he had his knife at its throat, to go to war; a lover left his lass
-among the heather; and all, with tightened belts, were at the old game
-with Clan Diarmaid, while their women, far up on the sappy levels between
-the hill-tops and beside the moor-lochs, span at the wheel or carded wool,
-singing songs with light hearts and thinking no danger.
-</p>
-<p>
-Back went MacKellar's men before Niall
-</p>
-<p>
-Mor and his sturdy lads from Camus, the breeder of soldiers—back
-through the gap and down on the brae to the walls of Calum Dubh.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'Illean, 'illean!” cried Calum; “lads, lads! they have us, sure enough.
-Oh! pigs and thieves! squint mouths and sons of liars!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The cry gathered up the strength of all that was left of his clan, Art and
-Uileam, the Maam lads, the brothers from Drimlea and two from over Stron
-hill, and they stood up together against the Carnus men—a gallant
-madness! They died fast and hard, and soon but Calum and his two sons were
-left fencing, till a rush of Diarmaids sent them through the door of the
-house and tossed among the peats.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Give in and your lives are your own,” said Niall Mor, wiping his sword on
-his shirtsleeve, and with all that were left of his Diarmaids behind his
-back.
-</p>
-<p>
-To their feet stood the three MacKellars.
-</p>
-<p>
-Calum looked at the folk in front of him, and had mind of other ends to
-battles. “To die in a house like a rat were no great credit,” said he, and
-he threw his sword on the floor, where the blades of Art and Uileam soon
-joined it.
-</p>
-<p>
-With tied arms the father and his sons were taken outside, where the air
-was full of the scents of birch and gall new-washed. The glen, clearing
-fast of mist, lay green and sweet for mile and mile, and far at its mouth
-the fat Blaranbuie woods chuckled in the sun.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I have you now,” said Niall Mor. “Ye ken what we seek. It's the old ploy—the
-secret of the ale.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Calum laughed in his face, and the two sons said things that cut like
-knives.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Man! I'm feared ye'll rue this,” said Niall Mor, calm enough. “Ye may
-laugh, but—what would ye call a gentleman's death?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“With the sword or the dagger in the hand, and a Diarmaid or two before
-me,” cried Calum.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, there might be worse ways of travelling yont—indeed there
-could ill be better; but if the secret of the ale is not to be ours for
-the asking, ye'll die a less well-bred death.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Name it, man, name it,” said Calum. “Might it be tow at the throat and a
-fir-branch.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Troth,” said Niall Mor, “and that were too gentle a travelling. The
-Scaurnoch's on our way, and the crows at the foot of it might relish a
-Glen Shira carcass.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Uileam whitened at the notion of so ugly an end, but Calum only said, “Die
-we must any way,” and Art whistled a bit of a pipe-tune, grinding his heel
-on the moss.
-</p>
-<p>
-Niall Mor made to strike the father on the face, but stayed his hand and
-ordered the three in-by, with a few of his corps to guard them. Up and
-down Glen Shira went the Diarmaids, seeking the brewing-cave, giving hut
-and home to the flame, and making black hearths and low lintels for the
-women away in the sheilings. They buried their dead at Kilblaan, and, with
-no secret the better, set out for Scaurnoch with Calum and his sons.
-</p>
-<p>
-The MacKellars were before, like a <i>spreidh</i> of stolen cattle, and
-the lot of the driven herd was theirs. They were laughed at and spat on,
-and dirk-hilts and <i>cromags</i> hammered on their shoulders, and through
-Blaranbuie wood they went to the bosky elbow of Dun Corr-bhile and round
-to the Dun beyond.
-</p>
-<p>
-Calum, for all his weariness, stepped like a man with a lifetime's plans
-before his mind; Art looked about him in the fashion of one with an eye to
-woodcraft; Uileam slouched with a heavy foot, white at the jaw and wild of
-eye.
-</p>
-<p>
-The wood opened, the hunting-road bent about the hill-face to give a level
-that the eye might catch the country spread below. Loch Finne stretched
-far, from Ardno to French Foreland, a glassy field, specked with one sail
-off Creaggans. When the company came to a stand, Calum Dubh tossed his
-head to send the hair from his eyes, and looked at what lay below. The
-Scaurnoch broke at his feet, the grey rock-face falling to a depth so deep
-that weary mists still hung upon the sides, jagged here and there by the
-top of a fir-tree. The sun, behind the Dun, gave the last of her glory to
-the Cowal Hills; Hell's Glen filled with wheeling mists; Ben Ime, Ben
-Vane, and Ben Arthur crept together and held princely converse on the
-other side of the sea.
-</p>
-<p>
-All in a daze of weariness and thinking the Diarmaids stood, and looked
-and listened, and the curlews were crying bitter on the shore.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, haste ye, lads, or it's not Carnus for us to-night,” cried Niall Mor.
-“We have business before us, and long's the march to follow. The secret,
-black fellow!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Calum Dubh laughed, and spat in a bravado over the edge of the rock.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Come, fool; if we have not the word from you before the sun's off Sithean
-Sluaidhe, your sleep this night is yonder,” and he pointed at the pit
-below.
-</p>
-<p>
-Calum laughed the more. “If it was hell itself,” said he, “I would not
-save my soul from it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Look, man, look! the Sithean Sluaidhe's getting black, and any one of ye
-can save the three yet. I swear it on the cross of my knife.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Behind the brothers, one, John-Without-Asking, stood, with a gash on his
-face, eager to give them to the crows below.
-</p>
-<p>
-A shiver came to Uileam's lips; he looked at his father with a questioning
-face, and then stepped back a bit from the edge, making to speak to the
-tall man of Chamis.
-</p>
-<p>
-Calum saw the meaning, and spoke fast and thick.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stop, stop,” said he; “it's a trifle of a secret, after all, and to save
-life ye can have it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Art took but a little look at his father's face, then turned round on
-Shira Glen and looked on the hills where the hunting had many a time been
-sweet. “Maam no more,” said he to himself; “but here's death in the hero's
-style!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I thought you would tell it,” laughed Niall Mor. “There was never one of
-your clan but had a tight grip of his little life.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ay!” said Calum Dubh; “but it's <i>my</i> secret. I had it from one who
-made me swear on the holy steel to keep it; but take me to Carnus, and
-I'll make you the heather-ale.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So be't, and——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But there's this in it, I can look no clansmen nor kin in the face after
-telling it, so Art and Uileam must be out of the way first.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Death, MacKellar?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“That same.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Uileam shook like a leaf, and Art laughed, with his face still to Shira,
-for he had guessed his father's mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Faith!” said Niall Mor, “and that's an easy thing enough,” and he nodded
-to John-Without-Asking.
-</p>
-<p>
-The man made stay nor tarry. He put a hand on each son's back and pushed
-them over the edge to their death below. One cry came up to the listening
-Diarmaids, one cry and no more—the last gasp of a craven.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Now we'll take you to Camus, and you'll make us the ale, the fine ale,
-the cream of rich heather-ale,” said Niall Mor, putting a knife to the
-thongs that tied MacKellar's arms to his side.
-</p>
-<p>
-With a laugh and a fast leap Calum Dubh stood back on the edge of the rock
-again.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Crook-mouths, fools, pigs' sons! did ye think it?” he cried. “Come with
-me and my sons and ye'll get ale, ay, and death's black wine, at the foot
-of Scaurnoch.” He caught fast and firm at John-Without-Asking, and threw
-himself over the rock-face. They fell as the scart dives, straight to the
-dim sea of mist and pine-tip, and the Diarmaids threw themselves on their
-breasts to look over. There was nothing to see of life but the crows
-swinging on black feathers; there was nothing to hear but the crows
-scolding.
-</p>
-<p>
-Niall Mor put the bonnet on his head and said his first and last friendly
-thing of a foe.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yon,” said he, “had the heart of a man!”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-BOBOON'S CHILDREN
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">F</span>ROM Knapdale to Lorn three wandering clans share the country between
-them, and of the three the oldest and the greatest are the swart
-Macdonalds, children of the Old Boboon.
-</p>
-<p>
-You will come on them on Wade's roads,—jaunty fellows, a bit dour in
-the look, and braggart; or girls with sloe-eyes, tall and supple, not with
-a flat slouching foot on the soil, but high in the instep, bounding and
-stag-sure. At their head will be a long lean old man on crutches—John
-Fine Macdonald—
-</p>
-<p>
-Old Boboon, the father and head of the noblest of wandering tribes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Sir,” will Boboon say to you, “I am the fellow you read of in books as
-the teller of Fingalian tales; wilt hear one of them for a poor Saxon
-shilling, or wilt buy my lures for the fish? Or perhaps a display of
-scholarly piping by my daughter's son—the gallant scamp!—who
-has carried arms for his king?”
- </p>
-<p>
-If one must have the truth, the piping is bad piping, but the fish-lures
-and the tales are the best in the world. You will find some of the tales
-in the writings of Iain Og of Isla—such as “The Brown Bear of the
-Green Glen”; but the best are to hear as Boboon minds them when he sits
-with you on the roadside or on the heather beside the evening fire, when
-the brown fluffy eagles bark at the mist on Braevallach. Listen well to
-them, for this person has the gift. He had it from his father, who had it
-from <i>his</i> father, who had it from a mother, who, in deep trouble and
-disease, lay awake through long nights gathering thoughts as healthy folks
-gather nuts—a sweet thing enough from a sour husk.
-</p>
-<p>
-And if time were your property (as it should be the portion of every
-wiselike man), you might hear many tales from Old Boboon, but never the
-tale of his own three chances.
-</p>
-<p>
-It happened once upon a time that the captain in the town took a notion to
-make Boboon into a tame house-man instead of a creature of the woods and
-highways. He took him first by himself and clapped him into a kilt of his
-own tartan eight yards round the buttocks, full pleated, with hose of fine
-worsted, and a coat with silver buttons. He put a pickle money in his
-sporran, and gave him a place a little way down his table. The feeding was
-high and the work was to a wanderer's fancy; for it was but whistling to a
-dog now and then, chanting a stave, or telling a story, or roaming through
-the garden behind the house.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ho, ho!” said Boboon, “am not I the sturdy fellow come to his own?” and
-about the place he would go with a piper's swagger, switching the grass
-and shrubs with a withie as he went, in the way gentlemen use
-riding-sticks.
-</p>
-<p>
-But when Inneraora town lay in the dark of the winter night, and the
-captain's household slept, Boboon would hear his clan calling on him
-outside the wall.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Boboon! oh, Boboon! old hero! come and collogue with your children.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He would go to the wall, which was lower on the inside than the out (and
-is, indeed, the wall of old Quinten, where a corps of Campbells,
-slaughtered by Inverlochy dogs, lie under a Latin stone), and he would
-look down at his friends running about like pole-cats in the darkness, in
-their ragged kilts and trews, their stringy hair tossing in the wind. The
-women themselves would be there, with the bairns whining on their backs.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ay! ay! this is you, my hearty folk!” he would say; “glad am I to see you
-and smell the wood-fire reek off you. How is it on the road?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“From here we have not moved since you left us, John Fine. We are camped
-in the Blue Quarry, and you never came near your children and friends.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“God! and here's the one that's sorry for that same. But over the walls
-they will not let me. 'If gentleman you would be,' says the captain, 'you
-must keep out of woods and off the highway.'”
- </p>
-<p>
-“And you like it, Boboon?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Like it, heroes! But for the honour and ease of it, give me a fir-root
-fire in Glen Croe and a dinner of <i>fuarag</i>. It is not the day so much
-as the night. Lying in-by there on a posted-bed, I choke for the want of
-air, though the windows and doors are open wide.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Come away with us, Boboon; we have little lack with the fish, and few are
-our stories since you took to the town.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, no, dears. Conan's curse, and I tell you no! In this place there is
-comfort, and every day its own bellyful.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But the freedom outbye, John, old hero! Last night we had the bravest of
-fires; the sparks flew like birds among the Duke's birches, the ground was
-snug and dry, and-”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Begone! I tell ye no!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Listen! To-day we were among the white hares beyond the Beannan,
-thwacking the big fat fellows with our clubs. Such sport was not in all
-Albainn!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“White hares!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“White hares, old John! And Alasdair Beag has some new tunes since you
-left us—a <i>piobaireachd</i> he picked up from a Mull man.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Would it be 'Failte an Roich '?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Better than that by far; a masterly tune! Come out and hear him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-But Old Boboon leaned with his arms on the wall and made no move to be off
-with his children.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Come and stravaig,” said the girls, and his daughter Betty put a foot in
-a cranny and pulled herself up beside him to put coaxing arms round his
-neck.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Calf of my heart!” said Boboon, stroking her hair, soft handed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“We have the fine feeding,” said the girl in his ear. “Yesterday it was
-plotted trout in the morning and tunnag's eggs; dinner was a collop off a
-fat hind.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A grailoched hind?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, nor grailoched! That is a fool's fashion and the spoiling of good
-meat. But come with us, father. Think of the burns bubbling, and the stars
-through the branches, and the fresh airs of the morning!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Down, down, you bitch! Would ye tempt me?” cried Boboon, pushing the girl
-from the wall and hurrying back with shaking knees to the Latin stone. The
-night was deep black, and for all he could tell by eyesight, he might have
-been in the middle of breezy Moor Rannoch, but the town gables crowded
-'thick and solid round his heart. He missed the free flowing winds; there
-was a smell of peat and coal from dead house-fires, and he spat the dust
-of lime from his throat.
-</p>
-<p>
-Over the wall the clan scraped and skurried as weasels do. They dared make
-no noise for fear the town should waken, but in hoarse voices they called
-all together—
-</p>
-<p>
-“Boboon, Boboon, oh! come home to the wood, Boboon!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Am not I the poor caged one?” said Boboon to himself, and he ran in that
-he might hear no more.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was the same the next night and the next, and it looked like going on
-without end. Ever the wanderers coming at night to the wall and craving
-their head to come out. And one night they threw over a winged black-cock,
-that fell with beating feathers at Boboon's feet as he stood in the dark
-listening to the swart Macdonalds whining outbye.
-</p>
-<p>
-He picked up the bird and ran kind fingers through its feathers. The heat
-coursed in its breast and burned to a fever in its wounded oxter. Its
-little heart beat on Boboon's thumb like a drumstick.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Poor bird!” said he; “well I ken where ye came from, and the merry times
-ye had. Ye hatched in the braes of Ben Bhuidhe, and clucked on the reedy
-places round about the side of that tall hill. Before your keen eyes in
-the morning was the Dubh Loch, and the Shira—winding like a silver
-belt. Sure am I ye took wing for it with the day, and over Stuc Scardan to
-Aora Glen to make merry among your mates in the heather and the fern. Oh!
-<i>choillich-dhuibh, choillich-dhuibh</i>, hard's our fate with broken
-wings and the heart still strong!”
- </p>
-<p>
-He thrawed the bird's neck, and then went over the wall to join his clan.
-</p>
-<p>
-His second chance ended no better. He was back in a new kilt and jacket a
-twelvemonth later, and this time the captain tried the trick of a dog's
-freedom—oat on the road as he liked by day, but kennel at night.
-</p>
-<p>
-One day Boboon was on his master's errand round Stron. It was the spring
-of the year. The shore, at the half-ebb, was clean and sweet, and the tide
-lapped at the edge as soft as a cat at milk.
-</p>
-<p>
-Going round Stron on the hard yellow road, he got to think of the sea's
-good fortune,—of the many bays it wandered into by night or day; of
-its friendship with far-out forelands, and its brisk quarrels with the
-black rocks. Here was no dyke at any time, but all freedom, the
-restlessness and the roaming, sleep or song as the mood had it, and the
-ploys with galleys and gabberts; the cheery halloo of the winds and the
-waving of branches on foreign isles to welcome one.
-</p>
-<p>
-The road opened before him in short swatches—the sort of road a
-wanderer likes, with not too much of it to be seen at one look. In the
-hazel-wood by the way the bark of the young trees glistened like brass;
-thin new switches shot out straight as shelisters.
-</p>
-<p>
-John Fine, with the sun heating his back, started at the singing of
-Donnacha Ban's “Coire Cheathaich”:—
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“O 'twas gladsome to go a-hunting
-Out in the dew of the sunny mom!
-For the great red stag was never wanting,
-Nor the fawn, nor the doe with never a horn.
-My beauteous corri, my misty corri!
-What light feet trod thee in joy and pride!
-What strong hand gathered thy precious treasures,
-What great hearts leaped on thy craggy side!”
- </pre>
-<p>
-Rounding Dundarave, the road lay straight before him till it thinned in
-the distance to a needle-point pricking the trees, and at the end of it
-was a cloud of dust.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What have I here?” said Boboon to himself, stretching out with long
-steps, the kilt flapping against the back of his knees.
-</p>
-<p>
-The cloud came close, and lo! here was his own clan on the march, draggled
-and stoury, rambling, scattered like crows, along the road.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Boboon! Boboon!” they cried, and they hung about him, fingering his fine
-clothes.
-</p>
-<p>
-He looked at their brown flesh, he saw the yellow soil in the crannies of
-their brogues, the men loose and blackguardly, the women red-cheeked,
-ripe, and big-breasted, with bold eyes, and all had enchantment for him! A
-stir set up in his heart that he could not put down.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Where were you yesterday?” he asked.
-</p>
-<p>
-“On the side of the Rest in Glen Croe, with dry beds of white hay and no
-hurry.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Where are you for?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Have you forgotten the wanderer's ways, Boboon? Where does this road go
-to?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well ye ken, my heroes! It goes to the end of a man's will. If the man'
-says, 'I bide here,' it's the end of the road; but if he has the notion,
-it will take him to the end of days. That, by my soul! is the charm of all
-roads that are not in towns; and now that I think of it, let the captain
-whistle on his errand, for I'm Boboon and sick of the causey stones.”
- </p>
-<p>
-So night found Boboon and his clan far in at the back of Auchnabreac,
-town-muir and bonny place, where some we ken would sooner be than
-wandering o'er the world.
-</p>
-<p>
-And the days passed, and at Martinmas the captain was at Kilmichael
-Market, and he came on Boboon with his people on the edge of the
-market-place. Boboon in those days was as straight as a young saugh-wand,
-sharp and thin, all thong at the joints, and as supple as a wild cat. He
-was giving a display with the <i>sgian-dubh</i>, stabbing it on the ground
-at the back of his left heel and twisting his right arm round the leg to
-get the blade out of the ground without bending the knee. It was a trick
-to take the eye, but neither bardic nor soldierly, yet there was a throng
-of drovers about him. Along with him was his daughter Betty, who took
-after him for looks, but had her dead mother's dainty tongue, and from her
-mother a little book-schooling John Fine had never the need of.
-</p>
-<p>
-The eye of the captain fell on the two of them as they stood there, with
-their forty clan-folk going about the market, and he was gripped by a new
-notion to give Boboon the third and the last chance.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Boboon!” he said, “come back to the town this once, and I'll put you and
-your daughter up together in a house of your own.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Before a week was out the thing was as he wanted. Boboon and Betty got a
-room in Macvicar's Land, with a wooden floor, and a fire on the side of
-the wall with a built-in chimney, and other gentilities beside. They
-stayed for months, and they stayed for years, and the clan craved them in
-vain to come home. Betty was put to the books and the arts of ladydom by
-the captain's mother and sister, and she took to them like a Ridir's
-daughter. She lost the twang of the road-folk; she put her errant hair in
-leash; she grew to the habit of snodding and redding, until for grace and
-good looks she was the match of them that taught her.
-</p>
-<p>
-One day the captain, walking in his garden in deep cogitation, fell in the
-way of the girl as she roamed among the bushes. He got for the first time
-the true glance of her (for one may look at a person for years and not see
-the reality till a scale falls from the eyes), and behold! here was a
-woman who set his heart drumming.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was that very night Boboon put an end to his last chance.
-</p>
-<p>
-The strong sun of the day left the night hot and clammy, and a haze hung
-on the country such as one sees in these parts in keenest frost.
-Macvicar's Land was full of smells—of sweating flesh and dirty
-water, of fish and the rotting airs of sunless holes—and the dainty
-nose of Macdonald took a disgust. He flung open door and window, and
-leaned out at the window with his neck bared and his mouth stretched wide
-gasping to the air. The bairns in the back-land looked up and laughed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Look at Boboon, Boboon, Boboon, the father of Lady Betty!” they cried,
-and John Fine shook his fist and cursed their families.
-</p>
-<p>
-But there was no ease from the trouble in this fashion, so he got up and
-went behind the town, and threw himself under the large trees with an ear
-to the ground. Beside him the cattle crunched the sappy grass in so sweet
-and hearty mouthfuls that he could well wish he had the taste of nature
-himself, and they breathed great breaths of content. His keen ears could
-catch the hopping of beasts on the grass and the scratching of claws in
-the wood, he could hear the patter of little feet, and the birds above him
-scraping on the bark when they turned in their sleep. A townman would
-think the world slept, so great was the booming of quietness; but Boboon
-heard the song of the night, the bustle of the half world that thrives in
-shade and starshine.
-</p>
-<p>
-Leaning now on an elbow, he let his eyes rove among the beeches, into the
-bossy tops, solemn and sedate, and the deep recesses that might be full of
-the little folk of fairy-land at their cantrips. And then farther back and
-above all was Dunchuach the stately, lifting its face, wood-bearded, to
-the stars!
-</p>
-<p>
-“If a wind was here it was all I wanted,” said Boboon, and when he said it
-the wind came—a salty air from the sea. The whole country-side
-cooled and gave out fresh scents of grass and earth.
-</p>
-<p>
-“O God! O God!” cried the wanderer, “here we are out-by, the beasts and
-the birds and the best of Boboon together! Here is the place for ease and
-the full heart.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He up and ran into the town, and up to the captain's gate and in.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Master,” he cried, 'it's the old story,—I must be taking the road
-for it; here's no rest for John Fine Macdonald!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But you'll leave the girl,” said the captain, who saw the old fever in
-the man's eyes; “I have taken a notion of her, and—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So be it! let her bide.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'll marry her before the morn's out.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Marry!” cried Boboon, putting back his hair from his face with a nervous
-hand. “You would marry a wanderer's child?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, they'll talk, no doubt; but she has gifts to make them forget, and
-she's good enough to make a king's woman.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Sir,” said Boboon, “I have but one thing to say, and that's our own
-Gaelic old-word, 'There are few lapdogs in a fox's litter.'” The captain's
-face got as red as his vest, and he had a ready hand up for an answer to
-Boboon, but he had mind the man was the girl's father.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I'll risk it,” he said, “and you can go your wandering ways, for Betty is
-willing.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No doubt, no doubt,” said Boboon, and he went. In the hollow of the night
-he was hooting back like a boy at the hoolets on the slopes of
-Coillevraid, and at the mouth of day, in a silver wet light, he was
-standing on the edge of the hills that look on two lochs, his head high
-like a scenting deer's. He turned him round about to all airts with his
-eyes from Cruachan to Cowal, and as far between Knapdale and Lorn as a
-wanderer has vision, and yonder, down at Kames, was the camp of his clan!
-</p>
-<p>
-Betty his daughter left Macvicar's Land in the morning and went to be
-captain's wife, with a seat in the kirk and callers from the castle
-itself.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Wait, wait,” said old Craignure, when the tale reached him, “you'll see
-the fox come out on her ere long.”
- </p>
-<p>
-But the fox was not there; it was skipping a day, as the fox will do
-sometimes when the day before has been good hunting. All went well with
-the woman till the worst that might have been the best happened, and she
-died with her first child. It was the year of the stunted oats, that
-brought poverty to Inneraora and black bread to the captain's board; but
-black bread and brochan would have been the blithest of meat for him if
-Betty was left to share it. He took to the bottle, and left the boy to
-women who had no skill of wild youth.
-</p>
-<p>
-And the child grew like a fir-tree, straight and tall, full of hot blood,
-swung about by whim and the moment's fancy. For him it was ever the horse
-and gun, a snatched dinner and hearty, and off to the wood or hill. He got
-to know the inner ways of the beasts that hide in the coarse grasses and
-the whin; at a whistle he could coax flapping birds to come to heel. A
-loose vest and a naked neck for ever were marring his gentility, and his
-closest friends were countrymen with hard hands and the loud ready laugh.
-</p>
-<p>
-One day it came to the captain's mind that something must be made of this
-young blade, and he sent for him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Boy,” said he, “are you at your books?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, but—but I ken a short way with the badgers,” the lad made
-answer.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Did you have a lesson this morning?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Never a lesson,” said the lad; “I was too busy living.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Living, said ye?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Living. I was at the swimming at the Creags, and beaking in the sun on
-the braes above the Garron beside the march wall where the hedgehogs
-creep, and I am new from the shinty,” and he shook the shinty-stick in his
-hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-The captain took to pondering, his chin on his hand and his elbows on the
-table, where a bottle and glass lay beside him.
-</p>
-<p>
-After a bit he said, “Look ye, my son, what are ye meaning to be?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I'm for the sword-work,” the lad said, in a flash, his face twitching.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I would sooner see you in hell first!” cried the captain, thumping the
-board till the glass rang. He had seen foreign wars himself and had a hack
-on the groin.
-</p>
-<p>
-That was the first of the feud between them. They fought it dour and they
-fought it hard, the father for the crafts of peace and the lad for his own
-way, and at last one day the captain said—
-</p>
-<p>
-“To the door, brat, and your lair with the Boboons you belong to! Faith,
-and your grandfather was right when he said there was never a lapdog in a
-fox's litter.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Who he came of, the lad had no notion, for the swart Macdonalds never came
-near the town after Boboon left it for the last time; but he put on his
-bonnet, and went out of the house and on to the highroad.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was well on to winter, a brawling day, with the leaves of the Duke's
-trees swishing thick and high over the thatch and through the streets of
-the Duke's town. Snug stood the gables, friendly and warm, and the
-window-lozens winked with the light of big peat-fires within. Over the
-breast the seabirds yelped and crows craked without a stop, stirring about
-in the branches behind Macvicar's Land. And the salt wind! It blew in from
-the low bay at one end of the town and through it to the other, and before
-it went a lad into the wide world that starts at the factor's corner.
-</p>
-<p>
-“By the shore-side to the low country, or by the woods to the hills?” the
-lad asked himself. He had the <i>caman</i> still in his hand, and he
-tossed it in the air. “Bas for the highway, <i>cas</i> for the low,” said
-he. The shinty fell <i>bos</i>, and our hero took to it for the highway to
-the north. He swithered at the Arches, and looked back on the front of the
-town and the quay with the oil-lights on it. He was half in the humour to
-bide, but he put the notion behind him and stretched to the brae,
-whistling a piper's march. At the head of the brae the town houses were
-lost to him, and this so soon he could not put up with, so he went down on
-a way to the right a little and stood on the grass of the Winterton field.
-</p>
-<p>
-Fast and dark the night was falling, a heavy smirr of rain was drooking
-the grass, and the trees on every hand shook the water in blobs from the
-branches. Through them the lights of the finest town in the world shone
-damp and woe-begone.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There are good folk in't, and bad folk in't,” said the lad to himself;
-“but somehow 'twas never the place for me!”
- </p>
-<p>
-He turned and went into the road through the wood, savage at heart,
-without a thought of where his sleep would be. When he came to
-Kennachregan, there was the scad of a fire above the trees beside the
-roaring river, and he went down and looked over a march dyke at a band of
-wanderers under the trees. Young and old, men and women, they lay steaming
-on soft beds of springy spruce-branches with their toes to the crackling
-logs, snoring as snore sound sleepers, sheltered from the rain by the
-thick branches, the side of the hill, and here and there a canvas
-covering. There was but one of them up—a long old man with lank jaws
-and black eyes—John Fine Macdonald. He was stirring up the logs with
-the shod of a crutch and humming a Perth song, and before the hottest of
-the fire a plucked bird was roasting.
-</p>
-<p>
-The smell of the meat and the wood-fire rose to the dykeside where the lad
-stood shivering in his wet clothes, and the comfort of the camp was
-something he could not pass by.
-</p>
-<p>
-He took a jump over the dyke and went out in the light of the fire,
-wondering what would be his welcome. Old Boboon looked up with his hand
-over his eyes, then rose on his crutches and put a hand on the young
-fellow's shoulder.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You're from Inneraora town?” said he.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I am,” said the lad; “but it's Inneraora no more for me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ho! ho!” laughed the old wanderer. “Sit ye down, ye scamp, and take your
-fingers to a pick of your grandfather's hen. Boboon's children may be slow
-and far, but home's aye home to them!”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-THE FELL SERGEANT.
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T is ill enough to have to die in Glenaora at any season, but to get the
-word for travelling from it on yon trip in the spring of the year is hard
-indeed. The gug-gug will halloo in your ears to bid you bide a wee and see
-the red of the heather creep on Tom-an-dearc; the soft and sap-scented
-winds will come in at the open door, and you will mind, maybe, of a day
-long-off and lost when you pulled the copper leaves of the bursting oak
-and tossed them among a girl's hair. Oh! the long days and the strong
-days! They will come back to you like the curious bit in a tune that is
-vexatious and sweet, and not for words or a set thought. You will think of
-the lambs on the slopes, of the birds tearing through the thousand ways in
-the woods, of the magic hollows in below the thick-sown pines, of the
-burns, deep at the bottom of <i>eas</i> and corri, spilling like gold on a
-stair. And then, it may be, Solomon Carrier's cart goes by to the town,
-the first time since the drifts went off the high road; you hear the
-clatter of the iron shoes, and your mind will go with him to the throng
-street where the folks are so kind and so free.
-</p>
-<p>
-But to turn your back for the last at that time on Lecknamban must come
-sorest of all. For Lecknamban has seven sheilings hidden in its hills,
-where the grass is long and juicy, and five burns that are aye on the
-giggle like girls at a wedding, and the Aora daunders down in front of the
-knowe, full of fish for the Duke alone, but bonny for earl or caird.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was in this same glen, in this same Lecknamban, in the spring of a
-year, a woman was at her end. She was a woman up in years but not old, a
-black Bana-Mhuileach who had seen pleasant things and trials like all who
-come to this queer market-place; but now when the time was come to take
-the long road with no convoy, only the good times were in her
-recollection. And though Glenaora was not her calf-country (for she came
-but a year ago to bide with a friend), she was swear't to turn heel on a
-place so cosy.
-</p>
-<p>
-She sat propped up in a box-bed, on pillows, with her face to the open
-door, and the friendly airs of the country-side came in to stir her hair.
-With them came scents of the red earth and the grass, birch-tree and
-myrtle, from the moor. But more than all they brought her who was at her
-end a keen craving for one more summer of the grand world. Strong in her
-make and dour at the giving-in, she kept talking of the world's affairs
-and foolishness to the folk about her who were waiting the Almighty's will
-and the coming of the stretching-board. Her fingers picked without a stop
-at the woolly bits of the blankets, and her eyes were on as much of the
-knowe below the house as she could see out at the open door. It was yellow
-at the foot with flowers, and here and there was a spot of blue from the
-cuckoo-brogue.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Women, women,” she said with short breaths, “I'm thinking aye, when I see
-the flowers, of a man that came from these parts to Duart. He sang 'Mo
-Nighean Dubh' in a style was never heard before in our place, and he once
-brought me the scented cuckoo-brogues from Aora.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Said the goodwife, “Aoirig, poor woman, it is not the hour for ancient old
-<i>sgeuls</i>; be thinking of a canny going.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Going! it was aye going with me,” said the woman in the bed. “And it was
-aye going when things were at their best and I was the keener for them.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's the way of God, my dear, <i>ochanie!</i>” said one of the two
-Tullich sisters, putting a little salt in a plate for-the coming business.
-</p>
-<p>
-“O God! it's the hard way, indeed. And I'm not so old as you by two or
-three clippings.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Peace, Aoirig, heart; you had your own merry times, and that's as much as
-most of us have claim to.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Merry times! merry times!” said Aoirig, humped among the bedding, her
-mind wandering.
-</p>
-<p>
-Curls of the peat-reek coiled from the floor among the <i>cabars</i> or
-through the hole in the roof; a lamb ran by the door bleating for its
-mother, and the whistling of an <i>uiseag</i> high over the grass where
-his nest lay ran out to a thin thread of song. The sound of it troubled
-the dying woman, and she asked her friends to shut the door. Now and again
-Maisie would put a wet cloth to her lips and dry the death-sweat from her
-face. The goodwife was throng among chests and presses looking for sheets,
-shrouds, and dead-caps.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's a pity,” said she, “you brought no grave-clothes with you from Mull,
-my dear.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Are you grudging me yours?” asked Aoirig, coming round from wandering.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No, nor grudging; fine ye ken it, cousin. But I know ye have them, and
-it's a pity you should be dressed in another's spinning than your own.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ay, they're yonder sure enough: clean and ready. And there's more than
-that beside them. The linen I should have brought to a man's home.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You and your man's home! Is it Duart, my dear, among your own folk, or
-down to Inishail, you would have us take you?” Aoirig coughed till the red
-froth was at her lips.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Duart is homely and Inishail is holy, sure enough, but I would have it
-Kilmalieu. They tell me it's a fine kirkyard; but I never had the luck to
-see it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's well enough, I'll not deny, and it would not be so far to take you.
-Our folk have a space of their own among the MacVicars, below the parson.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The woman in the bed signed for a sip of water, and they had it fast at
-her lips.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Could you be putting me near the Macnicols?” she asked in a weakening
-voice. “The one I speak of was a Macnicol.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ay, ay,” said the goodwife; “they were aye gallant among the girls.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Gallant he was,” said the one among the blankets. “I see him now. The
-best man ever I saw. It was at a wedding——”
- </p>
-<p>
-The woman's breast racked and the spume spattered over the home-spun
-blankets.
-</p>
-<p>
-Maisie was heating a death-shift at the peat-fire, turning it over in her
-hands, letting the dry airs into every seam and corner.
-</p>
-<p>
-Looking at her preparation, the dying woman caught back her breath to ask
-why such trouble with a dead-shift.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ye would not have it on damp and cold,” said Maisie, settling the
-business. “I doubt it'll be long in the sleeves, woman, for the goodwife
-has a lengthy reach.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It was at a marriage in Glenurchy,” said Aoirig in a haver, the pillows
-slipping down behind her back. “Yonder he is. A slim straight lad. Ronnal,
-O Ronnal my hero! What a dancer! not his match in Mull. Aye so——”
- </p>
-<p>
-A foot could be heard on the road, and one of the two sisters ran out, for
-she knew whom it would be. They had sent word to the town by Solomon in
-the morning for Macnicol the wright to come up with the stretching-board,
-thinking there was but an hour more for poor Macnicol's were the
-footsteps, and there he was with the stretching-board under his arm—a
-good piece of larch rubbed smooth by sheet and shroud, and a little hollow
-worn at the head. He was a fat man, rolling a bit to one side on a short
-leg, gross and flabby at the jowl, and thick-lipped; but he might have
-been a swanky lad in his day, and there was a bit of good-humour in the
-corner of his eye, where you will never see it when one has been born with
-the uneasy mind. He was humming to himself as he came up the brae a
-Badenoch ditty they have in these parts on the winter nights, gossiping
-round the fire. Whom he was going to stretch he had no notion, except that
-it was a woman and a stranger to the glen.
-</p>
-<p>
-The sister took him round to the corner of the house and in at the byre
-door, and told him to wait. “It'll not be long now,” she said.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then she's still to the fore,” said the wright. “I might have waited on
-the paymaster's dram at Three Bridges if I had ken't. Women are aye thrawn
-about dying. They'll put it off to the last, when a man would be glad to
-be taking the road. Who is she, poor woman?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A cousin-german of Nanny's,” said the sister, putting a bottle before
-him, and whipping out for some bannock and cheese. He sat down on a
-shearing-stool, facing the door, half open, between the byre he was in and
-the kitchen where Aoirig was at the dying. The stretching-board leaned
-against the wall outside.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Aye so gentle, so kind,” the woman in the bed was saying in her last
-dover. “He kissed me first on a day like this. And the blue flowers from
-Aora?”
- </p>
-<p>
-In the byre the wright was preeing the drink and paying little heed to
-food. It was the good warm stuff they brew on the side of Lochow, the
-heart of the very heart of the barley-fields, with the taste of gall and
-peat, and he mellowed with every quaich, and took to the soft lilting of
-Niall Ban's song:—
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“'I am the Sergeant fell but kind
-(Ho! ho! heroes, agus ho-e-ro! );
-I only lift but the deaf and blind,
-The wearied-out and the rest-inclined.
-Many a booty I drive before,
-Through the glens, through the glens.'
-said the Sergeant Mor.”
- </pre>
-<p>
-Ben the house the goodwife was saying the prayers for the dying woman the
-woman should have said for herself while she had the wind for it, but
-Aoirig harped on her love-tale. She was going fast, and the sisters,
-putting their hands to her feet, could feel that they were cold as the
-rocks. Maisie's arms were round her, and she seemed to have the notion
-that here was the grip of death, for she pushed her back.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I am not so old—so old. There is Seana, my neighbour at Duart—long
-past the fourscore and still spinning—I am not so old—God of
-grace—so old—and the flowers——”
- </p>
-<p>
-A grey shiver went over her face; her breast heaved and fell in; her voice
-stopped with a gluck in the throat.
-</p>
-<p>
-The women stirred round fast in the kitchen. Out on the clay floor the two
-sisters pushed the table and laid a sheet on it, the goodwife put aside
-the pillows and let Aoirig's head fall back on the bed. Maisie put her
-hand to the clock and stopped it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Open the door, open the door!” cried the goodwife, turning round in a
-hurry and seeing the door still shut.
-</p>
-<p>
-One of the sisters put a finger below the sneck and did as she was told,
-to let out the dead one's ghost.
-</p>
-<p>
-Outside, taking the air, to get the stir of the strong waters out of his
-head, was the wright.
-</p>
-<p>
-He knew what the opening of the door meant, and he lifted his board and
-went in with it under his arm. A wafting of the spring smells came in at
-his back, and he stood with his bonnet in his hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-“So this is the end o't?” he said in a soft way, stamping out the fire on
-the floor.
-</p>
-<p>
-He had but said it when Eurig sat up with a start in the bed, and the
-women cried out. She opened her eyes and looked at the man, with his fat
-face, his round back, and ill-made clothes, and the death-deal under his
-oxter, and then she fell back on the bed with her face stiffening.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Here's the board for ye,” said the wright, his face spotted white and his
-eyes staring. “I'll go out a bit and take a look about me. I once knew a
-woman who was terribly like you, and she came from Mull.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-BLACK MURDO
-</h2>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Mas breug uam e is breug thugam e.”
-
-—Gaelic Proverb.
-</pre>
-<h3>
-I.
-</h3>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>LACK MURDO'S wife was heavy, and 'twas the time the little brown nats
-were pattering in Stronbuie wood. Stronbuie spreads out its greenness to
-the sun from the slope of Cladich. It is, in its season, full of the
-piping of birds and the hurry of wings, and the winds of it have the smell
-of a fat soil. The Diarmaids were the cunning folk to steal it; for if
-Stronshira is good, Stronbuie is better; and though the loops of Aora
-tangle themselves in the gardens of the Red Duke, Lochow has enchantment
-for the galley of a king. Fraoch Eilean, Innis Chonell, and Innis Chonain—they
-cluster on the bend of it like the gems on a brooch, Inishail of the Monks
-makes it holy, and Cruachan-ben, who lords it over Lorn, keeps the cold
-north wind from the shore. They may talk of Glenaora, but Stronbuie comes
-close, close to the heart!
-</p>
-<p>
-For all that, 'twas on a time a poor enough place for a woman in yon
-plight; for the rest of the clan crowded down on Innistiynich, all
-fighters and coarse men of the sword, and a skilly woman or a
-stretching-board was no nearer than a day's tramp over the hill and down
-Aora glen to the walls of Inneraora. If one died on Cladich-side then—and
-'twas a dying time, for the Athol dogs were for ever at the harrying—it
-was but a rough burying, with no corranach and no mort-cloth; if a child
-came, it found but cold water and a cold world, whatever hearts might be.
-But for seven years no child came for Black Murdo.
-</p>
-<p>
-They say, in the Gaelic old-word, that a stolen bitch will never throw
-clean pups nor a home-sick woman giants. Murdo recked nothing of that when
-he went wooing in a time of truce to Croit-bhile, the honey-croft that
-makes a red patch on the edge of Creag Dubh. He brought Silis home to the
-dull place at Stronbuie, and she baked his bannocks and ploughed his bit
-of soil, but her heart never left salt Finne-side. In the morning she
-would go to the hill to look through the blurred glen, and she would have
-made bargains with the ugliest crow that could flap on feathers for a
-day's use of his wings. She could have walked it right often and gaily to
-her people's place, but Black Murdo was of Clan Artair, and Artairich had
-not yet come under the <i>bratach</i> of Diarmaid, and bloody knives made
-a march-dyke between the two tartans.
-</p>
-<p>
-Seven years and seven days went by, and Black Murdo, coming in on an
-evening after a hard day at the deer, found Silis making the curious wee
-clothes. He looked at her keen, questioning, and she bleached to the lips.
-</p>
-<p>
-“So!” said he.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Just so,” said she, breaking a thread with her teeth, and bending till
-the peat-flame dyed her neck like wine.
-</p>
-<p>
-“God, and I'm the stout fellow!” said he, and out he went, down all the
-way to Portinsherrich, and lusty he was with the ale among the pretty men
-there.
-</p>
-<p>
-Weeks chased each other like sheep in a fank, and Silis grew sick at the
-heart. There's a time for a woman when the word of a woman is sweeter than
-a harp; but there were only foolish girls at Innistrynich, and coarse men
-of the sword. So Murdo stayed in from the roes when the time crept close.
-To see him do the heavy work of the house and carrying in the peats was a
-sorry sight.
-</p>
-<p>
-Silis kept dreaming of Finne-side, where she had heard the long wave in
-the spring of the year when she had gone home on a password to a woman's
-wedding with Long Coll. The same Long Coll had brothers, and one had put a
-man's foolish sayings in her ears before ever she met Murdo, she a thin
-girl like a saugh-wand and not eighteen till Beltane. They called him—no
-matter—and he had the way with the women. Faith, it's the strange
-art! It is not looks, nor dancing, nor the good heart, nor wit, but some
-soft fire of the eye and maybe a song to the bargain. Whatever it was, it
-had Silis, for all that her goodman Murdo had a man's qualities and
-honesty extra.
-</p>
-<p>
-They say, “<i>Cnuic is sluic is Alpeinich, ach cuin a thàinig Artharaich?</i>”(1)
-in the by-word; but Artharaich had age enough for a <i>taibhsear</i>
-whatever, for Black Murdo had the Sight.
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-1 The hills and hollows and Clan Alpine came together, but
-when arose Clan Artair?
-</pre>
-<p>
-It's the curious thing to say of a man with all his parts that he should
-be <i>taibhsear</i> and see visions; for a <i>taibhsear</i>, by all the
-laws, should be an old fellow with little use for swords or shinny-sticks.
-But Murdo missed being a full taibhsear by an ell, so the fit had him
-seldom. He was the seventh son of a mother who died with the brand of a
-cross on her brow, and she was kin to the Glenurchy Woman. And something
-crept over him with the days, that put a mist in his eyes when he looked
-at Silis; but “I'm no real <i>taibhsear</i>,” he said to himself, “and I
-swear by the black stones it is no cloth. A man with all the Gift might
-call it a shroud high on her breast, but——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Silis, <i>a bhean!</i> shall it be the Skilly Dame of Inneraora?”
- </p>
-<p>
-A light leaped to the woman's eyes, for the very thing was in her mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-“If it could be,” she said, slowly; “but it's not easy to get her, for
-black's your name on Aoraside.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Black or white, Murdo stands in his own shoes. He has been at the gate of
-Inneraora when Strong Colin the warder had little thought of it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then, oh heart! it must be soon—tomorrow—but——”
- </p>
-<p>
-The mouth of day found Silis worse, and Murdo on his way to Inneraora.
-</p>
-<p>
-He stepped it down Glenaora like Coll Mor in the story, or the man with
-the fairy shoes. A cloud was over Tullich and a wet wind whistled on
-Kennachregan. The man's target played dunt on his back, so hasty was he,
-for all that the outposts of Big Colin had hawk's eyes on the pass. He had
-got the length of Alt Shelechan when a Diarmaid came out on him from the
-bracken with a curse on his mouth. He was a big Diarmaid, high-breasted
-and stark, for there's no denying there was breed in the pigs.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ho, ho, lad!” said he, crousely, “it's risking it you are this day!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Black Murdo's hands went to his sides, where a ready man's should ready
-be; but he had sight of Silis. He could see her in Stronbuie in the bothy,
-on the wee creepy-stool beside the peats, and he knew she was saying the
-Wise Woman's Wish that Diarmaid mothers have so often need of. Length is
-length, and it's a far cry to Lochow sure enough; but even half a <i>taibhsear</i>
-takes no count of miles and time.
-</p>
-<p>
-He spoke softly. “I go to Inneraora for the Skilly Woman. My wife is a
-daughter of your folks, and she'll have none but the dame who brought
-herself home.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Death or life?” asked the Diarmaid, a freckled hand still on the
-basket-hilt. He put the question roughly, for nobody likes to lose a ploy.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Life it is, my lad. It's not to dress corpses but to wash weans she's
-wanted.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ho-chutt!” went the blade back against the brass of the scabbard (for he
-was <i>duin-uasal</i> who carried it), and the man's face changed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Pass!” he said. “I would not stand in a bairn's way to life. Had it been
-shrouds instead of sweelers, we could have had it out, for a corpse is in
-no great hurry. But troth it's yourself is the tight one, and I would have
-liked a bit of the old game.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No more than Murdo, red fellow!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Murdo! So be't; yet Murdo will give me his dirk for gate-pay, or they'll
-be saying farther down that Calum, as good a man, kept out of his way.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The <i>biodag</i> went flying into the grass at Calum's feet, and Murdo
-went leaping down the glen. It was like stalking deer for the Diarmaids.
-Here and there he had to go into the river or among the hazel-switches, or
-crawl on his stomach among the gall.
-</p>
-<p>
-From Kilmune to Uchdan-barracaldine the red fellows were passing, or
-playing with the <i>clachneart</i> or the <i>cabar,</i> or watching their
-women toiling in the little fields.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Thorns in their sides!” he said to himself, furious at last, when another
-keen-eyed Diarmaid caught sight of his tartan and his black beard among
-some whins. It was a stripling with only a dirk, but he could gather fifty
-men on the crook of his finger.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stand!” cried the Diarmaid, flashing the dirk out. “What want ye so far
-over this way?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Murdo, even in the rage, saw Silis, a limp creature, sweating in her
-pains, her black eyes (like the sloe) keen on the door. So close, so sure,
-so sorrowful! He could have touched her on the shoulder and whispered in
-her ear.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I am Black Murdo,” he told the lad. “I am for Inneraora for the Skilly
-Woman for my wife, child of your own clan.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Death or life?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Life.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“'Tis a bonny targe ye have, man; it might be doing for toll.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The lad got it, and Murdo went on his way. He found the Skilly Woman, who
-put before him sour milk and brose. But he would not have drink or sup, so
-back through the Diarmaids they went without question (for the woman's
-trade was as good as the chief's convoy), till they came to Tom-an-dearc.
-Out upon them there a fellow red and pretty.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Hold!” he said, as if it had been dogs. “What's the name of ye, black
-fellow?” Murdo cursed in his beard. “My name's honest man, but I have not
-time to prove it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Troth that's a pity. But seeing there's the <i>caüleach</i> with you, you
-must e'en go your way. There's aye some of you folk on the
-stretching-board. Ye want heart, and ye die with a flaff of wind. Lend me
-your sword, <i>'ille!</i>''
-</p>
-<p>
-“Squint-mouth!” cried Murdo, “your greedy clan took too much off me this
-day already for me to part with the sweetest blade Gow-an-aora ever beat
-on iron. I took it from one of your cowards at Carnus, and if it's back it
-goes, it's not with my will.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then it's the better man must have it,” said the red fellow, and, Lord,
-he was the neat-built one! They took off their coats, and for lack of
-bucklers rolled them round their arms, both calm and canny. The Diarmaid
-was first ready with his brand out, and Murdo put to his point. For a
-little the two men stood, spread out, hard-drawn behind the knees, with
-the cords of the neck like thongs, then at it with a clatter of steel.
-</p>
-<p>
-The Skilly Woman, with the plaid pulled tight over her grey hair, sat with
-sunk eyes on a stone and waited without wonder. She had sons who had died
-in brawls at Kilmichael market, or in the long foray far in Kintail; and
-her man, foster-brother to a chief, got death in the strange foreign wars,
-where the pay was not hide and horn but round gold.
-</p>
-<p>
-A smoky soft smirr of rain filled all the gap between the hills, though
-Sithean Sluaidhe and Dunchuach had tips of brass from a sun dropping
-behind the Salachary hills. The grass and the gall lost their glitter and
-became grey and dull; the hill of Lecknamban, where five burns are born,
-coaxed the mist down on its breast like a lover. It was wet, wet, but
-never a drop made a rush bend or a leaf fall. Below the foot the ground
-was greasy, as it is in a fold at the dippingtime; but the two men pulled
-themselves up with a leap on it as if it might be dry sand, and the
-brogues made no error on the soil.
-</p>
-<p>
-First the Diarmaid pressed, for he had it over the other man in youth, and
-youth is but tame when it's slow or slack. Murdo waited, all eyes that
-never blinked, with the basket well up, and kept on his toes. “Splank,
-sp-ll-ank, sp-ll-ank—<i>siod e</i>!” said the blades, and the
-Diarmaid's for a time made the most of the music, but he never got inside
-the black fellow's guard. Then Murdo took up the story with a snap of the
-teeth, skelping hard at the red one till the hands dirled in the basket
-like a bag of pins. The smirr gathered thicker, and went to rain that fell
-solid, the brogues grew like steeped bladders on the feet, a scatter of
-crows made a noisy homing to the trees at Tullich, and Aora gobbled like
-swine in a baron's trough.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Haste ye, heroes,” said the old woman, cowering on the wet stone; “haste
-ye, dears; it's mighty long ye are about it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The Diarmaid turned the edge twice on the coated arm, and Murdo wasted his
-wind to curse. Then he gave the stroke that's worth fifty head of kyloes
-(fine they know that same all below Cladichl), and a red seam jumped to
-the Diarmaid's face. All his heart went to stiffen his slacking heavy arm,
-and he poured on Murdo till Murdo felt it like a rain of spears. One hot
-wandering stroke he got on the bonnet, and for want of the bowl of brose
-at Inneraora, the wind that should go to help him went inside, and turned
-his stomach. Sweat, hot and salt, stung his eyes, his ears filled with a
-great booming, he fell in a weary dream of a far-off fight on a witched
-shore, with the waves rolling, and some one else at the fencing, and
-caring nought, but holding guard with the best blade Gow-an-aora ever took
-from flame. Back stepped the Diarmaid, sudden, and sweep went his steel at
-the shaking knees.
-</p>
-<p>
-A bairn's cry struck Murdo's ear through the booming and sent him full
-awake. He drew back the stretched foot fast, and round the red one's sword
-hissed through air. “Foil! foil!” said Murdo, and he slashed him on the
-groin.
-</p>
-<p>
-“That'll do, man; no more,” said the Skilly Woman, quickly,
-</p>
-<p>
-“I may as well finish him; it's lame he'll be all his days any way, and
-little use is a man with a halt in a healthy clan.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Halt or no halt, let him be; he's my second cousin's son.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Murdo looked for a bit at the bloody thing before him, but the woman
-craved again with bony fingers on his wrist; so he spat on the dirty green
-tartan and went. The smoke rose from him and hung about with a smell of
-wearied flesh, the grey of the mist was black at Carnus. When the pair
-came over against Lochow, where one can see the holy isle when it is day,
-the night was deep and cold; but the woman bent at the cross with a “<i>Mhoire
-Mhathair</i>,” and so did the man, picking the clotted blood from his ear.
-They dropped down the brae on the house at last.
-</p>
-<p>
-For a little Black Murdo's finger hung on the sneck, and when he heard a
-sound he pushed in the door.
-</p>
-<p>
-All about the house the peat-reek swung like mist on the mountain. Wind
-and rain fought it out on Cladich brae, and when it was not the wind that
-came bold through the smoke-hole in the roof, 'twas the rain, a beady
-slant that hissed on the peats like roasting herrings. The woman lay slack
-on the bed, her eyes glossed over with the glass that folks see the great
-sights through, and her fingers making love over the face and breast of a
-new-born boy that cried thinly at her knees. A lighted cruisie spluttered
-with heavy smell at the end of a string on a rafter.
-</p>
-<p>
-“O Skilly Woman, Skilly Woman, it's late we are,” said Black Murdo.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Late enough, as ye say, just man. Had ye bartered an old sword for twenty
-minutes on the Tom-an-dearc, I was here before danger.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Then the Skilly Woman set him on the wet windy side of the door, and went
-about with busy hands.
-</p>
-<p>
-The man, with the ragged edge of his kilt scraping his knees and the rain
-bubbling in his brogues, leaned against the wattled door and smeared the
-blood from his brow. A cold wind gulped down from Glenurchy and ghosts
-were over Inishail. The blast whirled about and whirled about, and swung
-the rowan like a fern, and whistled in the gall, and tore the thatch, all
-to drown a child's cry. The blackness crowded close round like a wall, and
-flapped above like a plaid—Stronbuie was in a tent and out of the
-world. Murdo strained to hear a voice, but the wind had the better of him.
-He went round to the gable, thinking to listen at the window, but the
-board on the inside shut the wind and him out. The strange emptiness of
-grief was in his belly.
-</p>
-<p>
-Inside, the Skilly One went like a witch, beak-nosed and half-blind. There
-was clatter of pans and the dash of water, the greeting of the child and
-the moan of the mother. What else is no man's business. For all she was
-skilly the old dame had no thought of the woman sinking.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You'll have blithe-meat in the morning,” she said, cheerily, from the
-fireside.
-</p>
-<p>
-Silis made worse moan than before.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Such a boy, white love! And hair like the copper! His hide is mottled
-like a trout's back; calf of my heart!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Silis, on her side, put out white craving arms. “Give it to me, wife; give
-it to me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Wheesht! rest ye, dear, rest ye,” said the Skilly Dame.
-</p>
-<p>
-But she put the bairn in its mother's arms. Silis, when she had it on her
-breast, sobbed till the bed shook.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Is not he the hero, darling?” said the Skilly Woman. “It's easy seen he's
-off Clan Diarmaid on one side, for all that yoar hair is black as the
-sloe. Look at the colour of him!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Fright was in the mother's face. “Come close, come close till I tell you,”
- she said, her long hair damp on her milky shoulders.
-</p>
-<p>
-The Skilly Woman put down her head and listened with wonder.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Me-the-day! Was I not the blind one to miss it? His name, white love? No
-one shall ken it from me, not even Murdo.”
- </p>
-<p>
-A man's name took up the last breath of Silis; she gave a little shiver,
-and choked with a sound that the old crone had heard too often not to
-know.
-</p>
-<p>
-She looked, helpless, for a little at the bed, then felt the mother's
-feet. They were as cold as stone.
-</p>
-<p>
-A cry caught Murdo's ear against the wattles, and he drove in the door
-with his shoulder, heeding no sneck nor bar.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Am not I the blind fool?” said the crone.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There's your wife gone, cheap enough at the price of a yard of steel.”
- </p>
-<p>
-They stood and looked at the bed together, the bairn crying without
-notice.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I knew it,” said the man, heaving; “<i>taibhsear</i> half or whole, I
-could see the shroud on her neck!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The grey light was drifting in from Cladich. The fir-trees put stretched
-fingers up against the day, and Murdo was placing a platter of salt on a
-bosom as cold and as white as the snow.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You're feeding him on the wrong cloth,” said he, seeing the crone give
-suck to the child from a rag of Diarmaid tartan dipped in goat's milk.
-</p>
-<h3>
-II.
-</h3>
-<p>
-The boy grew like a tree in a dream, that is seed, sapling, and giant in
-one turn on the side. Stronbuie's wattled bothy, old and ugly, quivered
-with his laughing, and the young heather crept closer round the door. The
-Spotted Death filled Inishail with the well-fed and the warm-happed; but
-the little one, wild on the brae, forgotten, sucking the whey from rags
-and robbing the bush of its berries, gathered sap and sinew like the child
-of kings. It is the shrewd way of God! There was bloody enough work forby,
-for never a sheiling passed but the brosey folks came pouring down
-Glenstrae, scythe, sword, and spear, and went back with the cattle before
-them, and redness and smoke behind. But no raider put hand on Black Murdo,
-for now he was <i>taibhsear</i> indeed, and the <i>taibhsear</i> has magic
-against dub or steel. How he became <i>taibhsear</i> who can be telling?
-When he buried Silis out on the isle, his heart grew heavy, gloom seized
-him, the cut of the Diarmaid's sword gave a quirk to his brain that
-spoiled him for the world's use. He took to the hills no more in sport, he
-carried Gow-an-aora's sword no more in battle, for all that it cost him so
-dear. A poor man's rig was his at the harvest because of his Gift, and the
-cailzie cock or the salmon never refused his lure.
-</p>
-<p>
-Skill of the daymore, the seven cuts, and yon ready slash worth fifty head
-of kyloes, he gave to the boy, and then the quick cunning parry, and the
-use of the foot and knee that makes half a swordsman.
-</p>
-<p>
-But never a spot of crimson would he have on Rory's steel.
-</p>
-<p>
-“First dip in the blood of the man with the halt, and then farewell to
-ye!” he said, wearying for the day when the boy should avenge his mother.
-</p>
-<p>
-Folks—far-wandered ones—brought him news of the man with the
-halt that was his giving, the Diarmaid whose bargain for a sword on
-Tom-an-dearc cost Silis her life. He passed it on to the boy, and he
-filled him with old men's tales. He weaved the cunning stories of the pigs
-of Inneraora, for all that the boy's mother came from their loins, and he
-made them—what there may well be doubts of—cowards and weak.
-</p>
-<p>
-“They killed your mother, Rory: her with the eyes like the sloe and the
-neck like snow. Swear by the Holy Iron that the man with the halt we ken
-of gets his pay for it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Rory swore on the iron. It is an easy thing for one when the blood is
-strong and the <i>biodag</i> still untried. He lay awake at night,
-thinking of his mother's murderer till the sweat poured. He would have
-been on the track of him before ever he had won his man's bonnet by
-lifting the <i>clach-cuid-fear</i>, but Murdo said, “Let us be sure. You
-are young yet, and I have one other trick of fencing worth while biding
-for.”
- </p>
-<p>
-At last, upon a time, Murdo found the boy could match himself, and he
-said, “Now let us to this affair.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He took the boy, as it were, by the hand, and they ran up the hills and
-down the hills, and through the wet glens, to wherever a Diarmaid might
-be; and where were they not where strokes were going? The hoodie-crow was
-no surer on the scent of war. Blar-na-leine took them over the six valleys
-and the six mountains; Cowal saw them on the day the Lamonts got their
-bellyful; a knock came on them on the night when the Stewarts took their
-best from Appin and flung themselves on Inneraora, and they went out
-without a word and marched with that high race.
-</p>
-<p>
-But luck was with the man with the halt they sought for. At muster for
-raid, or at market, he was there, swank man and pretty but for the
-lameness he had found on an ill day on Tom-an-dearc. He sang songs round
-the ale with the sweetness of the bird, and his stories came ready enough
-off the tongue. Black Murdo and the boy were often close enough on his
-heel, but he was off and away like the corp-candle before they were any
-nigher. If he had magic, it could have happened no stranger.
-</p>
-<p>
-Once, a caird who went round the world with the jingle of cans on his back
-and a sheaf of withies in his oxter, told them that a lame Diarmaid was
-bragging at Kilmichael fair that he would play single-stick for three days
-against the country-side. They sped down to Ford, and over the way; but
-nothing came of it, for the second day had found no one to come to the
-challenge, and the man with the halt was home again.
-</p>
-<p>
-Black Murdo grew sick of the chase, and the cub too tired of it. For his
-father's fancy he was losing the good times—many a fine exploit
-among the Atholmen and the brosey folks of Glenstrae; and when he went
-down to Innistrynich to see the lads go out with belt and plaid, he would
-give gold to be with them.
-</p>
-<p>
-One day, “I have dreamed a dream,” said Murdo, “Our time is come: what we
-want will be on the edge of the sea, and it will be the third man after
-dawn. Come, son, let us make for Inneraora.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Inneraora lies now between the bays, sleeping day and night, for the old
-times are forgot and the nettle's on Dunchuach. Before the plaid of
-MacCailein Mor was spread from Cowal to Cruachan, it was the stirring
-place; high and dry on the bank of Slochd-a-chubair, and the dogs
-themselves fed on buck-flesh from the mountains, so rowth the times! One
-we ken of has a right to this place or that place yonder that shall not be
-named, and should hold his head as high on Aora as any chief of the boar's
-snout; but <i>mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!</i> the black bed of Macartair is
-in the Castle itself, and Macartair is without soil or shield. How
-Diarmaid got the old place is a sennachie's tale. “As much of the land as
-a heifer's hide will cover,” said the foolish writing, and MacCailein had
-the guile to make the place his own. He cut the hide of a long-backed
-heifer into thin thongs, and stretched it round Stronbuie. There is day
-about to be seen with his race for that! Over to Inneraora then went
-Murdo, and Rory clad for fighting, bearing with him the keen old sword.
-'Twas a different time going down the glen then from what it was on the
-misty day Murdo fetched the Skilly Dame; for the Diarmaids he met by the
-way said, “'Tis the Lochow <i>taibhsear</i> and his tail,” and let them by
-without a word, or maybe with a salute. They went to the Skilly Dame's
-house, and she gave them the Gael's welcome, with bannocks and crowdie, <i>marag-dkubh</i>
-and ale. But she asked them not their business, for that is the way of the
-churl. She made them soft-scented beds of white hay in a dirty black
-corner, where they slept till cockcrow with sweet weariness in their
-bones.
-</p>
-<p>
-The morning was a grey day with frost and snow. Jumping John's bay below
-the house was asleep with a soft smoke like a blanket over it. Lean deer
-from behind the wood came down trotting along the shore, sniffing the
-saltness, and wondering where the meat was. With luck and a good <i>sgian-dubh</i>
-a quick lad could do some gralloching. The tide was far out from Ard
-Rannoch to the Gallows-tree, and first there was the brown wrack, and then
-there was the dun sand, and on the edge of the sand a bird went stalking.
-The old man and the young one stood at the gable and looked at it all.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was a short cut from below the castle to the point of Ard Rannoch, if
-the tide was out, to go over the sand. “What we wait on,” said Murdo,
-softly, “goes across there. There will be two men, and them ye shall not
-heed, but the third is him ye ken of. Ye'll trap him between the whin-bush
-and the sea, and there can be no escaping unless he takes to the swimming
-for it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Rory plucked his belts tight, took out the good blade wondrous quiet,
-breathing fast and heavy. The rich blood raced up his back, and tingled
-hot against his ruddy neck.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What seest thou, my son?” said Murdo at last.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A man with a quick step and no limp,” quoth the lad.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Let him pass.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Then again said the old man, “What seest thou?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A <i>bodach</i> frail and bent, with a net on his shoulder,” said Rory.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Let him pass.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The sun went high over Ben Ime, and struck the snow till the eyes were
-blinded. Rory rubbed the sweat from his drenched palm on the pleat of his
-kilt, and caught the basket-hand tighter. Over Aora mouth reek went up
-from a fishing-skiff, and a black spot stood out against the snow.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What seest thou now, lad?” asked Murdo.
-</p>
-<p>
-“The man with the halt,” answered the lad.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then your time has come, child. The stroke worth the fifty head, and pith
-on your arm!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Rory left the old man's side, and went down through a patch of shelisters,
-his mouth dry as a peat and his heart leaping. He was across the wrack and
-below the pools before the coming man had noticed him. But the coming man
-thought nothing wrong, and if he did, it was but one man at any rate, and
-one man could use but one sword, if swords were going. Rory stepped on the
-edge of the sand, and tagged the bonnet down on his brow, while the man
-limped on between him and the sea. Then he stepped out briskly and said,
-“Stop, pig!” He said it strangely soft, and with, as it were, no heart in
-the business; for though the lame man was strong, deepbreasted, supple,
-and all sound above the belt, there was a look about him that made the
-young fellow have little keenness for the work.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Pig?” said the Diarmaid, putting back his shoulders and looking under his
-heavy brows. “You are the Lochow lad who has been seeking for me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ho, ho! red fellow; ye kent of it, then?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Red fellow! It's red enough you are yourself, I'm thinking. I have no
-great heed to draw steel on a lad of your colour, so I'll just go my way.”
- And the man looked with queer wistful eyes over his shoulder at the lad,
-who, with blade-point on the sand, would have let him pass.
-</p>
-<p>
-But up-by at the house the <i>taibhsear</i> watched the meeting. The quiet
-turn it took was beyond his reading, for he had thought it would be but
-the rush, and the fast fall-to, and no waste of time, for the tide was
-coming in.
-</p>
-<p>
-“White love, give him it!” he cried out, making for the shore. “He looks
-lame, but the pig's worth a man's first fencing.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Up went the boy's steel against the grey cloud, and he was at the throat
-of the Diarmaid like a beast. “Malison on your black heart, murderer!” he
-roared, still gripping his broadsword. The Diarmaid flung him off like a
-child, and put up his guard against the whisking of his blade.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh, foolish boy!” he panted wofully as the lad pressed, and the grey
-light spread over sea and over shore. The quiet tide crawled in about
-their feet; birds wheeled on white feathers with mocking screams; the old
-man leaned on his staff and cheered the boy. The Diarmaid had all the
-coolness and more of art, and he could have ended the play as he wanted.
-But he only fended, and at last the slash worth fifty head found his neck.
-He fell on his side, with a queer twisted laugh on his face, saying,
-“Little hero, ye fence—ye fence——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Haste ye, son! finish the thing!” said the <i>taibhsear,</i> all shaking,
-and the lad did as he was told, hocking at the spurt the blood made. He
-was pushing his dirk in the sand to clean it, when his eye fell on the
-Skilly Woman hirpling nimbly down to the shore. She was making a loud cry.
-</p>
-<p>
-“God I God! it's the great pity about this,” said she, looking at Murdo
-cutting the silver buttons off the corpse's jacket. “Ken ye the man that's
-there dripping?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“The man's no more,” said Rory, cool enough. “He has gone travelling, and
-we forgot to ask his name.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Then if happy you would be, go home to Lochow, and ask it not, nor aught
-about him, if you wouldn't rue long. You sucked your first from a Diarmaid
-rag, and it was not for nothing.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Murdo drew back with a clumsy start from the dead man's side and looked
-down on his face, then at the boy's, queerly. “I am for off,” said he at
-last with a sudden hurry. “You can follow if you like, red young one.” And
-he tossed the dead man's buttons in Rory's face!
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-THE SEA-FAIRY OF FRENCH FORELAND.
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">O</span>NCE I saw a fairy King, and it was in the Castle up-by. The Castle took
-fire, and a fine blaze it made at the foot of Dunchaach. A boy, I ran with
-the rest to carry out the MacCailein's rich gear, and behold! I wandered
-and lost my way in that large place where is a window for every day in the
-year. Up the long stairs and through the far passages, and over the
-shining sounding floors went I, barefoot, with a feared eye on every hole
-and corner. At every door it was, “Surely now I'm with the folks at the
-fire”; but every door was a way into a quieter quietness, and the Castle
-was my own. I sat at last on a black chair that had a curious twisted
-back, and the tears went raining on the lap of my kilt.
-</p>
-<p>
-Long, long I sat, and sore I grat, my mind full, not so much of my way
-lost, but of the bigness of things, and the notion of what it would be to
-have to live in a castle at night, with doors on every hand for ghosts to
-rap at, and crooked passages without end for gowsty winds to moan in.
-Thinks I, “The smallest hut in the town for me, with all plain before me,
-with the one door shut and my face to it, and the candlelight seeking into
-every crack and cranny!”
- </p>
-<p>
-It was then that the fairy King came on me out of the sewed cloth hanging
-on the wall.
-</p>
-<p>
-He was a dainty wee man, in our own tartan, with a steel plate on his
-breast baronly-style, and strange long curly hair. I ran my wet eyes down
-seven silver buttons the shape of salmon on the front of his vest before I
-let myself go, but go I must, so I put fast heels on my fright. I galloped
-with a frozen tongue through miles of the Duke's castle till a door
-brought me out on the grass of Cairnban, in front of the friendly bleeze
-that my own folks were pouring the stoups of water on.
-</p>
-<p>
-That was the only time the quiet folk and I came to a meeting, though our
-family was always gleg at seeing things. A cousin-german once saw the
-fairy bull that puts up in Loch Steallaire-bhan behind the town. It came
-on a jaunt to the glen in the guise of a rich maiden, and my cousin, the
-son of the house, made love to her. One night—in a way that I need
-not mention—he found himself in her room combing down her yellow
-hair, and what was among her hair but fine sand that told the whole story?
-“You are a <i>gruagach</i> of the lake!” cried the lad, letting the comb
-drop on the floor, with his face white, and the thing tarned to its own
-shape and went bellowing to the shore.
-</p>
-<p>
-And there was a man—blessings with him! for he's here no more—who
-would always be going up on Sithean Sluaidhe to have troke with the wee
-people on that fine knowe. He would bring them tastings of honey and
-butter to put them in a good key, and there they would dance by the hour
-for his diversion to the piping of a piper who played on drones of grass
-with reeds made of the midge's thrapple.
-</p>
-<p>
-Still, in all my time I know but one body who could find the way to the
-den of the Sea-Fairies, and she was a lass whose folks were in Ceannmor at
-the time the French traffickers were coming here to swap casks of claret
-wine for the finest herrings in the wide world.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was her custom to go down on the hot days to the shore at the
-Water-foot when the tide was far out, and the sand was crusting with salt
-in the sun, and the wrack-balls burst with the heat, and the water lay
-flat like oil, and lazy, for want of a breath of wind. Sometimes it would
-be the French Foreland she would seek, and sometimes Dalchenna; but when
-the Frenchmen were at the Foreland she kept clear of it by the counsel of
-a cautious father.
-</p>
-<p>
-Up the loch they would sail, the Frenchmen, in their gabberts, and hove-to
-with their casks to change for the cured herrings. A curious people they
-were, not much like our own good Gaels in many a way, but black-avised and
-slim; still with some of the Gael's notions about them too, such as the
-humour of fighting and drinking and scouring the countryside for girls.
-</p>
-<p>
-But it happened that one year they left behind them only a wine of
-six-waters, and did some other dirty tricks forbye, and there was for long
-a feud, so that the Frenchmen behooved to keep to their boats and bargain
-with the curers over the gun'le.
-</p>
-<p>
-On a day at that time, Marseli that I speak of had been bathing at the
-Ceannmor rocks—having a crave for salt water the Ceannmor folks
-nowadays are not very namely for. When she had her gown on again, she went
-round to Dalchenna sands and out far to the edge of the tide, where she
-sat on a stone and took to the redding of her hair, that rolled in copper
-waves before the comb—rich, thick, and splendid.
-</p>
-<p>
-Before her, the tide was on the turn so slow and soft that the edge of it
-lifted the dry sand like meal. All about on the weedy stones the
-tailor-tartans leaped like grasshoppers, the spout-fish stuck far out of
-the sand and took a fresh gloss on their shells from the sun.
-</p>
-<p>
-You might seek from shire to shire for a handsomer maid. She was at the
-age that's a father's heartbreak, rounding out at the bosom and mellowing
-at the eyes; her skin was like milk, and the sigh was at her lips as often
-as the song. But though she sighed, it was not for the Ceannmor fishermen,
-coarse-bearded, and rough in their courting; for she had vanity, from her
-mother's side, and queer notions. The mother's family had been rich in
-their day, with bards and thoughtful people among them.
-</p>
-<p>
-“If a sea-fairy could see me now,” said Marseli, “it might put him in the
-notion to come this way again,” and she started to sing the child-song—
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Little folk, little folk, come to me,
-From the lobbies that lie below the sea.”
- </pre>
-<p>
-“<i>So agad el</i>” cried a gull at her back, so plainly that she tamed
-fast to look, and there was the fairy before her!
-</p>
-<p>
-Up got Marseli, all shaking and ready to fly, but the fairy-man looked
-harmless enough as he bowed low to her, and she stayed to put her hair
-behind her ears and draw her gown closer.
-</p>
-<p>
-He was a little delicate man the smallest of Marseli's brothers could have
-put in his oxter, with close curled hair, and eyes as black as Ridir
-Lochiel's waistcoat. His clothes were the finest of the fine,
-knee-breeches with silk hose, buckled brogues, a laced jacket, and a
-dagger at his belt—no more like a fairy of the knowe than the green
-tree's like the gall.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You're quick enough to take a girl at her word,” said Marseli, cunning
-one, thinking to hide from him the times and times she had cried over the
-sands for the little sea-folks to come in with the tide.
-</p>
-<p>
-The fairy-man said something in his own tongue that had no sense for the
-girl, and he bowed low again, with his bonnet waving in his hand, in the
-style of Charlie Munn the dancer.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You must speak in the Gaelic,” said Marseli, still a bit put about; “or
-if you have not the Gaelic, I might be doing with the English, though
-little I care for it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Faith,” said the fairy-man, “I have not the Gaelic, more's the pity, but
-I know enough English to say you're the prettiest girl ever I set eyes on
-since I left my own place.”
- </p>
-<p>
-(Ho! hoi was he not the cunning one? The fairies for me for gallantry!)
-</p>
-<p>
-“One of such judgment can hardly be uncanny,” thought Marseli, so she
-stayed and cracked with him in the English tongue.
-</p>
-<p>
-The two of them walked up over the sand to the birch-trees, and under the
-birches the little fellow asked Marseli to sit down.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You are bigger than I looked for in a sea-fairy,” said she when the crack
-was a little bit on.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A fairy?” said the little fellow, looking at her in the flash of an eye.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes! Though I said just now that you took one fast at her word, the truth
-to tell is, that always when the tide went out I sang at your back-doors
-the song you heard to-day for the first time. I learned it from Beann
-Francie in the Horse Park.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The stranger had a merry laugh—not the roar of a Finne fisherman—and
-a curions way of hitching the shoulders, and the laugh and the
-shoulder-hitch were his answer for Marseli.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You'll be a king in the sea—in your own place—or a prince
-maybe,” said the girl, twisting rushes in her hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-The man gave a little start and got red at the face.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Who in God's name said so?” asked he, looking over her shoulder deep into
-the little birch-wood, and then uneasy round about him.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I guessed it,” said Marseli. “The kings of the land-fairies are
-by-ordinar big, and the dagger is ever on their hips.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, indeed,” said the little fellow, “to say I was king were a bravado,
-but I would not be just denying that I might be Prince.”
- </p>
-<p>
-And that way their friendship began.
-</p>
-<p>
-At the mouth of many nights when the fishing-boats were off at the
-fishing, or sometimes even by day when her father and her two brothers
-were chasing the signs of sea-pig and scart far down on Tarbert, Marseli
-would meet her fairy friend in a cunning place at the Black-water-foot,
-where the sea puts its arms well around a dainty waist of lost land. Here
-one can see Loch Finne from Ardno to Strathlachlan: in front lift the long
-lazy Cowal hills, and behind is Auchnabreac wood full of deer and birds.
-Nowadays the Duke has his road round about this cunning fine place, but
-then it lay forgotten among whins that never wanted bloom, and thick,
-soft, salty grass. Two plantings of tall trees kept the wind off, and the
-centre of it beaked in warm suns. It was like a garden standing out upon
-the sea, cut off from the throng road at all tides by a cluster of salt
-pools and an elbow of the Duglas Water.
-</p>
-<p>
-Here the Sea-Fairy was always waiting for the girl, walking up and down in
-one or other of the tree clumps. He had doffed his fine clothes after
-their first meeting for plain ones, and came douce and soberly, but aye
-with a small sword on his thigh.
-</p>
-<p>
-The girl knew the folly of it; but tomorrow was always to be the last of
-it, and every day brought new wonders to her. He fetched her rings once,
-of cunning make, studded with, stones that tickled the eye in a way the
-cairngorm and the Cromalt pearl could never come up to.
-</p>
-<p>
-She would finger them as if they were the first blaeberries of a season
-and she was feared to spoil their bloom, and in a rapture the Sea-Fairy
-would watch the sparkle of eyes that were far before the jewels.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Do your folk wear these?” she asked.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Now and then,” he would say, “now and then. Ours is a strange family:
-to-day we may have the best and the richest that is going, to-morrow who
-so poor, without a dud to our backs and a mob crying for our heads?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>Ochanorie!</i> They are the lovely rings any way.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They might be better; they would need to be much better, my dear, to be
-good enough for you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“For me!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They're yours—for a kiss or two,” and he put out an arm to wind
-round the girl's waist.
-</p>
-<p>
-Marseli drew back and put up her chin and down her brows.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'<i>Stad!</i>” she cried. “We ken the worth of fairy gifts in these
-parts. Your rings are, likely enough, but chuckie-stones if I could but
-see them. Take them back, I must be going home.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The little man took the jewels with a hot face and a laugh.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Troth,” he said, “and the same fal-fals have done a lover's business with
-more credit to them before this. There are dames in France who would give
-their souls for them—and the one they belong to.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You have travelled?” said Marseli. “Of course a sea-fairy-”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Can travel as he likes. You are not far wrong, my dear. Well, well, I ken
-France! O France, France! round and about the cold world, where's your
-equal?”
- </p>
-<p>
-His eyes filled with tears, and the broad-cloth on his breast heaved
-stormily, and Marseli saw that here was some sad thinking.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Tell me of Fairydom,” said she, to change him off so dull a key.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'Tis the same, the same. France and fairyland, 'tis the same, self-same,
-madame,” said the sea-prince, with a hand on his heart and a bow.
-</p>
-<p>
-He started to tell her of rich and rolling fields, flat and juicy, waving
-to the wind; of country houses lost and drowned among flowers. “And all
-the roads lead one way,” said he, “to a great and sparkling town. Rain or
-shine, there is comfort, and there is the happy heart! The windows open on
-the laughing lanes, and the girls lean out and look after us, who prance
-by on our horses. There is the hollow hearty hoof-beat on the causey
-stones; in the halls the tables gleam with silver and gold; the round red
-apples roll over the platter among the slim-stemmed wine-beakers. It is
-the time of soft talk and the head full of gallant thoughts. Then there
-are the nights warm and soft, when the open doors let out the laughing and
-the gliding of silk-shooned feet, and the airs come in heavy with the
-scent of breckan and tree!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“On my word,” said Marseli, “but it's like a girl's dream!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You may say it, black-eyes, <i>mo chridhe!</i> The wonder is that folk
-can be found to live so far astray from it. Let me tell you of the
-castles.” And he told Marseli of women sighing at the harp for
-far-wandered ones, or sewing banners of gold. Trumpets and drums and the
-tall chevaliers going briskly by with the jingle of sword on heel on the
-highway to wars, every chevalier his love and a girl's hands warm upon his
-heart.
-</p>
-<p>
-That night Marseli went early abed to wander in fairydom.
-</p>
-<p>
-Next day the sea-gentleman had with him a curious harp that was not
-altogether a harp, and was hung over the neck by a ribbon.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What hast here?” asked Marseli.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A salve for a sore heart, lass! I can play on it some old tunes, and by
-the magic of it I'm back in my father's home and unafeared.”
- </p>
-<p>
-He drew his white fingers over the strings and made a thin twittering of
-music sweeter than comes from the <i>clarsach</i>-strings, but foreign and
-uncanny. To Marseli it brought notions of far-off affairs, half sweet,
-half sad, like the edges of dreams and the moods that come on one in
-loneliness and strange places, and one tune he played was a tune she had
-heard the French traffickers sing in the bay in the slack seasons.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Let me sing you a song,” said he, “all for yourself.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You are bard?” she said, with a pleased face.
-</p>
-<p>
-He said nothing, but touched on the curious harp, and sang to the girl's
-eyes, to the spark of them and the dance of them and the deep thought
-lurking in their corners, to her lips crimson like the rowan and curled
-with pride, to the set of breast and shoulder, and the voice melting on
-the tongue.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was all in the tune and the player's looks, for the words were fairy to
-the girl, but so plain the story, her face burned, and her eyes filled
-with a rare confusion.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'Tis the enchantment of fairydom,” said she. “Am not I the <i>oinseach</i>
-to listen? I'll warrant yon have sung the same to many a poor girl in all
-airts of the world?”
- </p>
-<p>
-The little one laughed and up with the shoulders. “On my sword,” quo' he,
-“I could be content to sing to you and France for all my time. Wilt come
-with a poor Prince on a Prince's honour?”
- </p>
-<p>
-He kissed her with hot lips; his breath was in her hair; enchantment fell
-on her like a plaid, but she tore herself away and ran home, his craving
-following at her heels.
-</p>
-<p>
-That night Marseli's brothers came to knives with the French traffickers,
-and the morning saw the black-avised ones sailing out over-sea for home.
-Back to French Foreland they came no more, and Finne-side took to its own
-brewing for lack of the red wine of France.
-</p>
-<p>
-That, too, was the last of the Sea-Fairy.
-</p>
-<p>
-Marseli went to the Water-foot and waited, high tide and low; she cried
-the old child tune and she redded her hair, but never again the little man
-with the dainty clothes, and the sword upon his thigh.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-SHUDDERMAN SOLDIER
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">B</span>EYOND the Beannan is the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, and a stone-put farther
-is the knowe where Shudderman Soldier died in the snow. He was a half-wit
-who was wise enough in one thing, for he knew the heart of a maid, and the
-proof of it came in the poor year, when the glen gathered its com in
-boats, and the potato-shaws were black when they burst the ground, and the
-catechist's horse came home by Dhuloch-side to a widow that reckoned on no
-empty saddle. And this is the story.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Ho, ho, suas e!</i>” said the nor' wind, and the snow, and the black
-frost, as they galloped down Glenaora like a leash of strong dogs. It was
-there was the pretty business! The Salachary hills lost their sink and
-swell in the great drifts that swirled on them in the night; the dumb
-white swathes made a cold harvest on the flats of Kilmune; the frost
-gripped tight at the throats of the burns, and turned the Salmon-Leap to a
-stack of silver lances. A cold world it was, sure enough, at the mouth of
-day! The bloodshot sun looked over Ben Ime for a little, and that was the
-last of him. The sheep lay in the shoulder of the hill with the drift many
-a crook's-length above them, and the cock-of-the-mountain and the white
-grouse, driven on the blast, met death with a blind shock against the edge
-of the larch-wood.
-</p>
-<p>
-Up from Lochow, where Kames looks over to Cruachan, and Cruachan cocks his
-grey cap against Lorn, a foolish lad came that day for a tryst that was
-made by a wanton maid unthinking. Half-way over the hill he slipped on the
-edge of a drift, and a sore wound in the side he got against a splinter of
-the blue stone of the Quey's Rock; but he pushed on, with the blood oozing
-through his cut vest. Yet, in spite of himself, he slept beyond the Bog of
-the Fairy-Maid. <i>Mo-thruaigh! mo-thruaigh!</i>
-</p>
-<p>
-The Fairy-Maid came and covered him up close and warm with a white blanket
-that needs no posting, and sang the soft tune a man hears but once, and
-kissed him on the beard as he slept in the drift—and his name had
-been Ellar Ban.
-</p>
-<p>
-Round by the king's good highroad came Solomon the carrier with his cart,
-and many a time he thought of turning between Carnus and Kilmune. But he
-was of the stuff of Clan Coll, and his mare was Proud Maisie. He had a
-boll of meal from Portinsherrich, from the son of a widow woman who was
-hungry in Inneraora and waiting for that same.
-</p>
-<p>
-“No Ellar here yet!” he said at Kilmune when he asked, and they told him.
-“Then there's a story to tell, for if he's not here, he's not at Karnes,
-and his grave's on the grey mountain.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Later came Luath, the collie of Ellar, slinking through the snow wet and
-weary, and without wind enough for barking. 'Twas as good as the man's
-ghost.
-</p>
-<p>
-The shepherds came in from the fanks, and over from the curling at
-Carlonan, to go on a search.
-</p>
-<p>
-Long Duncan of Drimfem, the slim swarthy champion, was there before them.
-He was a pretty man—the like never tied a shoe in Glenaora—and
-he was the real one who had Mairi's eye, which the dead fellow thought had
-the laugh only for him. But, lord! a young man with a good name with the
-shinty and the <i>clachneart</i> has other things to think of than the
-whims of women, and Donacha never noticed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“We'll go up and see about it—about him at once, Main,” he said,
-sick-sorry for the girl. All the rest stood round pitying, because her
-kists were said to be full of her own spinning for the day that was not to
-be.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mairi took him to the other side of the peat-stack, and spoke with a red
-face.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Is it any use your going till the snow's off the hill, Drimfem?” she
-said, biting at the corner of her brattie, and not looking the man in the
-face.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Dhia gleiih sinn!</i> it's who knows when the white'll be off the
-snouts of these hills, and we can't wait till—— I thought it
-would ease your mind.” And Donacha looked at the maid stupid enough. For a
-woman with her heart on the hill, cold, she was mighty queer on it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Yes, yes; but it's dangerous for you to go up, and the showers so heavy
-yet. It's not twenty finger-lengths you can see in front of you, and you
-might go into the bog.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Is't the bog I would be thinking of, Main? It's little fear there is of
-that, for here is the man that has been on Salachary when the mist was
-like smoke, as well as when the spittle froze in my mouth. Oh, I'm not the
-one to talk; but where's the other like me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mairi choked. “But, Dona—— but, Drimfem, it's dead Ellar must
-be; and—and—you have a widow mother to mind.” Donacha looked
-blank at the maid. She had the sweet face, yon curve of the lip, and the
-soft turn of the neck of all Arthur's children, ripe of the cheek, with
-tossed hair like a fairy of the lake, and the quirk of the eye that never
-left a plain man at ease if he was under the threescore. There were knives
-out in the glen for many a worse one.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was the lee of the peat-stack they stood in, and the falling flakes
-left for a while without a shroud a drop of crimson at the girl's feet.
-She was gripping tight at her left wrist under the cover of her apron till
-the nails cut the flesh. There was the stress of a dumb bard's sorrow in
-her face; her heart was in her eyes, if there had been a woman to see it;
-but Drimfern missed it, for he had no mind of the dance at the last Old
-New Year, or the ploy at the sheep-dipping, or the nuts they cracked on
-the hot peats at Hallowe'en.
-</p>
-<p>
-The girl saw he was bound to go. He was as restless as if the snow was a
-swarm of <i>seangans</i>. She had not two drops of blood in her lips, but
-she tried to laugh as she took something out from a pocket and half held
-it out to him. He did not understand at first, for if he was smart on the
-<i>caman</i> ball, 'twas slow in the ways of women he was.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's daft I am. I don't know what it is, Donacha, but I had a dream that
-wasn't canny last night, and I'm afraid, I'm afraid,” said the poor girl.
-“I was going to give you——”
- </p>
-<p>
-Drimfern could not get the meaning of the laugh, strained as it was. He
-thought the maid's reason was wandering.
-</p>
-<p>
-She had, whatever it was—a square piece of cloth of a woman's sewing—into
-the man's hand before he knew what she would be after; and when his
-fingers closed on it, she would have given a king's gold to get it back.
-But the Tullich lads, and the Paymaster's shepherd from Lecknamban, with
-Dol' Splendid and Francie Ro, in their plaids, and with their crooks, came
-round the gable-end. Luath, who knew Glenaora as well as he knew Creag
-Cranda, was with them, and away they went for the hill. All that Donacha
-the blind one said, as he put the sewing in his pocket to look at again,
-was, “Blessing with thee!” for all the world like a man for the fair.
-</p>
-<p>
-Still the nor' wind, and the snow, and the dark frost said “<i>Suas e!</i>”
- running down the glen like the strong dogs on the peching deer; and the
-men were not a hundred yards away from the potato-pit when they were
-ghosts that went out altogether, without a sound, like Drimendorran's Grey
-Dame in the Red Forester's story.
-</p>
-<p>
-A white face on a plump neck stood the sting of the storm dourly, though
-the goodwife said it would kill her out there, and the father cried
-“Shame!” on her sorrow, and her a maiden. “Where's the decency of you?”
- says he, fierce-like; “if it was a widow you were this day you couldn't
-show your heart more.” And into the house he went and supped two cogies of
-brose, and swore at the <i>sgalag</i> for noticing that his cheeks were
-wet.
-</p>
-<p>
-When the searchers would be high on the hill Shudderman came on the maid.
-He was a wizened, daft old one, always in a tinker Fencible's tartan trews
-and scarlet doublet. He would pucker his bare brown face like a foreign
-Italian, and whistle continually. The whistle was on his face when he came
-on the girl standing behind the byre, looking up with a corpse's whiteness
-where the Beannan should be.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Te-he! Lord! but we're cunning,” said the soldier. “It's a pity about
-Ellar, is it not, white darling?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mairi saw nothing, but swallowed a sob. Was this thing to know her secret,
-when the wise old women of the glen never guessed it? There was something
-that troubled her in his look.
-</p>
-<p>
-The wee creature put his shoulder against the peats, and shoved each hand
-up the other sleeve of his doublet, while he whistled soft, and cunningly
-looked at the maid. The cords of her neck were working, and her breast
-heaved sore, but she kept her teeth tight together.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ay, ay, it's an awful thing, and him so fond, too,” he went on; and his
-face was nothing but a handful of wrinkles and peat-smoke. It was a bigger
-ploy for the fool than a good dinner.
-</p>
-<p>
-“What—who—who are you talking about, you poor <i>amadan?</i>”
- cried Mairi, desperately.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Och, it's yourself that'll know. They're saying over at Tullich and upbye
-at Miss Jean's, Accurach, that it's a bonny pair you would make, you and
-Ellar. Yonnat Yalla says he was the first Lochow man ever she saw that
-would go a mile out of his way for a lass, and I saw him once come the
-roundabout road by Cladich because it was too easy to meet you coming the
-short cut over the hill. Oh! there's no doubt he was fond, fond, and-”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>Amadan!</i>” cried the maid, with no canny light in her eyes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Hoots! You're not angry with me, darling. I ken, I ken. Of course
-Drimfern's the swanky lad too, but it's not very safe this night on yon
-same hill. There's the Bog of the Fairy-Maid that never was frozen yet,
-and there's the Quey's Rock, and—te-he! I wouldn't give much for
-some of them not coming back any more than poor Ellar. It's namely that
-Drimfem got the bad eye from the Glenurchy woman come Martinmas next
-because of his taking up with her cousin-german's girl, Morag Callum.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yon <i>spàgachd</i> doll, indeed!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“God, I do not know about that! but they're telling me he had her up at
-all the reels at Baldy Geepie's wedding, whatever, and it's a Maclean
-tartan frock she got for the same—I saw it with my own eyes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Lies, lies, lies,” said the girl to herself her lips dry, her hands and
-feet restless to do some crazy thing to kill the pain in her heart.
-</p>
-<p>
-She was a little helpless bird in the hands of the silly one.
-</p>
-<p>
-He was bursting himself inside with laughing, that couldn't be seen for
-the snow and the cracks on his face.
-</p>
-<p>
-“But it's not marriages nor tartan you'll be thinking on, Mairi, with your
-own lad up there stiff. Let Morag have Drimfem——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You and your Morag! Shudderman, if it was not the crazy one you were, you
-would see that a man like Donacha Drimfern would have no dealings with the
-breed of MacCallum, tinker children of the sixty fools.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Fools here or fools there, look at them in the castle at Duntroon! And
-Drimfern is——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Drimfern again! Who's thinking of Drimfern, the mother's big pet, the
-soft, soft creature, the poor thing that's daft about the shinty and the
-games—and—and—— Go inbye, haverer, and——oh,
-my heart, my heart!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Cripple Callum,” whistled the daft wee one; and faith it was the great
-sport he was having! The flame sparkled in the lass's eyes; she stamped
-furiously in the snow. She could have gone into the house, but the
-Shudderman would follow, and the devil was in him, and she might just as
-well tell her story at the cross-roads as risk. So she stayed.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Come in this minute, O foolish one!” her mother came to the door and
-craved; but no.
-</p>
-<p>
-The wee <i>bodach</i> took a wee pipe from his big poke and started at the
-smoking. When his match went out the dark was almost flat on the glen, and
-a night-hag complained with a wean's cry in the planting beyond the burn.
-At each draw of the pipe the eyes of the soldier glinted like a ferret's,
-and like any ferret's they were watching. He put in a word between-while
-that stabbed the poor thing's heart, about the shame of love in maids
-uncourted, and the cruelty of maids that cast love-looks for mischief.
-There were some old havers about himself here and there among the words:
-of a woman who changed her mind and went to another man's bed and board;
-of sport up the glen, and burials beyond; and Ellar Ban's widow mother,
-and the carry-on of Drimfem and the Glenurchy woman's cousin-german's
-girl. And it was all ravelled, like the old story Loch Finne comes up on
-the shore to tell when the moon's on Sithean Sluaidhe.
-</p>
-<p>
-The girl was sobbing sore. “Man!” she said at last, “give me the peace of
-a night till we know what is.” The <i>amadan</i> laughed at her, and went
-shauchling down to the cotter's, and Mairi went in out of the darkness.
-</p>
-<p>
-The hours passed and passed, and the same leash of strong dogs were
-scouring like fury down Glenaora, and the moon looked a little through a
-hole, and was sickly at the sight, and went by in a hurry. A collie's bark
-in the night came to the house where the people waited round the peats,
-and “Oh, my heart!” said poor Mairi.
-</p>
-<p>
-The father took the tin lantern with the holes in it, and they all went
-out to the house-end. The lantern-light stuck long needles in the night as
-it swung on the goodman's finger, and the byre and the shed and the
-peat-stack danced into the world and out of it, and the clouds were only
-an arm's-length overhead.
-</p>
-<p>
-The men were coming down the brae in the smother of snow, carrying
-something in a plaid. The dog was done with its barking, and there was no
-more sound from the coming ones than if they were ghosts. Like enough to
-ghosts they looked. No one said a word till the goodman spoke.
-</p>
-<p>
-“You have him there?” he said.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ay, <i>beatmachi leis!</i> all that there is of him,” said the
-Paymaster's man; and they took it but an' ben, where Mairi's mother had
-the white dambrod cloth she had meant for herself, when her own time came,
-on the table.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's poor Ellar, indeed,” said the goodman, noticing the fair beard.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Where's Donacha? where's Drimfern?” cried Mairi, who had pulled herself
-together and come in from the byre-end, where she had waited to see if
-there was none of the watchers behind.
-</p>
-<p>
-The Paymaster's man was leaning against the press-door, with a face like
-the clay; Dol' Splendid was putting a story in the <i>sgalag's</i> ear;
-the Tullich men were very busy on it taking the snow off their boots.
-Outside the wind had the sorry song of the curlew.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Me-the-day! it's the story of this there is to tell,” at last said
-Francie Ro, with a shake of the head. “Poor Drimfern——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Drimfem—ay, where's Drimfem in all the world?” said the goodman,
-with a start. He was standing before his girl to keep her from seeing the
-thing on the table till the wife had the boots covered. It was the face of
-a <i>cailleach</i> of threescore Mairi had.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It's God knows! We were taking Ellar there down, turn about resting. It
-was a cruel business, for the drifts. There's blood on his side where he
-fell somewhere, and Drimfern had to put a clout on it to keep the blood
-off his plaid. That's Drimfern's plaid. When Donacha's second turn was
-over up at the bog, we couldn't get a bit of him. He's as lost as the deer
-the Duke shot, and we looked and whistled for hours.” The maid gave a wee
-turn to the door, shivered, and fell like a clod at her mother's feet.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Look at yon, now! Am not I the poor father altogether?” said the old man
-with a soft lip to his friends. “Who would think, and her so healthy, and
-not married to Ellar, that she would be so much put about? You'll excuse
-it in her, lads, I know, for she's not twenty till the dipping-time, and
-the mother maybe spoiled her.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Och, well,” said the Splendid one, twisting his bonnet uneasy in his
-hands, “I've seen them daft enough over a living lad, and it's no great
-wonder when this one's dead.” They took the maid beyond to the big room by
-the kitchen, and a good mother's morning for Drimfern was set by the men.
-They had a glass before going home, and when they were gone the <i>bochdans</i>
-came in the deep hollow of the night and rattled the windows and shook the
-door-sneck; but what cared yon long white thing on the goodwife's dambrod
-tablecloth?
-</p>
-<p>
-At the mouth of day there was one woman with a gnawing breast looking
-about the glen-foot among the snow for the Shudder-man soldier. She found
-him snedding the shaft of a shinny-stick at the Stronmagachan Gate, and
-whistling as if it was six weeks south of Whitsunday and the woods piping
-in the heat.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I ken all about it, my white little lamb,” he said with a soft speech.
-“All about them finding Ellar, and losing a better man, redding put her to
-rights. A search in the maybe, but any way one that some will miss more.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“God's heavy, heavy on a woman!” said the poor child. “I gave Donacha a
-sampler with something sewn on it yesterday, and the men, when they go up
-the hill to look for him to-day, will get it on him—and—it
-would——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Ay, ay, ay! I ken, my dear. We'll put that right, or I'm no soldier.” And
-the little man cocked his bonnet on his head like a piper. Then he was
-sorry for the pride of it, and he pulled it down on his face, and whistled
-to stop his nose from jagging.
-</p>
-<p>
-“My heart! my bruised heart! they're saying sorry things of Ellar, and
-Donacha dead. The cotter's wife was talking this morning, and it'll send
-me daft!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Blind, blind,” quo' the soldier; “but you'll not be shamed, if the <i>amadan</i>
-can help it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But what can you do, my poor Shudderman? And yet—and yet—there's
-no one between Carnus and Croit-bhile I can speak to of it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Go home, white love, and I'll make it right,” said the daft one, and
-faith he looked like meaning it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Who knows?” thought the girl. Shudderman was chief enough with the
-Glenurchy woman, and the Glenurchy woman sometimes gave her spells to her
-friends. So Mairi went home half comforted.
-</p>
-<p>
-A cogie of brose and a bit braxy in his belly, and a farl of cake in his
-poke, and out stepped the Shudderman with never a word to any one about
-the end of his journey. Dol' Splendid had told him the story of the night
-before, and whereabout Drimfern was lost, close beyond the Beannan. He
-would find the body and the sampler, he promised himself as he plunged up
-the brae at Taravh-dubh. The dogs were nearly as furious as the night
-before, and the day's eye was blear. Hours passed, and the flats of
-Kilmune were far below.
-</p>
-<p>
-There was nothing in all the world but whiteness, and a silly old <i>bodach</i>
-with a red coat trailing across it. Shudderman Soldier sank his head
-between his shoulders as he pushed himself up with his hazel crook, his
-tartan trews in rags about his ankles, his doublet letting in the teeth of
-the wind here and there, and at the best grudging sore its too tight
-shelter for his shrunk body. He had not the wind to whistle, but he gasped
-bits of “Faill-il-o,” and between he swore terribly at the white hares
-that jerked across in front of him with the ill-luck of a lifetime on
-their backs.
-</p>
-<p>
-If it was the earth that was white, the sky was not far behind it; if they
-were paper, it would take schooling to write on them straight, for there
-wasn't a line between them. The long sweep of Balantyre itself was lost,
-and the Beannan stone was buried. The creature's brogues were clods of
-snow, ugly, big, without a shape: his feet were lumps of ice; his knees
-shook under his frail skinful of bones; but, by the black stones, 'twas
-the man's heart he had!
-</p>
-<p>
-When the snow made a paste on his win'ard cheek, he had it off with a jerk
-of the head, and one of the jerks put off his bonnet. Its frozen ribbons
-had been whipping his eyes, and he left it where it fell, with never a
-glance over his shoulder. His hair clogged with flakes that kept the frost
-even after they fell. It was a peching effort for the foot of the Beannan
-brae.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Poor lamb, poor Mairi, calf of my heart!” gasped the soldier to himself.
-He was staggering half blind through the smother of snow, now and then
-with a leg failing below him, and plunging him right or left. Once his
-knees shut like a gardener's gully, and he made a crazy heap in the drift.
-His tired wrists could hardly bring him up, and the corpse of the world
-swung in his eyes when he was on his feet again and trying to steady
-himself.
-</p>
-<p>
-There's a green knoll beside the Bog of the Fairy-Maid, where the wee
-folks dance reels when the moon's on it, and there the old fellow
-struggled to. He thought if he was up there he would see some sign of what
-he wanted. Up he pushed, with the hazel <i>cromag</i> bending behind him,
-and his brogues slipping on the round snow-soles. Up he went, with the
-pluck of a whole man, let alone a poor silly object; up he went till he
-got his foot on the top, and then his heart failed, for he saw nothing of
-what he sought.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I'll look again when I'm out of this foolish sleep,—I'll see better
-when I waken,” said the poor <i>amadan;</i> and behold the dogs were on
-him! and he was a man who was.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<p>
-For all that, the story tells, Drimfern was no ghost. When he was lost he
-found Kames, where the Callum girl was that came to his fire-end later and
-suckled his clan. And Ellar's mother, dressing her son's corpse in the
-house at Kilmune, found on his wound a sampler that went with him to his
-long home in green Inishail. Its letters, sewn in the folly of a woman,
-told her story:—
-</p>
-<p>
-“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than
-wine.”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-WAR.
-</h2>
-<h3>
-I.
-</h3>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">I</span>T was the pause of the morning, when time stands, and night and day
-breathe hard ere they get to grips. A cock with a foggy throat started at
-the crowing, down at Slochd-a-Chubair. Over from Stron a shrewd thin wind
-came to make stir among the trees in the Duke's big garden, and the crows
-rasped their beaks on the beech-branches, for they knew that here was the
-day's forerunner. Still and on the town slept, stretched full out, dour
-set on the business. Its quirky lanes and closes were as black as the pit.
-There was only one light in all the place, and a big town and a bonny it
-is, house and house with high outside stairs and glass windows, so that
-the wonder is the King himself does not take thought to stay in it, even
-if it were only for the comfort of it and the company of the MacCailein
-Mor. Only one light, and that was splashing, yellow, and mixed with a
-thick peat-reek, out of Jean Rob's open door, facing the bay, on the left,
-on the Lowlands road. Now and then Jean would come to the door and stand,
-a blob of darkness in the yellow light, to see if the day was afoot on Ben
-Ime, or to throw a look at the front of the town for signs of folk
-stirring.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Not a peep, not a peep! Sleep! sleep! Few of them part with a man to-day
-with so sore a heart as Jean Rob.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Then back to her Culross girdle, for she was at the baking of bannocks to
-go in her husband's <i>dorlach</i> for the wars.
-</p>
-<p>
-She had not shut an eye all night. Rob snored at her side slow and heavy
-while she lay on her back on a bed of white hay, staring up at the black
-larch joists glinting with the red scad of the peats. She was a Crarae
-woman, and that same people were given to be throng with the head, and she
-kept thinking, thinking even on. At last she could bide it no longer, so
-she up with a leap on the floor to face a new day and all the luck of it.
-</p>
-<p>
-About the luck being good or ill there might be little doubt. It was the
-year after they started at the building of the Castle, a laggard spring at
-the hind-end of a cruel winter, with not a fin in all the seas for the
-poor fishermen, and black mutton at six Saxon shillings the side. And what
-the wars were about Jean Rob or her like little knew or cared. Very
-little, like enough, as is the way with wars, but any way wars there were:
-the Duke and his House would have it that their people must up and on with
-belt and target, and away on the weary road like their fathers before
-them. Some said it was the old game with the Inverlochy dogs (rive them
-and seize them!); others, that some bastard was at variance with the Duke
-about the Papist Stewarts—a silly lad called Tearlach with a pack of
-wild Irishers and daddy Macleans and Macdonalds and Camerons from the
-Isles and the North at his back.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Bundle and Go” it was any way in Campbell country from Cruachan to Cowal,
-from Cantyre to the march of Keppochan, and that's the fine rolling land
-of sappy grasses and thick woods. In the heart and midst of it Duke Archie
-played dirl on the boss of his shield on a cold March day, and before
-night swords were at the sharping from shore to shore. That's war for ye—
-</p>
-<p>
-quicker than flame, surer than word of mouth, and poor's the man who says
-“What for?” to his chief.
-</p>
-<p>
-Rob Donn, for all that, was vassal to no man; for he was come of the
-swordsmiths of the glen, and they had paper to show that their rigs were
-held for no service other than beating out good fighting steel on the
-anvil. Poor, as he was, he could wear one feather in his bonnet if his
-fancy was on feathers, and no one bragged more of his forefolk. But
-Elrigmor—a thin old man with little stomach for quarrels—offered
-twenty pounds English for a man to take his place with the Campbells; and
-Rob took the money and the loan of Elrigmor's sword, half for the sake of
-the money and half for the sake of a bit play with Sir Claymore.
-</p>
-<p>
-Said he to his wife, jingling the Geordies in his hand on the day he got
-them, “Here's the price of a hero; and troth it's little enough for a good
-armsmith's blood!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Don't say it, Rob,” said Jean.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Och! I am but laughing at thee, good-wife. Brave dogs would they be that
-would face the tusks of the Diarmaid boars. Like the wind on the chaff—troosh!—we'll
-scatter them! In a week I'll be home.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“In a week?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To be sure, Jean. I'll buy with the money a stot or two on the road to
-bring back with me, for there's little lifting in the Duke's corps, more's
-the pity! My grandfather seldom came back from the wars without a few head
-of cattle before him.”
- </p>
-<p>
-So the money went in Rob Donn's sporran, and Jean would have bit her
-tongue out before she would crave for part o't from a man going among
-strangers and swords.
-</p>
-<p>
-The bairn had but one word for her father from then till he started, and
-that was “Cockade.” What it was the little one never knew, but that it was
-something braw and costly, a plaything for a father to go far off for.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Two or three of them, my white love!” would Rob Donn say, fond and
-hearty. “They'll be as thick as nuts on the ground when we're done of the
-gentry that wear them on their bonnets.” And he had a soft wet eye for the
-child, a weakling, white and thin, never quite the better of the snell
-winds of winter. If cockades, indeed, were to be had for the fighting of a
-fortnight without sleep, Rob Donn would have them for her.
-</p>
-<p>
-So now was the morning to put on fighting gear and go on the foray for
-white cockades.
-</p>
-<p>
-By-and-by a cruisie-light crept out at the gables of the town, and the
-darkness filled with the smell of new peat burning. Aora, spluttering past
-Jean Rob's door with a gulp into the Cooper's Pool, made, within the
-house, the only sound of the morning.
-</p>
-<p>
-Jean scraped the meal off her hands and went again to the door to look
-about and listen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Ay, ay! up at last,” she said to herself.
-</p>
-<p>
-“There's the Major's light, and Kate Mhor up for the making of his
-breakfast, and a lowe in the weaver's shed. The Provost's is dark—poor
-man!—it's little his lady is caring!”
- </p>
-<p>
-She was going to turn about and in, when the squeal of a bagpipe came from
-the town-head, and the player started to put his drones in order. “Ochan!
-ochan!” said poor Jean, for here, indeed, was the end of her hopes; there
-was no putting back from the Duke's errand. She listened a little to the
-tuning as if it was the finest of <i>piobaireachds</i>, and it brought a
-curious notion to her mind of the first reel she danced with her man to
-the squeezing of that same sheepskin. Then the reeds roared into the air
-of “Baile Inneraora.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>Och a Dhé! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob!”</i> she cried in to the
-man among the blankets, but there was no need for the summons. The
-gathering rang far ben in the chambers of sleep, and Rob was stark awake,
-with a grasp at his hip for the claymore.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Troth! I thought it was the camp! and them on us,” he laughed foolishly
-in his beard.
-</p>
-<p>
-Up and down the street went Dol' Dubh, the Duke's second piper, the same
-who learned the art of music right well from the Macruimens of Boreraig,
-and he had as sweet a finger on the chanter as Padruig himself, with the
-nerve to go round the world. Fine, fine it was for him, be sure, to be the
-summoner to battle! Lights jumped to the little lozens of the windows and
-made streaks on the cracks of the doors, and the Major's man came from his
-loft ganting with a mouth like the glee'd gun, a lantern swinging on a
-finger, making for the stable to saddle his master's horse. A garret
-window went up with a bang, and Peter MacIntyre, wright, pat out a towsy
-head and snuffed the air. It was low tide in the two bays, and the town
-was smelling less of peat-reek than of sea-wrack and saltness. One star
-hung in the north over Dunchuach.
-</p>
-<p>
-“They have the good day for starting the jaunt, whatever,” said the
-wright. “If I was a stone or two lighter, and had one to look after the
-shop, it's off on this ploy I would be too.” He took in his head, the top
-nodding briskly on his Kilmarnock bonnet, and wakened the wife to help him
-on with his clothes.
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Aora, Aora, Baile Inneraora,
-I got a bidding to Baile Inneraora;
-I got the bidding, but little they gave me,
-Aora, Aora, Baile Chailein Mhoir!”
- </pre>
-<p>
-Dol' Dubh was up at the Cross, swelled out like a net-bow, blasting
-furiously, his heart athump with the piper's zest. Doors drummed, windows
-screeched in their cases, women's voices went from land to land, and the
-laugh and cry of bairns new roused from the hot toss of dreams. Far up the
-highroad a horse's hoofs were dunting hollow and hearty on the stones, and
-by-and-by through the Arches trotted the Cornal, his tall body straight
-and black against the dun of the gables. He had a voice like a rutting
-deer. “Master Piper,” he roared to Dol' Dubh, tugging his beast back on
-its haunches, “stop that braggart air and give us 'Bundle and Go,' and God
-help the Campbell that's not on the Cadger's Quay before the sun's over
-Stron Point!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Where is the air like it?” said Dol' to himself, slacking a reed with a
-thumb-nail. “Well they ken it where little they love it with its
-vaunting!” But he up with his drones on his shoulder and into the tune
-that had the Cornal's fancy. Beside him the Cornal stood at his horse's
-stirrup in the grey-brown of the morning, his head still light with the
-bottle of claret wine his lady in Lecknamban had put before him ere he had
-boot over saddle.
-</p>
-<p>
-Then the town stirred to its affairs. The Major's horse went clattering
-over the cobblestones to his door-end, the arm-room door opened, and old
-Nanny Bheag, who kept the key, was lifted off her feet and in, on the rush
-of young lads making for the new guns Lome Clerk had up from the Low
-Country. On the belts of the older men, loth to leave the fire-end,
-mothers and wives were hanging bags with thick farls of cake, and cheese,
-and the old Aora salve for swordcuts.
-</p>
-<p>
-If they had their way of it, these <i>caille-achan</i>, the fighting gear
-would be all kebbucks of cheese and dry hose, and no powder and ball. The
-men blustered, high-breasted, with big words in their beards, and no name
-too dirty for the crew they were off to scatter—praising themselves
-and making the fine prophecies, as their folks did before them with better
-rights when the town was more in the way of going to wars. Or they roundly
-scolded the weans for making noise, though their eyes were learning every
-twist of the copper hair and every trick of the last moment, to think on
-when long and dreary would be the road before them.
-</p>
-<p>
-There was a break in Dol' Dubh's music, and high over the big town rang
-the Cornal's voice, starting the bairns in their sleep and setting them up
-and screaming.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Laggards! laggards! O lazy ones! Out! out! Campbells before were never so
-swear't to be marching. It is time to be steeping the withies!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Hard back went the stout doors on the walls, and out ran the folk. The
-brogues skliffed and hammered; men with muskets, swords, dirks, and targes
-ran down the street, and women and children behind them. A tumult filled
-the town from side to side and end to end, and the lanes and closes were
-streaming with the light from gaping doors.
-</p>
-<p>
-Old and young, the boy and the snooded girl, women with bairn at breast,
-<i>bodach</i> and <i>cailleach</i>, took to the Cross muster, leaving the
-houses open to the wind and to the world. The cats thrummed by the fires,
-and the smell of the sea-wrack came in beside them.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I have you here at last,” said the Cornal, dour and dark, throwing his
-keen eyes along the row of men. “Little credit are ye to my clan and
-chief, and here's to the Lowlands low, and would to God I was there now
-among the true soldados with stomachs for slaughter and the right skill of
-fence and musketoon! A short tulzie, and a tow at the thrapple of bastard
-Chevalier would there be in that case. Here's but a wheen herds, weavers,
-and gillies holding Brown Betty like a kail-runt!”
- </p>
-<p>
-He was one of the Craignish Campbells, the Cornal—Dugald, brother of
-Lachan who got death at a place called Fontenoy in the summer before—very
-sib to the Duke, and it behoved the town-men to say nothing. But they
-cursed his eyes to each other on the corners of their mouths, and if he
-knew it he had sense enough to say nothing.
-</p>
-<p>
-The women and bairns and the old folks stood in a great crowd behind the
-Cornal's horse. The Major's mare with him in the sell was dancing an
-uncanny spring near the Arches, full of freshness and fine feeding as a
-battle-horse should be, but overly much that way for a man sixteen
-finger-lengths round the belly and full of fish and ale. From Glen Beag
-came the slow morning, gusty and stinging; Stob-an-Eas stood black against
-the grey of it; the tide stretched from shore to shore unfriendly and
-forlorn.
-</p>
-<p>
-Jean Rob, with the bairn at her brattie-string, was with the other women
-seeing her man away, stupid with two sorrows—one because he was
-going, and the other because he had twenty pounds in his sporran that he
-might well be doing without; for he was leaving the woman without a groat,
-and only a boll of meal in the girnel and a wee firkin of salted fish.
-</p>
-<p>
-The steady breeze came yet from Stron, and sat snug in the sails of the
-six boats that carried the Duke's men over to Cowal. Brog-and-Turk's skiff
-put out first, himself at the helm in his tarry jacket; the others, deep
-down, followed close on her heels. One by one they fell off from the quay.
-The men waved their bonnets and cried cheerily and vaunting, as was aye
-the good grace of Clan Diarmaid at the first and the last of forays.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Blessings with ye!” cried the folk left behind, wet-eyed; and even the
-Provost's wife took a grief at her inside to see her man with a shaking
-lip look round the sail of the hin'most boat. Cheering and weeping,
-singing and <i>ochain!</i> there they were on the quay and on the sea, our
-own folk, our dear folk; and who were ever like them when it came to the
-bit, and stout hearts or kind hearts were wanted?
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stand back, kindred!” cried the Cornal, putting spurs to his horse, and
-he pranced up the town-head, a pretty man, to join the Major and gallop
-round the loch-head to join the corps at Cairn-dubh.
-</p>
-<p>
-Dol' Dubh stopped his playing at the bow of Brog-an-Turk's skiff when she
-gulped the first quaich of brine, and the men in all the boats started to
-sing the old boat-song of “Aora Mo Chridhe tha mi seoladh”—
-</p>
-<pre xml:space="preserve">
-“Aora, my heart, I am sailing, sailing,
-Far to the South on the slope of the sea;
-Aora <i>mo chridhe</i>, it is cold is the far land,
-Bitter the stranger with wands on his doorway.
-Aora Mochree!”
- </pre>
-<p>
-It came back on the wind with a sorrow to break hearts, sinking and
-swelling as the wind took the fancy, and the long-necked herons stood on
-the fringe of the tide with their heads high to listen. The sails got
-scattered and shrunk, and the tune got thin and low, and lost at last in
-the swish of the waves on the shore, and the ears of those who listened
-heard the curlew piping cursedly loud over the Cooper's Pool. A grey cold
-day with rain on the tail of it. High Creag Dubh with its firs and alders
-and rowans stark and careless over the hollow town. Broad day and
-brightness, and the cruisies and candles burning the ghosts of flame in
-the empty houses, with doors wide to the empty street and the lanes and
-closes!
-</p>
-<h3>
-II.
-</h3>
-<p>
-The wanderer has ever the best of it, and wae wae are the hearts behind I
-Is it for war or sport, or for the red gold, that a man turns heel on his
-home and takes the world for his pillow? In his pack is the salve for care
-as well as for sword-cuts, for ever and always are new things happening.
-The road crooks through the curious glens; the beasts trot among the grass
-and fern and into the woods; the girls (the dear ones, the red-lipped
-ones!) come from the milking of the white-shouldered cattle and look with
-soft black eyes as he passes, and there is a new tale at the corner of
-every change-house fire. All that may befall a packman; but better's the
-lot of the fighter with steel at his haunch, fire at his heart, and every
-halt a day closer to them he would be seeking.
-</p>
-<p>
-But the folks behind in the old place! <i>Mo thruaigh! mo thruaigh!</i>
-Daybreak, and hot sun, and the creeping in of the night, when the door
-must be snecked on the rover; the same place, and still with a want in it,
-and only guessing at where and how is the loved one out on strange ways on
-the broad world.
-</p>
-<p>
-Far up the long Highlands the Campbells were on their way. Loch Sloy and
-Glen Falloch, Rannoch's bleakness and Ben Alder's steepness, and each
-morning its own wet grass and misty brae, and each night its dreams on the
-springy heather.
-</p>
-<p>
-A woman was weeping on Achadunan because that her man was gone and her
-chimney stone was cold, and Rob Donn's sporran was emptied at her feet,
-though he knew not so much as the name of her. But he took a thought and
-said, “I'll keep the half, for long's the way before us, and ill is
-travelling among strangers without a round-piece in the purse.” That was
-but a day's march from Jean Rob, and she was making a supper of crowdie
-that was the first meal of the day.
-</p>
-<p>
-On Spey-side was the camp of the Argylls, and card-play round the fires,
-with the muskets shining, and the pipes playing sweeter for slumber than
-for rouse.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I will put my watch on this turn,” said a black Lowlander in the heat of
-the game.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Rob Donn's watch is the sun on Toman-uardar,” said our hero, “but here
-are ten yellow Geordies,” and out went his fortune among the roots of the
-gall.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Troosh! beannachd leat!</i>” and the coin was a jingle in the other
-one's pouch.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I have plenty more where it came from, and cattle enough forbye,” said
-our braggart, and he turned on his elbow whistling “Crodh Chailein.”
- </p>
-<p>
-But let them follow the drum who will, for us the story's beside the
-hearth. It is not a clatter of steel and the tulzies of Chevaliers, but
-the death of an only bairn.
-</p>
-<p>
-In her house on the Lowlands road Jean Rob starved with the true Highland
-pride, that sets a face content against the world at kirk or market.
-Between her and a craving stomach lay but shell-fish and herbs, for she
-had not a plack to spend, and the little one got all the milk that came
-from Mally, the dappled one, drying up for calving. Break of day would see
-the woman, white, thin, keen-eyed, out on the ebb before the fishing-boats
-were in, splashing in the pools in the sand for partans and clabbie-doos,
-or with two ready fingers piercing the sand to pull the long spout-fish
-from his hiding. Or she would put little stakes in the sand, and between
-them a taut line with baited hooks to coax the fish at high tide. But ill
-was her luck, indeed, for few were the fish that came to the lure to be
-lifted again at ebb.
-</p>
-<p>
-Above Kilmalieu on the sea side of Dunchu-ach, in the tangle and dark of
-the trees, among the soft splashing soil, the wild leeks gave a scent to
-the air. These would Jean gather, and the nettle too, and turn them to
-thin broth; but that same was no fare for a Crarae stomach.
-</p>
-<p>
-At night when the wee one slept, the mother would have her plaid on her
-head, and through the town, barefoot, in the darkness, passing the folk at
-the close-mouths quickly for fear they would speak to her, and her heart
-would crave for share of the noble supper that made steam from the door of
-her cousin the rich merchant.
-</p>
-<p>
-Like a ghost sometimes, wandering about the Cadger's Quay or the
-gutting-stools, where she would be looking for a dropped giley or a bake
-from the nets, she would come on a young woman.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Dhe!</i> Jean Rob! is it thyself that is here?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Just Jean, my darling, for a little turn, because of the stir in the
-town, and the smell of the barking nets. Well I like the smell of the
-bark, and the wind takes little of it up the Lowlands road.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Thou art not coming out much since the men went to the North. Art well at
-the house—the little one, now, bless her?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Splendid, splendid, <i>m' eudail</i>. Faith, it is too fat we will be
-getting on the fortune Rob got from Elrigmor.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Indeed, yes, Jean, it was the great luck! When a poor person comes——”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Hut tut! Poor nor rich, my people had their own place on Lochowside, and
-little did my Rob need MacNicol's dirty money; but he was aye fond of a
-'horo-yally,' and that's the way of his being among them.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, well, if that's the way, our own people were good enough on a time;
-but a pedigree, thou wilt allow, is a poor plaster for a pain in the
-stomach. For me, I would have a good shaking of herring and money in the
-town. It was but black brochan for our one meal to-day, and my mother
-poorly.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“My dear! <i>och</i>, my dear! and I to brag of plenty! Little enough, in
-truth, is on my own board; but I have a boiling of meal if you come for it
-in the morning.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Kindly, kindly, thou good dame. It would be but a loan.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Yes, indeed, one will be running out of the wherewithal now and again,
-and 'twas aye 'Mine is yours and yours is mine' in Gaeldom. But I must be
-stepping.”
- </p>
-<p>
-And while Jean Rob starved, there was never a word from the best and
-bravest off at the wars, or how they fared, only now and then a half tale
-from a travelling caird or a Low-Country carrier about gatherings and
-skirling pipes and hard knocks. His Grace himself kept a horse or two and
-a good rider on the other side of the Rest, to gallop hot-hoof into the
-Castle with the first news of how his clan won; but weary was the waiting.
-</p>
-<p>
-The town took to its old appearance, the aged men clack-clacking with the
-shuttle, the boys scattering seed over the rig-and-fur of the ploughed
-fields, the women minding their houses. And that, too, is war for ye! The
-dirk is out, the brogues trail over the hills and through the glens, the
-clans meet and clash, the full heart belches blood, the grass soaks, the
-world and the chance of it is put on the luck of a swinging stroke at yon
-one's neck. War! war! red and lusty—the jar of it fills the land!
-But oh, <i>mo chridhe!</i> home in Glen Shie are women and bairns living
-their own day's life, and the crack will be blithe in the sheilings to
-come, for all your quarrels. Where is Hector, and where is
-Gilean-of-the-Axe, and where is Diarmaid of the boar's snout? They are all
-gone but for an old song at the sheiling-fire, and life, love, and the
-Fell Sergeant still come and go in the place the warriors made such stir
-in! A stranger would think there was little amiss in the Duke's town. The
-women sang their long songs of love and yore as they span about the wheel
-and carded the wool; the bairns guddled in Jumping John's burn, and tore
-their kilts among the whins, and came home with the crows, redfaced and
-hungry-warned. At the ale-house there was traffic by day, and heavy
-drovers and gaugers stamped their feet to the choruses at night. The day
-lengthened, and comforting winds came from the two bonny black glens; the
-bracken put on new growths, like the crook of St Molach that's up-by in
-the Castle; Easachosain reeled to the piping of birds.
-</p>
-<p>
-There might be an eye many times a-day on the Stron Point to see if a
-horseman was rounding it, and the cruisies were kept burning a little
-longer at night in case the news would come in the darkness like the Athol
-thieves. But patience was ever the gift of the Gael, and few lost heart.
-</p>
-<p>
-And at last the news came of Culloden Moor.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was on a Sunday—a dry clear day—and all the folk were at
-the church, with old Colin the minister sweating at it for the good of the
-Ceannloch fishermen in the loft. He was in the middle of his prayer when a
-noise came over the town, a dunting of hoofs on the causey of the
-Provost's house-front.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Amen!” said the cunning Colin, quick as could be, and then, “Friends,
-here is news for us,” and down the pulpit steps he ran briskly like a lad
-of twenty.
-</p>
-<p>
-Peter MacIntyre set back the bolt from the door with a bang, and past him
-the people made rush. The Duke's rider from over the Rest was there in the
-saddle of a grey garron foaming at the mouth and its hurdies in a tremble.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Your tidings, your tidings, good man!” cried the people.
-</p>
-<p>
-The lad sat stark in the saddle, with his eyes wet and his nose pricking
-with the Gaelic pride.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I have been at the Castle, and-”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Your news, just man.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I have been at the Castle, and Mac-Cailein Mor, who said I rode well from
-the Rest, said I might come in-by and carry my budget to you.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Out with it, Paruig, little hero. Is't good or ill?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What would it be, my heroes, with our own lads, but good? Where's the
-beat of them? It's 'The Glen is Mine' Dol' Dubh will be playing this day
-on Culloden, for ours is the battle. They scattered the dirty Northmen and
-the Irishers like chaff, and Cailein Mor himself gave me a horn of ale
-from his own hands on the head o't.”
- </p>
-<p>
-A roar went up that stirred the crows on Scaurnoch, and there was a Sunday
-spoiled for you; for the ale went free and merry in the change-house at
-the Duke's charge till the moon was over Ben Ime.
-</p>
-<p>
-But there were five houses with the clocks stopped (for the ghosts take no
-heed of time); five houses with the glasses turned face to the wall (for
-who dare look in glass to see a wraith at the back of the shoulder?);
-there were four widows and five mothers wet faced, keening for five fine
-men who had been, and whose names were now writ on paper on the church
-door.
-</p>
-<h3>
-III.
-</h3>
-<p>
-Day followed day, and still home came no Campbells. They were far to the
-dreary North, plying sword and fire among the bad clans, harrying for the
-glory of Mac-Cailein Mor.
-</p>
-<p>
-And at last on a day the sea-pigs rolled and blew off Stron Point, and the
-scarts dived like arrows from the sun's eye, deep into a loch boiling with
-fish. Night found the brown sails bellying out on the scudding smacks, and
-the snouts of skiff and galley tearing the waves to get among the spoil.
-Bow-to-back, the nets spotted Finne mile on mile; the kind herrings
-crowded thick into them; the old luck was back, and the quays in the
-morning heard the fine tune of the cadger's clinking silver. In a hurry of
-hurries the fleet came up to the mouth of Shira—Tarbert men,
-Strathlachlan men, Minard men, black fellows from MacCallum country, and
-the wine-traffickers from French Foreland to swap sour claret for the
-sweet fat fish.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was ho-rol and spill the bicker in yon town, for all that the best of
-its men were away and afar at the killing. The smoke was black from the
-fires in the Cooper's Pool, the good healthy smell of the gut-pots sought
-up to the Castle door. Little doubt his Grace (<i>beannachd leis!</i>)
-would come out to the door-step and curse because it made him bock his
-breakfast, dainty man!
-</p>
-<p>
-Throng though the town was, round about the little house on the left of
-the Lowlands Road crept a queer quietness. The cow had dried, and the dull
-weather kept the spout fish too deep down in the sand for the ready
-fingers to reach them. So the household of Rob Donn starved to the bone.
-</p>
-<p>
-“To-morrow—they will be home tomorrow,” said Jean to herself every
-day to keep up her heart; but the days went by, and though it was
-something to know that Rob was not among the killed at Culloden, it was
-not something to stay the stomach. A stone-throw off were the best and
-kindest hearts in the world: the woman's cousin, the rich merchant, would
-give all he had on his board if he knew her trouble, and friends without
-number would share the last bite with her. But to ask it would be to say
-she was at the lowest, and to tell that Rob had left her nothing, and she
-would sooner die in her pride.
-</p>
-<p>
-Such people as passed her way—and some of them old gossips—would
-have gone in, but the withie was aye across the door, and that's the sign
-that business is doing within no one dare disturb. The withie was ever
-there except at night, when Jean was scouring the countryside for
-something to eat.
-</p>
-<p>
-The bairn dwined so fast that even the mother (and blind indeed's the
-mother at that bit) saw a little of it. There was no longer the
-creepie-stool at the back of the house, in the sun, and the bairn on it,
-watching the birds; her shanks grew thin like spirtles; her eyes sank far
-ben in her face, and she would not go the length of the door. She sat at
-the fireside and laughed her poor cold laugh less every day, till one long
-thought came to her that kept her busy at the thinking from morning till
-night with a face like a <i>cailleach</i> of eighty.
-</p>
-<p>
-“White love, white love,” Jean would be saying, “your father is on the
-road with stots and a pouch of cockades.”
- </p>
-<p>
-At that the bairn would come back from her roaming; but soon she was off
-again into the deeps of mind, her wide eyes like the windows of an empty
-house for all that could be seen through them.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Oh! but it will be the fine cockade,” poor Jean would press—“what
-am I saying?—the pack of your father will be full of them. Not the
-white ones of silk only, but the red and the grassy green, my little calf.
-You'll be wearing them when you will.”
- </p>
-<p>
-No heeding in the bairn's face.
-</p>
-<p>
-Then Jean would go out and pull the tansy at the door, and give it to the
-little one to get the fine scent. The curious shells from the shore, too,
-would she gather, and lay in rings about the chair, and call her the Queen
-in her castle. For ever would there be a song at her lips, even if the
-drops would be in her eyes—old daft songs from fairs and weddings,
-and fairy rhyming and cheery stories about the Good People up on Sithean
-Sluaidhe. Her fingers were for ever soft about the bairn, her flesh and
-blood, stroking in the hair, softening the cushion, petting her in every
-hand's-turn. She made a treat to herself by asking her, now and then,
-something that had to be answered “Yes” or “No,” and “Mother” was so sweet
-in her ears that she would be content to hear no more in all her lifetime.
-</p>
-<p>
-All the day the bairn crouched up in a hoop-chair with her neck slack and
-her chin on her breast. Jean was loth to leave her in her bed in the
-mornings, for she had a notion that to get her out of the blankets and to
-put her in the clothes of the busy world would be to keep her in the trim
-for living on.
-</p>
-<p>
-Still there was no sign of the men returning. Often was Jean's foot at the
-door and her hand over her eyes to see if there was no stir at Stron or
-Kilachatrine, and but for good stuff, her heart failed five-score times
-a-day.
-</p>
-<p>
-At last, on a day of days, the bairn could not be stirred to notice
-anything. The tansy fell out of her fingers, and she picked at the wool of
-the plaid that wrapped her; the shells had no charm for her eye.
-</p>
-<p>
-Jean made the pack of the coming father as routh as a magic cave. “That
-father of yours, darling, what a many wonderful things he will bring! I
-see him on the road. Stots, and cows with milk brimming from the udders,
-and a pet sheep for his <i>caileag bheag</i>; pretty gold and silver
-things, and brooches and shining stuff. That father of yours! Hurry,
-father, hurry! Jingling things, and wee fairy-men, and bells to ring for
-you, m' eudail; pretty glasses and dishes to play with, and—O my
-darling! my darling!”
- </p>
-<p>
-The bairn's face lost the deep red spots; her little mouth slacked and
-fell; her eyes shut on the sight of the fine things her poor mother made
-for her out of a rich and willing mind.
-</p>
-<p>
-Jean lifted her and put her on the bed, and ran with a gutting-knife to
-where Mally the dappled one lay at the back.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I must be doing it!” said the woman, and she bled the brute as they do in
-the poor years in Lorn, and took the cogie of blood into the house to make
-a pudding of. The last handful of meal in the girael went into the pot
-with the warm blood, and she was stirring it with a spoon over the fire
-when the child cluttered at the throat.
-</p>
-<p>
-Jean turned about with a cry, and at the minute a bagpipe's lilting came
-over the glassy bay from Stron Point.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was Clan Campbell back from the wars, the heroes! clouted about the
-heads and with stains on their red waistcoats that were thicker than wine
-makes. Dol' Dubh played the old port, sweet and jaunty, at the head of
-them; the Cornal and the Major snuffed the herrings and said, “Here's our
-own place, sure enough! See the smoke from our own peats! And the fine
-cock of the cap on Dunchuach!”
- </p>
-<p>
-On the Lowlands road the town emptied itself, and the folks ran fast and
-furious—the boys first, the young women next, and the old folks
-peching behind. But if the town was up on the warriors soon, the Duke
-himself was before it. He saw the first of the Company from the Castle,
-and he was in the saddle for all his threescore, like a boy, and down like
-the wind to Boshang Gate.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Halt!” cried the Cornal to his men, and Dol' Dubh's bag emptied itself
-with a grant.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Tha sibh an sol!</i> You are here, cousin,” said the Duke. “Proud am I
-to see you and our good lads. They did the old trick well!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They did that, MacCailein. The stuff's aye to the fore.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It's in the blood, man. We have't in us, high or low. I have but one
-thing to vex me.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Name it, cousin.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well ye ken, Cornai. It's that I had not been with you to see the last
-crushing Clan Campbell may need to give to an asp's head.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It was a good ploy missed, I'll not deny.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What about the Tearlach one? Well plucked, they are telling me?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“As foolish a lad as ever put tartan on hip, my lord! Frenchy, Frenchy,
-MacCailein! all outside and no cognisance. Yourself or any of your
-forebears at the head of his clans could have scoured all Albainn of
-Geordie's Low-Country red-coats, and yet there were only six thousand true
-Gaels in all the fellow's corps.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“To read my letters, you would think the whole North was on fire!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“A bantam's crow, cousin. Clan Campbell itself could have thrawed the neck
-of it at any time up to Dunedin.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They made a fair stand, did they not?
-</p>
-<p>
-“Uch! Poor eno'—indeed it was not what you would call a coward's
-tulzie either.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Well, well, that's over, lads I I am proud of my clan and town. <i>Slochd
-a Chubair gu bragh!</i> Stack your guns in the arm-room, see your wives
-and bairns, and come up-by to the Castle for the heroes' bite and sup.
-Who's that with the white cockade in his bonnet? Is't Rob Donn?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“It is Rob Donn, cousin, with a bit of the ribbon contrivance for the
-diversion of his bairn. He tore it from the bonnet of the seventh man he
-put an end to.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“There's luck in the number, any way, though it was a dear plaything.
-March!” Down the road, with their friends hanging about them, and the boys
-carrying guns and knapsacks, went the men for the town, and Rob Donn left
-the company as it passed near his own door.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Faith! 'tis a poor enough home-coming, without wife or bairn to meet
-one,” said he, as he pushed in the door.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Wife! wife!” he cried ben among the peat-reek, “there's never a stot, but
-here's the cockade for the little one!”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-A FINE PAIR OF SHOES
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">T</span>HE beginnings of things are to be well considered—we have all a
-little of that art; but to end well and wisely is the gift of few. Hunters
-and herds on the corri and the hill—they are at the simple end of
-life, and ken the need for the task complete. The stag must be gralloched
-ere ye brag of him, the drove must be at the market ere ye say anything of
-the honesty of the glens ye pass through.
-</p>
-<p>
-And what I like best about our own Gaels is their habit of bringing the
-work of a day or the work of a lifetime to what (in their own notions) is
-an end round and polished.
-</p>
-<p>
-When our women die, they do it with something of a daintiness. Their
-dead-clothes are in the awmrie; I have seen them with the cakes toasted
-and the board set for their funerals. Travelling wide on unfriendly
-foreign roads, living by sword or wit, you know that our men, the poorest
-among them, with an empty sporran, kept the buttons of their duds of good
-silver, to pay, if need be, for something more than a gangrel's burial. I
-like to think of him in story who, at his end in bed, made the folk trick
-him out in gallant style with tartan, targe, brogue, and bonnet, and the
-sword in his hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A Gaelic gentleman,” said he, “should come to his journey's end somewhat
-snod and well-put-on.” And his son played “Cha till mi tuilidh” (“I return
-no more”) on the bag-pipe by his firm command.
-</p>
-<p>
-It is not even in this unco undertaking of Death that the polish must be
-put on the task (though poor's the creature who dies clumsily); it should
-be the same with every task of a day.
-</p>
-<p>
-And so Baldi Crom, making a fine pair of shoes on a day in Carnus, put the
-best skill of his fingers to every stitch. He had been working at them
-since the command came in the morning, and now it was the mouth of night,
-and on one of them the finest of the fine sewing was still to do. About
-the place there was nobody but the old man, for he was the last, in a way,
-of the old stock of Carnus (now a <i>larach</i> of low lintels, and the
-nettle over all); and he was without woman to put <i>caschrom</i> to his
-soil or hip to a creel of peats. And so he lived on the brae of Camus—that
-same far up and lonely in the long glen.
-</p>
-<p>
-“They'll be the best I ever put brog in,” said he, looking fondly at the
-fine work, the yellow thread standing out on the toes, patterned like a
-leaf of the whortleberry, set about with the serpent-work of the old
-crosses. Bite nor sap, kail nor crowdie, did he taste all day. Working in
-the light of his open door, he could see, if he had the notion, the whole
-glen rolled out before him, brimming with sun, crossed in the heat of the
-day by deer from Dalavich seeking for the woods of Loch Finne; the blue
-reek of the townships at the far end might have cheered him with the
-thought that life was in sight though his house was lonely. But crouped
-over the lap-stone, he made love to his work, heeding nothing else but the
-sewing of the fine pair of shoes.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was the night before the town market. Droves of bellowing cattle—heifers,
-stots, and stirks—were going down the glen from Port Sonachan,
-cropping hurried mouthfuls by the way as they went and as the dogs would
-let them. And three Benderloch drovers came off the road and into Baldi
-Crom's house, after the night was down on the glen and he had the cruisie
-lighted. They sat them down round the fire in the middle of the floor and
-ate bannocks and cheese.
-</p>
-<p>
-“How's thy family, 'Illeasbuig?” said a drover, stirring up the peat as if
-he were at his own door-end. Down on the roadside the cattle, black and
-yellow, crushed the sappy grass and mourned in bellows for their lost
-fields.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Splendid! splendid!” said the old man, double over his shoes, fondling
-them with the fingers of a mother on a first baby. The light was low in
-the cruisie, for the oil was well down, and the fire and the cruisie made
-a ring of light that could scarcely slip over the backs of the men sitting
-round the peats. A goat scratched his head but-and-ben against the
-wattles; in corners the darkness was brown and thick.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I hear Cailen's in the Low-country, but what has come of Tormaid?” said
-one, with knee-breeches, and hose of coarse worsted.
-</p>
-<p>
-The old man gave a quick start, and the lapstone fell from his knees, the
-shoe he was at with it. He bent over and felt like a blind man for them on
-the floor before he made answer.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Tormaid, my gallant son! Ye have not heard of him lately, then?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Never a word, 'Illeasbuig. People on the going foot, like drovers, hear
-all the world's gossip but the <i>sgeuls</i> of their own <i>sgireachd</i>.
-We have been far North since Martinmas: for us there must be many a story
-to tell 'twixt here and Inneraora. A stout lad and pretty, Tormaid too, as
-ever went to the beginning of fortune! Where might he be enow?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Here and there, friend, here and there! A restless scamp, a wanderer, but
-with parts. Had he not the smart style at the game of <i>camanachi?</i> He
-was namely for it in many places.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“As neat a player as ever took shinty in hand, master! I have the name of
-a fair player myself, but that much I'll allow your lad. Is he to the West
-side, or farther off?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Farther off, friend. The pipes now—have you heard him as a player
-on the chanter?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“As a piper, 'Illeasbuig! His like was not in three shires. I have heard
-him at reel and march, but these were not his fancy: for him the <i>piobaireachds</i>
-that scholarly ones play!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“My gallant boy!” said Baldi Crom, rubbing soft on the shoe with the palm
-of a hand.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Once upon a time,” said the drover, “we were on our way to a Lowland
-Tryst. Down Glen Falloch a Soccach man and I heard him fill the nightfall
-with the 'Bhoilich' of Morar, with the brag of a whole clan in his
-warbling. He knew piping, the fellow with me, and the tear came to his
-cheek, thinking of the old days and the old ploys among the dirks and <i>sgians</i>.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“There was never the beat of him,” said the shoemaker.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Throughither a bit—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“But good, good at heart, man! With a better chance of fortune he might be
-holding his head to-day as high as the best of them.” The drovers looked
-at each other with a meaning that was not for the eyes of the old man; but
-he had small chance of seeing it, for he was throng at his fine pair of
-shoes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“He had a name for many arts,” said the man with coarse hose, “but they
-were not the arts that give a lad settlement and put money in his purse.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“The hot young head, man! He would have cured,” said the old man, sewing
-hard. “Think of it,” said he: “was ever a more humoursome fellow to walk a
-glen with? His songs, his stories, his fast jump at one's meaning, and his
-trick of leaving all about him in a good key with themselves and him. Did
-ever one ask a Saxon shilling from his purse that it was not a cheery gift
-if the purse held it?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“True, indeed!” said the drovers, eating bannocks and cheese.
-</p>
-<p>
-“'Twixt heaven and hell,” said the fellow with the coarse hose, “is but a
-spang. It's so easy for some folk to deserve the one gate—so many
-their gifts—that the cock-sureness leaves them careless, and they
-wander into the wrong place.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You were speaking?” said Baldi, a little angry, though he heard but half.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I said thy son was a fellow of many gifts,” answered the drover, in a
-confusion.
-</p>
-<p>
-“He had no unfriends that I ken of,” said the old man, busy at the shoes;
-“young or old, man or woman.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Especially woman,” put in another drover, wrinkling at the eyes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I've had five sons: three in the King's service, and one in the
-Low-country; here's my young wanderer, and he was—he is—the
-jewel of them all!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You hear of him sometimes?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I heard of him and from him this very day,” said Baldi, busy at the
-brogues, white and drawn at the face and shaking at the lips. “I have
-worked at these shoes since morning, and little time is there to put bye
-on them, for at Inneraora town must they be before breakfast. Solomon
-Carrier, passing at three, gives me a cry and takes them.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“They're a fine pair of shoes.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Fine indeed; the finest of the fine! They're for a particular one.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Duke John himself, perhaps?”
- </p>
-<p>
-“No, man; a particular one, and were they not his in time a sorry man was
-I. They're the best Baldi Crom ever put leather on.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Till the turn of the night the drovers slept in their plaids, their cattle
-steaming out-by in the dark, munching the coarse grass selvedge, breathing
-heavy. And when the men and their beasts went in the darkness of the
-morning, Baldi Crom was still throng at his fine pair of shoes.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I'm late, I'm surely late,” said he, toiling hard, but with no
-sloven-work, at his task.
-</p>
-<p>
-The rain had come with the morning, and was threshing out-by on peat and
-thatch. Inside, the fire died, and the cruisie gave warnings that its oil
-was low, but Baldi Crom was too throng on the end of his task to notice.
-And at last his house dropped into darkness.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Tormaid! Tormaid! my little hero—I'm sore feared you'll die without
-shoes after all,” cried the old man, staggering to the door for daylight.
-He had the door but opened when he fell, a helpless lump, on the clay
-floor. The rain slanted on his grey hairs and spat on a fine shoe.
-</p>
-<p>
-Far down the good long glen the drovers were tramping after their cattle,
-and the dun morning was just before them when they got to the gate of
-Inneraora. Here there was a great to-do, for the kind gallows stood stark
-before the Arches. Round about it were the townspeople waiting for a
-hanging.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Who is't, and what is't for?” asked the drover with the knee-breeches and
-the coarse hose, pushing into the crowd.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Tormaid, the son of the Carnus cobbler,” said a woman with a plaid over
-her head. “He killed a man in a brawl at Braleckan and raped his purse.
-Little enough to put tow to a pretty lad's neck for, sure enough!” “Stand
-clear there!” cried a sharp voice, and the hangman and his friend came to
-the scaffold's foot with a lad in front of them, his hands shackled behind
-his back. He was a strong straight lad, if anything overly dour in the
-look, and he wore a good coat and tiews, but neither boot nor bonnet.
-Under the beam he put back his shoulders with a jerk and looked at the
-folk below, then over at Dunchuach with the mist above the fort like
-smoke.
-</p>
-<p>
-“They might have given him a pair of old baucbels, if no better, to die
-in,” said the drover in the woman's ear.
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Ochanoch!</i> and they might!” she said. “The darling! He lost his
-shoes in swimming Duglas Water to get clear, and they say he sent
-yesterday to his father for a pair, but they're not come. Queer, indeed,
-is that, for 'twas the brag of the folks he came of that they aye died
-with a good pair of shoon on their feet!”
- </p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-CASTLE DARK.
-</h2>
-<p class="pfirst"><span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>OU know Castle Dark, women?
-</p>
-<p>
-“Well, we know the same, just man and blind!”
- </p>
-<p>
-And you, my lads?
-</p>
-<p>
-“None better, Paruig Dali; morning and night, in the moon and in the full
-white day!”
- </p>
-<p>
-Then of Castle Dark is my story. Is the cruisie alight on the rafter? More
-peats, little one, on the fire.
-</p>
-<p>
-Once upon a time Castle Dark was a place of gentility and stirring days.
-You have heard it,—you know it; now it is like a deer's skull in
-Wood Mamore, empty, eyeless, sounding to the whistling wind, but blackened
-instead of bleached in the threshing rains. When the day shines and the
-sun coaxes the drowsy mists from the levels by the river, that noble house
-that was brisks up and grey-whitens, minding maybe of merry times; the
-softest smirr of rain—and the scowl comes to corbie-stone and gable;
-black, black grow the stones of old ancient Castle Dark! Little one, <i>m'
-eudail</i>, put the door to, and the sneck down.
-</p>
-<p>
-“True for you, Paruig Dali; you know the place as if you had seen it.”
- </p>
-<p>
-With eyes Paruig Dali has never seen it. But my friends tell me what they
-know, and beyond I have learned of myself. Up the river-side, many a time
-I pass to the place and over its low dykes, dry-stone, broken and
-crumbling to the heel. The moss is soft on the little roads, so narrow and
-so without end, winding round the land; the nettle cocks him right
-braggardly over the old home of bush and flower, poisoning the air. Where
-the lady dozed in her shady seat below the alder-tree, looking out between
-half-shut eyes at the proud Highlands—loch, glen, and mountain—is
-but a root rotten, and hacked by the woodman's whittle. A tangle of wild
-wood, bracken, and weed smothers the rich gardens of Castle Dark.
-</p>
-<p>
-“It is so, it is so, Paruig Dali, blind man, prince among splendid pipers
-and storied men!”
- </p>
-<p>
-And to stand on the broad clanging steps that lifted from the hunting-road
-to the great door—that is a thinking man's trial. To me, then, will
-be coming graveyard airs, yellow and vexatious, searching eager through my
-bones for this old man's last weakness. “Thou sturdy dog!” will they be
-saying, “some day, some day! Look at this strong tower!” With an ear to
-the gap on the side of the empty ditch, I can hear the hollowness of the
-house rumbling with pains, racked at <i>cabar</i> and corner-stone, the
-thought and the song gone clean away. There is no window, then, that has
-not a complaint of its own; no loop-hole, no vent, no grassy chimney that
-the blind fellow cannot hear the pipe of. Straight into the heart's core
-of Castle Dark looks the sun; the deep tolbooth of the old reivers and the
-bed-chamber of the maid are open wide to the night and to the star!
-</p>
-<p>
-“<i>Ochan! ochan!</i>”
- </p>
-<p>
-You that only ken the castle in common day or night and plain man's
-weather have but little notion of its wonders. It was there, and black and
-hollow, ere ever you were born, or Paruig Dali. To see Castle Dark one
-must take the Blue Barge and venture on two trips.
-</p>
-<p>
-“The Blue Barge, just man?”
- </p>
-<p>
-That same. The <i>birlinn ghorm</i>, the galley of fairy Lorn. It lies in
-the sunlight on the bay, or the moonlight in certain weathers, and twelve
-of the handsomest sit on the seats with the oars in their hands, the red
-shirt bulging over the kilt-belt. At the stem of the barge is the chair of
-the visitor. Gentle or semple, 'tis the same boat and crew, and the same
-cushioned chair, for all that make the jaunt to Castle Dark. My story is
-of two trips a man made by Barge Blue up the river to the white stairs.
-</p>
-<p>
-He roved round the Lowlands road on a fine summer day, and out on the
-sands among the running salt threads of ebb tide. Among the shells, his
-eyes (as it might be) fell on the castle, and he had a notion to make the
-trip to it by a new road. Loudly he piped to sea. If loudly he piped, keen
-was the hearing, for yonder came the galley of fairy Lorn, the twelve
-red-shirts swinging merry at the oars and chanting a Skye <i>iorram</i>.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Here's an exploit!” said the man of my story. “There's dignity in yon
-craft, or less than red-shirts was the wearing of the scamps who row her.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The loch curled like a feather before her and frothed far behind, and soon
-her nose ran high on the sand. No word was said, but the first pair of
-rowers let out a carved plank, and the fellow of my story went over it and
-behind to the chair with the cushioned seat.
-</p>
-<p>
-“To the castle?” asked the captain (as it might be), in the way of one who
-speaks a master, and Adventurer said, “Castle be it.” The barge was pushed
-off the sand, the oars fell on the water, and she curved into the
-river-mouth.
-</p>
-<p>
-When Adventurer reached the bridge, it was before the time of war, and the
-country from end to end sat quiet, free, and honest. Our folks lived the
-clean out-by life of shepherds and early risers. Round these hills, the
-woods—the big green woods—were trembling with bird and beast,
-and the two glens were crowded with warm homes—every door open, and
-the cattle untethered on the hill. Summer found the folks like ourselves
-here, far up on sappy levels among the hills, but their sheilings more
-their own than ours are, with never a reiver nor a broken clan in all the
-land. Good stout roads and dry went down the passes to Castle Dark from
-all airts of Albainn—roads for knight and horse, but free and safe
-for the gentlest girl ever so lonely. By sea came gabberts of far France
-with wine and drink; by land the carriers brought rich cloths, spices, and
-Italian swords such as never were before or since. I made a small <i>piobaireachd</i>
-once on such a blade; if you put me over my pipes, I—
-</p>
-<p>
-“Later the pipes, Paruig Dali, the best player in the world! to thy story
-this time.” Is the cup to my right or left? Blessings! The Castle and
-Barge were my story.
-</p>
-<p>
-Up and on, then, under the bridge, went Adventurer and his company of
-twelve, and he trailed white fingers over the low side of the boat, the
-tide warm like new milk. Under the long arch he held up his head and
-whooped gaily, like the boy he was in another dream, and Mactallamh
-laughed back from behind the smell of lime-drop and <i>crotal</i> hanging
-to the stones. Then into the sun again, on the wide flat river, with the
-fields sloping down on each hand, nodding to the lip with rush and flower.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Faith and here's fortune!” said Adventurer. “Such a day for sailing and
-sights was never before.”
- </p>
-<p>
-And the Blue Barge met nor stone nor stay, but ever the twelve fine lads
-swinging cheerily at the oars, till they came to the white stairs.
-</p>
-<p>
-Off the boat and up the clanging steps went Adventurer as bold as Eachan,
-and the bushes waving soft on every side. The gravel crunched to his foot—the
-white round gravel of Cantyre; kennelled hounds cried warning from the
-ditch-side; round him were the scenting flowers and the feeling of the
-little roads winding so without end all about the garden.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Queer is this!” said he, feeling the grass-edge with his feet and
-fingering the leaves. “Here, surely, is weed nor nettle, but the trim bush
-and the swinging rose. The gardeners have been busy in the gardens of old
-ancient Castle Dark!”
- </p>
-<p>
-When he came to the ditch, the drawbrig was down. To the warm airs of the
-day the windows, high and low, were open; a look of throng life was over
-the house, and in-by some one plucked angrily at the strings of a harp.
-Reek rose lazy and blue over the chimneys, the smell of roasting meats and
-rich broths hung on the air.
-</p>
-<p>
-Under a tree got Adventurer and deep in thought. And soon the harping came
-to an end. A girl stepped to the bridge and over into the garden. She took
-to the left by the butter-house and into My Lady's Canter, lined with
-foreign trees. Along the wide far road came a man to meet her,
-good-shaped, in fine clothes, tartan trews fitting close on leg and
-haunch, and a leather jacket held at the middle by a <i>crioslach</i>.
-</p>
-<p>
-Under his tree stood Adventurer as they passed back, and close beside him
-the courtier pushed the hilt of a small-sword to his back and took the
-woman in his arms.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Then if ye must ken,” said he, shamefacedly, “I am for the road
-to-morrow.”
- </p>
-<p>
-The girl—ripe and full, not over-tall, well balanced, her hair waved
-back from over brown eyes, gathered in a knot and breaking to a curl on
-the nape of the neck like a wave on the shell-white shore—got hot at
-the skin, and a foot drummed the gravel in an ill temper.
-</p>
-<p>
-“For yon silly cause again?” she asked, her lips thinning over her teeth.
-</p>
-<p>
-“For the old cause,” said he; “my father's, my dead brothers', my clan's,
-ours for a hundred years. Do not lightly the cause, my dear; it may be
-your children's yet.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“You never go with my will,” quo' the girl again. “Here am I, far from a
-household of cheery sisters, so lonely, so lonely! Oh! Morag and Aoirig,
-and the young ones! were I back among them from this brave tomb!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Tomb, sweet!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Tomb said I, and tomb is it!” cried the woman, in a storm. “Who is here
-to sing with me and comfort me in the misty mornings, to hearten me when
-you are at wood or hill? The dreary woods, the dreary, dreary shore—they
-give me the gloom! My God, what a grey day!”
- </p>
-<p>
-(And yet, by my troth, 'twas a sunny day by the feel of it, and the birds
-were chirming on every tree!)
-</p>
-<p>
-The gentleman put his hands on the girl's shoulder and looked deep in her
-eyes, thinking hard for a wee, and biting at his low lip in a nervous way.
-</p>
-<p>
-“At night,” said he, “I speak to you of chase and the country-side's
-gossip. We have sometimes neighbours in our house as now,—old
-Askaig's goodwife and the Nun from Inishail—a good woman and pious.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Up went the lady's head, and she laughed bitter and long.
-</p>
-<p>
-“My good husband,” she said, in a weary way, “you are like all that wear
-trews; you have never trained your tracking but to woodcraft, or else you
-had found the wild-kit in a woman's heart.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“There's my love, girl, and I think you love—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Tuts, man! I talked not of that. Love is—love, while it lasts, and
-ye brag of Askaig's wife and the Nun (good Lord!), and the old harridans
-your cousins from Lochow!”
- </p>
-<p>
-“'Tis but a tirrivie of yours, my dear,” said the man, kindly, kissing her
-on the teeth, and she with her hands behind her back. “Tomorrow the
-saddle, Sir Claymore, and the south country! Hark ye, sweet, I'll fetch
-back the most darling thing woman ever dreamt of.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“What might his name be?” asked the girl, laughing, but still with a
-bitterness, and the two went round to the ditch-brig and in-by.
-</p>
-<p>
-Adventurer heard the little fine airs coming from the west, coiling, full
-of sap-smell, crooning in turret and among the grassy gable-tops, and
-piping into the empty windows.
-</p>
-<p>
-'Twas a summer's end when he went on the next jaunt, a hot night and hung
-with dripping stars. The loch crawled in from a black waste of sorrow and
-strange hills, and swished on the shore, trailing among the wreck with the
-hiss of fingers through ribbons of silk. My dears, my dears! the gloom of
-hidden seas in night and lonely places! 'Tis that dauntens me. I will be
-standing sometimes at the night's down-fall over above the bay, and
-hearkening to the grinding of the salt wash on rock and gravel, and never
-a sound of hope or merriment in all that weary song. You that have seeing
-may ken the meaning of it; never for Paruig Dali but wonder and the heavy
-heart!
-</p>
-<p>
-“'Tis our thought a thousand times, just man; we are the stour that wind
-and water make the clod of! You spoke of a second jaunt?”
- </p>
-<p>
-As ye say. It was in winter; and the morning—
-</p>
-<p>
-“Winter, said ye, Paruig Dali? 'Twas summer and night before.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Winter I said, and winter it was, before <i>faoilteach</i>, and the edge
-of the morning. The fellow of my <i>sgeul</i>, more than a twelvemonth
-older, went to the breast wall and cried on Barge Blue that's ever waiting
-for the sailor who's for sailing on fairy seas.
-</p>
-<p>
-In she came, with her twelve red-shirts tugging bravely at the oars, and
-the nose of her ripping the salt bree. Out, too, the carved plank, made,
-I'll warrant, by the Norwegian fellow who fashioned the Black Bed of
-MacArtair, and over it to the cushioned seat Adventurer!
-</p>
-<p>
-The little waves blobbed and bubbled at the boat's shoulders; she put
-under the arch and up the cold river to the white stairs.
-</p>
-<p>
-It was the middle and bloodiest time of all our wars. The glens behind
-were harried, and their cattle were bellowing in strange fields. Widows
-grat on the brae-sides and starved with their bairns for the bere and oat
-that were burned. But Adventurer found a castle full of company, the rich
-scum of water-side lairds and Lowland gentry, dicing and drinking in the
-best hall of Castle Dark. Their lands were black, their homes levelled, or
-their way out of the country—if they were Lowland—was barred
-by jealous clans. So there they were, drinking the reddest and eating the
-fattest—a wanton crew, among them George Mor, namely for women and
-wine and gentlemanly sword-play.
-</p>
-<p>
-They had been at the cartes after supper. Wine lay on the table in rings
-and rivers. The curtains were across the window, and the candles guttered
-in the sconces. Debauched airs flaffed abroad in the room. At the head of
-the board, with her hair falling out of the knot, the lady of the house
-dovered in her chair, her head against George Mor's shoulder, and him
-sleeping fast with his chin on his vest. Two company girls from the house
-in the forest slept forward on the table, their heads on the thick of
-their arms, and on either hand of them the lairds and foreigners. Of the
-company but two were awake, playing at <i>bord-dubh</i>, small eyed,
-oozing with drink. But they slept by-and-by like the lave, and sleep had a
-hold of Castle Dark through and through.
-</p>
-<p>
-Adventurer heard the cock crow away at the gean-tree park.
-</p>
-<p>
-One of the girls, stirring in her sleep, touched a glass with her elbow,
-and it fell on its side, the dark wine splashing over the table, crawling
-to the edge, thudding in heavy drops on the shoe of the mistress of the
-house, who drew back her foot without waking. But her moving started up
-the man at her ear. He looked at her face, kissed her on the hair, and got
-to his feet with no noise. A sour smile curdled his face when he looked
-about the room, drunken and yellow-sick in the guttering candlelight.
-</p>
-<p>
-Stretching himself, he made for the window and pulled back the curtain.
-</p>
-<p>
-The mountain looked in on the wastrel company, with a black and blaming
-scowl—the mountain set in blackness at the foot, but its brow
-touching the first of a cold day.
-</p>
-<p>
-Tree and bush stood like wraiths all about the garden, the river cried
-high and snell. George Mor turned and looked at the room and its sleeping
-company like corpses propped in chairs, in the light of candle and
-daybreak.
-</p>
-<p>
-The smell of the drunken chamber fogged at the back of his throat. He
-laughed in a kind of bitter way, the lace shaking at his neck and
-wrist-bands: then his humour changed, and he rued the night and his merry
-life.
-</p>
-<p>
-“I wish I was yont this cursed country,” said he to himself, shivering
-with cold. “'Tis these folk lead me a pretty spring, and had George Mor
-better luck of his company he was a decent man. And yet—and yet—who's
-George Mor to be better than his neighbours? As grow the fir-trees, some
-of them crooked and some of them straight, and we are the way the winds
-would have us!”
- </p>
-<p>
-He was standing in the window yet, deep in the morning's grief, running
-his fingers among his curls.
-</p>
-<p>
-Without warning the door of the room opened, and a man took one step in,
-soft, without noise, white-faced, and expecting no less than he found, by
-the look in his eyes. It was the goodwife's husband, still with the mud on
-his shoes and the sword on his belt. He beckoned on the fellow at the
-window, and went before him (the company still in their sleep), making for
-the big door, and George Mor as he followed lifted a sword from a pin.
-</p>
-<p>
-Close by Adventurer the two men stopped. It was on a level round of old
-moss, damp but springy, hid from the house by some saugh-trees.
-</p>
-<p>
-The master of the house spoke first. Said he, “It's no great surprise;
-they told me at the ferry over-by that strange carry-on and George Mor
-were keeping up the wife's heart in Castle Dark.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“She's as honest a wife as ever—”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Fairly, fairly, I'll allow—when the wind's in that airt. It's been
-a dull place this for her, and I have small skill of entertainment; but,
-man, I thought of her often, away in the camp!”
- </p>
-<p>
-He was taking off his jacket as he spoke, and looking past George Mor's
-shoulder and in between the trees at the loch. And now the day was fairly
-on the country.
-</p>
-<p>
-“A bit foolish is your wife—just a girl, I'm not denying; but true
-at the core.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“Young, young, as ye say, man! She'll make, maybe, all the more taking a
-widow woman. She'll need looks and gaiety indeed, for my poor cause is
-lost for good and all.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“We saved the castle for you, at any rate. But for my friends in-by and
-myself the flambeau was at the root o't.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“So, my hero? In another key I might be having a glass with you over such
-friendship, but the day spreads and here's our business before us.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“I've small stomach for this. It's a fool's quarrel.”
- </p>
-<p>
-“<i>Thoir an aire!</i>—Guard, George Mor!”
- </p>
-<p>
-They fought warmly on the mossy grass, and the tinkle of the thin blades
-set the birds chirping in the bushes, but it could not be that that
-wakened my lady dovering in her chair in the room of guttering candles.
-</p>
-<p>
-She started up in a dream, and found George Mor gone, and the mark of
-muddy brogues near the door fitted in with her dream. She wakened none of
-her drugged company, but hurried to the garden and in between the foreign
-trees to the summons of the playing swords.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Stop, stop, husband!” she cried before she saw who was at the fighting;
-but only George Mor heard, and he half turned his head.
-</p>
-<p>
-She was a little late. Her man, with a forefinger, was feeling the way to
-the scabbard, and a gout of blood was gathering at the point of his sword,
-when she got through the trees.
-</p>
-<p>
-“Madame,” said he, cool enough but short in the breath, and bloody a
-little at the mouth, “here's your gallant. He had maybe skill at
-diversion, but I've seen better at the small-sword. To-night my un-friends
-are coming back to harry Castle Dark, and I'm in little humour to stop
-them. Fare ye weel!”
- </p>
-<p>
-A blash of rain threshed in Adventurer's face; the tide crept at his feet,
-the fall of the oars on Barge Blue sank low and travelled far off. It was
-the broad day. Over above the river, Castle Dark grew black, but the
-fellow of my story could not see it.
-</p>
-<p>
-“And the woman, Paruig Dali? What came of the woman?”
- </p>
-<p>
-Another peat on the fire, little one. So! <i>That</i> the fellow of my
-story would need another trip to see. But Barge Blue is the ferry for all,
-high tide or low, in the calm and in the storm.
-</p>
-<p>
-<br /><br />
-</p>
-<hr />
-<p>
-<a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> </a>
-</p>
-<div style="height: 4em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-<h2>
-A GAELIC GLOSSARY.
-</h2>
-<p>
-A bhean! O wife!
-</p>
-<p>
-A pheasain! O brat!
-</p>
-<p>
-Amadant fool. Amadaitt dhoill! O blind fool!
-</p>
-<p>
-Bas, the haft of a shinty in this case.
-</p>
-<p>
-Bàs, death. Bàs Dhiarmaid, death to Diarmaid! Beannachd, blessing.
-Beannachdlets! blessing with him!
-</p>
-<p>
-Beannachd leat! blessing with thee, farewell! Biodag, a dirk.
-</p>
-<p>
-Btrlinn ghorm, blue barge.
-</p>
-<p>
-Bochdan, a ghost.
-</p>
-<p>
-Bodach, an old man.
-</p>
-<p>
-Bord-dubh, black-board, the game of draughts.
-</p>
-<p>
-Bratach, a banner.
-</p>
-<p>
-Cabar, a rafter, a log of wood for throwing in Highland sports.
-</p>
-<p>
-Caileag bkeag, a little girl.
-</p>
-<p>
-Cailleach, old woman. Cailleachan, old women.
-</p>
-<p>
-Camatty, club used in the game of shinty. Camanachd, the game of shinty.
-</p>
-<p>
-Cas, foot. Cas-chrom, a primitive hand-plough. Choillich-dhuibh, O
-black-cock!
-</p>
-<p>
-Clach-cuid-fear, a lifting-stone for testing a man's strength.
-</p>
-<p>
-Clackneart, putting-stone.
-</p>
-<p>
-Clarsack, harp.
-</p>
-<p>
-Cothrom na Feinne, the fair-play of Finne; man to man. Crioslach, belt,
-girdle.
-</p>
-<p>
-Cromag, a shepherd's crook.
-</p>
-<p>
-Crotal, lichen.
-</p>
-<p>
-Crunluadh, a movement in piping. Crunluadh breabach, a smarter movement
-Crunluadh mack, the quickest part of a piobaireachd.
-</p>
-<p>
-Dhé! O God! Dia, God. Dhia gleidh sinn! God keep us!
-</p>
-<p>
-Dorlach, a knapsack.
-</p>
-<p>
-Duitn'-nasal, gentleman.
-</p>
-<p>
-Eas, waterfall or cataract.
-</p>
-<p>
-Faoiltcach, the short season of stormy days at the end of January.
-</p>
-<p>
-Feadan, the chanter or pipe on which pipers practise tunes before playing
-them on the bagpipes. Fuarag, hasty-pudding, a mixture of oatmeal and cold
-water, or oatmeal and milk or cream.
-</p>
-<p>
-Gruagach, a sea-maiden in this case.
-</p>
-<p>
-'Ille! lad! 'Illean! lads!
-</p>
-<p>
-Iolair, eagle lorram, a boat-song.
-</p>
-<p>
-Laochain! hero! comrade!
-</p>
-<p>
-Larach, site of a ruined building.
-</p>
-<p>
-Londubh, blackbird.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mallachd ort! malediction on thee!
-</p>
-<p>
-Marag-dkubh, a black pudding, made with blood and suet.
-</p>
-<p>
-M' eudail, my darling, my treasure.
-</p>
-<p>
-Mhoire Mkathair, an ave, “Mary Mother.”
- </p>
-<p>
-Mo chridhe! my heart!
-</p>
-<p>
-Mo thruaigh! alas, my trouble!
-</p>
-<p>
-Och! ochan! ochanoch! ochanie! ochanorie! exclamations of sorrow, alas!
-Och a Dhé! siod e nis! Eirich, eirich, Rob—O God! yonder it is now!
-Rise, rise, Rob!
-</p>
-<p>
-Oinseach, a female fool.
-</p>
-<p>
-Piobaireachd, the symphony of bagpipe music, usually a lament, salute, or
-gathering Piob-mhor, the great Highland bagpipe.
-</p>
-<p>
-Seangan, an ant.
-</p>
-<p>
-Sgalag, a male farm-servant.
-</p>
-<p>
-Sgeul, a tale, narrative.
-</p>
-<p>
-Sgiati-dubh, black knife, worn in the Highlander's stocking.
-</p>
-<p>
-Sgireachd, parish.
-</p>
-<p>
-Siod e! there it is!
-</p>
-<p>
-Siubhal, allegro of the piobaireachd music.
-</p>
-<p>
-Slochd-a-chubair gu bragh! the rallying cry of the old Inneraora burghers,
-“Slochd-a-chubair for ever!”
- </p>
-<p>
-So! here! So agad e! here he is!
-</p>
-<p>
-Spàgachd, club-footed, awkward at walking.
-</p>
-<p>
-Spreidh, cattle of all sorts, a drove.
-</p>
-<p>
-Stad! stop!
-</p>
-<p>
-Suas e! up with it! A term of encouragement.
-</p>
-<p>
-Taibhsear, a visionary; one with second-sight.
-</p>
-<p>
-Tha sibk an so! you are here!
-</p>
-<p>
-Thoir an aire! beware! look out!
-</p>
-<p>
-Uiseag, the skylark.
-</p>
-<p>
-Urlar, the ground-work, adagio, or simple melody of a piobaireachd.
-</p>
-<div style="height: 6em;">
-<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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