THE CASTLE O' DREAMS
To say that Cragnorth--that little unknown village of the Highlands
which lies like an eagle's aerie upon the crest of the hills, scattering
its few dwelling-places like seed over the hillside and down into the
valley below--stood half-an-hour's distance from the station was to
underestimate the fact. For it took Cleek and Dollops and Miss Duggan
two mortal hours of driving in the station hack before they came in
sight of it.
And it was just as they reached a bend in the hill-road and came out
upon a deep ravine, moss-covered and still wreathed with the mists of
the morning, that Cleek saw Aygon Castle for the first time, and felt
the whole true meaning of what it meant to these lairds of the Highlands
to live here, generation after generation, giving to their children the
right of ownership in the ancestral homes; it was just then that Miss
Duggan turned in her seat and pointed with one arm out-thrown toward it.
"That's the Castle. Isn't it too magnificently beautiful for words, Mr.
Deland?" she said, with a suggestion of a catch in her voice at sight
of it. "With those mists wreathing it about, and all its dear, gaunt,
worn turrets piercing the top of the world like that! Now you can
imagine how I feel toward the--the woman who would wrest all this from
Ross, take what is his rightful inheritance from him and give it to a
boy who is only half a Scotsman, and with the blood of another country
running in his veins! Now you can understand why I came all the way to
London to see Mr. Narkom. Look on it, Mr. Deland, and drink in its
beauty. The sight of it is like heaven itself to me."
Cleek did look on it to his heart's fill, and drank so deep of its
majestic beauty as to be well-nigh intoxicated with it. The artist's
soul of the man was afire with the chill grandeur of the place. From
turreted towers rising through the gray mists, like the towers and the
turrets of the Holy City itself, Aygon Castle was like some enchanter's
palace, like some figment of the mind's weaving in those hours of
day-dreams which lie between the dark and the day.
To the left of it a huge watch-tower reared its monstrous head to the
blue-flecked Highland sky, set atop of which stood the figure of a man,
gigantic and wrought in bronze, with the plaid of the Duggans sweeping
across his shoulder and eddying out into a marvellous real billow behind
him, one huge forearm raised in the hand of which was a battle-axe,
standing out black and menacing against the early morning sky.
Cleek swept a hand out to it, while Dollops, silent up to the present,
gave forth the feeling of his Cockney soul in one long-drawn "S'welp
me!" of utter enthusiasm.
"Who is the gentleman of the axe, Miss Duggan?" said Cleek, turning
toward her, his face alight with interest. "What a magnificent thing it
is! And how he stands out against this Highland sky of yours--menacing,
victorious, utterly sublime! Some ancestor, no doubt?"
"_The_ ancestor. The greatest of all that great line of Duggans, or
_Mac_duggans, as it was then," she responded in a hushed, exultant
voice. "Chief of the greatest and most powerful clan of all Scotland, in
those days when Scotland was a country apart, and the Scottish chiefs
were little kings in their own dominion, ruling in absolute monarchy
over their subjects. Rhea du Macduggan. That was his name, Mr. Deland. A
great and powerful and just man. And when this Castle was built over the
spot where his camp had been in those by-gone glorious days, the
Macduggan who had it built caused that statue to be erected, and had it
wrought in finest bronze, to endure throughout the centuries. You can
see for yourself how well Rhea has withstood the bludgeoning of time.
And, too, you may understand a little, at sight of him, what this place
means to my brother and me, and how loath we are even to entertain the
thought of letting it get out of the family."
"And is the estate not entailed?"
"Unfortunately not this portion of it. That part which follows the
entail comprises a couple of the adjacent villages and a lot of
farmsteads out there across the valley. But the Castle--no. In olden
days each son of the family fought for it against the surviving holder
of it, fought a personal battle of strength to prove himself worthy of
it, and then, upon victory--or proved worthiness--the will was made. The
line has never been broken, Mr. Deland. And to-day my brother and I are
as willing to fight for it as were our ancestors of old."
"And I don't blame you, either," said Cleek with alacrity, sighing a
little, as though some thought of all this magnificence awakened an echo
in his heart that would not immediately be stilled. "I know a little of
that feeling, too. When a man loves his ancestral home, and his country,
he will fight for it and die for it rather than that an alien hand shall
take possession of either. That is the gift of Race, the inherent
something that Family breeds in us. The clanship which belongs to an old
and unbroken line. I know--I know.... Heigho! But it is an inheritance
indeed. I am more in sympathy with you than ever before, Miss Duggan,
for I, too, would fight for this against the hand of an enemy, and die
fighting rather than that it should slip out of my reach.... And you
mean to tell me that your brother Ross has installed electric lighting
_here_?"
She smiled a little, and nodded her head as one might smile at thought
of some child's deliciously childish and foolish action. One could see
that she worshipped her brother.
"Yes, Mr. Deland. A complete installation, which is both the envy and
the desire of every other landowner for miles around."
"And why the envy, may I ask?"
"Because the fortunes of many are lower than ours. The Duggans were
always the wealthiest clan in this part of the country. The other clans
were poor. They are still poor. And we, too, are poorer than we were.
The land takes nearly all our income to wrest something from its
wildness besides the heather and the stretches of gorse-covered moor. We
herd the flocks on those parts, Mr. Deland, but cultivation of the rest
is very difficult. It is too wild, too barren. And the other big houses
are indeed envious of our wonderful lighting arrangements. It has been
the root of much friendly quarrelling among us. But the villagers are
_terrified_!"
"I can well understand that--in this uncivilized quarter," put in Cleek
with a smile. "Many, I have no doubt, still use the old rushlight of
former days.... Ah, here is the village. My man and I had better put up
at the local hotel, Miss Duggan, as a couple of fishermen-- I'll be
bound your salmon is wonderful in these parts, and I for one love the
sport--and then we can effect an introduction by the aid of our mutual
friend, Miss Lorne, and perhaps to-morrow I might be permitted to call
upon you. How does that satisfy your mind?"
She put out a hand to him with an impetuosity that was foreign to her.
"It satisfies me splendidly. You are more than kind to take such an
interest. Put up at the Three Fishers, by all means, Mr. Deland. The
landlord is a kindly soul, and will give you every attention, I know.
And then, if you will be good enough, call to-morrow morning--unless I
have to send for you before then. And if so, how shall I do that?"
The hack drew up in front of the Inn of the Three Fishers and Cleek and
Dollops dismounted, the latter entering the inn with their baggage,
while Cleek stood at the side of the carriage, leaning over the edge of
it to speak to its sole occupant. Beyond him, directly opposite to them,
the village street broke off into a slope that led down into the valley,
rock-bound and lichened over with heather-bells and the outstretched
arms of prickly gorse-bushes. While on an adjacent hill directly in
front and rising out of the valley itself up a steep mountainside stood
Aygon Castle, its many windows commanding a distant view of the village,
and practically upon a level with it, so that some of those same
windows faced upon those of the inn, with the street and then the valley
and the hillside on which it stood between.
Cleek waved a hand toward it now.
"Which is your own window?" he asked softly.
She pointed. "Fourth from the left. That tall, narrowish slit-like one.
It has mullioned panes--see? There are only three others like that on
this side. The fourth from the left is mine. Why?"
"Because," said Cleek meaningly, "if you want me, put a light in that
window--a red light, for preference, as at this distance it would be
easier to see. And light and re-light it three times. I shall be on the
watch. And if not I, my man Dollops. Until to-morrow morning, when I
shall call. Remember--three times, if you want me, and I shall come
immediately--in my professional guise or not, as you like. And keep up
your heart, Miss Duggan. Things may not be as black as you think. Fourth
from the left, isn't it?"
"Fourth from the left. How kind you are! I shall never be able to thank
you for all your interest. And I have a little disused bicycle lamp in
my cupboard. It has a red slide. I will flash that--if I need you.
Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Cleek, smiling, and standing bareheaded in the early
morning sunshine.
The carriage drove on up the hill, turning at the corner and winding
down again into the valley, and from the outer wall of the street upon
the opposite side one could watch its progress as one watched the
movements of a fly upon an adjacent bank. Cleek crossed the road and
stopped there, head bent, arms folded upon the low stone top of the
wall. Round along the tortuous hill road it went creeping along, at an
incredibly slow pace it seemed from his position above it, on and on and
on into the valley, and then up, up, up, the opposite hillside, through
bushes and shrubs that screened it now and again from view, and betwixt
immense boulders, until eventually it came abreast of the huge
wrought-iron gates of the place and passed between them out of sight.
And as it disappeared Cleek turned upon his heel with a deep-drawn sigh.
"Gad! what an inheritance!" he mentally commented as he crossed the road
and entered the portals of the inn itself. "Enough to fight for, indeed!
Mr. Narkom, old friend, this is one of those subtle things which your
middle-class upbringing could never understand. One of those things
which belong to the few and the chosen. Heigho! And Esau bartered his
birthright for a mess of pottage. She'd fight for it--and so would I! A
nice girl--hysterical, high-strung, but full of the pride of race. The
fourth window from the left, she said. I'll put Dollops on the job,
while I snoop around a bit for myself, and see how the land lies. Mine
host might possibly put me wise to a good deal, as our American cousins
say."
So he strolled into the bar-parlour, and ordered a tankard of ale, and
over it made the acquaintance of that particular specimen of rugged
Scotch manhood who was for the time being to be his host.
"Fine views in these parts," said he, conversationally, and in the
man-of-the-world-tourist-idiot voice which he affected upon occasions.
"My man and myself want to put up here for the fishin', doncherknow. You
can fix us in all right, I suppose?"
"Cairtainly, sair. Therre's plainty of rume in th' Three Fishairs,"
responded Mr. Fairnish, with a smile of welcome, and in that inimitable
accent which is Scotland's own, and which rings like rugged music upon
the ear of the stranger to those parts. "We've a nice bedroom facin' th'
Castle. It'll be a grrand view in the mornin' wi' yer tea. And yer
man--we'll find him a shake-down nearr-by, if ye so wish ut."
Cleek liked on sight this genial host with his mellow accent.
"Well, I'd prefer for him to be within reachin' distance of me,
doncherknow," he said, with an inane grin into the red-whiskered
countenance, blue-eyed and lined with exposure to wind and weather, that
glowed above him.
"Cairtainly. If ye weesh it; Mrs. Fairnish will show ye yer rume, and
anything ye may want----"
Cleek raised a detaining hand.
"Please don't be in any hurry," he said pleasantly. "I've all day here
before me. Come down to do a bit of fishin', doncherknow. Fine sport in
these parts, they tell me. And that's Aygon Castle, is it? I know the
young lady, Miss Duggan, slightly. Grand place it looks, to be sure."
Mr. Fairnish raised his eyes ceilingwards. His hands followed them.
"It's a heavenly spot indeed," he said piously, as one might speak of
some religious place of worship. "One of the grrandest in our whole
country, sair. You'll be visitin' there, no doubt?"
"Oh, possibly. A friendly call, doncherknow. What's the old chap like
who owns it?"
Mr. Fairnish cast a hurried look on either side of him. The canny Scot
showed uppermost in his visage. But the coast was clear. Only a boy of
ten or twelve played at the other end of the bar with a roughly made
engine of wood, dragging it to and fro over the tiled floor.
"Sair Andrew's a harrd mon--a dour, harrd mon is Sair Andrew," he said
in a low, harsh voice, and with a wrinkling of face muscles which spoke
volumes. "I wudner cross his path unless I could help it. Harrd, sair,
harrd as nails. And wi' a grrasp on him for every penny!"
"Oho!" said Cleek in two different tones. "Mean, is he?"
"Mean wi' ye call it? Mean? There's no worrd ter expraiss what Sair
Andrew is at all. Not in the language, sair. But he's got a fine bailiff
ter manage th' land, and 'tis wi' him the people deal. Not wi' Sair
Andrew. Mistair Tavish, now--he's a fine chap, wi' a greeat hearrt an' a
helpin' hand for aiverybody. Mistair Tavish, now, he's a gentleman,
sair. Not a block er grranite, like th' old landlorrd!"
Cleek smiled. So even in these rocky fastnesses of the silent Highlands
a man liked his bit of gossip, and loosened his tongue to pass the time
of day with every stranger.
"Very interesting, Mr.----"
"Fairnish, Robairt Fairnish."
"Mr. Fairnish. And what about the rest of the family? Mean also?"
"Aw no, sair. Not Mistair Ross, at any rate, nor Miss Duggan, either,"
supplemented Mr. Fairnish, lighting his pipe with one horny hand and
leaning out over the bar the better to address Cleek. "Another ale,
sair?--cairtainly. Mr. Ross, now. A fine fellow, in spite of his
strrange ways and his wonderful apparatus. He's lit th' whole Castle
with electricity, sair; and Sair Andrew has no got ovair the effect o'
it yet. He does nought but grrumble and growl at Mistair Ross for th'
expainse and th' noosence of it, until, so I haird, th' Castle be no
pleasant spot to live in. And his wife, Lady Paula Duggan----"
Mr. Fairnish raised his hands and eyes in a very expressive gesture.
"You don't like the lady of the Castle, then, Mr. Fairnish?" interposed
Cleek, tossing off his ale and setting the empty tankard down upon the
bar in front of him.
"Like her, do ye say, sair? Like her! Show me th' pairson in th' whole
deestrict that does, and I'll tell him he's a liarr--if ye'll pardon my
language. There's nought in the countryside that does like her--a
black-haired, weecked foreigner like hersai'f--though ye'll no repeat my
worrds, I pray, or 'twould go harrd with Robairt Fairnish when next
rrent-day comes round. But never a bairnie that has ought to say that's
plaisant o' her--th' black-eyed witch-wummun! An' that's a fact. She
speaks a heathen tongue, sair, an' I never trusts a foreigner. They're
suspeeshus characters, the best o' them."
Cleek threw back his head and laughed--laughed heartily.
"Well," said he, with a shake of the head, "perhaps you're right. Though
I won't say that my experience has always been just that. However, the
lady does not seem to find favour in your eyes. Mr. Ross Duggan I
haven't met."
"A fine upstanding gentleman, sair, wi' ne'er a mean bone in his body."
"And Miss Duggan?"
"A gentle, kind creature wi' a hearrt o' gold. She'd do nought to harrm
anny one, sair, and I've proof o' that--bless her! Nor Miss McCall,
either."
"Miss McCall?"
"Lady Paula's companion and handy maid, sair. A leddy, if I knaws one.
Engaged to Mistair Tavish, I unnerstand--though 'tis not yet given out
to the gran' folk. But the' have th' saft look in their e'e for one
anaither. And 'tis juist that it means. A puir freeted creatur' wi' an
e'e fer the ghost o' the Castle. She'll have a fine mon in Mistair
Tavish, I assure ye. And now 'tis time ye saw yer rume, sair, or I'm no
a guid host ye'll ken."
So saying, Mr. Fairnish moved away from the bar reluctantly, as one
stung by duty into doing something for which he had no relish, for bar
and Fairnish were as synonymous as the Dawn and the Day--and almost as
inseparable.
Cleek watched him with upflung eyebrow and keen eye. Then he followed,
and set a hand upon the garrulous fellow's sleeve.
"Mr. Fairnish," he said quietly, "you've interested me immensely. My own
fellow-folk, you know--what is it that Pope says?--'The proper study of
mankind is man.' Well, it's like that with me. Perhaps I'm
over-curious--there are a lot of us like that in this world. But you
mentioned a ghostly visitant of the Castle just now. You were speaking
in jest, of course?"
An imperceptible something passed like a shadow over Mr. Fairnish's
rugged face. He gave a shiver.
"In jest ye tak eet?" he said a trifle huskily. "Weel, 'tis in airnest
that I spoke. For nevair a step near the grounds will ought o' th'
countryside go at night. 'Tis a lang story, and I've no time to be
tellin' it thee noo, sair, but here's a leetle. 'Tis a peasant-gairl
that a Sair Andrew of the sixteenth century, I ken, abducted from her
propair parents (they lived in the Lowlands, so I've heard tell), and
brought to th' castle and locked up--for his ain pleasure! 'Tis a sorry
tale, for the puir maid deed o' a broken hearrt an' a broken speerit,
too, I tak' it, nigh on to twelve months latair, wi' a leetle one juist
come ter gladden her sore hearrt."
"Indeed? And what became of the child, then?"
"No one knaws. 'Twas said 'twas stealed at night by the granfer and
speerited awa'. And 'twas said th' de'il himsaif cam' an' claimed eet.
No one knaws that parrt o' th' story, but there's a mony who says they
du. Only the peasant-gairl hersaif haunts the Castle tu this day, sair,
and stalks th' whole place over from top tu bottom, an' inside and out,
a-lukin' fer her sheel."
"Poor girl!" There was genuine sympathy in Cleek's low-toned voice, and
at sound of it Mr. Fairnish spun round and looked at him, his own face
brightening.
"Then ye believe in eet?" he said. "Fer yer voice tells me so. And so
du I--an' aiverybody in these parrts. And wi' a mon so harrd as Sair
Andrew as laird, ye ken what a puir time the gel must have had long
ago--wi' another of 'em th' same. You're a sympathetic gentleman at
hearrt, sair, I knew it on sight uf ye, so ye'll be takin' a worrd of
advice from me, and no be out in the grounds at nicht, when there's no
mune. 'Tis said she twists the neck of every man she sees at nicht-time
in the grounds after dark, as a revenge for what she suffered at the
hands of one. Ugh! but it's a sorry tale and no prettier fer the
telling, I ken.... If ye come this way, sair, I'll introduce ye to my
ain leddy, and she'll tak' unco' care o' ye."
"Thanks."
Cleek swung into step behind him and mounted the wide shallow oak stairs
of the place to the tune of Mr. Fairnish's deep-pitched voice calling
for "Mary! Mary!" In the fullness of time "Mary" appeared, and resolved
herself into a buxom, high-bosomed, rosy-cheeked Highland lass, whom Mr.
Fairnish had taken to wife (the second for him) last January. She
appeared almost as garrulous as her husband, and while she showed Cleek
his room--a long, low-ceiled bedroom overlooking the Castle and with
windows across one end of it--she regaled him with tid-bits of gossip of
neighbouring parts, and incidentally added to his already plentifully
filled store of knowledge of the "Castle-folk" the fact that Miss
Duggan herself was secretly engaged to a Captain Macdonald--one of the
poorest land-owners of those parts--who, because of his poverty, was
forbidden the house by Sir Andrew, and promptly sent about his business.
"A harrd mon," she said, as her husband had done, standing in the frame
of the open doorway with arms akimbo, and looking the true Scots lassie
she undoubtedly was. "And sich a nice gentleman, tu--that Captain
Macdonald. Reel gentry, Mr. Deland, sair. I've often thocht what a peety
it was tu see 'em pulled apart like thaat. Ye'll be wanting some hot
water, sair, I ken."
"Thanks. I'd like some, certainly. And my man----"
"He's made himself at home already," she responded, beaming at him. "And
he's in my keetchen th' noo, eatin' an airly lunch. He towld me ye'd
come fer the fishin', sair. We've a-mony come fer that to these parrts.
That'll be all, I tak' it?"
"That'll be all."
At which the good woman withdrew her tongue and herself, and left Cleek
a trifle dazed by the positive fount of garrulity at which he had been
drinking this past half-hour, and a good deal interested in the
Castle-folk to boot.
He walked to the window and stood looking out of it at the magnificence
of Aygon Castle that rose like some dream-palace before his admiring
eyes. And as he looked he counted the windows across that part of the
building which faced upon the village.
The fourth from the left. Well, she'd possibly never need to signal, and
yet--one never knew. And there was a ghost, too, and a horny-fisted and
hard-hearted landlord, just as the penny novelettes would have had it.
Quite interesting; quite. But the arrival of hot water set every other
thought but that of cleanliness out of his head, and he gave himself up
to his ablutions like a schoolboy on holiday.