"I've heard my reverend Grannie say
In lanely glens ye like to stray,
Or where auld ruined castles grey
Nod to the moon.
Ye fright the nightly wanderer's way,
Wi' eldritch croon."
Burns.
[Croon--low mournful moan.]
Scene: The interior of Nancy Dobbell's cottage. Nancy and her visitors
round the peat fire, the light from which ever and anon brings the
features of each out in bold relief, from the Rembrandtine darkness in
the background. Nancy is talking, but knitting as well. Click, click,
clickety, click, go the wires, sometimes very fast indeed, at other
times more slowly, as if keeping time with Nancy's thoughts and her
spoken words.
"And what brings my bairns so late across the muir the nicht?" she
asked.
"We knew ye wadna be in bed, Grannie," said Dugald. "The moon is
shinin' so brichtly, I had expected to meet ye on the muir, gatherin'
herbs by its ghastly licht. We heard the owlet cryin'; had we met you,
Grannie, it would have scared our senses awa'."
"I wouldn't have been afraid, Grannie," said Kenneth.
For a moment there was silence, the old woman's head had drooped on her
breast, and the knitting wires clicked more slowly, like a clock before
it stops.
But only for a moment; she raised her head again, and click, click,
click, went the wires as fast as before, but both Kenneth and his
companion noticed that Nancy's cheeks were wet.
"Nancy's auld and silly," she said, "but Nancy was not always so.
Heigho!"
"Oh, Grannie!" cried honest Dugald, hastening to atone for the cruelty
of his first speech, but, in his very hurry, making a poor job of it.
"Oh, Grannie, dinna say you're silly; really folk say you're wise and--
and--"
"A witch?" said Nancy, smiling.
"Well, may be so. Who can help what people say? But 'deed there is no'
a poor woman or man either in a' the glen or parish that hasn't a good
word to say for you. Your simple medicines, Grannie, have brought
comfort and joy to mony a hoose, no matter where ye got them or who--
goodness be near us--helped you to gather them. When puir Jock Kelpie
was drooned, did you no' bide and comfort the widow, and sing to her and
soothe her for weeks thegither? When Menzies' bairns had the fever, and
no' a soul would gang near the hoose, wha tended them and cured them?
Wha but Nancy Dobbell? And there's no' a bairn in a' the clachan that
doesn't run to meet ye, Grannie, whenever ye come o'er the muir."
The wires clicked very fast.
"And," continued Dugald, "though you're maybe no' very bonnie noo,
everybody says, `What a pretty woman Nancy must have been in her time!'"
Nancy's chin fell again, but the wires worked steadily on. Her mind was
away back now in the distant past. She was thinking of one summer's
evening by Saint Ronan's Well, 'neath the old monk's tree, of a plighted
troth and a broken ring, and a lad that went away to sea, and never,
never, never came back. A broken ring, and a broken heart, a sorrow
that had shadowed her life.
Click, click, click. Ah, well, every life has its romance.
"But Kenneth here has something to tell ye, Grannie."
Clickety, clickety, clickety, go the wires. Nancy is all interest now,
for dearly does she love her boy Kennie.
Then Kenneth told her about the fairy knoll and the strange cave he had
found in its interior.
He told her all the story, just as we already know it; and for once only
during all that evening, the wires ceased to click, and the old woman's
hands fell on her lap as she listened.
"It was long, long ago," said Nancy. "Your father, Kennie, was but a
boy then, just like you are noo. And his father was but a young man--"
"Ahem!" said the superstitious Highland keeper, giving a hasty
half-frightened glance behind him into the darkness. "Ahem! you'll not
mak' your story _very_ fearsome, will ye, Grannie? Dinna forget the
lateness o' the nicht. Mind that we've o'er the lonesome muir to gang
yet."
"It was long ago," said Nancy, addressing herself more particularly to
Kenneth. "I lived then down by the kirk in the clachan, and there I was
born, and the wee village was quieter far in those days than it is even
now. Ye know, Kennie, where the burn joins the river, where the old
ruin is among the willow trees?"
"Yes, Grannie."
"Well, that house was no ruin then. It was deserted, though. It had
gotten a bad name. Nobody would take it; and it seemed falling to
pieces. The house stood, as you know, about a mile below your fairy
knoll, and two miles beyond is the sea."
"You are right, Grannie."
"Everybody was surprised to find masons and carpenters working at Mill
House one morning. It was let. It had been taken by a stranger. Even
the laird knew nought about him. Only he paid a year's rent in advance.
That was enough for Laird McGee, who was a grippy auld man, and just as
rich as grippy.
"It was an ugly house when they made the best of it, two-storied, with
red tiles, blintering, blinking windows, and long uncanny-looking
attics. It lay a good way back from the road. You went along through a
thicket o' willows by a little footpath, then across a stagnant ditch,
on a rickety bridge, and this took you to the wild weedy lawn in front
of the house itself. Even the road that led past the grounds was little
frequented, only a bridle path at best, and it ended at last in a turf
dyke [low wall], a march between twa lairds' lands; if you followed
this, it took you over the mountains to the seaside village of T--, and
the footpath went pretty close to the knoll. A man and woman came to
live at Mill House then; they kept a man-servant, and had one child, a
pale-faced, old-fashioned-looking hunchback. The man drove a ramshackle
trap, so that, taking them altogether, they were no favourites, all the
more in that they never put nose beyond the doorstep on the Sabbath day.
"It was always thought, though, that Innkeeper McCaskill, of our
clachan, knew more about this family than he cared to tell. Anyhow, he
took them all their meat and groceries. And it was noted, too, and
remarked upon that he ay took the parcel himsel', a big one it used to
be, and the auld grey mare on which he rode was as sorely laden coming
as going to Mill House.
"Sometimes, but no' very often, the hunchback laddie used to come on an
errand down to the clachan; the bairns o' the village were frightened at
him first, frightened even to call him names or throw a sod at him, as
bairns will at things that look weird and unco'.
"Corbett was the laddie's name, but the bairns ay ca'd him Corbie.
"Corbie, though, improved on acquaintance. There seemed no harm in him,
though, woe is me, he lookit auld, auld-fashioned.
"I suppose Corbie found it lonesome at the Mill House, for whenever he
came down to the clachan he tried to mak' acquaintance with the
children. It wasna easy to do this. He brought them sweets and wild
berries, and bit by bit he won their hearts till Corbie was the greatest
favourite in a' the clachan. There was only one house, though, he ever
entered, and that was McCaskill's. But the bairns would meet him on his
return, and he ay turned his steps to the auld kirk-yard, and there, on
a flat tombstone, he would sit doon and tell them story after story.
And a more attentive audience no minister ever had even in the kirk on
Sunday. What did Corbie tell them? Oh! just queer auld-world stories
he'd heard tell of, or read in books. Stories about witches and
warlocks, brownies, sprites, and spunkies. Ay, and about the good
folks, the fairies themselves--"
"Dinna, dinna," muttered Dugald. "Think o' the untimous hour, Grannie."
"But one day, as poor Corbie was speakin' and the bairns were listening
wi' round eyes and gaping mouths, who should appear on the scene but
Corbie's father?
"The laddie gave one low scream, like somebody in a nightmare. Then his
father seized him, and oh! they say it was dismal to hear the howls of
the poor laddie and the sound o' the fearfu' blows.
"Corbie didn't appear again for many a day, but the human heart must
have society, and by degrees Corbie commenced story-telling again, but
no' in the kirk-yard, only down in a thicket by the riverside, and
always when there, some one was put to watch.
"I often passed that house, even at night, though the name it had now
was worse and worse.
"I had used to have business at T--, across the hills.
"But so bad a name did that road get, that even by day the boldest would
hardly venture to take the short cut to T--up along the laird's march
dyke. Belated travellers saw lights--dead candles they called them--
flitting and flickering around the fairy knoll. Brownies and spunkies,
they said, were met on the moor, and down by the riverside Kelpie
himsel' was often visible."
[Kelpie, in Scotch folklore a kind of bogle, half man, half bat, often
seen by midnight near the banks of ugly rivers. He lives in deep, dark
pools.]
"A sturdy shepherd that had stayed too long at T--had met Kelpie, so
they said; he was found next day cut and bleeding at the water-side, and
was a raving maniac for weeks.
"One day I was setting out for the seaside village--I was young then,
and strong--when near the clachan I met McCaskill.
"`Can I trust ye,' he said, `to deliver a letter at the Mill House?'
"I was feared to offend by refusing, so I took it. But lo! I forgot it
a'thegither till I was coming hame. It was night, too, but deliver it I
must.
"I took the road alang the auld march dyke across the hills. The moon
was shining, but no' very brightly, givin' a feeble yellow kind o' a
licht through a haze o' drivin' clouds.
"Well, I was just near the dreariest part o' the upper glen, and no' far
from the fairy knoll. I was wishing I were well past it, and away down
to the clachan, where I could see the lights blinking cheerily from the
houses among the trees.
"I was hurrying on, when suddenly, with an eldritch scream, something in
white sprang from behind an etnach," (juniper) "bush.
"I was a bold lass. Some would have fainted. My heart was in my mouth,
but I felt impelled to throw myself at the thing, whatever it was. I
rushed forward with a frightened shriek and grasped it. I wheeled its
face towards the moon, and what think you saw I?"
"A brownie!" said Dugald. "Oh, Grannie, I'm all of a quiver."
"He was no brownie. Only the auld, auld-fashioned face o' little
Corbie."
"`Let me go, Nancy. Let me go,' he pleaded. `My father would kill me
if he knew I was found out.'
"He wriggled out o' my hands and fled, and I hardly felt the ground
beneath my feet till I reached the low end o' the glen and found myself
opposite the gate o' Mill House.
"Then I remembered the letter.
"Dare I deliver it?
"Dare I refuse? That would be worse. I took the road down through the
willow thicket, and crossed the rickety auld plank bridge, and in two
minutes I was in front of the house. There were sounds of singing and
revelry from the inside; I knocked, but wasn't heard. Knocked louder,
and in a moment everything was dark and silent. The door opened. I was
seized and dragged in. What I saw and heard at Mill House that night I
was put on oath not to tell till all were dead or gone. I may tell you
now--they were smugglers."
"Thank goodness!" said Dugald, greatly relieved it was no worse. "Oh!
Grannie, but you have a fearsome way o' tellin' a story."
"For twa lang years they occupied that house, but during that time
something happened that caused grief amang the village bairns. Corbie
was missed. Weeks flew by, and he never came back. Then one day a
thinly-attended funeral came winding towards the kirk-yard, carrying a
wee bit coffin.
"The coffin was Corbie's, and there were many tears and mickle sorrow
amang the poor hunchback's acquaintances, I can tell ye. His friends
went awa', and left poor Corbie in the mools, but the bairnies ne'er
forgot the grave, and mony a bonnie wreath o' buttercups and gowans did
they string and put on it in the sweet summer-time.
"Well, laddies, the Mill House was found deserted one day. The
smugglers had gone as quietly as they had come. But the house kept its
bad name, and so did the hills above it; and so my story ends."
"Not quite," said Dugald. "Did the brownie never come again, or the
kelpie? Were the dead candles seen nae mair?"
"No," said Kenneth; "don't you understand? The brownie was the poor
boy, Corbie; the kelpie was a smuggler; and the dead candles the lights
seen at night near the cave in the fairy knoll. That was the place
where they carried on their sinfu' trade."
"I see things clearly enough noo," said Dugald; "and I'll no' be feared
to cross the muir. Ah, well, Grannie, you have relieved my mind."
"I'm glad o' it, laddie. Now will Grannie take down the good Book and
read a bit?"
Grannie did.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The talk now took a cheerier turn. Old Nancy, knowing how painfully
superstitious Dugald was, refrained from introducing anything more in
the shape of either brownie or spunkie. And so a pleasant hour was
spent, till the old "wag-at-the-wa'" pointed to the hour of twelve, and
warned Kenneth and his friend it was high time to commence retracing
their steps across the moor.