THE WHISTLE OF THE BANSHEE
In the greyness of the dawn Muckle John called a halt.
"Rob," he said, "here is the day and only a mile covered since last
night. Ye ken what that means? Within a few hours reinforcements
will arrive from Fort Augustus, they will find the body of
Strange--what must follow then?"
Rob shook his head. Escape seemed impossible.
"And yet," said Muckle John, "there must be a way--there's always a
way, Rob, if you give your mind to it. There is no prison that
cannot be broken, no wall that cannot be scaled--with luck and a cool
head. I know, Rob, for have I not done it time and again? But I've
always had a sound pair of legs. Let us look at the situation, Rob.
Within an hour or two this country-side will be hotching with
red-coats. They think the Prince is hereabouts. Now I cannot cover
half a mile in that time, and there is no cover worth thinking about.
Nor is the ground marshy or I could lie hid to my nose until it was
night. But there is a way, Rob...."
He paused and fingered his ankle very tenderly, muffling a strip of
his shirt tightly round it.
"Over the knoll there, Rob, is a ruined castle, little enough of it
left now to be sure, but there are four walls, a huddle of stones
upon the roof, and a burial-place."
"A burial place?"
"Aye, but there's no harm in that. There was a chief of the Macraes
buried there, he was a very queer man it is said, but it's long since
I looked at his stone. No one ever goes near it after dark, Rob, and
mind ye I'm no just hankering after it mysel'."
"But surely they will search the place?"
"Rob," said Muckle John cannily, "there's searching and searching.
There's a deal in hiding where folk do not look for ye."
Again they started laboriously on, Muckle John leaning upon Rob's
shoulder and supporting himself with a rough crutch hewn from a tree
upon the hill-side. Just over the knoll they saw the grey stones of
the old stronghold Muckle John had spoken of, a poor enough refuge to
all appearances, and certainly one not likely to be overlooked by the
soldiers.
Inside the walls the grass was long and rank and in the midst of the
grass stood a slab of granite upon four other slabs, making a square
memorial very moss-covered and decayed, marking the burial-place of
the Macrae.
Opposite it in the wall was a great open chimney-stack. To this
Muckle John limped, and staring upwards beckoned to Rob.
"See here," he said, "there is about three feet up a place in the
wall large enough for a small man to lie hid. You cannot see it for
a very good reason, but it's a bonny spot to hide. Come, Rob, upon
my shoulders--there's not a moment to lose."
"But what of you?" asked Rob.
"Up," said Muckle John, "I see them on the brow of the hill."
"No," said Rob, "I will not go until..."
But he had time for no more for Muckle John had him by the throat and
was squeezing the very life out of him.
"Dinna clash words with me--you Fraser loon," he snarled, "up ye go
or I'll break your neck."
After that Rob was only too ready to get out of reach of those
terrible arms.
In the chimney-stack, just as Muckle John had said, there was a place
very cunningly hollowed so as to be invisible from below, where a man
looking upward saw only a square patch of sky and the broken masonry
that fringed the top.
Crouching doubled up with his head upon his knees, he listened for a
word from Muckle John. But none came. All he heard was a curious
shuffling and a noise like the shutting of a door.
Suddenly, it seemed about a mile distant, a bugle sounded, and very
faintly there drifted to him the echo of a shout.
Through the empty place below he heard the wind crying, and the
singing of it in the long grass, but of Muckle John not a word.
Out on the moor he could hear the stream drumming cheerily over the
stones. It was a bright spring morning full of the singing of birds,
very difficult to associate with sudden death and a quick burying
under the heather. Those who had met the English on their jaunts
into the hills had small reason to hope for mercy and none for the
dignity of a trial. It was better to leave home by the back door and
dodge the bullets. In those far-off days an English soldier at fifty
yards was comparatively harmless.
Rob craned his ears for any sound of their advance. But there was
not the smallest hint of impending danger. For all he knew they
might be scouring the country-side Loch Ness way. They might by this
time be a couple of miles away. Already he was becoming exceedingly
stiff. He struggled with a growing temptation to move one leg just
an inch. Very cautiously he did so. He succeeded in making a
noise--not a loud noise, indeed, but in that hollow place quite loud
enough to make him turn cold with fear. But nothing happened, there
was no whisper of spying red-coats creeping stealthily amongst the
ruins, listening for all he could tell within three feet of his
hiding-place.
Suddenly he heard a rustle in the grass below him, and a creak like
the noise of a boot. He was instantly transfixed with terror. It is
well enough to meet death in the open, though by no means a pleasant
business there, but to sit cooped up in a chimney unable to see what
is happening above or below is more than human nerves can tolerate.
He had a tantalizing desire to peep over the edge, to catch one
heartening glimpse of the green grass below, to assure himself that a
red-faced English soldier was not peering up or fixing his bayonet to
poke it about inside.
But he knew in his heart that did he look down he would most surely
see what he most dreaded, and so he lay still with every bone in his
body aching and one leg tingling with numbness as though a score of
needles were pricking it from every side.
And still nothing happened, and there was only the crying of wind
about the crumbling walls, and the ceaseless drumming of stream water
on the moor.
He fell into a kind of doze at last when the blood seemed to stop
circulating in his body, and once he knocked his head most painfully
against the sharp edges of the crevice, having nodded with fatigue.
His eyes would not stay open, and a terrible struggle against sleep
began. He had already suffered a rude awakening by the soldiery
outside Captain Campbell's tent, and he was not desirous of
undergoing another. He began to hear noises that he knew in his
heart did not exist, or if they did were caused by the creatures of
the wild or birds settling for a moment up above his head. He took
to staring at the opposite of the chimney where very dimly he could
see the pebbles stuck in the mortaring and the rude chipped stones.
These he counted for a time in order to rid his mind of the bayonet.
But always he saw its gleaming steel-cold point just before his face.
He could see it now. Surely it was a bayonet? Rob shut his eyes
very tightly, then opened them again. It was still there. More than
that it moved--it scraped against the stone just an inch from his
foot. He saw a small piece chipped neatly off. He actually heard it
rattle down upon the empty floor below.
With a blinding shock he realized that it was a bayonet--that they
were come--that in secrecy and silent as ghosts the place was full of
soldiers, had been perhaps for hours. Sleep was instantly banished
and fear set him once more alert. His only hope lay in utter
silence. Again the bayonet hovered like a snake within a few inches
of his knees. He knew the man was staring upwards, vaguely
suspicious, despite the apparent smooth emptiness of the chimney. He
was not satisfied. The bayonet worked its way round the place again.
Another piece chipped off, this time a larger piece. Why, Rob
wondered, with the sweat upon his brow, did the man not try the other
side? It was just as likely there. Did he really know? Was this a
little sport to while away the time? It was almost more than he
could bear.
Very carefully the bayonet worked its blind course round again, and
this time it carried about an eighth of an inch off his brogue. Next
time it would be his bare flesh. Suddenly the bayonet vanished. The
man apparently tired of it, or satisfied that there was no hidden
place in the chimney, drew his musket down and all was quiet again.
Rob was half-minded to ease his aching limbs when a peculiar sweet
smell came drifting past him. There was some one smoking in the
place below, and what was more very close to the chimney to send the
fragrance up the shaft of it. Rob considered the matter very
carefully. It seemed possible that the soldier was alone, and quite
unconscious of his presence. A man did not smoke in silence unless
he was solitary, and smoking was an idle recreation not associated
with premeditated murder. Perhaps the fellow was lost or tired.
Perhaps (most comforting thought of all) he would fall asleep. He
wondered just how he was sitting, and whether he was leaning against
the hearthstone with his eyes half-closed and the top of his head not
so far below him.
With the utmost caution Rob leaned forward and peeped over.
It was just as he had pictured it. In the open fire-place a soldier
was huddled at his ease, his hat upon the ground, his back against
the slab of blackened stone, the pipe stuck at an angle in his mouth
and his lank hair dishevelled and on end. He was dozing. Even as
Rob watched him the pipe in his mouth slid upon his coat, where it
lay on its side with a thin curl of smoke twining from the bowl.
Rob considered the situation. He was convinced that the man was
alone, but there was the likelihood that he had been dispatched there
to await the search-party. The state of that district was hardly one
to encourage solitary English soldiers to sleep at their good
pleasure. The ghastly pine-tree within a mile or two of this very
spot was a grim enough reminder of that.
Rob was strongly inclined to fall upon him while he slept, and trust
to knocking him senseless or dirking him as he struggled in the
narrow fire-place. Those were not gentle times. Dirking seemed a
very natural action to Rob. He looked on the soldier below him as a
sworn foe beyond the claims of pity--an invader and murderer of his
people. Under no possible circumstances could Rob have regarded an
Englishman with sympathy or admiration since for centuries he had
been looked upon as a natural enemy, and now a very bitter one indeed.
But if he failed to kill the man, then the game was up, and even if
he did succeed in his design they were not much better off, Muckle
John could not reach a place of safety, and another slaughtered
Englishman would only point to their near presence in the
neighbourhood and redouble the soldiers' previous energies.
And then as though to settle the matter once and for all, a bugle
sounded near at hand, the soldier awoke and scrambled to his feet,
there was a noise of marching on the moor outside and the splashing
of a horse passing through the burn. Rob heard an order given and
the grounding of arms. He listened to the roll-call being read and
the words of dismissal.
The short afternoon was closing in, and to his horror he realized
that they were camping for the night.
Into the open room below he heard several men enter, and their
conversation reached him in his hiding-place. There was little
comfort in what they said. As far as he could judge the officer in
charge was questioning the soldier who had fallen asleep under the
chimney.
"Seen no one I suppose?" He spoke with a Highland accent.
"No, sir, and I've searched the place high and low."
"Been up the chimney?"
"Yes, sir."
"Looked under that gravestone there?"
"No, sir, it's not possible to move that."
"Call two of the men, we'll soon see to that."
There was a moment's silence and then a sound of heaving.
"Can't budge it, sir."
"Here let me have a hand."
A sudden fear came to Rob that perhaps Muckle John had taken refuge
there--but no, what four men could not move it was unlikely he could
lift with his injured ankle.
"Sergeant," said the officer, "march back to the cave where the
engagement took place yesterday with twelve men, leave the other four
with me, we'll spend the night here."
"Here, sir--with that stone?"
"It takes more than a dead Jacobite to frighten me," replied the
officer, and a few minutes later Rob heard the tramp of feet die away
again.
It was darkening fast and he wondered what Muckle John was doing and
where he was, whether if he was lying hid in the heather he would
make a sign, or whether he must spend the whole frightful night
cooped up like a fowl in a pen.
He must have dozed a little when a curious noise made him start and
listen with strained ears. It was a familiar enough sound--just the
sharp crackling of firewood, but there was a horrible significance in
it now, for a whiff of smoke curling up into his face set his eyes
watering.
They had lit a fire in the hearth below. The thin wisp of smoke grew
into a column swirling unsteadily upwards. It became a solid volume
choking and hot. With a sob of pain and despair Rob covered his face
with his bonnet. For a few minutes that relieved his eyes and nose,
but the danger of being suffocated was only subordinate to being
roasted alive. It was a great roaring fire they were laying. He
heard the loose sticks and dried heather falling in bundles on the
blaze.
His ears sang with the suffocation of it, his brain swirled and his
breath came in short gasps as a fish gasps upon a bank. And then
with a pitiful cry he fell forward, down upon the fire itself and
with a swirl of smoke and sparks, into the midst of the soldiers.
The officer thinking that the blackened, tattered figure might be the
Prince himself hastened to stamp out the tongues of flame upon his
clothes, and dragging him to his feet stared into his face.
"Tuts," he said in a tone of deep disappointment. "It's only a boy."
"It's the lad who escaped," cried a soldier peering at him; "the Duke
offers fifty pounds for his arrest."
"What lad?" asked the officer, eyeing Rob with some interest.
"Rob Fraser, he knows...," but the officer broke in, "Never mind what
he knows," he said testily, "bind him and set him against the wall."
Long after when Rob was come to himself and his eyes more accustomed
to the light from the great fire he watched the officer at his
supper. He was a small red-haired man with cold blue eyes and white
eyebrows, for all the world like a badger, and with Campbell written
all over him. It was an evil day when a Campbell could strut over
the country-side at his ease.
Having finished his food and offering none to Rob, who nearly begged
him for a mouthful so famished was he, the officer lit his pipe and
called in his men, telling them they could sleep along the walls of
the place.
Greatly affable through meat and drink he also fell into
conversation, and being like most little men very anxious to show
what a terrible fellow he was, with the spirit of a giant, he related
the tale of the banshee of Loch Fyne, and told it so capably that the
soldiers drew a little together and sent the bottle round in some
uneasiness.
"It came from a lonely island," he said, "and none saw it pass over
the grey face of the loch--but there was a mournful cry that seemed
to be far up in the clouds and a cold wind passing like a wraith
along the barren shore. Oh it was the rare one the banshee of Loch
Fyne, and some said it lived in the lonely island where the dead lay,
for it always passed that way, and it never travelled alone."
"I don't like these Highland tales," said one Englishman with a
shiver, "least of all hereabouts. There was a ghost I've heard tell
in Holmbury Hall..."
"Whisht to your ghosts," broke in a large Lowland Scot, whose eyes
were great with the story of the banshee. "Captain here has seen the
banshee, have ye no, sir?"
Now the officer had never before claimed that privilege. It is
improbable that he had ever been to the shores of Loch Fyne, being a
Glen Etive man, and it is also open to question whether the dreaded
banshee was not a traveller's tale. However that may be he was not
prepared to disappoint his hearers at so propitious a time.
"Once--once," he replied, being a man as truthful as a lie would
permit, "only once and that at midnight--a clear moon in the sky and
no wind to speak of. I was a youngster at the time, barely twenty,
and as reckless as could be. It was always said that the banshee
rose from the ancient burial-place at twelve o'clock, and floating
across the loch set out on her evil errand. There are those who
heard poor Angus Campbell wailing all through a winter's night and
his voice up in the clouds, 'Tha e lamhan fuar: Tha e lamhan fuar!
It has a cold, cold hand!'"
"My goodness," gasped the Lowlander, dragging himself nearer to the
fire.
On every face about the dying blaze superstitious fear was written.
Even Rob, weak with want of food and full of misery, heard his teeth
chatter at the picture the little man drew--for he was an artist in
gruesome effects.
"Over I rowed," he continued, "and the whole clachan watched me go.
I rowed out over the silvery loch under a rising moon, and there was
no whisper of what was to come, not even the soft music that the
banshee..."
"What was that?" gasped one of the soldiers in a trembling voice.
They all turned about and listened.
"I thought I heard a tune far away," he whispered, shaking with
fright.
"Tuts," said the officer, but none too happily, "it was nothing. But
the tune that the banshee plays is a queer twisted tune, and once ye
hear it there's no getting away--what was that? I'll swear I heard
something."
This from the little officer himself set all aquiver with agitation.
Some one tried to throw some more wood on the fire and found there
was none, while the two nearest to the open space in the wall drew so
close to their comrades that they were hunched up together like
cattle in a drove.
Rob crouched under the shadow of the wall overcome with a kindred
fear. Forgotten was Muckle John--forgotten was his impending
fate--there only remained the dreaded banshee and the far away
haunting echo of a tune, and the strangeness of the place they were
in.
"Come, come," said the officer with some attempt at soothing them,
"it's queer the way the courage goes in these forlorn places. As I
was saying I lay watching the great tombstone that the moonlight
rested upon, when I heard a bit ripple of music that fairly made the
flesh creep on my bones and my hair stand up quite crisp and
prickling. And will ye believe me the stone of the tomb began to
rise..."
"Listen!" screamed Rob.
His shrill warning acted on them like an electric shock. They
scrambled to their feet in a perfect paroxysm of terror. And then
far away like a ghostly measure sounded a lilting, ghastly melody.
Ghastly it sounded in that dim place with only the sullen red light
upon the broken, haunted walls--ghastly just because it was a
trifling mocking catch of tune played in a grim and heartless manner.
But more was to come.
"Let us get out of here," groaned one of the Englishmen in a hoarse
voice, but he spoke too late.
For before their starting eyes the top of the massive tomb began to
lift--lift--lift, and the tune to grow clearer coming ever nearer
like a man marching slowly into their midst.
Then there was such a scene as that lonely moor had never seen before
and will never see again. For with one united howl of terror they
rushed together for the door. And first of them all was the little
officer. Into the silent night they tore, tripping, falling, never
daring to look back, but set on reaching Fort Augustus in the
swiftest possible manner.
Only once did the little officer pause, having fallen head-first into
a bog, and as he scrambled out he heard (or says he heard) the thing
at his very heels floating ten feet from the ground and playing as it
came.
Rob, unable to fly, was forced to a bravery he did not relish. And
so with tightly closed eyes and his head buried under a tuft of grass
he prepared for the end. Look at that dreadful sight again he would
not. He heard the mad tumult of the flying soldiers--he caught a
loud bang like a heavy door clanging to--he listened with trembling
limbs to the ghostly melody dying upon the moor.
And then back again he caught the sound of footsteps, and he knew
that the banshee was come to eat him at its leisure.
It was groping across the floor towards him. Now it was touching
him. Its hands were as cold as the little officer had said.
"Rob!" said Muckle John, shaking him.
He uttered a muffled cry partly because of his mouth being so stuffed
with grass, partly through the shock of it all, but mostly because it
was all so unexpected.
Muckle John said nothing but cut him free, and taking the strips of
rope threw them on the fire.
"Should they ever come back, which will only be by day if at all," he
said, "they will know that it ate ye up every scrap. But I'm
doubting if they will. Let us make up the fire, Rob, and take our
sleep, for there'll be few meddling us awhile."
"But how could you do it, Muckle John?"
He put some sticks upon the embers and began to eat the remnants of
the soldiers' supper.
"Did I no say there is always a way, Rob, div ye but find it. There
are few places hereabouts that I do not know, Rob, and maybe that's
in my favour. But if I was to say that the tombstone is no tombstone
at all, and that Macrea is merely a manner of speech, I'll allow I
might seem to have deceived ye. But just as the fox, bless him,
knows his hiding-place before he sets ahunting, so I, Rob, have made
wee preparations long syne. They may come in useful some day, and
when I lay hid in that same stone in the year '41 for a private
matter, I was glad enough to have taken the precaution."
"What was that for?" asked Rob, his head nodding with sleep.
But Muckle John only handed him a bannock and a cup of water from the
burn.
"That would be telling," he said, and wrapping himself up in his
plaid he sat blinking at the fire.