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?”