a hundred shades of green and tawny and rose, all with a faintly unreal,
spirit-of-opal quality, so that the distances looked no more solid than a
rainbow.
Kelpie breathed the salt wind as she climbed higher above the glen, and
stared hungrily at the distant hills. For she was beginning to feel
restless. A wee glen was not space enough, and there were too many
people, too much routine, and she must away to the hills to be alone.
Here were only the mild shaggy cattle peering mournfully from behind long
fringes of hair, and the hares and red deer, the hill larks and whaups
and gulls, and an eagle—high and alone in the free air.
Her acute senses had been lulled by the months of security at Glenfern,
and she was startled to see the bent, wiry figure of Mina rise
unexpectedly from behind a clump of juniper.
They looked at each other, and Kelpie’s expression could not possibly
have been mistaken for delight. Mina took one good look at it, swung back
her strong, scrawny arm, and aimed it at Kelpie.
It seemed that Kelpie’s reactions as well as her senses had become rusty.
She didn’t duck in time. And, since Mina had fully expected her to, the
resounding smack startled and pained them both.
Mina shook her stinging hand and glared at Kelpie as if the girl had done
it on purpose. Kelpie, her head ringing, glared back. And Black Bogle,
who had appeared as silently as his eerie namesake, shook with malicious
laughter.
“_Amadain!_” grumbled Mina sourly. “Forgotten everything you ever knew!
Fine-lady clothes and clean face, and hands that will have lost all their
cunning—such as it was. Blind and deaf and slow as a sleeping snail.
_Amadain!_”
“Sssss!” remarked Kelpie, looking and sounding like a wrathful snake. She
had forgotten how ugly and mean and dirty Mina was. Och, how she hated
her!
Mina looked pleased. She enjoyed Kelpie’s impotent hatred. And Kelpie,
knowing this, controlled her feelings and hooded her eyes and made her
sharp-jawed small mouth curl upward. She had been a fool to show her
feelings at all at all!
“Come away, then,” ordered Mina, suddenly becoming brisk. “You have kept
us waiting long enough! Why weren’t you coming as soon as you got my
message?”
“What message?” asked Kelpie blankly. Mina’s eyes blazed with fury and
humiliation. Bogle laughed aloud, and Kelpie knew that Mina had tried to
send her a message by magic—and it hadn’t worked. Och, but she must say
something quickly, or no telling what Mina might do!
“It would be yon red-haired serpent down there,” she said improvising
hastily. “He was no doubt setting up a spell to prevent your message from
reaching me. Teach me to say spells, Mina,” she wheedled, “so that I may
set one on him.”
It worked. Mina’s pride was saved, and her wrath turned from Kelpie to
Alex. “I will be cursing him myself,” she growled. “He is the same one
who would not pay me enough when you were hurt, and who would not let you
steal? Very well so! He will pay, and the others as well. We will go now
and demand your wages before you leave.”
Leave? Kelpie’s heart sank. Back to the old life of fear, hatred,
beatings? Away from Wee Mairi and Ian and the companionship and teasing?
She backed up a step and braced herself.
“What for should I want to leave?” She stuck out her jaw rebelliously,
and Mina slapped it.
“Because I am saying so!” she snarled. “And because I will put an evil
curse on you if you do not obey.”
Kelpie prudently pulled in her smarting jaw and considered this. On one
hand, Mina was not as powerful as Kelpie had thought, for she almost
certainly could not read the crystal alone, and her magic message had
failed to get through. But that was not to say she could not curse.
Kelpie still had great faith in the power of Mina’s evil spells. And
Mina’s curse would be even more disagreeable than her company. Kelpie
brooded darkly over the unpleasant alternatives before her, almost
inclined to risk the curse.
“Why would you not want to come?” demanded Mina, and her cursing changed
to wheedling. “And here I have been to the trouble of arranging for you
to learn witchcraft at last, ungrateful wretch that you are, then! What,
would you stay to be a slave to arrogant fools such as these? Stupid
sheep, spending their lives shut in a wee glen?”
“They do not, then,” muttered Kelpie mutinously. “Ian and Alex have been
to school in England in a place called Oxford, and have seen the King and
Montrose and know more than we about affairs. And they do not beat me,
nor make me steal for them and then set the crowd on me. And I do not
believe you plan to teach me witchcraft, whatever, for you are always
promising it and never do it.”
Mina’s face darkened, and she raised a scrawny, strong arm again, but
Bogle loomed over her and drew her aside to speak for a moment in a
voice like distant thunder. Kelpie watched apprehensively. When Bogle
intervened, it was never for motives of kindness and charity.
“Hah!” Mina cackled presently and turned back to Kelpie. “And what of the
wee bittie lass we were seeing you playing with so tenderly this morning?
Shall I put a curse on her, too? Aye, on all the glen I shall put the
Evil Eye, so that they will all wither up and die horrible deaths!”
Kelpie’s defiance collapsed like a deflated bagpipe. Not Wee Mairi!
She could not bear to risk harm for her bonnie bairn. But she must not
let Mina know how vulnerable she was on this point, or she would be in
slavery and Wee Mairi in danger forever more! Carefully keeping her face
impassive, she shrugged indifferently. “Och, well, just do not be putting
it on me,” she murmured, and noted that both Mina and Bogle looked
disappointed. “And will you truly be teaching me witchcraft if I come?”
she demanded, as if this were her only interest.
“Have I not said so?” Mina growled. “Was it trying to drive a hard
bargain you were, then? I should beat you for it! Come away down, now,
for we have wasted too much time already.” And she led the way down the
hill.
It was the twins who first spotted the assorted trio approaching, and
they began to shout excitedly.
“Kelpie, is yon your Grannie Witchie? Father, Ian, come and see!” they
yelled in full voice. And then, short kilts swinging, they raced up the
slope to stare at Mina and Bogle with frank, fearless curiosity.
“Are you truly a witch?” demanded Ronald, and, in spite of her gloom,
Kelpie stifled a grin at the look on Mina’s face.
The old woman drew herself up and glared at them. “Best not be asking
that!” she warned in an ominous croak that should have completely cowed
them, but didn’t.
“Why not?” asked Ronald with great interest. “What will happen if we do?
Do you not think, Donald, that she looks like a witch?”
“Ou, aye,” declared Donald judiciously. “But we have not seen her casting
any spells yet. Can you cast spells, Grannie Witchie?”
Kelpie’s amusement changed to apprehension as the infuriated Mina
spluttered speechlessly. It was probably only her speechlessness and the
timely arrival of Glenfern that saved the twins from an awful fate. Mina
gave them one last baleful glare—Kelpie fervently hoped it wasn’t the
Evil Eye—and turned to the tall chieftain. Kelpie glanced at him, and
at Ian, Eithne, and Alex, who arrived just then from down by the loch,
and then stared sullenly at the ground. She dared not look straight at
them, for if they were to read her eyes and guess how she felt, then
they would refuse to let her go, and so Mina’s curse would be upon them.
And now Kelpie found that her old misgivings were justified. She had
recklessly given her affection and left herself vulnerable, so now she
must suffer the consequences. Angrily she promised herself never to be so
weak again.
“Well, then,” said Glenfern pleasantly at last. “And are you leaving us,
Kelpie?” She jerked her head, not looking at him. “I am sorry to hear
it,” he said gently, “for I think you were happy here, and we have come
to like you well.”
“Oh, Kelpie!” Eithne protested, shrinking a little from Mina and Bogle.
“Can you not stay?”
“Och, you cannot go!” clamored the twins in outrage. “Who will be telling
us stories now?”
Kelpie scowled, chewed her lip, and wished herself a thousand miles away.
And worse was to come, for a brief glance upward showed her that all of
them, from Mina to the twins, were on the verge of guessing her true
feelings. She tossed her head and gave a hard little laugh. “Och, I’m
away,” she said airily, “for I’ve bided too long in one place.”
Glenfern was looking at her keenly. “You are welcome to stay, you know,”
he told her.
“Aye, to slave for you without pay!” whined Mina in her most put-upon
voice. If she had been slow to the attack, she made up for it now. “We
have come to have her wages.”
From under her lashes Kelpie saw the hurt on Eithne’s face, and something
like pity on Ian’s. Only Alex wore a look of acid amusement that set
Kelpie’s teeth on edge. And Glenfern was giving Mina the same stern look
he used when the twins had been naughty.
“I think you must be joking,” he said quietly. “We have treated this lass
far better than ever you have done. We have fed her properly, clothed her
in decent, clean garments, taught her, given her affection and a roof
over her head and a bed under her. What have you ever given her save harm
and neglect?”
“She is ours!” Mina squealed angrily, but she must have seen that she
would get nowhere, for she suddenly changed tactics. “Would you be
wanting Mac Cailein Mor to hear things about you?” she hinted softly.
“Things about how you are favoring King Charles, and what you think of
the Covenant, and your own son associating with the King and bringing
back messages from him, and from Montrose as well, perhaps?”
There was only one way Mina could have learned these things. Everyone
looked at Kelpie, who stuck out her chin and grinned brazenly. Ou, the
wicked, careless tongue of her, to be telling Mina that! Ian and Eithne
were looking as if she had slapped them. There was a smile on Alex’s lean
face and scorn in his eyes.
“And so you have not really changed at all,” he observed softly, and
was surprised at the bitterness of his own disappointment. After all,
what else had he expected? But his tongue went on scathingly. “Selfish,
faithless, unscrupulous you are and always will be. You could never think
of inconveniencing yourself for the good of another, could you, Kelpie?”
“Of course not,” said Kelpie defiantly, but the sweet face of Wee Mairi
was warm and mocking in her heart.
“Let be, Alex.” Ian sighed. “She cannot help it. There was not enough
time to change old habits.”
“Nor ever will be,” retorted Alex.
Kelpie hissed at him venomously. “Faithless yourself!” she spat. “Do not
be forgetting what I told you, Ian!” And she turned away to Glenfern, who
was laughing at Mina.
“By all means go to Argyll,” he said cheerfully. “Tell him whatever you
like. He knows well enough where our sympathies lie. But leave the lass
behind you when you go, for I should not like her to be burned as a witch
along with the two of you. And now, farewell. I am sorry,” he added,
turning to Kelpie, “that you could not stay with us, poor lass. Remember
that we wish you well.”
That was really almost too much. Kelpie turned abruptly and started up
the pass with Mina and Bogle, who knew when they were defeated. At least
it was over, and she must just put it away out of her memory.
But it was not quite over. Halfway up the hill a small voice wailed
after her. She turned to see Wee Mairi tugging at Eithne’s hand, one
small arm stretched out and upward. “My Kelpie!” she shrilled. “Do not go
away, my Kelpie!”
Mina’s pale eyes were upon Kelpie, narrowed, watchful, suspicious. Kelpie
set her jaw, hardened her face, and deliberately turned her back on the
broken-hearted little figure below.
* * * * *
The next few miles were blurred. Kelpie tramped mechanically behind Mina
and Bogle, unseeing, trying to wipe three months out of her life and
become the person she had been before. Och, she had been right to begin
with! A feckless, foolish thing it was to care for anyone, and only hurt
could come from it. From now on she would be hard as the granite sides of
Ben Nevis, which now loomed ahead, snow still patching its sheer northern
side. She would be what Alex thought her—and a pox on him, too. Nor would
she even care that he would strike down that braw lad Ian, for Ian had
had his warning, and it was his own fault if he was too stupid to heed it.
Scowling, she kicked at an inoffensive clump of bluebells and
deliberately stepped on a wild yellow iris. She would become a witch,
then; not a “coven witch,” either. She had seen them—silly people, who
made a great ceremony of selling their souls to the Devil and met in
groups of thirteen, called covens, and held Black Mass, and did a great
deal of wild dancing. Mina said these were little more than playing at
witchcraft and learned only a few simple spells. No, now, Kelpie would
be a witch of the old sort, who needed no bargains with Satan, but who
tapped a Power that was old before the beginnings of Christianity.
A Power it was that could be used for either black or white magic,
but Kelpie had seen little of the white, and black seemed much more
congenial, especially in her present mood.
She drifted into her old dream of what she would do one day to Mina and
Bogle. Aye, and perhaps she would just add Alex as well. They were over
the pass and heading south along the side of Loch Lochy before she came
back to herself and began to wonder about the present.
“Where is it we are going now?” she demanded, moving up to walk beside
Mina, half off the narrow path. “When will you be teaching me witchcraft?
What are you planning?”
Mina cast a thoughtful eye at Kelpie’s blue dress, now kilted up through
her belt for easier walking. “I think that would be fitting me,” she
remarked casually. “We will be telling you what you will need to know
when it is the right time for knowing it,” she added so mildly that
Kelpie looked at her with dark suspicion.
Falling behind once more, she began again to brood over her life. It
consisted of being pushed from one situation into another. It was
other folk who acted, and herself who reacted, who was acted upon.
Was she, then, such a spineless creature? Was her whole life to be
molded by others? Rebellion once more rose in her, but then subsided
as she remembered the two-pronged stick that Mina held over her—nay,
three-pronged, really. She could curse Kelpie, and she could curse Wee
Mairi and Ian and the other folk of Glenfern, and only Mina could teach
Kelpie witchcraft. And witchcraft, now, had become the only goal in her
life, the only hope of escaping the hateful mastery of Mina and Bogle.
Kelpie set her teeth, and the look on her face was neither pleasant nor
attractive.
Down to the tip of Loch Lochy and on down the river they plodded, past
the home of Glenfern’s chief, Lochiel; and at last they made camp for the
night in the old unfinished castle of Inverlochy. Roofless it was, and
built four-square, with a round tower at each corner, and Kelpie narrowed
her eyes thoughtfully as they went in. Mina and Bogle never looked for
walls about them, except sometimes in the cold of winter. What was afoot?
For the moment there was no time to wonder. Mina nodded brusquely at the
river, which flowed just outside the arched stone entrance. “Gather us
firewood,” she ordered, “and then guddle us some fish—if you have not
forgotten how.” Her pale eyes rested again on Kelpie’s dress, and Bogle
chuckled.
An hour or so later, annoyed but not in the least astonished, Kelpie
wiped her greasy fingers on the dirty rags which now covered her, and
glowered across the fire at Mina. The hag and the blue dress were more or
less the same size, but of far different shapes. The dress sagged across
the front of Mina’s hunched shoulders and strained ominously across the
back, and was at once too long and too narrow in the waist, and the cuffs
reached in vain for those long bony wrists. Kelpie had a mental picture
of bright hazel eyes dancing in wicked amusement in an angular red-topped
face. For once she could have appreciated Alex’s sense of humor, and her
own white teeth showed momentarily in a matching grin.
Mina glared at her suspiciously, and Kelpie hastily stopped grinning.
_Dhé!_ Mina was almost as bad as Alex himself at seeing what she
shouldn’t! And she mustn’t anger Mina too much—not yet! So she lowered
her slanted eyes more or less submissively and waited.
“Hah!” said Mina suddenly. “You think I am not knowing what you are
thinking?”
Kelpie devoutly hoped not. She had no desire to be turned into a toad or
something equally unpleasant. Best to walk warily—neither too innocent
nor too defiant. “I am wondering what you are about,” she retorted
sullenly. “I have learned the things you were wanting me to, but you have
not told me why, nor have you taught me any spells.”
“Hah!” said Mina again. “First we will read the crystal.”
And presently, under the ghost-light of the summer night, Kelpie sat
again with her hand in Mina’s horny claw and gazed into the blank crystal
ball. It remained still and empty. “I see myself,” invented Kelpie
impudently. “It is in a place that I have never been, and I am wearing a
blue dress—”
Mina turned on her in sudden suspicion, and Kelpie prepared to duck. But
they were distracted by a small flicker of light that came from an upper
window of one of the castle towers. For an instant, fear gripped Kelpie.
Was it an uncanny creature of some sort? Then she noticed that Bogle was
nowhere in sight, and she chewed her lip thoughtfully.
Sure enough, presently his shadowy figure emerged from the tower door. He
came back to the fire and sat down without a word. But Kelpie thought she
had seen him put something in his new leather sporran (recently stolen,
without doubt), and there passed between him and Mina a long look and the
tiniest of nods.
Kelpie pretended to notice nothing, but her mind was busy. It couldn’t
have been magic he was up to, for Bogle did no magic except for ordinary
curses. It must have been a message, then—a message left for him here,
and they had known where to look for it. And that was why they camped in
the castle instead of out in the open.
Och, there was something in the air, indeed and indeed! Kelpie went to
sleep wondering what it might be—and how she might be turning it to her
own advantage.
8. A Task for Kelpie
From Inverlochy Castle they headed southeast, around the tip of Loch
Leven and into the lands of the Stewarts of Glencoe. Now they definitely
turned southward. Kelpie frowned.
“Will we be going into Campbell country, then?” she asked, faintly
alarmed. For the last time they had ventured into Argyll’s lands there
had been an all too exciting witch hunt from which they had barely
escaped, so it must be an important matter indeed that would bring Mina
and Bogle back again into danger.
Mina just grunted disagreeably, but by the next day Kelpie’s question was
answered, for they reached Loch Etive, which was well into Campbell land.
Mina glanced around nervously, and Kelpie again wondered where they were
going, and why. Bogle stood for a moment, staring down the loch, then
turned and purposefully led the way to the precise spot where the River
Etive entered the northernmost tip. Clearly he knew exactly where he was
going. And then Kelpie saw what must be the reason for this journey. A
man sat waiting for them in a copse of alder near the river, looking
oddly out of place in the sober gray breeches of a Lowlander.
“Aweel,” he said and looked at them. Kelpie’s sharp eyes took in every
detail of the stocky long-armed figure, with sandy hair cropped to
its ears, and sandy eyebrows looking too thin for the broad face. She
did not like what she saw, and even less what she felt. For there was
no expression at all on the Lowlander’s face. His eyes were like cold
pebbles, and there was a malignance about him that made her shrink inside.
Suddenly Kelpie knew that he must be a warlock. Mina and Bogle would not
be merely working with him; they were under his orders. Probably it was
he who was behind Mina’s interest in politics, Kelpie’s long stay at
Glenfern, this hurried trip. Och, it was a powerful and evil man, this,
and she would do well to fear him.
The small opaque eyes studied her for a moment and then turned to Mina,
who looked small and shrunken before them. “Is yon the lass?” Their owner
demanded in the burred English of Glasgow.
Mina nodded, and the eyes turned back to Kelpie. “Come here!” he
commanded.
Kelpie had a passionate desire to assert her own will and refuse. But it
would be daft to try to challenge his power now—and especially with Mina
and Bogle watching her. Reluctantly, her own eyes smoldering with anger
and foreboding, she went and stood before him, and he seemed to read her
thoughts.
“So, ye’d like tae be a witch,” he said, his voice half a sneer, half a
caress. “Tae hae sich power, ye maun learn tae obey. Obey! Ye didna ken
that, eh? Weel—ailbins ye can prove yersel’ the noo, and earn the powers
ye’re wanting.” He turned to Mina again. “Hae ye told her?”
Mina shook her head humbly. “Never a word.”
“Good. She’ll hear it the noo,” returned the Lowlander. He turned back
to Kelpie, whose small face regarded him with wary intensity. His face
became genial and fatherly. “Ye’re a lucky lass,” he began, “tae hae us
a’ so concerned wi’ yer ain guid.”
Kelpie laughed aloud, and there was genuine amusement as well as derision
in her laughter. Did they think her a bairn, and daft as well?
At once the Lowlander became brisk and businesslike. Very well, then, he
conceded, perhaps it was not merely her own good they were after. But she
would profit greatly. Who, he demanded, was her worst enemy?
Kelpie prudently did not name Mina and Bogle. Instead, she remembered
Mina’s deep interest of late and made a shrewd guess at the answer he
expected. “Mac Cailein Mor?”
“Aye, Argyll,” he said approvingly and went on to point out why. The
Kirk of the Covenant was reaching farther and farther into the Highlands
now, with its persecution of honest witches, and even of stupid old folk
who were not witches at all, for that matter. And who was head of the
Covenant? Who was spearhead of the persecutions, the pricking and torture
and burnings? Argyll. If he was not stopped, there would be no safe place
in all Scotland for such as they.
Kelpie nodded and found part of her mind thinking that on this one point
only—Argyll and the Covenant—did her world and that of Glenfern agree.
Very well, then, the Lowlander continued. They must take steps to destroy
Argyll. And what better thing than a hex? A wee image of him, in clay or
wax, they would make. And then they would stick pins in it, roast it,
freeze it, pour poison over it, and, by the black powers of witchcraft,
all these things would happen to Mac Cailein Mor himself, until at last
he would die in great pain.
Again Kelpie nodded warily. And how did she enter into all this, at all?
She found out soon enough. In order to make a really effective hex
on Argyll, something from himself was needed to mold into the wax
figure—hair or fingernail clippings, preferably. And who was to obtain
them? Why, Kelpie, of course.
Now it was clear why she had been left at Glenfern to learn the ways of
gentry and how to be a servant. She would hire herself as housemaid at
Inverary Castle and, as soon as she managed to get the hair or fingernail
clippings, just come away back here with them. And as a reward she would
be taught all she wished to know about spells, potions, curses—even the
Evil Eye itself.
As easy as that!
They were making her their tool again, of course, to do what they dared
not do themselves. If she were caught, her life would not be worth a
farthing. Still—Kelpie thought quickly behind narrowed eyes and an
impassive face. It was a chance to get away from Mina and Bogle and
perhaps take a hand in managing her own life. Once away in Inverary, she
could decide whether or not to carry out the errand. Perhaps she would
prefer Mac Cailein Mor to Mina and just stay for a while. Or perhaps....
Well, she would see.