just held out my sword, and it seems the enemy was obliging enough to run
into it. ’Twas Ian was the braw fighter, and none better in Scotland. It
was he saved me more than once.”
“Only so that you could be saving me, Alex _avic_,” retorted Ian, “and
Lachlan saving the both of us,” he added. “Besides, it was I was so
scared I could only think to run away.”
“And since you were headed for Perth, already, the only thing to do was
just cut your way through the face of the enemy,” finished Archie with
bland seriousness.
Ian nodded gravely. “That was the way of it. I was too frightened to
think of turning around.”
And so they went on, with the same old bantering Kelpie had heard so
often at Glenfern, and each of them claiming to have been more frightened
than any of the rest. Kelpie listened with an odd feeling of contentment.
This brotherhood, this easy straight-faced teasing which was an unspoken
love between friends, was a warm and joyous thing to hear—for all that
it was dangerous to have it. There was wistfulness in her heart as she
walked silently among the cheerful group, and a shadow on her face.
Presently they came to a river and a small gray town on the near side. “I
doubt they’ll love us there,” predicted a tall lad in Duncan kilt, “but
perhaps their good Lowland sense of business will make them willing to
sell us a pint or two of ale—or even good _uisghebaugh_, if there is such
a thing outside of the Highlands.”
It was a popular suggestion, and the long Highland strides became even
longer, so that Kelpie—though she denied it—had to stretch her own to
keep up. As they drew near the cluster of stone houses with the somber
square kirk in the center, she frowned a little. A dour, gloomy place it
was! Not that it looked different, really, from other towns, but there
was a bad feel to it. None of the others seemed to notice, but Kelpie’s
bones were wary.
There seemed to be very few people about. Perhaps most of them had seen
the Highlanders coming and gone inside. The few folk they did meet cast
looks of hate at the kilted barbarians—which the barbarians, secure in
the safety of numbers and reputation, found rather amusing.
An innkeeper sourly sold them ale, with black looks thrown in for good
measure. “Och, wouldn’t he like to poison it, just!” said Alex in Gaelic
as Kelpie refused the ale Ian offered her. It might not actually be
poisoned, but it could have an evil spell on it, all the same. She said
so.
“If your spells haven’t worked, I doubt anyone’s could!” Alex taunted
her. “For you’ve tried hard enough, haven’t you?”
Kelpie glowered from under her thick lashes. Had he seen her, then, all
that while at Blair Atholl? Or was it just his evil way of always knowing
what she was thinking? She had begun to feel a trifle more friendly since
learning that he had saved Ian yesterday instead of cutting him down. But
once again Alex was taking the offensive.
Alex had known what she was about at Blair Atholl, and it had amused him,
in a way—once he was sure her spells were impotent. But just now, for
some reason, all her hatred for him was rankling, and he was in the mood
to goad her a bit for her irritating ways—although he was not at all sure
why she got under his skin so easily. So he deliberately treated her to
his most satirical grin. “And didn’t your hex work at all, poor lass?” he
inquired sympathetically.
Kelpie started to hiss at him, but Ian was looking at her oddly. He would
not take it kindly that she had tried to hex his foster brother, even
though it was himself she was trying to protect. And she wanted to keep
Ian’s good will.
Her lip drooped. “Always and always you will be thinking evil of me,
Alex MacDonald!” she lamented. “You will be trying to make everyone hate
me, and never giving me the chance at all to be better, no matter how I
might try.”
The other lads were listening to all this with great interest, and they
now regarded Alex with severity, and Kelpie with sympathy. But it was
Ian’s sympathy she wanted—and got.
“’Tis true enough, Alex,” he said accusingly. “You’ve ever thought the
worst of the poor lass, and her only sin is in being what she was taught
to be. How could she ever change with you condemning her in advance?”
A rare blaze of rage swept over Alex. “_Dhiaoul!_ ’Tis a fool you are,
Ian!” And suddenly he was quarreling—it was incredible—with his foster
brother, dearer than kin, and over a young rogue of a gypsy lass not
worth a hair on Ian’s head! And yet the quarrel went on and on.
Kelpie had never seen them angry at each other before, and she was
frightened. It was the town had done it! The town was filled with hate
and malice and had put a spell on them all! And she, who should be
pleased at seeing Ian turn from Alex, found that she couldn’t enjoy it.
She couldn’t even bear to listen. She slipped out of the tavern with
their angry words drifting after her.
The streets were no longer empty. A crowd was streaming out of the
four-square meeting house and along toward the town square, and it was
the sort of crowd she knew all too well. Their faces held a savage and
bloodthirsty fanaticism, and this was not a mob looking for a victim, but
one which had found one. It was someone, no doubt, who had committed the
sin of breaking the Sabbath, or dancing, or perhaps chancing to glance at
a neighbor’s cow before it fell ill. Och, it was a witch trial they had
been having! No knowing was it a real witch or not, nor would it matter;
for to be accused was to be condemned.
“Burn them!” the crowd growled as it surged past the tavern. Kelpie
should have ducked back inside, but her curiosity was too great. And
despite her vow to be hard-hearted there was a flicker in her of pity.
The victims were coming now, being roughly hustled along toward the
square. The crowd swept Kelpie along, not noticing one more gray gown
among so many others.
Kelpie squeezed through a gap between a stout man and a bony woman, and
as it closed behind her she found herself almost pushed against the
victims, her eyes staring straight into theirs—and their eyes were as
filled with hatred as those of the crowd.
Mina and Bogle!
Panic gripped her heart. Frantically she tried to back up, to melt back
into the crowd. But there was no gap now, only a wall of townsmen at her
back. And it was too late. Mina’s shrill screech cut the other sounds.
“There she is! The kelpie who led us into witchcraft! In the gray dress!
There! Look at the ringed eyes of her!”
“She’ll be putting the Evil Eye on ye all” croaked Bogle venomously.
Sick fear and revulsion were in Kelpie as her quick eyes swept
around—vainly—for an avenue of escape. They were not accusing her to save
themselves, which would have been logical, but in sheer malice. That she
might have done the same didn’t occur to her, for there was no time for
thinking. The crowd was responding with a new roar, seeking more blood,
turning to find its new victim.
Kelpie looked instinctively for a scapegoat, another gray dress to point
out—but again, too late. Hands grabbed her. She wrenched free with a
twist, only to be grasped by more hands, caught beyond hope of escape.
“Alex!” screamed Kelpie. “Ian! Help!” And she lifted her voice in the
Cameron war rant, hoping that the familiar words might reach Ian.
“_Chlanna non can, thigibh a so_—” A blow on the head cut it short, and
she thought with bitterness that it could not matter. How could they
hear her so far away, and over the crowd, and when they were themselves
quarreling in the tavern, and herself being carried farther away every
minute?
“Ye’ll not be taking a witch’s word!” she cried out. “I am of the Kirk,
and have been servant to Argyll himself!”
One or two of the nearest people hesitated doubtfully, for Argyll was a
name to conjure with. But Mina dashed Kelpie’s faint chance. “Aye!” she
shrieked. “To be getting a bit of his hair for a hex! Look at her eyes,
just!”
She was doomed, then. “Sons of the dogs!” she yelled once more, with
despair in voice and heart. And then she was being shoved along with Mina
and Bogle.
“_Chlanna non can, thigibh a so’s gheibh sibh feoil!_” It was Ian’s
voice. A wedge began to cut itself into the crowd from behind, a bright
blade gleaming, and Ian’s wild face at the back of the sword.
And then another voice, that of Alex. “_Ian!_” it roared, and another
wedge appeared behind the first. And now figures in MacDonald and Duncan
bonnets cut a swathe, more swords gleamed, voices roared happily with the
joy of battle.
But Alex was coming after Ian, and a black rage on his face, and his
voice bellowing Ian’s name. He was angry still, then, and the more so
because Ian was trying to save her! Kelpie’s feet were set against the
cobblestones of the street, her body twisted to see behind. And now the
hold on her was loosening as the witch-burners began to take alarm. But
oh, would Ian be in time? Would Alex stop him?
Ian had nearly reached her. The crowd, mostly unarmed, swirled and shoved
in disorganized fury. They turned from their victims now, and two or
three dirks were flashed. The MacDonalds were gleefully wreaking havoc
somewhere behind, but Alex had caught up with Ian now, and his face was
fearful to look on. Ian’s back was to Alex, his attention on dealing with
those dirks still separating him from Kelpie. Kelpie could not see his
hands, for the shoulders and heads in the way, but his face was grim,
intent. “Hold on, Kelpie!” he shouted.
“_Ian!_” roared Alex again, and his sword rose—rose and then fell with a
furious slash. And Ian was down, and his dark head had vanished in the
crowd.
It was just as she had seen it in the loch! For an instant Kelpie felt
nothing at all but a terrible cold emptiness, and then grief was in her
very bones, and a small cry of anguish on her lips. She made a move
toward the swarming, fighting spot where Ian had vanished. There was one
brief glimpse of Alex, raging like one gone mad, and then the MacDonalds
were there, making a havoc that sent townspeople screaming for safety.
And somewhere, being trampled beneath, was the body of Ian, and perhaps
she could reach him and help....
And then she hesitated. Alex would be wanting to kill her too! And now
was her chance to be away and safe from him. And after all, what good
could she be to Ian? For either he was dead and past help, or, if not,
there were the MacDonalds to care for him, and Maeve back at Perth.
Kelpie hesitated a moment longer, then she reverted to old habits and
saved herself. She slipped like a hunted wildcat through the crowd, which
now had other things on its mind than stopping her. She was out of it,
around a corner, through the narrow streets in a swift streak of gray.
The clamor grew muffled and scattered. She tore across the stone bridge
and the moor and along a glen and over a hill. She ran until she could
no longer breathe, and then crawled into a thick patch of broom and lay
gasping and sobbing.
She must not think! She could not bear to think. Alex had really done it,
then! The thing inside her had never really believed he would, and that
was the thing now keening in black anguish that he could have done it.
And Ian! Was he dead, then? Dead trying to save herself, who had then
fled without a backward look?
But it was only sense to have saved herself! It was what Ian had been
trying to do, to save _her_, and wouldn’t he have wished it? Why should
it be the weight of a stone on her? Ian would have wished it, she told
herself. And then she rolled over on her face and was violently sick.
* * * * *
How long had she been walking? And to where? It was just away from the
town she had been going, and she was now far away, for she had spent more
than one night in the heather. And yet she could not get away from the
beating blackness in her mind.
Kelpie sank down in the drenched heather and discovered with vague
surprise that rain was pouring steadily from a dreary sky. She looked
wearily around and saw nothing but hills and heath closed in mist. She
was wet as a water horse, and when had she last eaten?
What was she to do now? And where was she going? She didn’t care much.
It would be nice just to lie down and not be waking at all at all. But
some inner vitality would never let her do that. She sighed. She must be
finding food, then, and learning where she was. For all she knew, she
might be back in Campbell country—and that thought roused her just a
little.
She dragged herself to her feet and tramped on again. The glen ended in a
long loch, so large that both ends were out of sight around the curves of
the hills. Kelpie sat down again and thought, slowly, because she could
not seem to think very well. There were not so many lochs of this size.
She did not think she could have got so far as Loch Rannoch, and this
seemed too long for Loch Earn and not wide enough for Loch Lomond. It
must be that it was Loch Tay, and if this were so, then she might well be
in Campbell country.
If only the sun would come out! If only there were some place that she
could go and rest and hide away from the world and her thoughts....
And then she remembered the braes of Balquidder and two kind and lonely
old folk who had said, “Haste ye back.”
At this point Kelpie’s instinct and gypsy training took over. Without
stopping to wonder was she right or no, she turned to the left and
trudged along the southern bank of the loch. She found berries and roots
to eat. She lay down in the wet heather and slept, her plaidie around
her, when she could go no farther. And then she awoke and went on. To the
end of the loch she went, and down a glen, and around a mountain.
And late on a drizzly afternoon old Alsoon MacNab heard a faint scratch
at her door and opened it to find her own plaidie back—wrapped round a
morsel of wretched humanity that for once was not shamming in the least.
16. Morag Mhor
It was pleasant to be cared for, pleasant and strange. Kelpie lay for
several days on the pile of springy heather which served for her bed.
At first she just slept and awoke to eat and sleep again. But then she
began lying awake, her eyes on the smoky fire, or on the mortarless stone
walls that leaned a little inward against the black rafters and thatched
roof. Alsoon was always busy, cooking or sweeping the earthen floor with
a besom broom or weaving or knitting, one eye always on her patient.
And why should they take her in and care for her so, when they had
nothing to gain by it? Glenfern had done the same thing—no, best not
to think of Glenfern, for that was too painful. She must learn to wall
off those memories from her feelings, so that they would become like a
witch-spot on the body, a spot that could feel no pain even though a pin
was stuck in to the head. Kelpie had no witch-spots, though Mina did. But
then, Kelpie was not a witch, and what was more, she never would be,
however hard she might try!
The knowledge crept upon her stealthily, while she was still too weak and
drained to resist it. She had no power at all. None of her spells had
ever worked. And Mina had lied about teaching her the Evil Eye. It came
to her with bitter clarity that the Evil Eye was a thing one must be born
with; it could never be learned. All Kelpie had was the Second Sight, and
many Highlanders had that.
She received the knowledge with a strange kind of indifference. Later,
when she wasn’t so tired, she would no doubt feel a savage sense of loss.
But she could not think about it now—not yet.
Alsoon was bringing her some broth now and crooning to her wee dark love
to drink it and sleep. Callum must have tramped far over the hills to
find a deer to make it, and they knew very well that she could never
pay for it at all, and they would be hurt even if she offered payment.
Highland hospitality was a warm, strong thing with rules to it. It made a
grace between host and guest and a bond not to harm each other. This was
why Alex had been so angry at the way she left Glenfern, and Eithne so
hurt, and—and Ian—
She wrenched her mind from the thought of Ian, drank her broth, and
drifted back to sleep.
When she was on her feet again, Kelpie was strangely content just to
stay where she was. It seemed to her that her life had been violently
wrenched apart, and she hardly knew how to begin putting it back together
again. She needed time to think. Kelpie had always found the world full
and interesting, however cruel. She played a game. She avoided the
cruelty when she could, and bore it if she must, and fought back when
she had the chance. She adapted herself to each new situation that came
along, and had quite enjoyed—on the whole—the glimpses of various new
worlds that the last few months had offered.
But now she seemed to be cast out of every world she knew, for she could
never go back to Glenfern, or to Mina and Bogle (even if she would), or
to Campbell country. Worse, she did not even know what she wanted, now
that the power of witchcraft was denied her. The old gypsy life no longer
seemed attractive. New ideas had been planted in her mind, and she had
found herself groping restlessly for something she could not name.
To keep her mind and hands busy, she began to help Alsoon and Callum with
the various chores, and took an unexpected pleasure in them. For once,
walls seemed not a trap but a warm, safe shelter from the early frost and
biting wind outside, and from the world in general.
And so the autumn passed, and it was the dark of the year, with only a
few brief hours of daylight and long gray dusks. In that remote glen they
heard little of the outside world. It wasn’t until she had been there for
two months that a neighbor from over the hill came that way in search
of stray cattle and stopped in to pass on the news that his brother had
heard from someone’s cousin who had been away in to a town.
Montrose had taken his army north to Aberdeen, and this time he had let
his men sack the city. “It was because they had shot a wee drummer boy,”
explained the neighbor. “The lad was just along with the envoy, asking
them would they like to send their women and bairns to safety. And Graham
was so angry at it that he took the town and turned his army loose on it,
but they say he was sorry after.”
And then, it seemed, the old game of tag had started again, with Argyll
panting after Montrose all the way from Bog o’ Gight to Badenoch, Tumnel
to Strathbogie, devastating lands as he went, and slaughtering people if
he even suspected them of royalist sympathies.
When Kelpie awoke the next morning, she saw the white light of the first
snow coming through the cracks in the shutters, and her first, unbidden
thought was: did Ian lie somewhere beneath that blanket? Had Alex been
punished for killing him? Where was Montrose now, and what was happening
in Scotland? It was the beginning of a new restlessness and a growing
desire to learn whether Ian was dead, and perhaps even to take vengeance
herself on Alex, if no one else had done it already. Even without magic
powers, she reflected with narrowed eyes, she could still use her wee
_sgian dhu_!
The dark, smoky shieling became too cramped for such thoughts, and, in
spite of the cold, Kelpie took to making long walks over the braes and
around the foot of Ben More. Alsoon looked at her wisely. If she guessed
that confusing thoughts were disturbing the young waif, she said nothing
but merely finished whatever task Kelpie might have left undone when the
restlessness was upon her.
“Och, and you’ll be away again one day,” predicted old Callum mildly one
crisp afternoon when Kelpie paused at the sheep pen where he was working.
“’Tis the wanderlust you have in your feet—but are you not also wanting
somewhere to call home?”
Kelpie had never thought of the matter. She did so now. What _was_ a
home? For Ian it had been Glenfern, where his heart stayed wherever the
rest of him might be. But for Kelpie, Glenfern was not just a place;
it was a feeling and it was people. It was Wee Mairi’s bonnie face and
confiding smile; and the twins crowding close, bright-eyed, to demand
more stories; and Eithne’s quick sympathy; and laughter beside the loch.
It was teasing and love and trust among them all, and her own heart given
recklessly against her better judgement.
No, home was not a place but a feeling—a deceitful feeling, she
remembered bitterly. She had endangered Wee Mairi by her very affection,
and Ian had trusted too much.... And Kelpie thought again that if
Glenfern had not settled the score with Alex, she herself might do it
one day. She thought of Mina and Bogle too, and hoped fiercely that they
had not escaped.
There was more heavy snow the next week, and now this was nearly the
longest time she had ever spent in one place—except for Glenfern,
and Glenfern had been much more lively. She longed more and more for
excitement, for adventure, aye, even for danger, for these were the spice
of life. And so she stiffened with anticipation on the morning that wee
Angus MacNab came racing over the hill toward the shieling hut. Important
news was in his every movement.
“Och, Callum, and have you seen it?” he demanded in a shrill shout.
“Montrose himself it is, and his army, just yon over the braes on the
edge of Campbell land. It is said they will be going to harry Mac Cailein
Mor in his own castle!”
Kelpie had been standing over near the sheep pen, very still, watching
the small lad come. A too large kilt flapped about his knobbly knees,
and himself and his long shadow and his twisting track were all dark
against the white of the snow. To her left was the black of the shieling
hut, smoke rising vaguely against the pearl-blue of the sky, and Callum
standing by the door. Everything seemed to stop in time for just an
instant, while something inside Kelpie awoke, stretched, looked around,
and made a decision.
She didn’t ask herself any questions then, but turned in her tracks and
walked back to the hut, where Callum and Alsoon were greeting the lad and
asking for more details.
“And where are they?” she demanded.
Angus waved a skinny arm toward the north. “Yon, near Loch Tay. The clan
is called out and will be joining there. I wish I could be going!”
Sudden reasonless elation filled Kelpie. She wrapped her plaidie more
firmly about her shoulders and looked at Callum and Alsoon. “I’m away,”
she announced.
“Och, no, heart’s darling!” protested Alsoon. “Not into Campbell lands,
and in midwinter! Bide with us a wee while longer, until spring.”
“I’m away,” repeated Kelpie, a little sharply, as she realized that once
again she was in danger of giving her heart. “And what harm from cold or
Campbells when the army and all the women and bairns are along? I cannot
bide longer, for my feet have the urge in them.” And she tossed her dark
head like a young Highland pony, so that the thick braids—well tended
by Alsoon—leaped over her shoulders and beat against her waist, as if
impatient.
Alsoon sighed. “Well, then, and you must go if you must. But come away in
first, my light, and I’ll be giving you food to take along. Dried venison
there is, and fresh bannocks, and oatcakes. And here are the new skin
brogans that Callum has finished for you.”
“Haste ye back, white love,” she added at last as Kelpie took the food
and put on the shoes and stood looking at her.
“Aye,” said Kelpie, and her heart was torn. The MacNabs gave and asked
no return but to be able to give more. “You’ve been kind, and I not
deserving it,” she murmured, and then clenched her fists and walked
quickly out of the low doorway, lest she be caught up in folly again.
Halfway up the hill she paused, stared back at the long, low shieling
hut, and then waved at the two old people standing there. Tears stung her
eyelids for a moment, and impulsively she crooked her forefinger, calling
down a blessing upon them.
Five minutes later she had shaken off her sadness. She lifted her head
and breathed the air of new adventure. The hills had been calling this
long while, calling through the spell of black depression that was on
her. But the spell was broken now, and she was answering the call.
At the top of the hill she was seized by fresh exuberance. Curving her
arms upward like a stag’s antlers, she broke into the light, wild leaps
of a dance that the Highland men did around the campfire or at friendly
gatherings, and then laughed aloud at her own impertinence—she, a lass,
to be doing a man’s dance, and doing it well too. The dance took on a
distinctly mocking and impudent quality.