OR TRIAN-RI-TRIAN, as it is called in Gaelic.
The gauger, always anxious to show off his skill as a marksman,
began to handle his fowling-piece. Eachainn looked on with evident
uneasiness, and at last said, ‘Surely, surely, sir, you’ll not be going
to shoot _her_?’
‘And why not, my friend?’
‘What, sir! shoot a trian-ri-trian! it’s shust awful to think on.’
‘And what is the great harm of shooting such a blethering, craiking
thing as that?’
‘The harm, sir! why, she’ll be a sacred bird; I’d as soon think of
shooting a cuckoo herself, as to be doing the trian-ri-trian any hurt!
She’ll be different to any other bird, and when she’ll cry, she’ll be
lying on her back, with her feets lifted up to the sky, and the sky
would fall down if she’ll not be doing that.’
‘Well, I must have a shot at him, even if the firmament were to come
about our ears in consequence,’ and so saying, our sportsman took his
usual kneeling shot, and getting a good and near level, fired, when a
handful of flying feathers evinced the success of the shot.
The gauger ran to the spot, and Eachainn on the pony trotted after him,
but on coming up they could see no bird, or no evidence of the shot
having taken effect. Eachainn looked suddenly aghast.
‘What can the gommeril be staring at now?’ exclaimed the disappointed
gauger.
‘Och! sir,’ groaned Eachainn, in great agitation, ‘the tàsg! the tàsg!’
‘The what? you confounded idiot!’
‘I’ll tell you, sir,’ replied the Highlander, with great solemnity,
‘the tàsg, she’ll shust be a death bird, and the warning’ll never fail
to come true—’tis awful, ’tis shust awful!’
‘Weel, confound me,’ said Gillespie, who was now tired and heated, and
panting with his exercise, ‘confound me if I can make out the creature.
He’s no wanting in gumption either, but what havers are these he has
got in his noddle?’ Then addressing his companion, he said, ‘Weel,
now, I have listened to all your nonsense, and now you must tell me
in plain words what you mean by all this blether and talk about your
trian-ri-trian and your tàsg.’
To this appeal Eachainn did not reply for some minutes, but
dismounting, he hobbled up the best way he could to the very spot where
the bird had stood when shot at, and picking up the few feathers which
had been started, stood looking at them with an anxious expression,
amounting almost to horror. Then turning to the gauger, he replied, in
a voice broken with agitation—‘I thocht, sir, that everybody know that
the tàsg is a spirit bird, and she’ll always be coming to the mans when
they’ll be going to die. She’ll come different to different peoples.
Old Murdo Urquhart, the fisherman, saw her shust like a grey gull, and
that very night he took ill, and died in two or three days. And Barabal
N’ic’Ivor, she’ll be the bonniest lassie in the place, saw the tàsg
shust like a beautiful white dove, and surely poor Barabal she’ll knew
she’ll be going to die, so she made her death shift, and indeed it
was very soon she was wearing it. The tàsg’ll always be coming in the
gloamin’, she’ll fly low and slow like, and she’ll no make any noise
with her wings, but if you’ll shoot at her, you’ll shust get nothing
but a small handful of feathers.’ Here the guide paused a moment, and
looking first at the feathers he held in his hand, and then in the face
of the gauger, he continued, ‘I’ll be thinking, sir, that you’ll no be
living very long. I am shust afraid the tàsg will be coming to you like
a trian-ri-trian. Och, sir! indeed I’ll be very sorry for you, surely,
surely.’
‘Look to yourself, man. You say it is my tàsg, but I don’t see how you
make that out; why shouldn’t it be your own tàsg as well as mine?’
‘Mine, sir?’ exclaimed Eachainn. ‘No, no; I did not shoot her. If
you’ll shoot her, she’ll be your own tàsg surely, and nobody’s else,
and she’ll be shust like a duine-uasal’s tàsg, a long-legged bird, and
she’ll shust come like the Southron, at certain times, and then she’ll
shust speak a craik, craik kind of talk, and that’ll not be Gaelic;
it’ll be the Gaelic that the mavis and the blackbird will be speaking.
A lad like me will no get a gran’ tàsg like her. Oh! no, a crow, or a
duck, or a sgarbh, is more like what I’ll be getting.’
The gauger, seeing the anxiety of Eachainn to decline the honour of the
tàsg, was commencing to rally him about it, but in the earnestness of
their conversation, they had not observed the change in the appearance
of the weather which had been gradually taking place; their attention
was now, however, called to it by feeling some heavy drops of rain, and
they soon saw that a severe storm was looming. They ceased talking, and
used their breath and energies to better purpose, by hurrying forward
as fast as they could. In spite of their utmost exertions, the storm
soon overtook them, and in half-an-hour they were both drenched to the
skin. Eachainn took it very philosophically, for to the well-developed,
hardy ‘son of the mist,’ an occasional shower-bath was no hardship. He
was too well acquainted with Nature in all her changing moods to care
much when she frowned. But the poor, town-bred gauger was in a pitiable
plight, as he plodded along in a most unenviable state of body and
mind, vowing he should catch his death of cold. In about an hour and
a-half they arrived, to the intense relief of Gillespie, at the hamlet
of Dunvegan, and gladly availed themselves of the hospitality of
Somhairle Dubh, at the hostelrie, or change house of the village.