is the only one I can at present remember. Somhairle Dubh related it
thus:—
When I was a little boy, I would sit for hours by the kitchen fire,
listening to my grandfather, who used to while away the long winter
evenings by telling us stories about witches and warlocks, ghosts and
fairies, of which he had an inexhaustible stock. A very favourite one
with me was the tale of the each uisg, or the water horse, a fearful
demon in the likeness of a big, black horse, who inhabited Loch-Dorch,
and woe to any one who ventured near the loch after nightfall; for the
each uisg was always on the watch, and would rise out of the water,
seize any intruders, and drag them to the bottom, to be devoured by him
at his leisure. Sometimes he would assume other shapes, and try to lure
people away to the water. One Hallowe’en night there was a party of
young people gathered round the fire in the house of Duncan the weaver,
burning nuts and ducking for apples, when Duncan’s daughter, bonnie
Catriana, proposed to go and dip her sleeve in the burn, to try if her
sweetheart was true. None of her companions would go, for fear of the
each uisg, and tried in vain to dissuade Catriana from her venturesome
purpose, but laughing at their fears, she threw her plaid over her
head, and ran off to the burn.
In a little they were startled by hearing a loud wailing shriek, and
fearing some accident had happened to their favourite Catriana, rushed
out of the house to look after her, but no trace could they find of the
poor, wilful lassie. Her father and the lads were searching the whole
night, and at the dawn of day they found her plaid at the side of the
dreaded Loch-Dorch, and near it, in the clay, the mark of an unearthly
hoof, which proved, beyond doubt, that she had fallen a victim to the
monster water-horse.
Then there was young Allan Mac Sheumais, who, coming home in the dusk,
after spending the day hunting the deer, heard a tramping sound which
he soon found to proceed from the water-horse, which he could see
rapidly galloping up to him. Poor Allan, though in a dreadful fright,
did not lose his presence of mind, and knowing full well that ordinary
shot would have no effect upon the demon, he rapidly loaded his gun
with a small, crooked silver sixpence—the blessed metal from a cup of
which the Saviour drank his last draught on earth—and exclaiming, “The
cross be betwixt me and thee,” fired with a steady aim, while the cold
sweat stood on his brow.
The each uisg gave one yelling neigh, so shrill, so dismal, and
unearthly, that the cattle which had lain down to rest on the heath
started up in terror; the dogs of the hamlet heard it, and, ceasing
their gambols, ran cowering and trembling to the fireside; the roosted
cock heard it, and essayed to crow, but could only scream. Never will
those who heard that terrific cry forget it; but it had scarcely ceased
ere the demon steed had sprung into the midst of Loch-Dorch, and as the
water closed over him, a sound, as of a sarcastic, unearthly laugh, was
heard from the middle of the loch, and then all was silent.
Yet notwithstanding all this, Lachlan Buachaille, the cow-herd, who was
a wild, reckless fellow, would never believe the stories he heard about
this dreadful being, and laughingly suggested that Allan had only been
frightened by Rorie Mor’s gearran broken loose from his tether; and
bragged that _he_ had never seen the each uisg, although he had lived
for some years near the Raven’s Peak, close to the haunted loch.
‘And would ye wish to see him?’ asked old Janet, as he sat by her
fireside one evening; ‘would ye really wish to see that fearsome thing,
Lachlan?’
‘May I never taste oatcake or whisky again!’ said Lachlan impetuously,
‘but I wish to see the beast, if there’s one in it, and the sooner the
better.’
It was a gusty, rainy autumn night. Lachlan sat alone in his bothie,
busily employed in twisting his oat straw siaman, humming to himself,
and listening to the sound of the torrent as it dashed over the rocks,
the pattering of the heavy rain, and the sheughs of the north-west
wind, moaning as it passed along, all of which only served to increase
his sense of comfort as he drew his three-legged stool nearer to the
bright peat fire.
He was just thinking of retiring for the night, when he heard a gentle
knocking at the door, ‘Who is there at this time of night?’ asked he,
to which a feeble voice replied, ‘I am a poor old woman who lost my
way this wild night; pray let me in, or I shall perish with cold and
fatigue.’ Lachlan muttered anything but blessings on the old body’s
head for thus disturbing him, for he had a particular objection to old
women. ‘Bad luck to her; were it a young one, or even an old man, I
should not care,’ he grumbled; ‘but an old hag to come sorning on me,
as I was about to step into my quiet bed.’ Then raising his voice, he
said, ‘Wait, wait, carlin, I’ll be with you directly, let me wind up
my siaman first; the diabhul take you, have more patience, and don’t
keep croaking there with your ill-omened voice;’ and, unfastening the
latch, he continued, ‘There, enter now, and curses on you.’ However,
with all his roughness, Lachlan was not a bad-natured fellow, and
regretted his inhospitality, when he saw stepping in a poor, wretched,
little, old woman, bent double with age and misery. She wore a dun
cloak drawn tightly round her figure, with a kind of red hood attached
to it, marked with strange characters, which quite covered her head,
and shaded her face. She gave no salutation, good or bad, and as she
crawled rather than walked up to the fire, it emitted a vivid spark,
which hissed as it fell on the dripping clothes of the old hag; a hen
on the roost crowed discordantly, and a little mouse poked its head
out of a hole and squeaked loudly. The old woman, noticing this, gave
a queer kind of laugh, so grating in its sound that Lachlan turned
quickly round and stared at her; but she met his gaze sharply, and with
a peculiarity of expression which Lachlan felt, without knowing why, to
be very unpleasant.
‘Old grannie,’ said he, ‘will you take something?’
‘No,’ she gruffly replied.
‘There’s a little left of the bread and fish I had for supper,’ said
Lachlan.
‘I always have plenty of fish,’ answered she, sharply.
‘Perhaps you like flesh better, then?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, in the same uncivil manner, while a strange,
sneering smile flickered round her lips.
‘Will you have anything to drink, then?’ continued Lachlan.
‘No,’ abruptly answered the carlin.
‘What! woman; nothing to eat or drink! Then I suppose you have had your
supper; but it must have been with the fairies, for I warrant you could
have got none elsewhere between this and Beinnard, and that is a good
many miles off.’
‘Perhaps,’ muttered the old hag.
‘Perhaps what, cailleach?’ questioned Lachlan; and, after a pause,
finding she gave no answer, ‘Perhaps! I am afraid, you will catch
cold, unless you throw off those wet clothes; and though I have no
woman’s gear, you can have my greatcoat, and I can spare you a blanket
besides.’
‘I need none of your coats or blankets,’ answered the crone, in the
same ungracious tones as before, ‘for water can never hurt me.’
‘Leeze me on the hag,’ muttered Lachlan to himself, ‘but she is easily
maintained at any rate, and yet I would rather have a more expensive
and social guest.’
The fire burned down, and Lachlan, as he occasionally glanced at the
old cailleach, sitting on the opposite side of the hearth, could not
help thinking that there was something altogether repulsive, if not
uncanny, about her. There was a strange restlessness in her manner; her
hard, dark eyes seemed to look everywhere and nowhere at the same time;
while she sat rocking backwards and forwards over the ashes, and her
long, crooked fingers twitched about her dun cloak in an odd and
unpleasant manner. Lachlan threw another peat on the fire, and, by the
reviving light, he thought the carlin’s eye had acquired a wilder and
sterner expression, while a grim smile played round the corners of her
ugly mouth. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, she seemed to have
really grown larger in stature and more erect since he first saw her.
Rousing himself, he kicked off his boots, lay down on his bed, which
was only a few steps from the fire, and settled himself down to repose
for the night.
Lachlan, however, could not sleep, and turned from one side to another,
courting in vain the drowsy god. Glancing at his unwelcome visitor,
he saw, with a feeling akin to dread, the old creature sitting more
and more erect; and, rubbing his eyes, as if he felt that he was under
the influence of a dream, he was exceedingly startled to find that it
was no delusion, but that she was really growing, as it were, rapidly
larger and sterner, under his very eyes. ‘Hout! carlin,’ he exclaimed,
raising himself on his elbow, ‘you are waxing large.’
To which she replied in a hollow voice, ‘Umph, umph; omhagraich, ’s mi
’g eiridh ris a bhlath’s (Itomies and atomies—expanding to the warmth!)
Getting very drowsy, Lachlan again lay down to sleep, but presently
was disturbed by a mouse coming out of a hole in the wall, and running
squeaking into and across his bed, almost touching his chin. He again
raised himself on his elbow, was struck with the increased proportions
of the strange hag, and again exclaimed, ‘Hout, carlin! you are getting
larger!’
She again replied, but in a louder and harsher tone than before,
‘Umph, umph; omhagraich, ’s mi ’g eiridh ris a bhlath’s (Itomies and
atomies—expanding to the warmth!)
The fire was now nearly out, the light growing gradually less, and
Lachlan became more and more sleepy. At length he began to snore
gently, when all at once a spark flew out of the fire and alighted
smartingly on his face. Irritated by the stinging sensation, he
started, opened his eyes, and became thoroughly roused by again hearing
the old hen on the cross beam above him giving a most discordant
crow, though the cock uttered not a sound. He sat upright in his bed,
and, in the gloom, dimly saw the strange figure extended to fearfully
gigantic proportions, while her eyes no longer retained a trace of
human expression, but glared upon him with preternatural brilliance and
malignity.
It was now with a feeling as if his blood were ice, as if his flesh
had been turned into creeping and crawling things, and as if his hair
all stood on end, that Lachlan, in a tone which fear rendered nearly
inaudible, said for the third time, ‘Indeed and indeed, carlin, but you
have waxed very large!’
‘Umph, umph; omhagraich, ’s mi ’g eiridh ris a bhlath’s (Itomies and
atomies—expanding to the warmth!) shrieked the demon in a voice
so terrible that it actually frightened the very ravens in the
neighbouring rocks, who flew croaking away. ‘Umph, umph; omhagraich ’s
mi ’g eiridh ris a bhlath’s’ (Itomies and atomies—expanding to the
warmth); and the fearful creature stood erect. She gave a horrible
laugh, a snort, and a neigh of terrific sound, while her features
underwent a still more appalling change. The dark-grey locks that had
peeped from under her red hood, now waved a snaky mane. On the forehead
of the monster was a star-like mark of bright scarlet, quivering like
burning fire; the nostrils breathed, as it were, flame, whilst the eyes
flashed on poor Lachlan like lightning.
His knees smote together with terror, he saw that his hour was come,
and that the fearful creature, the idea of whose existence he had
laughed to scorn, now stood before him. He felt that at last he did
indeed behold the each uisg.
Quicker than thought Lachlan had found himself snatched up in the jaws
of the monster. The door flew open of itself, and at one bound the
steed of Ifrinn was on the top of the dizzy precipice—the Raven’s
Peak. At another he dashed down the torrent fall of Rowan Linn. The
cold spray of the cascade falling on his face, now for the first
time recalled Lachlan to consciousness; and as the demon gave one
gigantic rear, previous to that spring which would have engulphed
him and his victim in the unfathomable depths of Loch-Dorch, Lachlan
remembered and pronounced aloud the Name of names that was engraved
on the breast-plate of the High Priest of Israel. The shrill clarion
of the cock was now heard, the demon lost all further power over his
victim, and letting him drop with a mighty shudder and a neighing yell,
instantly plunged into the loch, the waters of which, for a long time
after, boiled and bubbled as if it were a gigantic huntsman’s kettle of
the kind in which he dresseth the haunch of the red-deer in the corrie.
Some people passing that way early in the morning, found Lachlan,
bruised and insensible, on a shelf of the rock, at the bottom of the
Raven’s Peak, at the very edge of the water. They tried to rouse him,
and after a short time he opened his eyes, sat up, and said, ‘Where am
I?’ and recollecting everything that had passed, he at once exclaimed,
in broken accents, ‘Blessed be _His_ name, safe, safe!’
They carried him to Clachan-nan-cno, where he lived for many years, a
wiser and a better man, but he never again heard the each uisg mentioned
without devoutly expressing the Name that saved him, and no wonder that
neither he, nor any one else, has ventured ever since to sleep a night
in the cottage near Rowan Linn.
The gauger, in his weakly state, heard the story throughout without
expressing any doubt as to its truthfulness, and felt much relieved
to find that poor Lachlan had escaped from the fearful each uisg. In
spite of himself, he began to be less sceptical. Indeed, the simple
manner in which the stories were related to him, the genuine warmth of
heart and kind treatment bestowed upon him by the simple Highlanders,
who themselves thoroughly believed in them, induced him to think that
there must be some foundation after all for these extraordinary things.
The continued attentions of Somhairle Dubh and his kind wife brought
the gauger rapidly round. We soon find him attending to his duties,
but making no great attempts to discover the local still that supplied
his kind host with the excellent Mac-na-Braiche which helped not a
little to invigorate and bring Gillespie himself additional strength
and vigour during the latter weeks of his illness. Somhairle Dubh,
the gauger, and Hector became fast friends, nor was there ever any of
his cloth who was less capable of doing a mean thing in procuring a
conviction against his neighbours. He did his duty to his King, without
being unnecessarily harsh with those against whom he was obliged to
enforce the law. Beannachd leis.
[Illustration]