STORY OF THE SKYE CLEARINGS.
"I must be brief, madam," the hermit began, as he glanced at a little
"wag-at-the-wa'",[1] "for night comes on apace."
[1] A small clock, with weights and pendulum exposed, that is hung
against the wall.
"I was born, then, in Skye, and not fifty miles from the spot where I
and Creggan here now live."
"You were born in Skye," interrupted Mrs. Nugent, "and yet you never
go on shore!"
"Ah, madam! there is a reason for that, which I will presently tell
you. But for just one day I shall go, I hope, before I die, and
visit a green and lonesome grave close to the cliffs where the
sea-birds scream, and where, for ever and for aye, one can hear the
moan of the waves--the sweet, sad song of the sea.
"I was born in a beautiful glen, and down near to the beach was my
father's cottage, only one of many that clustered here and there,
forming a village without either street or lane, and more like the
towns one sees in Madagascar than anything else. We were all poor
enough, goodness knows, but still we were happy. Our farms were mere
crofts, and we tilled only the tops of the ridge with the wooden
plough, or what is called the crooked spade. We paid but little
rent, it is true, but our wants were easily satisfied. We were
called lazy by visitors who in summer passed through the glen. We
were not. For well we knew that if we improved our land as some did,
the grasping landlord would at once raise our rent.
"We were--and many Skyemen are to this day--in a condition of
serfdom. The old feudal system still existed, and we had even to
leave our own corn standing until we cut down and stooked that on the
minister's large and beautiful glebe. For this we received nothing,
and often before we were finished at the manse, a wild, wet storm
would come on and our own little patches of grain would be spoiled.
"So far was feudalism carried, that the first and choicest of the
fish we caught, whether mullet or saith or codling, had to be given
to the minister, and the best of the crabs and lobsters also. In
return for this the minister visited the sick, with medicine in his
pocket--salts and senna or a nauseous pill. But he never brought
food. And many an old man or woman, aye, and many an innocent child
died, not of disease, but of sheer starvation, although the
minister's barns and stackyards, and the landlord's also, were full
to overflowing.
"It was not from choice that we dwelt in those windowless huts, with
a raised stone in the centre, around which the fire was built, with
simply a hole in the roof to let out the eye-racking smoke when it
chose to go.
"But in dark, dreary winters those roof-holes not only permitted a
little smoke to escape, but the snow to drift in. The soft, powdery
snow also sifted in under the door, and through the apertures in the
eaves which did duty as windows.
"It was no uncommon thing for some of these huts to be entirely
buried in the snow. When one or two neighbours escaped they dug the
rest out. For water we often had to melt the snow.
"Food? Well, madam, in summer we were not so badly off; we had
oatmeal and fish and a herring harvest. But in some icy winters,
when we couldn't launch a boat, and when fishing from the rocks was
useless, as the mullet refused to bite, we lived principally on
oatmeal--often bad at the best,--and limpets that we gathered from
the great black rocks when the tide was back. They are poor eating,
but we gathered dulse from the boulders, roasted it with a red-hot
poker, and ate it with the limpets. At every door you would have
seen a large pile of empty limpet-shells, that told of the poverty
within.
"My father's hut was one of two rooms. Our two cows were turned into
one at night and we occupied the other. There were many other huts
with two rooms and a cow, or perhaps more than one. Often the
dividing partition between the cow's room and the family apartment
was but a few ragged old Highland plaids hung upon a rope.
"They used to say that the breath of the kine and the smoke were
healthy, and kept us all strong and hardy. Well, as a boy I
preferred the fresh air. I got plenty of this, because every day it
was my duty to collect all the cattle in the village, after they had
been milked, and, assisted by two honest collie dogs, drive them far
away to the uplands for pasture. Would you believe it, madam, that
even this privilege was finally taken from us, and there being but
little herbage in the glen, many of us had to take our cows to
Portree and sell them? Yes, our homes were miserable enough; but
still they were homes, and we dearly loved them--loved the seas that
swept the craggy shores, loved the green braes, the rocks and cliffs,
and the grand old hills that frowned brown o'er all the scene. For
home is home, be it ever so humble.
"Well, I grew up to manhood. Both father and mother were now dead,
and when one day the neighbours saw me and some friends start
building a better sort of hut, they smiled to each other, nodded and
winked. They knew what was coming. True enough, for I loved sweet
Mary Gray as I believe only Highlanders can love. I won't bother you
with this part of my history. But I just went on building my house.
You see it was like this, madam. Many of the lads of the glen went
every year to the herring-fishery at Peterhead, and thus we saved a
little money; why, I even got real glass windows from Portree, and
had a real chimney in my hut, chairs, and a good bed. I built also a
byre for my two cows, so that I was considered the richest man in the
glen.
"Then one day Mary and I got married, and I'm sure that when we were
settled in our home there was no more happy couple in all the glen,
or in any other glen. I had no ambition then. I only wanted to live
and die in our cottage by the sea. And I used to take down my
fiddle, a gift from an Englishman whom I had saved from drowning, and
sing over it such love ditties as this."
And the hermit played:
"O, whar was ye sae[2] late yestreen,
My bonnie Jeannie Gray?
Your mither missed you late at e'en,
And eke at break o' day."
* * * * * * * *
"Dear sister, sit ye doon by me,
And let nae body ken,
For I hae promised late yestreen
To wed young Jamie Glen."
[2] To English boys. 'Sae' and 'hae' are pronounced 'say' and 'hay',
and in all Scotch words ending in '-ae' the 'ae' sounds like 'ay'.
"Well, time wore on; a year and a half--Oh, what a happy time! Then
a beautiful child saw the light of day, and our joy was trebled. But
about three months after this came a bolt from the blue--an order
that every man, woman, and child was to clear out of the glen.
"We would have a free passage to America, but the glen was wanted as
a sheep-farm.
"What wailing and anguish there was now in every hut and hamlet!
"But the men were furious. They would take no notice of the cowardly
edict. They could not, would not, leave their Highlands.
"Another month went past, and then half a dozen men from Portree
arrived with summonses and delivered them. These long blue letters
were torn from their hands, rent in pieces, and thrown fluttering on
the breeze. The men tried to use their sticks. There was a battle,
but a brief one. The minions of an unjust law were soundly thrashed,
and two were thrown into a pond. They were glad to get away with
their lives, I think.
"Police were sent next, and a more terrible fight ensued. Many of
our brave glensmen were wounded, but eventually this enemy also had
to beat a speedy retreat.
"Nothing more happened for three weeks, and we were beginning to
think we should be left in the peaceful possession of our bonnie
glen. But one day, much to our surprise, a small steamer cast anchor
in the bay, and on her deck were redcoats. Alas! I knew now the
grief had come. But still we determined to resist to the bitter end.
Bitter it was bound to be, for it was a cold, bleak day in early
winter.
"We speedily placed heaps of stones where they would be handiest.
"The fight lasted till nearly darkling. We kept well beyond reach of
the fixed bayonets, and battered the soldiers severely with stones.
Again and again the order was given to charge. But these fellows
might as well have tried to follow Highland deer on foot as lithe and
active Skyemen like us.
"At last the order was given to fire, and two of our poor fellows
were stretched bleeding on the grass.
"The end had come. What is a stone-armed mob against soldiers with
ball cartridge!
"So we gave in, and I myself advanced with a white rag tied to my
stick as a flag of truce.
"But the officer in charge was furious. He must do his duty, he
said. He had dallied too long. Out we must turn. He would give us
an hour to save any small articles we valued, no more.
"Oh, madam, fancy the sadness of that night! The old, the young, and
the infirm were turned forth into the bleak cold of a wind-swept
glen. The sick were carried out in blankets, and put down on the
bare green braes to die or to live.
"Then at midnight every hamlet was fired, and the glen was lit up by
a blood-red blaze that tipped even the distant hills with carmine,
while tongues of flame, mounting every moment higher and higher,
seemed to lick up the rolling clouds of smoke, while showers of
sparks, thick as flakes of snow in a winter's storm, were carried far
away to leeward.
"I was dazed. I knew not what to do. I knelt beside my poor Mary,
but she spoke not. How cold her hand was! And her face. 'Ah,' I
shrieked, 'my wife, my wife is dead!'
"I remember nothing more. I had fainted, but in the dusk of the
morning I recovered my senses. Not only was Mary dead, but poor baby
had rolled over her on to the grass, and there lay stark and stiff."
Tears were trickling down the hermit's cheeks, and it was some time
before he felt fit to continue his story.
"Ah, madam," he said, "that was a sad morning. The people of the
glen, I could just see, were all loaded on to that steamer, which was
to bear them away, far away across the broad Atlantic. I could hear
their weeping and wailing, I could see the women wringing their hands
and the men tearing their hair as they gazed on the land they should
never see again. The soldiers, too, were on board, and steam up.
Speedily she rounded the cape, and I was left alone with the dead.
"All that day I lay beside Mary and baby, and all the next bleak,
cold night. The people that crowded in kindness to the deserted glen
could not get me to move.
"But next day I consented to have my darlings buried.
"And there they lie, and my heart lies also in that shallow grave.
"Since then, madam, and until I came to this island, my life has been
one of constant wandering by land and on the sea. I am a good
sailor, but I have also been gold-miner, treasure-hunter, and
pearl-fisher by turns. Anything that could give me excitement and
help me to forget was new life to me, so my career has been a
chequered one.
"I have made a little money, and that is safe. But at long last an
indescribable longing to visit dear old Skye seized me, and I
returned to Glasgow. Here I bought a boat, and having been offered a
passage as far as Skye in a sailing ship, which, however, did not
mean to put in there, I gladly accepted it, buying stores, &c., and
feeling that if it were possible I should get a site for a house
however humble, and live once more near to baby's and Mary's lonely
grave.
"Well, my heart failed me at the last moment, and when the kindly
skipper lowered my boat and stores and bade me farewell, instead of
rowing to the glen I landed here with my parrot. And here I have
been ever since, and here I may remain, madam, till God calls me. I
am willing to live, but I am also ready to die.
"And my sonny here,"--he put an arm over Creggan's shoulder as he
spoke,--"who came to me in so strange a way, and has been such
comfort to me, he, I say, must go out into life soon and see the
world.
"Hush, lad, hush! You must have a career--you must be a sailor!
"Why," he added, "you may yet clear up the mystery of your childhood.
But come, children, I fear I have saddened you;" and once more this
strange mortal put his fiddle under his chin, and dashed off into one
of the maddest, merriest airs the Nugents had ever listened to.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Next morning all the hermits were landed, Matty being delighted
because Creggan took her, and her only, in his skiff.
It was a lovely day now, blue sky above and rippling waves beneath
and around, that broke in long white lisping lines on the beach where
they landed.
M'Ian and Creggan's two playmates, Rory and Maggie, were delighted to
see them all. Their anxiety had been very great, for pieces of
wreckage had been washed up on the beach, and they believed that
every soul on board the lugger had perished. They dined at the
manse, and afterwards Nugent took Creggan aside.
"Come with me for a walk, my boy. I have something to say to you,
but I must have you all alone."
So off they went, down along the cliffs, and at last seated
themselves on the grass, high above the blue Minch, the summer
sunshine sparkling on the sea, and the soft summer wind perfumed with
the odour of wild thyme.