THE HOUSE OF THE BLACK CATS.
Having bidden such good-e'en to the maids as was severally due to them,
I crossed the Nick of the Gadlach and went whistling over the moor. I
took a new road over the heather, and was just at the turning of the
Eglin Lane, when, deep in the howe of the glen, I came on the strangest
kind of cot-house. It was piled together of the rough bowder stones of
the country, their edges undressed and gaping, the spaces between them
filled in with faggots of heather and plastered with stiff bluish clay
from the burn-sides. The roof was of branches of the fir trees long
buried in the moss, and was thatched with heather. There was an opening
in the middle, from which a smoke arose. And I heard a sound like
singing from within--a sound that made my flesh creep.
I went to the door and with my knuckle knocked gently, as is our fashion
in that part of the country, crying, "Are ye within, good wife?"
Whereat the strangest unearthly voice answered back to me, as it had
been some one reading in the Bible and laughing at the same time--a
horrid thing to hear in that still place and so near the defenceless
young lassies in the Bower of the Star.
"The waters of Meribah--the waters of Meribah--for they were bitter!" it
cried in a kind of wail. "Come ben and hae some brose!" And then the
thing laughed again.
I took courage to look within, but because it was dark I saw nothing.
The whole interior was full of the smoor of reek, and strange things
sped round and round, crossing each other and passing the door
continually, like the staves and buckets of a water-mill running round.
"Come awa' ben," again commanded the voice. "Doon, Badrona! Peace,
Grimalkin!" The command was addressed to a number of monstrous black
cats, which had been speeding round the walls of the cot like mad
things, to the music of the unearthly crooning song which I had heard
from within.
I stepped across the threshold and found a red peat fire upon the hearth
and a black pot hanging over it. I looked about for the person who had
addressed me. At first I could see him nowhere. But as my eyes grew
accustomed to the light I saw the queerest being--the sight of whom made
my heart grow cold and my hand steal to the little pocket Bible, bound
in two halves, that was in my inner pocket.
A small square object sat huddled up at the far side of the fire. Upon
its head there was a turban, like those the travellers into the lands of
the False Prophet tell us of. But this turban was of black bull hide,
and the beast's dull eyes looked out underneath with a hellish
suggestion. The figure was squat like a toad, and sitting thus sunk down
upon itself, it seemed to be wholly destitute of feet and legs. But a
great pair of hairy arms lay out upon the hearth and sometimes clawed
together the fiery red peats, as though they had just been casten and
were being fitted for drying upon the moss.
"Come awa' ben. Ye are welcome, honest stranger," again said the thing
of the uncanny look, "I am nane bonny, truth to tell, but I'm nocht to
my mither. It's a braw thing that ye are no' to meet wi' her the nicht.
She has gane ower by to gather the Black Herb by the licht o' the aval
moon. When the moon faas ower on her back like a sheep that canna rise,
then is the time to gather the bonny Wolfs Bane, the Deil's Bit, wi' the
berries by the water-side that nane kens whaur to seek, an' the Mandrake
that cries like a murdered bairn when ye pu' it frae the moss. See ye
here, there's three dead bairns aneath that hearthstane. Gin ye like I
will let ye see the banes. She didna pit me there, for the deil's wife
has aye a warm side to the deil's bairn. Sit ye doon and bide a wee.
It's braw an' heartsome to see a face at Willie's Shiel in the howe o'
the Eglin."
After the first horrid surprise of coming in upon such a place, I saw
that the thing after all was human--an idiot or natural as I judged,
with a monstrous twisted body and strange elricht voice like the crying
of the night-wind in a keyhole. But I thought it best to sit down on a
seat, even as he bade me, and so I drew a creepie stool carelessly
nearer to me with one hand.
"Na, dinna sit on that--that's a stool that naebody can sit on but my
mither."
And when I looked at the creepie in the red firelight, for it felt
strange to my hand, lo! it was formed of three skulls set close
together, and the legs of it were of men's leg bones.
Then it flashed to my mind that I had chanced on the house of Corp-licht
Kate, the witch wife of the Star, who for many years dwelt alone on the
flowe of the Eglin, with only her idiot son with her for company.
"Na," said the object, "nane can sit on that creepie but the minnie o'
me--Corp-licht Kate o' the Star. It's weel for me, an' it's weel for
you, that my minnie's no' here the nicht. But sit ye down and tak' your
rest."
I arose to flee, but the monstrous figure by the red fire waved me down.
And I declare that as I looked at him, he seemed to swell and glow with
a kind of brightness like the moon through mist. He waved his arms
abroad, and immediately about me there began the most affrighting
turmoil. Black forms that had been crouching in the corners came out and
began to circle round us, as it appeared by some devilish cantrip,
skimming round the house breast-high, without ever touching the floor or
the walls. They seemed like an army of cats, black and unearthly, all
flying in mid air, screeching and caterwauling as at a witch's festival.
I began to wonder if the foul, human-headed, toad-like thing that
squatted by the fire were indeed the black master of witches himself, to
whom, for my sins, I had been delivered in the flesh before my time.
But with a wave of his hand the idiot stilled the turmoil, and the
flitting demons came to the ground in the shape of a dozen or so of
cats, black and horrid, with arched tails and fiery eyes--as wild to
look at as though they had wandered in from the moor. These retreated
into the dark corners of the room, whence we could hear them purring and
spitting, and see their fiery eyes set on us in a circle out of the
gloom, which was dense as night everywhere, save only immediately about
the fire.
"I am nae deil, though ye think it, and maist folk says it," said the
idiot, fixing his eyes on me. "Some says the daddie o' me was the deil,
and some says Mardrochat. I kenna. There's no' muckle to choose between
them. Ye can ask my mither gin ye like. I never speered her mysel'.
Ye'll hae a sup o' my parritch. They are guid parritch--no' like my
mither's parritch. I wad advise ye to hae nocht to do wi' my mither's
parritch. Heard ye ever o' the Hefter o' the Star?"
I told him no, and sat down to see what might happen in this strange
abode so near to the two places where dwelled those whom I loved
best--the Bower of the Star and the Cave of Macaterick. But I loosened
my sword and felt that the grip of my pistols came easy to my hand.
"Be na feared o' puir Gash Gibbie o' the Star Sheiling," cried the
object, noticing the action; "he's as honest as he is ugly. But keep wid
o' the mither o' him, gin ye wad scape the chiding of the channering
worm."
The natural seemed to read the fears of my heart before I knew them
myself.
"Na, ye'll no' dee like the Hefter o' the Star. He was an ill loon, him;
he wadna let my mither be, when he cam to heft hoggs in the mid o' the
year. He spied on us as he sat on a hill-tap to watch that his sheep
didna break dykes. But ken ye what my mither did? She gaed oot to him
wi' a wee drap kail broth. Tak' ye nane o' my mither's kail broth. They
are no' canny. But the hefter, silly body, took mair o' them than he was
the better o'. He took them doon in a bit hollow to be oot o' the wind,
and when they fand him, he had manned it to crawl back to his watcher's
hill-tap. But there the silly, feckless loon died like a trout on the
bank. He didna like my mither's broth. Na, they didna gree weel wi'
him!"
And Gash Gibbie went on yammering and grumbling, while I sat and gazed
dumbfounded at him, and at the ugly grimalkins in the dark corners,
which stared at me with shining eyes, till I wished myself well out of
it all.
"An' ken ye what my mither said when the next hefter cam to see after
his sheep on the hill?"
I shook my head.
"She said, 'Watna grand ploy it wad be gin this yin were to die as
weel!' That was what my mither said."
"And did he die?" I asked.
Gash Gibbie moved his shoulders, and made a kind of _nichering_ laugh to
himself, like a young horse whinnying for its corn.
"Na, he was ower cunning for my minnie, him. He wadna bide here, and
when my minnie gaed to him with the guid kail broo and the braxy sooming
amang it, says the second hefter, 'I'm no' that hungry the day,
mistress; I'll gie the hoodie craws a drap drink o't!'
"And so he did, and as fast as the craws got twa fills o' their nebs,
they keeled ower on their backs, drew in their taes three times, cried
_kraigh_, and tumbled heels up, as stiff as Methusala! Richt curious,
was it na? She is a wonnerfu' woman, my mither!"
The thunder clouds which had been forming all through the heat of the
afternoon, began to roar far away by Loch Doon, and as the place and the
talk did not conduce to pleasant thoughts, I rose to go.
"What's your hurry?" cried Gash Gibbie, swinging himself round to my
side of the fire, and lifting himself on his hands like a man that has
no feet. "My minnie will no' be here till the mornin', and then we'll
hae company belike. For she's gane to warn Mardrochat to send the
sodgers to the twa run-awa' lassies up at the bit bouroch on the Meaull
o' Garryhorn."
"To bring the soldiers?" I said, for the words made me suddenly afraid.
"Aye," said the natural, looking cunningly at me, "an' Gash Gibbie wad
hae warned the bits o' lassies. But he's ower gruesome a tyke to be
welcome guest in lady's bower. But Gibbie wishes the lassies no harm.
They are clever, well-busked hizzies."
"I wonder if there are any more wanderers in hiding hereabouts," said I,
thinking in my transparent guile to find out whether the Cove Macaterick
were also known.
"Na, na, nane nearer than the Caldons in the Howe o' Trool. There's some
o' Peden's folk there that my mither has put her spite on--but nane
nearer."
The thunder and lightning was just coming on, as I passed the ring of
cats in the outer darkness of the hut, and looked out. "Good night to
ye, Gibbie," said I, "and thank ye kindly for your crack and the warming
I hae gotten before the fire!"
"Guid-e'en to yoursel', bonny laddie, an' a guid journey to ye. It's
gaun to be a coorse nicht, and Gibbie maun gang awa' ower the heather to
see gin his bonny mither doesna' miss the road hame!"