"As streams of water in the south, Our bondage, Lord, recall."
--PSALM cxxvi. (Scots Metrical Version).
It was at the ford of the Clachlands Water in a tempestuous August,
that I, an idle boy, first learned the hardships of the Lammas droving.
The shepherd of the Redswirehead, my very good friend, and his three
shaggy dogs, were working for their lives in an angry water. The path
behind was thronged with scores of sheep bound for the Gledsmuir
market, and beyond it was possible to discern through the mist the few
dripping dozen which had made the passage. Between raged yards of
brown foam coming down from murky hills, and the air echoed with the
yelp of dogs and the perplexed cursing of men.
Before I knew I was helping in the task, with water lipping round my
waist and my arms filled with a terrified sheep. It was no light task,
for though the water was no more than three feet deep it was swift and
strong, and a kicking hogg is a sore burden. But this was the only
road; the stream might rise higher at any moment; and somehow or other
those bleating flocks had to be transferred to their fellows beyond.
There were six men at the labour, six men and myself and all were
cross and wearied and heavy with water.
I made my passages side by side with my friend the shepherd, and
thereby felt much elated. This was a man who had dwelt all his days in
the wilds and was familiar with torrents as with his own doorstep. Now
and then a swimming dog would bark feebly as he was washed against us,
and flatter his fool's heart that he was aiding the work. And so we
wrought on, till by midday I was dead-beat, and could scarce stagger
through the surf, while all the men had the same gasping faces. I saw
the shepherd look with longing eye up the long green valley, and mutter
disconsolately in his beard.
"Is the water rising?" I asked.
"It's no rising," said he, "but I likena the look o' yon big black clud
upon Cairncraw. I doubt there's been a shoor up the muirs, and a shoor
there means twae mair feet o' water in the Clachlands. God help Sandy
Jamieson's lambs, if there is."
"How many are left?" I asked.
"Three, fower,--no abune a score and a half," said he, running his eye
over the lessened flocks. "I maun try to tak twae at a time." So for
ten minutes he struggled with a double burden, and panted painfully at
each return. Then with a sudden swift look up-stream he broke off and
stood up. "Get ower the water, every yin o' ye, and leave the sheep,"
he said, and to my wonder every man of the five obeyed his word.
And then I saw the reason of his command, for with a sudden swift leap
forward the Clachlands rose, and flooded up to where I stood an instant
before high and dry.
"It's come," said the shepherd in a tone of fate, "and there's fifteen
no ower yet, and Lord kens how they'll dae't. They'll hae to gang
roond by Gledsmuir Brig, and that's twenty mile o' a differ. 'Deed,
it's no like that Sandy Jamieson will get a guid price the morn for sic
sair forfochen beasts."
Then with firmly gripped staff he marched stoutly into the tide till it
ran hissing below his armpits. "I could dae't alone," he cried, "but
no wi' a burden. For, losh, if ye slippit, ye'd be in the Manor Pool
afore ye could draw breath."
And so we waited with the great white droves and five angry men beyond,
and the path blocked by a surging flood. For half an hour we waited,
holding anxious consultation across the stream, when to us thus busied
there entered a newcomer, a helper from the ends of the earth.
He was a man of something over middle size, but with a stoop forward
that shortened him to something beneath it. His dress was ragged
homespun, the cast-off clothes of some sportsman, and in his arms he
bore a bundle of sticks and heather-roots which marked his calling. I
knew him for a tramp who long had wandered in the place, but I could
not account for the whole-voiced shout of greeting which met him as he
stalked down the path. He lifted his eyes and looked solemnly and long
at the scene. Then something of delight came into his eye, his face
relaxed, and flinging down his burden he stripped his coat and came
toward us.
"Come on, Yeddie, ye're sair needed," said the shepherd, and I watched
with amazement this grizzled, crooked man seize a sheep by the fleece
and drag it to the water. Then he was in the midst, stepping warily,
now up, now down the channel, but always nearing the farther bank. At
last with a final struggle he landed his charge, and turned to journey
back. Fifteen times did he cross that water, and at the end his mean
figure had wholly changed. For now he was straighter and stronger, his
eye flashed, and his voice, as he cried out to the drovers, had in it a
tone of command. I marvelled at the transformation; and when at length
he had donned once more his ragged coat and shouldered his bundle, I
asked the shepherd his name.
"They ca' him Adam Logan," said my friend, his face still bright with
excitement, "but maist folk ca' him 'Streams o' Water.'"
"Ay," said I, "and why 'Streams of Water'?"
"Juist for the reason ye see," said he.
Now I knew the shepherd's way, and I held my peace, for it was clear
that his mind was revolving other matters, concerned most probably with
the high subject of the morrow's prices. But in a little, as we
crossed the moor toward his dwelling, his thoughts relaxed and he
remembered my question. So he answered me thus:
"Oh, ay; as ye were sayin', he's a queer man Yeddie-aye been; guid kens
whaur he cam frae first, for he's been trampin' the countryside since
ever I mind, and that's no yesterday. He maun be sixty year, and yet
he's as fresh as ever. If onything, he's a thocht dafter in his
ongaein's, mair silent-like. But ye'll hae heard tell o' him afore?"
I owned ignorance.
"Tut," said he, "ye ken nocht. But Yeddie had aye a queer crakin' for
waters. He never gangs on the road. Wi' him it's juist up yae glen
and doon anither and aye keepin' by the burn-side. He kens every water
i' the warld, every bit sheuch and burnie frae Gallowa' to Berwick.
And then he kens the way o' spates the best I ever seen, and I've heard
tell o' him fordin' waters when nae ither thing could leeve i' them.
He can weyse and wark his road sae cunnin'ly on the stanes that the
roughest flood, if it's no juist fair ower his heid, canna upset him.
Mony a sheep has he saved to me, and it's mony a guid drove wad never
hae won to Gledsmuir market but for Yeddie."
I listened with a boy's interest in any romantic narration. Somehow,
the strange figure wrestling in the brown stream took fast hold on my
mind, and I asked the shepherd for further tales.
"There's little mair to tell," he said, "for a gangrel life is nane o'
the liveliest. But d'ye ken the langnebbit hill that cocks its tap
abune the Clachlands heid? Weel, he's got a wee bit o' grund on the tap
frae the Yerl, and there he's howkit a grave for himsel'. He's sworn
me and twae-three ithers to bury him there, wherever he may dee. It's
a queer fancy in the auld dotterel."
So the shepherd talked, and as at evening we stood by his door we saw a
figure moving into the gathering shadows. I knew it at once, and did
not need my friend's "There gangs 'Streams o' Water'" to recognise it.
Something wild and pathetic in the old man's face haunted me like a
dream, and as the dusk swallowed him up, he seemed like some old Druid
recalled of the gods to his ancient habitation of the moors.