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Kenneth McAlpine: A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea
Gordon Stables
Stables Gordon
Kenneth McAlpine: A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea
Chapter One
Early Days
“Away, ye gay landscapes, ye garden of roses,
And bring me the land where the dewdrop reposes.”
Byron.
“Poor woolly mother, be at peace!
Whither thou goest I will bear thy care.”
M. Arnold.
Scene: A Highland mountain, clad almost to the summit in purple heather. On the right a ravine, half hidden by drooping birch trees. On the left a pine forest. Sheep grazing in the foreground. Smoke upcurling from a humble cottage in the distance. A shepherd-boy talking to his dog; between them a lamb is lying on the ground.
“It is dead, Kooran, dead, dead, dead. It is as dead as ever a lamb was, Kooran. Ay, my doggie, I ken you’re sorrowful and anxious, but you may stand there and lick its little face and legs, till this time the morn, Kooran, but you can never bring back life to it again.
“What do you say, Kooran? Its eyes are still bright and shinin’ and life-like? True; but wait a wee, Kooran. Yes, wait a wee, dear frien’. In less than an hour, Kooran, its poor eyes will be glassy enough, and its bits o’ legs as cold and stiff as the crook I’m holding in my hand.
“Let us hide it awa’ in under this bush o’ whins, – out o’ sight of the poor woeful mother of it. I canna bear to bury it just yet, while the heart is still warm, but by-and-bye, Kooran; by-and-bye, doggie.
“Yonder comes the mother, Kooran. She has left the flock again.”
The sheep bleats.
“Listen, Kooran, listen. What a mournfu’ bleat! It makes my blood creep. And look at her eyes, Kooran. They seem starting out o’ the sockets wi’ excitement. Drive her back, Kooran, but walk, doggie; dinna run. Drive her ever so gently. She’ll never have her lammie to trot at her heels again. Gently, Kooran, gently.
“And now, Kooran, off you trot home for the barley scones and the flagon o’ milk. I’ll have the lammie buried before you come back, so the sight of that will trouble you no more. Then we’ll have dinner, doggie, and it is time, too. Look at the sun where it is, right over the highest peak of Ben Varra. Off you trot, Kooran, and dinna let the grass grow under your feet till you’re back again.
“Heigho! another lammie dead!” The boy was alone now; the faithful dog had departed at once on his mission. In a bee-line down the mountain’s side went he, feathering along through the grass and the patches of blooming heather, jumping over boulders, and springing down from rocky ledges with a daring that would assuredly have proved fatal to any other kind of dog, save a Highland collie or a Scottish deerhound. Finally he went splashing through a broad though shallow river, and immediately after disappeared in a clump of those sweet-scented birch trees that grow so plentifully in “the land of the mountain and flood.”
“Heigho! another lammie dead!”
The boy had gone farther up the hill, and as he spoke he threw himself down on top of a couch made of heather, dislodging as he did so several mossy bees that had come to suck the honey from the little purple bells.
Quite a work of art was this couch. It had taken the boy all the livelong morning and forenoon to make it, Kooran meanwhile trotting about after him or standing by his side, with one ear pricked up, the other down, very much interested indeed in the progress of the work, and apparently sorry that he was only a dog and could not lend a hand.
Wouldst know how this couch was built? First and foremost, then, the lad had sought out a proper site, flat and smooth, on which to make it. This was chosen close to a steep-rising rock far up the mountain’s side, and whence he could see not only all the country far and wide, but the grazing ground of his flock of sheep some distance down beneath him.
Under the rock, but fully exposed to the rays of the summer sun, for Kenneth was not a bit afraid of spoiling his complexion. Indeed, such an accident would have been impossible, for neither his face nor his knees – he wore the Highland garb – could have been one whit browner than they were. And as for the sun giving him a headache, that was out of the question – the sun’s rays had not the power. For when taking a siesta, as shepherd lads are wont to do sometimes, his favourite attitude was lying on his back with one arm under his head and his face upturned to the god of day, for he feared the sun no more than does yonder eagle that goes circling up and up towards it, even as moths, on a summer’s evening, go wheeling round and round the lamp flame.
A black, bare, bleak-looking rock it was, but canopied over with the greenest of green moss and trailing saxifrages, bearing tiny flowerets of pink and white and blue.
Quite a work of art was this heather couch, and as perfect as any one could wish to see it. Not from any place near to the rock, however, had the boy pulled the heather with which he formed it. There was something of the poet and the artist about the lad, and he would never have dreamt of spoiling the gorgeous purple carpet that grew on the hill immediately in front of and beneath him. He went farther afield and higher up for his couch material. And he cut it close off by the roots, for if you pull heather, then with the roots are sure to come up both moss and turf.
When he had culled quite an armful, he proceeded to tie it up into little bundles or sheaves, and so on sheaf after sheaf he manufactured, singing to himself or talking to Kooran, until he had quite enough to build his heather sofa withal.
Then he took all his sheaves down to the rock and commenced operations, placing them side by side close together with the bloom uppermost, and lo and behold, in less than half an hour, a couch soft and fragrant enough for the dainty limbs of some fairy queen to recline upon.
It was on this heather bed, then, that Kenneth threw himself at full length as soon as Kooran had disappeared in the distant birch wood.
For fully a quarter of an hour Kenneth lay looking up at the white-grey clouds, that were scudding swiftly across the blue of the beautiful sky. He was wishing he could be up there, up riding on yonder cloud, away from the earth entirely. “Just for a time, oh! only for a time,” he muttered; “I would come back to my sheep and Kooran. Yonder is a laverock,” (lark). “I can hardly see it, it has flown so high but I can hear it, and how bonnie it sings as it flutters its wings, and seems to fan the very clouds. Let me see what the song says. But no, I mustn’t sing, and I mustn’t read. Kooran will soon be back wi’ the dinner, and I haven’t buried the poor lammie yet.”
So saying, he jumped up. He had a spade handy. Alas! much to Kenneth’s sorrow, that spade had been used many times too often this summer, for it had been a bad season among the sheep. He got the spade, and carried that and the dead lamb far up above the spot where he had cut the heather. Here the mountain was split as it were in two, or rather there were two hills, with a green strath or glen between, formed thousands of years or ages agone, by the gradual descent of some mighty glacier.
The glade was green and in many places soft, though by no means boggy. Near a bush Kenneth quickly dug a grave, and with a sigh he laid the lamb therein, and covered it up, laying the sod down again, so that it was scarcely discernible from the turf around it.
Then he shouldered his spade and prepared to go back. But remembering something else, he made a détour and came at last to a patch of whins.
Hidden in a cosy corner close to the ground was a nest well lined with feathers, and the little bird popped stealthily out as he approached.
“Oh! the beauties,” cried the boy, “the bonnie wee ‘hoties,’” (a kind of finch). “There were four white and red eggs when I saw you last, and there lie four naked gorbles, gaping up at me with wide yellow mouths. Now that nest is easily seen, and if other boys find it when I’m no’ here, they’ll kill the young and break the mither’s heart. I’ll try and hide it. It’s maybe the last nest I’ll find this season.” As he spoke he looked about, and soon found a branchlet of withered whins, which he placed carefully in front of the nest, then took up his spade again and was about to withdraw, when his eyes lighted on one of those curious green knolls, that are common enough in some bare mountain glens in the Scottish Highlands.
“A fairy hill!” he said half aloud. “I do wonder now if there are such things as fairies, and if on moonlight nights they come oot, and dance on this green hillock. Oh! wouldn’t I like to see them just! I’ve a good mind to come and watch here some bonnie night. I could bring Kooran; I wouldna be feared if Kooran was with me.”
He climbed up to the top of the green knoll as he spoke. It was perfectly round and smooth, and the grass grew softer and greener here than anywhere else in all the glade. “Why,” he said, “here is a hole near the top for all the world like a lum,” (chimney). “Is it possible, I wonder, that fairies do live inside?”
Down he went now and commenced marching round and round the knoll, prodding it everywhere as he went with his long sharp spade. The spade sank deep each time he thrust it in, until he came round to the upper side, and here it rang against a stone.
The boy went to work with a will, and soon laid that stone bare. It was merely a large flat slab and quite loose. Kenneth leapt up above it, and using the spade as a lever, he prised it up, and over it fell, revealing to the boy’s astonished gaze the entrance to a dark cave. Here was indeed a discovery, and a discovery, too, that dovetailed most completely and perfectly with this lad’s romantic nature.
“Well,” he said, “this is something to think about at last. But I must go to dinner now. Kooran must come with me to explore.”
He left his spade and went away singing down the glade, and back to his heather couch.
But Kooran had not returned, so the lad, giving a look first to see that the sheep were all right, lay down and took out a volume of songs and commenced to read. Poetry, however, had lost its charm to-day, for his mind would, in spite of all he could do, revert to that dark cave in the fairy knoll. So he threw down the book and gave himself up to the pleasant occupation of castle-building.
The day was warm and sultry, the bees were humming lazily from heather bloom to heather bloom, and high up against the fleecy cloudlets the laverock still fluttered and sang; no wonder Kenneth’s eyelids drooped, and that he soon lost himself in dreams of fairyland.
Kenneth’s mother lived in the long low turf-thatched cottage beyond the birch wood. He had neither sister nor brother, and for many a long year his father had been quietly sleeping in the humble little churchyard that surrounded the ruins of the old parish kirk.
“Oh, Kooran, doggie, here you are,” cried Kenneth’s mother as the dog came trotting in, open-mouthed and gasping with the race he had had. “Here ye are, and I haven’t milked the cow yet. But I won’t be long, laddie.”
Kooran signified his intention of waiting, and threw himself down on the kitchen floor, but not before he had lapped up all the cat’s milk. Pussy jumped down from the three-legged stool, near the peat fire, and began purring and rubbing herself against Ivooran’s chin. The cat and dog were the best of friends; perhaps pussy thought it was good policy to keep in with Kooran.
As soon as Kenneth’s mother had milked the cow, she filled a tin flagon with the rich white fluid, made up a large parcel of buttered scones and cheese, tied the whole in a large red napkin, and put it on the floor.
Kooran was up and off before the cat could have winked, had she wanted to wink.
He took time to recross the stream and held the parcel high up as he did so, but he did not let the grass grow under his feet, ere he returned to the spot where he had left his young master. He was not there, but Kooran soon found him asleep on the fragrant heather couch. The dog dropped the bundle, sat down and looked at his master, and considered. This did not wake him, so Kooran gave vent to an impatient whine or two. As even that did not wake the sleeping boy, the dog licked his cheek, then clawed at his arm with his paw, and finally Kenneth sat up, rubbed his eyes, and then burst out laughing.
“What silly dreams I’ve had,” he said, proceeding to undo the knot on the napkin, “such silly dreams! But go and fetch your dish, doggie.”
Kooran trotted off, and was back again in a moment with a tin saucer, and the scones and milk were shared.
“But oh! Kooran,” continued the boy presently, “I’ve such news for you.”
The dog pricked his ears, and turning his head a little on one side, looked wondrous wise.
“No,” said Kenneth, “it isn’t rats, and it isn’t rabbits. There is never anything else in your noddle, Kooran, but rats and rabbits. It’s a cave, Kooran. Of course you don’t know what a cave is, but here, – there is some more dinner for you. Eat that, and then we’ll go and explore.”
The boy and his dog started off up the glen immediately after, and Kooran, knowing there was something on the tapis, commenced to frisk and bark around his young master.
“That won’t do, Kooran,” said the boy, shaking his finger at his companion. “Ye mustna do that. Look down there at the sheep; every single one o’ them has stopped eating to snuff the air. Come to heel and keep quiet.”
They soon reached the fairy knoll, and as soon as Kooran saw the hole, his mind still running on rats and rabbits, he disappeared inside.
Never a rat nor rabbit was there, but several unwholesome-looking bats came whirring out, and dazzled by the sunlight, dropped into the first bush they came to. Kenneth himself now entered the cave, spade in hand, and as soon as his eyes got used to the darkness, he began to examine it thoroughly. It was large and roomy, the walls and floor of solid stone, with marks of tools thereon, as if the place had either been wholly excavated or enlarged by human hands. The light glimmered down the chimney and fell on some large round brown article. It was a huge kettle. Then, young though he was, Kenneth knew that at some time or other this cave had been occupied not by fairies, but by a gang of smugglers.
“It was wise of them,” thought Kenneth, “to use a place like this.”
Well might he think so, for even to this day, in remote districts of the Highlands, so much of superstition clings around these fairy knolls that no peasant would dare to go near them after nightfall.
Now there is one thing in which Scotland and Germany have long resembled each other. The very poorest people belonging to the two countries have from time immemorial been taught to read and write. Kenneth had had the advantages of an education far superior to most lads of his class and age. He had spent many a long year at the parish school and evening school, his mother had taught him, the clergyman’s daughter had helped him, but, better than all this, he had helped himself.
When talking, as must have already been perceived, he sometimes made use of Scotch words and phrases. He did so, not because he could not speak pure English, but simply because they are often more expressive than the Saxon idiom.
“Well, Kooran,” said Kenneth, “this is the best find ever we made. Dinna ye think so, doggie?”
But Kooran’s nose was turned up to the roof, and his eyes wide with excitement, for he perceived, clinging by its claws up there, the strangest-looking rat ever he had seen in his life before. A rat, and still not a rat, for it had wings; yes, and it could fly, too, for even as he gazed it let go its hold and made straight for the doorway. Kooran was far too quick for it, though. He sprang up, and next moment it lay half-dead apparently between his two forepaws.
“Strangest thing ever I came across,” Kooran appeared to observe as he looked wonderingly up into his young master’s face. “Rats flying; this must be a fairy knoll, and I feel half afraid.”
“That’s a bat, Kooran, a bat, boy, and you mustn’t touch it. Look at its two rows of white and glittering wee teeth. Poor little thing! Kooran, it is well-nigh dead. And this cave really belongs by rights to that bat and his brothers. We’ll tie it up in the napkin, and you shall carry it home, and mother will cure it and let it fly off again.”
As he spoke the boy suited the action to his words.
“Yes, Kooran, this is a grand discovery. After reading ‘Robinson Crusoe’ so often, I’ve always wished to have an island all to myself; but a cave, Kooran, is nearly as good as an island. I wonder what Dugald McCrane will say about it. I’m sure he will help me to make things to furnish it, and we’ll have our dinner here, Kooran, and a fire when the weather grows cold, and everything so jolly. Come, we must go this very evening and see Dugald McCrane.”
True to his word, when Kenneth had driven his sheep into their fold for the night, and had eaten his supper at his mother’s fireside, then, instead of taking down his books and lying down on the great wooden dais to read by the light of the little black whale-oil lamp, with its wicks of peeled and dried rushes, he got up whistled to Kooran, and said to his mother, —
“I’m going down the glen, mother.”
“Dinna be lang, laddie, dinna be lang,” was all his mother said.
It was a clear moonlight night, all the brighter stars were shining, and there was hardly a cloud to be seen.
Kenneth had two long Scotch miles to walk, down into a thicket of fir trees first, across a rustic bridge, under which the brown stream was dashing and swirling and ever and anon breaking itself into foam against the boulders. It was very dark down here, but Kenneth was soon away out into the open country again, and the roar of the river was no more heard. By-and-bye the road led through a wood of oak, ash, and elm trees, with now and then the dark head of a pine tree shooting high up into the sky. The moonlight showed in patches here all along the road, there was the sound of falling water not far off, mingling with the whispering of the wind among the leaves, now crisp with the sunshine of the long bright summer, and there was occasionally the mournful cry of the brown owl, which made Kenneth feel lonesome and “eerie,” and he was not sorry when he was clear of that dark gloomy wood, and saw up on a hillside the light shining yellow through the blind of Keeper McCrane’s cottage.
A black retriever came rushing down, growling and showing his teeth, but when he saw it was Kenneth he wagged his bell-rope of a tail, and bade him and Kooran welcome.
Kenneth left his dog in the garden to dance and caper about with the retriever. No doubt Kooran told this black dog all about the flying rats. Kenneth just opened the door and walked straight in.
Both Dugald and his young wife jumped up from their seats beside the fire, and welcomed Kenneth, and their only boy, a wonderful little fellow of some nine or ten summers old, with hair not unlike in colour to a bundle of oaten straw, got out of bed and ran to pull Kenneth by the jacket, without waiting to dress.
Dugald and his wife and boy all listened with wondering eyes to the story of the fairy knoll.
“Bless me, dear laddie,” said Mrs McCrane, “were you no’ afraid to venture in?”
“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said the keeper. “We’ll go up the glen and see the old witch wife, Nancy Dobbell. She can tell us all about it. They tell me she knows everything that ever happened for a hundred years back and more.”
“Will she no’ be in bed?” said his wife.
“In bed?” said Dugald. “Not she. She never goes to bed till ‘the wee short hour ayont the twal,’ and there is no saying what she may be doing till then.”
“Well, let us go,” cried Kenneth, starting up.
One glance at the walls of the room in Dugald’s cottage, that did duty as both kitchen and dining-hall, would have given a stranger an insight into both the character and calling of the chief inmate. Never a picture adorned the room, but dried grasses and ferns did duty instead, and here were the skins of every kind of wild animal and bird to be found in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands, the foumart or polecat, the whitterit or weasel, the wild cat and fox, ptarmigan, plovers of every kind, including the great whaup or curlew, hawks, owls, and even the golden-headed eagle itself stood stuffed in a corner, with glaring fiery eyes and wings half outspread.
“Come,” said Dugald.
And away went the keeper and Kenneth, the two dogs following closely at their masters’ heels, as if to protect them from all harm.
Chapter Two
Kenneth and his Friends
“Still o’er these scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care;
Time but the impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.”
Burns.
Scene: A long, low-thatched cottage, in the midst of a wild, bleak moorland. No other hut nor house in sight. Around the cottage is a garden or kail-yard, with a fence of flat, slab-like stones. In this is a gate half open, and hanging by one hinge. The cottage has its door in the gable, and is windowless, save for some holes ’twixt thatch and eaves, through which light is now glimmering. A bright round moon is riding in the sky, among a few white clouds, that look like wings. Coming towards the gateway, two figures may be seen, both in the Highland garb. Behind them two dogs.
“Losh! man,” said Dugald McCrane, “I’m almost ’feared to gang farther. Who knows what company she may have in this lonesome dreary spot? Hark! What was that?”
Dugald started and stared about him in some trepidation as the prolonged and mournful shriek of an owl rose on the night air.
“It is only an owl,” said Kenneth, laughing.
“Ach! man,” said Dugald, “it is not me that’s afraid of an owlet, but goodness be about us, Kenneth, there are owls and owls. Hush! there it goes again. Losh! look how the dogs are shaking and trembling?”
It was true what Dugald had said; both the retriever and collie had thrown themselves at their masters’ feet, and gave every indication of mortal dread. After all, it was merely owing to a kind of magnetic influence which fear always has. This had been communicated from Dugald to his dog, and from the retriever to the collie.
“It’s nothing,” said Kenneth, “nothing, Dugald. I’m not afraid, if you are.”
“Fear!” replied the stalwart Highland keeper. “Dugald never feared the face o’ clay. But look how they’re shakin’ yet. These dogs hear voices we cannot listen to and live; they see things that human eyes, dare not scan. Dinna deny it, Kenneth, lad; dinna seek to deny it.
“Do you remember, Kenneth, that dreary, dark December night two years ago, when Walie’s wife – goodness be about us – went and hanged herself in the woods o’ Alva, and how Shot there sat a’ the livelong night on the top of the old turf wall and howled so mournfully? It made me tremble in my bed to hear him. And did you no’ tell me that your Kooran did the same one night the year before last, and that next morning a hat and a stick were found on the brink o’ Beattie’s mill-dam, and poor Jock Grey’s body stark and stiff – ”
“Stop! stop!” cried Kenneth. “This is no time of night for such stories. Kooran, come on.”
And the boy began to lead the way up through the garden to Nancy’s door.
