Kenneth McAlpine: A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea

And so the autumn wore away among these, peaceful glens. The days grew shorter and shorter, the frosts fell morning and night, and winds moaned through trees leafless and bare. The sheep were folded now in fields on the lower lands, and Kenneth had more time for his studies. But every evening found Archie and him in their cave in the fairy knoll.

Chapter Six
Kenneth

Scene: Glen Alva in a winter garb. A morning in December. A glorious morning and yet how great a change from the day before. For on the west coast of Scotland changes do come soon and sudden.

Last night, ere gloaming fell, Kenneth had stood at his mother’s cottage door for hours watching the sunset and the weird but splendid after-glow.

The sun had gone down rosy red and large behind a grey-blue bank of rock-and-tower clouds that bounded the horizon above the hills. But so strange and beautiful was the colour that soon spread over the firmament, with its tints of lavender, yellow, pink, and pale sea-green, that even Kenneth’s mother must hold up her hands and cry, —

“Oh! dear laddie, a sky like that, I fear, bodes no good to the glen.”

For uppermost in every one’s mind in Glen Alva, at the present time, was the threatened eviction.

Then, just one hour afterwards, the pink colour had disappeared from the sky, and the yellow had changed to one of the reddest, fieriest orange hues ever eyes had looked upon; while away farther round towards the north the sky was an ocean of darkest green. The trees, ashes and elms, that bordered a field adjoining the kail-yard, stood strangely out against this glow; every branchlet and twig seemed traced in ink – the blackest of the black.

Above this orange, or rather through its upper edge, where it went melting into the zenith’s blue, the stars glimmered green.

But looking earthward, all around the hills and fields were dark and bare, for winter had not yet donned her mantle of snow.

And now Kenneth has come out of doors almost before the sun is risen, for there are fowls to be fed, and rabbits and guinea-pigs, and the cow herself to be seen to, before he takes his own breakfast and starts to meet Dugald to enjoy a day among the hills.

What a change! The hoar frost has been falling gently all the livelong night. The good fairies seem to have been at work while others slept, changing the world to what he now sees it, and so silently too. And this is what strikes Kenneth as so wonderful: while shrub, and tree, and weeds, and grass, and heather, are transformed, as it were, into powdered ice, there is neither loss of shape nor form; not a branch bends down; not a leaf or twig is out of place. And the very commonest of objects, too, are turned to marvels of beauty.

The trees point heavenwards with fingers of coral. But to look lower down. Surely there could be no romance or beauty about a cabbage leaf. Glance at these then fringed all round with needles and spiculae inches long; the leaf itself is a shimmering green, dusted over with a frosty down. The wire-netting around the poultry run, and the cobwebs that depend from outhouse eaves, are shiny silver lace-work all. A glorious morning, a wondrous scene; why, even the humble clothes line is changed into a white and feathery cable, and the tufts of grass that grow on the pathways are tufts of grass no longer, but radiant bunches of snow-white feathers.

Adown the glen, where Kenneth wanders at last, everything around him is of the same magical beauty, a beauty that is increased tenfold when he reaches the woods. Here, too, all is silence, only the murmur of the rippling stream, or the peevish twitter of birds, or the complaining notes of a throstle as she flies outwards from a thicket, scattering the silvery powder all around her.

But down here in the wood, through the dazzling white of the pine trees, the cypresses, and spruces and holly, comes a shade, a shimmer of green, brighter among the pines themselves, darker among the ivy that clings to their stems. And the seed balls on the ivy itself are globes of feathery snow, and every spine on the holly leaves is a fairy plume.

Hark! the sound of ringing footsteps on frost-hard road, and a manly merry voice singing, —

 
“Cam’ ye by Athol, lad wi’ the philibeg,
Down by the Tummel and banks o’ the Garry?
Saw ye the lad wi’ his bonnet and white cockade,
Leaving his mountains to follow Prince Charlie?”
 

– And next moment, gun on shoulder, sturdy Dugald the keeper stalks round the corner.

“The top of the mornin’ to ye, man,” said Dugald. “Have you seen Archie?”

“No, not yet.”

But even as they spoke Archie, bare-headed as usual, is seen coming up from the side of the stream, with a string of beautiful mountain trout in his hand.

He climbed up through the icy ferns, leapt the fence, and stood before them.

“I set twenty lines last night,” he said, in joyful accents, “and caught thirteen trout.”

Back the trio went to Mrs McAlpine’s cottage, and those fish were fried for breakfast, with nut-brown tea, cream, and butter and cakes; and if there be anything in this world better for breakfast than mountain trout fresh from a stream, I trust some kind soul will send me a hamper of it.

What a day of it they had among the hills, to be sure!

Young as he was, Kenneth had a gun, while Archie did duty as ghillie; they went miles and miles away up among the mountains where the heather grew high as their waists – Kenneth’s waist and Dugald’s, I mean; it was often over Archie’s head. But they came out of this darkness at last, and shook the snow off their jackets and kilts, and walked on over the moorland.

Gorcocks stretched their red necks and stared at them in wonder. Ptarmigans, too cold to fly, ran and hid in the heather, the black cock and the grey hen often flew past them with a wild whirr-r-r, while far above, circling round and round in the blue sunny sky, was the bird of Jove himself.

But it was not the gorcock, nor black cock, nor the ptarmigan, nor the great golden eagle itself they were after, but the white or mountain hare.

And the sport was good. They took time to dine, though, for the air was bracing and keen; then they shot again till nearly sunset, and Kenneth’s cheek flushed redder than usual as Dugald praised him for his skill as a marksman. But at the same time Dugald praised himself indirectly, for he added, “But no thanks to you, lad; sure, haven’t you had Dugald McCrane himself to teach you this many a long day?”

Archie was wonderfully strong, but he couldn’t carry half the hares, so Dugald and Kenneth had to help him as well as carry their own and their guns, and even Shot carried a white hare all the way to the glen below.

“Of course,” said Kenneth, “you’ll come up the glen, Dugald, to our cottage, and let us show my mother our game; she will be so pleased.”

“’Deed, and I will, then,” replied Dugald, “and there will be a pair of hares for the old lady, too, and one for Nancy the witch – goodness be about us – for the laird wrote me to say if I killed more than a dozen and a half to-day, I was to do what I liked with the rest.”

“Dear old laird!” said Kenneth; “why doesn’t he come down from London and stay among his people? We all love him so much.”

“Ah! Kennie, he has ruined himself, like mony mair Highland lairds, by stoppin’ in the big city, and it’s myself that is sorry. But see, wha comes here?”

It was a tall stranger, dressed in knickerbockers, a broad-brimmed soft felt hat, and a surtout coat, a very ridiculous association of garments.

He carried a gun over his shoulder, and two beautiful Irish setters walked behind him. Both dogs were lame.

“Hullo, fellows!” he said. “Glad I’ve met some one at last. How far have I to walk to the little inn at the klakkin?”

Dugald threw down his game-bag, so did the others their burdens. No one was sorry to rest a bit, so they leant against the dyke and quietly surveyed the stranger. Meanwhile Shot was standing defiantly in front of the setters.

Shot wanted to know if either of these dogs would oblige him by fighting, singly or the two at once. But they did not seem inclined to accept the challenge.

“My good fellow,” said the stranger, “when you have stared sufficiently to satisfy you, perhaps you will be good enough to answer my question.”

“Well,” said Dugald, “I’m staring because it’s astonished I am.”

“You’d be more astonished if you knew who I am. But never mind. I’ve been travelling all day among these tiresome hills and only managed to kill one brown hare. I was told at the inn that the white hares were in hundreds.”

“Very likely,” said Dugald, “but it’s no’ in the glen you’ll find them.

“You’re two miles from the clachan,” continued Dugald. “I’m McGregor’s keeper – his chief keeper. I’ll trouble you, sir, to show your permit.”

“You’re a saucy fellow. I’m the future owner of these glens and all the estate, and lord of Castle Alva.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it. You’re neither lord nor laird yet. Your permit, please. I believe nobody since two students poached all over the hills here and called themselves friends of the laird’s.”

“As to my permit, fellow, I did not trouble to bring it from C – .”

“Then you’ll consider yourself my prisoner till you can produce it.”

The stranger was a man about forty-five, tall and wiry and haughty. He looked at Dugald up and down for a moment.

“Dare you, fellow?” he shouted.

Dugald quietly laid down his gun and threw off his jacket. He then took off his scarf, and stretched it out in front of the stranger. It measured fully a yard and a half.

“I’ve tied the hands and feet of a poacher before,” he said, “a bigger man than you. And I mean to do my duty by you.”

“Dugald,” said Kenneth, “this gentleman may really be what he says.”

“Let him come quietly, then,” replied Dugald. “No stranger that ever walked will lead Dugald McCrane into trouble again. Is it going to surrender you are, sir? Consider while I count ten. One – two – three – ”

“Enough, enough. I’m your prisoner, fellow. It is very ridiculous. Perhaps you’ll live to rue this day. Come on with me to the inn.”

Dugald laughed.

“Not just yet,” he answered; “it’s the other way; you come with me.”

The stranger bit his lip and frowned.

Then he put his hand in his pocket and produced a gold piece.

“This is yours,” he said, “if you come at once.”

Fire seemed to flash from Dugald’s eyes. He clenched his fists convulsively, and looked for a moment as if he meant to spring at the stranger’s neck.

“Put up your bawbees,” he said at length. “If Highlanders are poor, they are also proud, and the gold isn’t dug yet that would tempt Dugald McCrane to neglect his duty. And if the auld laird himsel’ was standing there, he’d tell you it’s the truth I’m speaking. Right about face, my man, and march with us to the glen-head, or it may be the worse for you.”

The stranger gave a sigh and a sickly kind of smile, but he shouldered his gun and prepared to follow.

“One minute,” said Dugald, for Kenneth had beckoned him aside.

Kenneth and he conversed for a moment; then Dugald returned.

“You look tired,” he said, shortly; “we’ll go your road. Archie,” he continued, “pick the ice-balls from the feet of those twa poor dogs. Your dogs, sir, are but little used to our Hielan’ hills.”

“And indeed, my fine fellow,” replied the stranger, “am but little used to your Highland manners, but grateful to you, young sir,” – he was addressing Kenneth – “for saving me a longer journey than needful.”

In half an hour’s time the future laird of Alva, for it was no other, found himself a prisoner at the little inn of the clachan. This for a night; next day he produced a letter from McGregor himself – he had despatched a messenger to C – for it – which quite satisfied Dugald McCrane.

Dugald was satisfied of something else as well, namely, that he had done his duty without exceeding it.

Kenneth and Dugald visited Nancy Dobbell’s next day and told her the story.

“Och! och!” she said, “it will be a sore day for the folks of the clachan, when a stranger steps into the shoes of poor auld Laird McGregor.

“But a cloud is rising o’er the hills, my laddies; there will be little more peace in Glen Alva. A cloud is rising o’er the hills, and that cloud will burst, and wreck and ruin will fall on the poor people. My dreams have told me this many and many a day since. Heigho! but Nancy’s time is wearin’ through. She’ll never live to see it.”

Kenneth took the old thin hand that lay in her lap in both his, and looked into her face, while the tears gathered in his eyes.

He was going to say something. But he did not dare trust himself to speak. He simply petted the poor wrinkled hand.

Is Campbell the poet right, I wonder?

 
“Does the sunset of life give us mystical lore?
Do coming events cast their shadows before?”
 

Chapter Seven
The Death of Poor Nancy

 
“I’m wearin’ awa’, Jean,
Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, Jean;
I’m wearin’ awa’
To the Land o’ the Leal.”
 

Old Song.

Scene: Kenneth at home in his mother’s humble cot. A fire of peats and wood burning on the low hearth. Kenneth’s mother reading the good Book with spectacles on her eyes. Kenneth leading also at the other side of the fire. Above the mantelpiece a black iron oil lamp is burning, with old-fashioned wicks made from peeled and dried rushes. Between the pair, his head on his paws, Kooran is lying. He is asleep, and probably dreaming of the sheep that he cannot get to enter the “fauld,” for he is emitting little sharp cheeping barks, as dogs often do when they dream.

Kenneth gets up at last and reaches down his plaid and crook.

“Dear laddie,” says his mother, “you’re surely not going out to-night!”

Kooran jumps up and shakes himself.

“Yes, mother; I must,” is the quiet reply. “I had a strange dream about poor Nancy last night. She has been ill, you know, and I haven’t called for three days.”

“But in such a night, laddie! Listen to the wind! Hear how the snow and the hail are beating on the window!”

Kenneth did listen.

It was indeed a fearful night.

The wind was sighing and crying through every cranny of the window, and shaking the sash; it was howling round the chimney, and wailing through the keyhole of the door.

Snow was sifting in underneath the door, too, and lying along the floor like a stripe of light.

Kenneth drew his plaid closer round him.

“I must go, mother,” he said; “I could not sleep to-night if I didn’t.

“Don’t be uneasy about me even if I don’t return till morning. I may stay all night at Dugald’s.”

When Kenneth opened the door he was almost driven back with the force of the wind, and almost suffocated with the soft, powdery, drifting snow. But he closed the door quickly after him and marched boldly on down the glen, rolling the end of his plaid about his neck, and at times having even to breathe through a single fold of it to prevent suffocation.

It was now well on in January. There had been but little snow all the winter, but this storm came on sharp and sudden. All day gigantic masses of cloud had been driving hurriedly over the sky on the wings of an easterly wind; the ground was as hard as adamant, and towards sunset the snow had begun to fall. But it took no time to settle on the bare ground; it was blown on and heaped wherever there was a bit of shelter from the fierce east wind. So it lay under the hedges and dykes, and on the lee-side of trees, and deep down in the ravines, and under banks and rocks, and across the road here and there in rifts like frozen waves of the ocean.

The wind howled terribly across the moorland. There was a moon, but it gave little light.

Kooran knew, however, where his master was going, and went feathering on in front, stopping now and then to turn round and give a little sharp encouraging bark to his sturdy young master.

Kenneth was all aglow when he reached Nancy’s hut, and his face wet and hot. His hair and the fringes of the plaid and even his eyebrows were covered with ice.

He shook the plaid and his bonnet, and folded the former under the porch for Kooran to lie on. Then he opened the latch and entered.

All was dark. Not a blink of fire was on the hearth, and long white lines across the floor showed him where the snow had been sifting in through the holes that did duty as windows. Kenneth’s heart suddenly felt as cold and heavy as lead.

“Nancy,” he cried, “Nancy, oh! Nancy.”

There was a feeble answer from the bed in the corner.

He advanced towards it. There were two shining lights there, the cat’s eyes. Poor pussy was on the bed watching by her dying mistress.

He felt on the coverlet and found Nancy’s hand there. It was cold, almost hard. “Nancy,” he said, “it is Kennie, your own boy Kennie; don’t be afraid.”

It did not take long for Kenneth to light a roaring fire on the hearth. As soon as it burned up he held the iron lamp over it to melt the frozen oil; then he hung it up. The water in a bucket was frozen, and even some milk that stood on a little table near Nancy’s bed was solid.

The inside of that cot was dreary in the extreme, but Kenneth soon made it more cheerful.

Poor old Nancy smiled her thanks and held out her hand to her boy, as she always called Kennie. He chafed it while he entreated her to tell him how she felt.

“Happy! happy! happy!” she replied, “but, poor boy, you are shaking.”

Kenneth was, and he felt his heart so full that tears would have been a relief, but he wisely restrained himself.

He melted and warmed the milk, and made her drink some. Then, at her own request, he raised her up in the bed.

“Dinna be sorry,” she said, “when poor auld Nancy’s in the mools. It is the gate we have a’ to gang. But oh! dear boy, it’s the gate to glory for poor Nancy. And so it will be for you, laddie, if you never forget to pray. Prayer has been the mainstay and comfort o’ my life; God has always been near me, and He’s near me now, and will see me safe through the dark waters o’ death. Here’s a little Bible,” she said. “It was Nancy’s when young. Keep it for her sake, and oh! never forget to read it.

“Now, laddie, can you find your way to Dugald’s? Send him here. There is an aulder head on his shoulders than on yours, and I have that to say a man should hear and remember.”

“I’ll go at once,” said Kenneth, “and come back soon, and bring the doctor too, Nancy. I won’t say good-night, I’ll be back so soon.”

Kenneth gulped down his tears, patted her hand, and rushed away.

“Come on, Kooran,” he cried. “Oh! Kooran, let us run; my heart feels breaking.”

He took his way across the moor in a different direction from that in which he had come. The storm had abated somewhat. The wind had gone down, and the moon shone out now and then from a rift in the clouds.

He determined to take the shortest cut to Dugald’s house, though there would be the stream to ford, and it must be big and swollen. Never mind; he would try it.

He soon reached a scattered kind of wood of stunted trees; there was no pathway through it, but he guided himself by the moon and kept going downhill. He would thus strike the river, and keeping on by its banks, ford wherever he could.

Nothing could be easier. So he said to himself, and on he went. It was very cold; and though the wind was not so fierce, it moaned and sighed most mournfully through the trees in this wood. Even Kooran started sometimes, as a spruce or Scottish fir tree would suddenly free itself from its burden of snow as if it were a living thing, free itself with a rushing, crackling sort of sound, and stand forth among its fellows dark and spectre-like.

Kenneth had gone quite a long way, but still no stream came in sight. He listened for the sound of running water over and over again, and just as often he seemed to hear it, and went in that direction, but found it must be only wind after all.

He grew tired all at once, tired, weak, and faint, and sat down on a tree stump, and Kooran came and licked his cheek with his soft warm tongue. He placed one hand in the dog’s mane, as if to steady himself, for his head began to swim.

“I must go on, though,” he muttered to himself. “Poor old Nancy. The doctor. I’ll soon be back – I – ”

He said no more for a time. He had fainted. When he recovered, he started at once to his feet.

“I’ve been asleep,” he cried. “How could I!” He ate some snow; then he began to move on automatically, as it were, the dog running in front and barking. The dog would have led him home. “No, no, Kooran,” he said; “the river, doggie, the river.”

Kenneth tried to run now. His teeth were chattering with the cold, but his face was hot and flushed.

His nerves had become strangely affected. He started fifty times at imaginary spectres. Some one was walking on in front of him – some shadowy being. He ran a little; it eluded him. Then he stopped; he was sure he saw a head peering at him over a piece of rock. He called aloud, “Archie! Archie!”

His voice sounds strange to his own ears. He runs towards the rock. There is no one behind it. No one. Nothing.

He feels fear creeping over his heart. He never felt fear before.

But still he wanders on, muttering to himself, “I’ll soon be back. Poor old Nancy! Poor old Nancy!”

All at once – so it seems – he finds himself at the banks of a stream. He is bewildered now, completely. He presses his cold hand against that burning brow of his.

What is this river or stream? Where is he going? Did he cross this stream before? He must cross it now, but where is the ford? How deep and dark and sullen it looks.

He seats himself on the icy bank to think or try to think.

He is burning, yet he shivers.

Stories of water-kelpies keep crowding through his mind, and the words and weird music of a song he has heard, —

 
“Kelpie dwells in a wondrous hall
    Beneath the shimmering stream;
His song is the song of the waterfall,
    And his light its rainbow gleam.
                The rowans stoop,
                And the long ferns droop
    Their feathery heads in the spray.”
 

And now he jumps to his feet. He has recollected himself, he was going for the doctor for poor Nancy, and this is the stream he was looking for. He must seek the ford. He cannot have far to go now. Once over the river, and a run will take him to Dugald’s cottage.

But stay; what cares he for the ford? He will plunge into the deepest pool, and swim across. He is hot; he is burning; it will cool him.

He walks on a little way, and still the kelpie song runs in his brain. The trees seem singing it; the wind keeps singing it; the driving clouds nod to its music.

 
“Where the foam flakes are falling,
Falling, falling, falling,
Falling for ever and ay – ”
 

Ha! here is a deep dark pool at last. Why, yonder is the kelpie himself beckoning to him, and the maiden.

 
“When forest depths were dim,
For love of her long golden hair – ”
 

The poor dog divines his intention. He rushes betwixt him and the cold black water, uttering a cry that is almost human in its plaintive pathos.

Too late. He laughs wildly, and plunges in. Then there is a strange sense of fulness in his head. Sparks crackle across his eyes.

 
“Falling, falling, falling,
Foam flakes are – ”
 

He remembers no more.

But the brave dog has pulled him to the brink, and sits by his side, lifting his chin up towards the sky, and howling most pitifully.

Ah! if we only knew how much our faithful dogs love us, and how much they know in times of trouble and anguish, we would be kinder to them even than we are, even now, while sorrow smees far away from us.

Presently it appeared to strike even Kooran that giving vent to his grief would result in nothing very practical, so he suddenly ceased to whine. He bent down and licked his master’s cold inanimate face.

He howled once again after this, as if his very heart were breaking.

Then he looked all round him.

No help, I suppose, he thought, could come from these cold woods, and no danger.

So he emitted one little impatient bark, as if his mind were quite made up as to what he should do, turned tail, and trotted off.