The McBrides Part 11

"'Stop a wee, my lad; stop,' says I. 'What will be hurrying ye?'

"'That d.a.m.ned McGilp has escaped us again,' said he, 'and Dan McBride has killed Dol Rob Beag.'

"'Run, Ronny, run,' cried Mirren, and pulled me to the stable. 'Dan will be needing all his friends before the morning,' and she had the bridle on the garron, and I was on his back like a flash, and making for the Quay Inn before she was done speaking."

[1] Coosp=chilblain on the heel.

CHAPTER X.

DOL BEAG IS FLUNG INTO A FIRE.

And now you will be coming to meet Dan and me on the long road back from the South End, and coming on with us like a good comrade, for Dan that day walked like a man that was fey, and I, who would be thinking I kent him, might just as weel have been walking with a stranger. Below the shoulder o' the big black hill, before ye come to the Laird's Turn, he halted.

"Man, Hamish, the hills are just vexed wi' me this day," said he, "and I ken a' their moods, as weel as a bairn kens his mother."

"To me," said I, and I would be searching about in my mind for the right words, like a pedant, for was I not college-bred--"to me," said I, "they aye look just grandly contemptuous," and, mind you, my heart went out to the great strong man at my side because of the soft place in his warm heart for the grim old hills, for I would aye be feared to talk that way to him, for fear of his laughing.

"I ken what ye mean by grandly contemptuous too," said he. "I have felt that way when I would be gathering sheep, and looking up at the crags and the rocks above me, and the head o' the hill would be turned from me in disdain, and I would be feeling like the wee red ant crawling on the beard o' a warrior, asleep on a glorious battlefield.

I canna just be putting the right words to it, but, man, I feel it inside o' me.

"There's days in the early summer mornings before the heat-haze has lifted when a man can see the hills lying on their backs wi' their faces to the sun, like giants resting, and he can see the smile on the brow o' them when the sun beats down, and it's fine to be imagining that they're laughing to one another; and on these days the hills are aye friendly to a man, and when he lies down among the heather the spirit o' the hills will be knowing him, and his forebears, since the hills were established; but ah! they will be glooming at me the day.

"There's a frown on the brow o' the Urie, and his face is hidden from me, and listen to the grumbling and flyting o' the burn. They're a'

vexed, Hamish, but we're to have company down through the glen, for yonder will be Sandy Nicol driving his stots to the bay."

We made up on the drover, a wild unkempt man with a great red beard wagging on his broad chest, and fierce blue eyes that seldom winked, and it seemed to me that his dogs--for two deep-chested, lean-flanked black collies slunk at his heel--it seemed to me that they kent his mind before he spoke a word, for they worked the wild hill-bred stots like the dogs the old folk will be telling about.

"Ye would be looking to the hogs," said he, as if he had kent us from the hillside and no greeting was needed; and as he spoke I thought of an old door swinging on rust-eaten hinges, for his voice was deep and harsh, as though he opened his mouth seldom to speak; and indeed such was the case, for he lived on his farm among the hills alone with his dogs.

"It's no great day this to be travelling beasts," said Dan, as we walked at the tails o' the little herd.

"Ay, but this is just the day for Sandy. Nae fears o' the evil eye wi'

the snaw on the road, for there's something clean aboot snaw, and auld wives are at their firesides, wi' their ill wishes and evil eyes."

"You will ken the Red Laird's deid and buried, Sandy?"

For a wee while after Dan's question we three walked in silence, and then the drover turned his wild face to us.

"We watched the devil coming for him yon night; we watched his coming, ay, away far out on the sea, the black stallions stretched to the gallop like racing hounds, and the hoofs o' them striking white fire frae the water, and the flames o' h.e.l.l curling and twisting round the wheels o' his chariot. Ay, we watched oor lane, the dogs and me, and his whip was forked lightning, and his voice drooned the roar o' the gale."

I felt a grue slither through me when the man stopped, for his harsh voice intoned his words like some dreadful chant.

"Ye would be late out that night," said Dan, and again we were silent till the drover spoke, and the thought came to me that he arranged all his words in his mind, and then loosed his tongue to them.

"They were round us, that night, evil spirits and evil beasts, and they would be lifting the thatch from the roof; and we went out, the dogs and me, and a' the great rocks on the hillside would be jumbling and jarring thegether, for all the evil ones were loose from the pit, and tumbling the hills, and setting them straight, and the blue lowes were rissling on the hill-tops. But I would be holding my steel in my hand, and we sat and watched, the dogs and me."

"Was it the skein-dubh you would be holding?"

"It would not be the black knife, Dan McBride; it would just be this."

At that Sandy Nicol showed us a small object, which seemed to me to be a twisted horse-shoe nail wrapped round about with wool; but he would not be letting it go from his palm, and when I would have examined it closer he put it past.

"It's not Sandy that would be droving without his steel," he cried.

"Would you aye be carrying that?" said I; for he looked so wild and lawless that it was not in me to be believing that he trusted to aught save his dirk.

"There was a time no, mo bhallach," said Sandy Nicol, "a time when I would be selling back-calvers and stots to the Red Laird for the mainland markets; and it would just be the wee Broon La.s.s o' Ardbennan that saved the beasts--for, ye see, I did not always stay ma lane, and when my mother would be failin' and her joints stiffening like a' aged beasts, the milking would aye be done and the byre mucked when she got up in the morning. Oh, but she was the wise one, for she would be leaving the best o' the cream in a basin, and maybe a bannock, for the wee Broon La.s.s, for my mother would be seeing her flitting among the battens. And before she went away she would be telling me: 'Never be offering her boots or claes when the snaw comes, Sandy, for the Broonie o' Lag 'a bheithe[1] left in sore anger for that they pitied her in the snaw.'

"Direach sin, it was a fine day I started to drive the back-calvers and stots, and the sun red wi' a fine-weather haze, and the roads hard and dry, and it was maybe two hours I was on the road and the beasts settled, when there came a woman on the road and a shawl about her head, and I kent her for a devil's black bairn that could be telling her ain folk when the rain would come in the harvest, and when the b.u.t.ter would come on at the kirning.

"A bad unchancy woman; ye'll ken the breed o' them, for they will be sore feart o' clean burn-water, but they'll be coorieing ower a fire a'

day, and talking to the black cat, and I had it in my mind to be turning when I saw her, for did she not come into the byre at d.y.k.e-end when the beasts were at their fother, and she stood and she eyed them.

"'So bonny,' says she, 'so bonny and fat and glossy, and the wee bit speckled quey calves they'll be leaving,' and with that she walked up the byre and ran her hand over the tors of the beasts, crooning away to herself; and another month saw the last of the kye pic calved.

"Well, well, I stood when she came to me, and she smirked at me.

'Seven braw beasts, and not a lame yin among them,' says she, and t.i.ttered a wee bit laugh that set the dogs girning through their bare teeth; and then she went her way, and her laughing coming back to me, and we would not be far on when the first of the beasts was hirpling; and one after the other the lameness came on them, till I could just have sat down and grat that I had not set the dogs on the witch.

"I would just be turning the beasts on the road for a wee, when there came the wee Broon La.s.s among the bracken on the hillside, and then I left the road and took the dogs with me, and we hid on the low side, for fear to anger the wee Broon La.s.s. She went among the beasts, and they would be kenning her, and lowing quietly like calves, and she would be lifting their feet, and then there would be a hole in the c.l.i.ts o' them a'. And the wee Broon La.s.s, she blew and she blew into the hole, and went on to the next, and in a wee the beasts were walking sound, and taking a bite at the sprits and the scrog on the roadside, and I lay close till I saw the wee one near the rise o' the hill, and started the beasts again, and the lameness came near them not any more, but aye I would be carrying the steel after that."

In the middle of the glen we left Sandy Nicol with his dogs and his travelling beasts, and before we turned the bend where the nut-trees were I looked back, and there he came on slowly with the sunset light on him as he came, and I saw him looking to the great rocks on his left hand as though he waited the coming of something not of this world; and again he would be looking down through the bare trees to the dark glen where the burn was muttering and grumbling coldly, and it was strange to me that these wild men, so terrible in their anger, would be believing all these old stories, until the thought came to me that it would just be the poetry and imaginings of the Celt, alone among the hills that are aye on the very point of speaking to their children; for a man, and a bold man, will be seeing and hearing strange things among the hills, when the mist comes down, when he will have listened to the stories of hate and love and clan feuds of his folks since he could be listening, clapped on his creepie stool close to his mother's skirt, and his head against her knees.

There was great company gathered at the Quay Inn when we entered, although many of the s.h.i.+ps had sailed, but there were sailors too, for the bay was not handy for owners to come at, and the Quay Inn was a favourite, so that it was no uncommon thing for s.h.i.+ps to be wind-bound for days, and even weeks, and there would be the great fights between the men from the s.h.i.+ps and the lads from the glens. But there was no trouble when we entered at all, for with the snow and the hard frost outside, the great fire was the cheery place to be sitting at, and indeed there must needs be ill blood between men if they will not be agreeing over the best of drink, and fine company to be drinking it with.

But it was as if every one was well pleased and with no worries, for I saw no men whispering, with heads close, but every one happy to recklessness, and already there was the darker red flush on the faces that told of drink taken, and then I saw that many of the men gathered, had been to the cove at the Rhu Ban in their skiffs, and were met here to celebrate the run in their ain way. A great shouting they made when Dan stood among them, his eyes s.h.i.+ning, for a ploy of this kind was meat and drink to him, and they made room for us by the fire; while McKelvie brought steaming gla.s.ses, and winked and nodded, and would be looking wise as though we might ken something about his wares that he would not be telling everybody, till indeed I could not keep back the laughing to see the grave stern man so far gone with his own liquor.

And as we sat I would be watching a sailor with a knife at his hip, and the lithe swing of the mountaineer in his carriage--a Skye man, I was thinking; but he stood silent against the jamb of the fireplace, and his eyes were dreamy and sad, and in myself I knew he was seeing his own place, and him outward bound. When the night was wearing on it came his turn to sing, and with his song I knew that my thinking was right, for his song was a farewell to Skye. Now I know not the words, but the air will haunt me whiles when the days are shortening, and the pictures he painted will never be leaving my mind.

For I saw the dark sad hills of Coulin, and the sun blood-red on the peaks, and the heavy dark night clouds tinged and burnished with gold, and the sea was all silent, with the wee waves rippling on the sh.o.r.e.

And on the sh.o.r.e was a maiden looking away and away to sea, and the nets all unheeded at her feet, and the seagulls not heeding her at all, and the great sorrow was in her eyes, in the very poise of her; and I wondered where was the lithe lad she should be having to love her, for her eyes would aye be looking at the empty sea. . . .

When my mind was wandering on pictures of sadness, of an empty sea and great grim silent hills, the inn door was pushed open, and the cold swirl of frosty night air made the roysterers turn, and in there came a thick-set junk of a man. Always to my mind, Dol Rob Beag, for he it was, had a look of a Joonie doorie, being all run to shoulders, and no neck on him at all. His arms hung well to his knee, giving the man the appearance of a powerful animal. His face was brown as a smack's sail, and his eyes red and s.h.i.+fty as a ferret's.

"What is it ye waant here?" growled McKelvie with a lowerin' look, and there was silence from the others; and the men put their drink down where it would not spill if there should be a scrimmage. Dol Beag put a hand to his beard, and his s.h.i.+fty eyes fixed on the innkeeper.

"Ceevility," says he, "from a man in the public. I'm wantin' that, and I'll be payin' for whatever drink I'll tak. Put a refreshment before me, McKelvie, and go back again to your affairs."

There's no denying the man had a cold-steel bravery in him, and a grim smile flickered on his face as he watched McKelvie, for no Hielan'man born can thole being likened to a menial, and the dark blood of hatred glowed on the innkeeper's face.

"I ken the ceevility I would like to be giving to you, Dol Beag," says he, and put a drink on the table, and lifting the coin tendered in payment he hurled it behind the fire. "I would not be thinking myself clean if I kept your money."

Dol Beag was on him before his words were out.